Jonathan Maberry
A Bethlehem Writers Group Interview with Jonathan Maberry (Dec. 2011)
The Bethlehem Writers Group is thrilled to have Jonathan Maberry as our Celebrity Judge for our SHORT STORY AWARD that is now open for submissions. Entry deadline is January 31, 2012.
Jonathan Maberry is a New York Times best-selling and multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator and writing teacher/lecturer. His books have been sold to more than twenty countries. His initial novel GHOST ROAD BLUES won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel in 2006. Since then, his production and acclaim has been outstanding, including PATIENT ZERO as the Best Zombie Novel of 2009, the winner of the Black Quill Award, and the Scribe Award for the best adaptation from the Universal Picture film THE WOLFMAN. His newest novel DEAD OF NIGHT was published by St, Martins Griffin on Oct. 5, 2011,
Jonathan publishes the Big Scary Blog, which focuses on the publishing industry and includes interviews with the industry’s best authors. He is also a Contributing Editor to The Big Thrill, the newsletter of †he International Thriller Writers, and is a founding member of The Liars Club. In 2004 he was inducted into the International Martial Arts Hall of Fame because of his extensive writing, achievements, and contributions to that field.
You can find him on his website www.jonathanmaberry.com or on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace.
BWG: You are a difficult writer to interview as your work covers a multitude of genres - occult & paranormal, thriller & mystery, novelizations of movies, short stories, plays, comic books, graphic novels - not to mention your blogs & mentoring of horror and mystery writers - Do you ever sleep? Or more precisely, can you tell us how you organize your typical work day when writing?
JONATHAN MABERRY: I manage to get a lot done as a writer for three reasons. First, I do it full time, so I’m on the clock ten hours a day. Second, I’m a very disciplined writer. I learned very good writing habits when studying journalism at Temple University. And, I absolutely love what I’m doing, and that goes a long way when trying to get a lot done.
BWG: You made a tremendous leap from writing Martial Arts manuals to writing a best selling first novel, Ghost Road Blues, which won the Bram Stoker award and which was also nominated for the book of the year. What gave you the confidence that you could make the leap from sports manuals to fiction? Did you have any fiction background (short stories) or fiction training or study prior to that?
JONATHAN MABERRY: I never formally studied fiction writing. I studied journalism in college and spent a lot of years writing feature articles, column, how-to stuff, textbooks and training manuals. When I decided to try my hand at writing a novel, I took a kind of ‘self-taught’ route. I picked several novels and deconstructed them. I read them first as a reader, then I re-read those books and studied the technique. I broke them down into three acts, I retro-engineered outlines, looked at the point of view, voice, pace, where the tension spikes were, and so on. The process of deconstruction allowed me to see all of the carpentry. It was a great way to understand how good novels are written. The switch from nonfiction to fiction was very smooth and comfortable. I find that I enjoy writing fiction more than anything else I’ve done.
BWG: The success of Ghost Road Blues was like hitting a grand slam home run your first at bat in the major leagues. Did you feel any internal doubt or hesitation that you could meet the obvious expectations the next time up?
JONATHAN MABERRY: Sure, I had lots of doubts at first. My intention had been to write Ghost Road Blues and its two sequels and then go back to writing my next nonfiction book. But after Ghost Road Blues was nominated for Best First Novel and Novel of the Year, I began to think that maybe it might be fun to keep trying. When Ghost Road won the Stoker for Best First Novel, a lot other writers in the genre made a point of encouraging me to keep writing.
This decision was reinforced by my agent –Sara Crowe—who let me know that I probably had a serious career ahead of me in fiction. She encouraged that aspect of my writing much more so than my nonfiction. Since 2005 she’s sold fourteen novels for me. I’m currently writing the thirteenth. And…I have no plans to stop.
BWG: I was amused in reading some of prior interviews that you moved into the occult and paranormal genre because the writers in the field were repeating the nonsense they picked up from the movies and TV and overlooking the depth of material that exists in historical folklore. How & when did you become a folklorist?
JONATHAN MABERRY: I wouldn’t call it ‘nonsense’. It’s just that most folks who write about vampires and other supernatural creatures only know about them from fiction, so they retread the fiction versions. For most people, the image of the vampire comes from a combination of the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, the silent film Nosferatu, and the film interpretations of Dracula by Universal and Hammer Films. While those are highly entertaining, they bear very little resemblance to the vampires of world folklore. Things like sunlight, the cross, a vampire not being able to enter unless invited…none of that is in folklore.
As an amateur folklorist, and the author of six books on the folklore of the supernatural (including VAMPIRE UNIVERSE, the Bram Stoker Award-winning CRYPTOPEDIA and the recent Stoker Award finalist WANTED UNDEAD OR ALIVE), I had a particular interest in the older stories of these monsters. So…I wrote one. In GHOST ROAD BLUES and its sequels, DEAD MAN’S SONG and BAD MOON RISING, the characters encounter vampire and werewolf legends from Poland, Belarus, Livonia, and other places. Each of these legends is substantially different from the Hollywood model, and radically different from each other.
BWG: In spite of your strong identification as a paranormal author, you refuse to accept this rigid stereotype. You have been quoted as saying "I am whatever kind of writer serves the story that I want to tell." Like David McKee, you are saying that the central focus or only focus of a writer must be on telling a good story?
JONATHAN MABERRY: Not at all. You see, there are two aspects to being a good writer. One is the ability to conceive and relate a story, and I believe that people are either born with that talent or not. Maybe it’s a storyteller gene. However, that story should also be well told, so I believe that a writer should do everything he can to attempt to master his craft, and he should constantly hone his skills.
That said, when taking on a new project, the writer should be flexible –in mind and in skill—so that he approaches each new project with freshness. Not everyone can adapt, and not everyone wants to. I like trying new things, and I’ve done that throughout my career. I’ve written articles, plays, greeting cards, song lyrics, product directions, advertising copy, training scripts, college texts and fiction of various kinds. When I teach writing, I encourage my students to be equally flexible so that they have the best chance of finding paying work that is also creatively rewarding to write.
BWG: Many, if not most, writers use different pen names when switching genres. You have only done this once, using Shane MacDougall for the Vampire Slayers' Field Guide. You don't feel that you are confusing or alienating readers who are readers of a certain genre but not another, i.e., someone who loves thrillers but not paranormals?
JONATHAN MABERRY: There are a lot of writers who use their own name to write in a variety of genres. It’s becoming more common. Sure, Stephen King used the pen name of Richard Bachman, but he stopped doing that after a while, and he went on to write horror, suspense, thrillers, science fiction, essays, how-to books, sports fiction and nonfiction, epic fantasy, mystery and crime stories. Same goes for Robert B. Parker, Kevin J. Anderson, L. A. Banks, Orson Scott Card, Neil Gaiman, and many others. A writer writes.
BWG: You describe yourself as a "research Junkie." How do you know to break away from the research to start writing? It is very easy to get swallowed up in the details of folklore, a historical period, the techniques of national security, etc.
JONATHAN MABERRY: Research is my danger zone. I can do research all day, every day. However when I was studying journalism at Temple University (back in the mid-seventies) I learned the skills of doing initial research in order to frame and outline the story, and then piecemeal research to support the hook you’ve picked for your article. The same thing works in fiction. While writing one book I’ll be doing research for the next one. That way when I get started I know enough about the subject in order to craft a useful outline. Along the way, however, I do spot research to deepen the story and provide interesting details. As far as knowing what details to add and which to leave out—that’s a judgment call based on what you need the reader to know if order to follow the plot. Details that are there merely because they’re interesting are like speed bumps that kill pace.
BWG: A well-known name writer can (probably) call a national known expert for guidance on a subject and the expert will be flattered to have the writer talking to him. How would you recommend a beginning novelist handle such a situation?
JONATHAN MABERRY: The same way a pros does. Send an email. It doesn’t matter if you’re a New York Times bestseller or a first time writer, experts will probably enjoy talking to you. They want to talk to writers because they know that we’ll listen. Eagerly. And they know that if they get to contribute information then there’s a better chance there won’t be as many errors in the book. I don’t assume I know a subject as well as an expert, so when I need information on genetics, I contact a geneticist. Same goes for race car drivers, soldiers, surgeons, and farmers. Always ask an expert.
I prefer to do these interviews via email. That way you don’t have to transcribe (which is a pain in the butt), you’ll have all of the technical terms and phrasing direct from the expert, and they often include more info than you’ve asked for, including links.
BWG: You are a strong advocate of the writer knowing the publishing business ("Writing is a business, the product art"). Yet, at this moment, the publishing business is in tremendous flux thanks to the e-publishing, print-on-demand, etc. The traditional career path of writing a book, finding an agent, working with a publisher, and producing subsequent good books is no longer a secure route of a writing career. Do you have a recommendation on a path, or multiple paths, that a beginning novelist should be considering at this time?
JONATHAN MABERRY: Unless a writer is a hobbyist who is writing purely for the fun of it, then it’s important for them to learn the business. There are a number of excellent free newsletters that keep you up to date on the business and all its weird changes. Publishers Weekly offers several (http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/email-subscriptions/index.html). I also recommend subscribing to Publishers Marketplace. It’s the only pay site that I think is worth every single penny. You get another superb newsletter but more importantly, you get info on virtually all of the deals in publishing. Each deal listing names the agent who repped it and the editor who bought it. There’s no better way to tailor your list when trying to find the perfect agent for you.
I also recommend writers conferences. There are several excellent regional and national conferences, and many that are targeted toward specific audiences, such as the Romance Writers, the International Thriller Writers, and others.
BWG: How did you find your first agent? Are you still working with the same one?
JONATHAN MABERRY: Friends with agents recommended that I shoot for a low-level agent, someone who was on the way up and would therefore be more likely to take a chance on a new writer. I thought that was insanely bad advice. So, instead I went prowling for agents associated with big firms and who worked with some of the top names in the business. I spent some time writing a damn good query and I sent it to the ten top agents at the same time. I wound up getting several offers for representation and I took the offer from the agent I thought would be the best fit for me. Turns out that I was right. I’ve been with Sara Crowe since 2005, and in that time she’s sold fourteen novels and five nonfiction books, all to major houses; negotiated my page-rates with Marvel Comics, negotiated great deals with Universal Pictures and other companies. We have a very successful business relationship.
BWG: The list of publishing houses that you have worked with over your career is truly amazing - Kedall, Strider Nolan, Citadel Press, Pinnacle Press, St Martins Press, Tor Books, Simon & Schuster - Is that a reflection of different genres you have written in or a continuing search for a better home for your novels?
JONATHAN MABERRY: As I said, I love trying new things, so that puts me on the radar of a number of different publishers. I’ll be adding to that list over the next couple of years with some fun projects that are in development. At the same time, writing is also my business and it’s how I provide for my family; so I’m always looking for the best and smartest deal. Sure, that means that sometimes I move away from one house to another within publishing, but that’s how business works. Editors, agents, authors and publishers—if they’re real pros—all understand this.
BWG: Beginning novelists can find themselves severely distracted from their writing and research by the current need to be fully involved in their own self-promotion via web sites, Facebook, Twitter, bloggigng, and other promotional vehicles. This is truly difficult if the writer is snatching time after his/her day job and on the weekends to write. Any advice on this?
JONATHAN MABERRY: Social media is absolutely critical to getting into the business and to building and sustaining your career once you’re inside. However it’s a great big time-wasting black hole unless it’s managed right. I use an egg timer and fifty minutes into each hour it dings, and then I toggle over and do ten minutes of social media. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, GoodReads, etc. Then at the end of that ten minute block I toggle back to my writing. I do that all day long. Not only do I get my writing and my social media handled, but it also breaks up the long hours, which keeps my mind fresh.
BWG: It has often been said that real writing is re-writing. Is this true for you, too? You have the deserved reputation of being a prolific writer. Is there an average number of drafts that you work through before saying "enough"?
JONATHAN MABERRY: The number of drafts I do changes all the time. With GHOST ROAD BLUES I did something like fifteen drafts. But I was just learning my craft with that book. With the one I just finished, FLESH & BONE, I did a first draft and a polish. I’ll do another light pass when I get the edit manuscript back from the editor. After a while, when you’ve written more than, say, three novels, that’s the kind of rhythm you tend to fall into. What happens is that after you’ve taken a book all the way through the professional editing process –with your agent, the editor, the copyeditor, the proofreader, etc. all putting eyes on the work—you get to know what your final draft/publishable voice is. Afterward you tend to aim at that and it becomes the voice of the first drafts of your later novels.
BWG: As the Celebrity Judge for our BWG Writers Roundtable fiction contest, you may be reading genres that are far different from yours. What criteria will you be using to judge such different genres?
JONATHAN MABERRY: I read all over the, um, ‘page’. My reading tastes are eclectic. For example, sitting on my to be read shelf at any given time there’s likely to be crime fiction, science-based thrillers, military science fiction, steampunk, contemporary short fiction, literary fiction, westerns…and who knows what else. There are very few genres I won’t go near. Actually, that’s not true: there are NO genres I won’t go near if I think there’s a good story to be read