Fiction Sleuth: 10 Questions With Author Ingrid Thoft

Ingrid Thoft (Photo credit: Doug Berrett)

By Daniel Ford

Author Ingrid Thoft’s Fina Ludlow series has everything a Writer’s Bone reader loves: a strong, fearless female private investigator, a story with emphasis on characters and relationships, and a Boston setting. Her newest novel Brutality, which comes out June 23, features Boston P.I. Ludlow tracking down an assailant accused of assaulting a soccer mom in her kitchen.

Thoft recently answered some of my questions about her early influences, writing about Boston, her new novel, and what’s in store for Fina Ludlow.

Daniel Ford: When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

Ingrid Thoft: My mother thinks my path was clear when I decided at a young age that despite getting our small town newspaper, The Boston Globe, and The New York Times delivered every day, there was a hole that could only be filled by my own newspaper. I distinctly remember creating copies on a typewriter and illustrating them myself. Articles covered things like world hunger and Jimmy Carter’s peanut farm—real hard-hitting stuff. 

As I got older, I knew that I wanted writing to be the mainstay of my work, but you don’t generally become a novelist the day you graduate from college. Instead, I wrote in various settings including a non-profit, an interactive company, and in the human resources office at Harvard University. Most of the work I did was geared toward employees, and although the content of my current writing is very different, I developed skills like meeting deadlines and adopting the style of writing to suit the audience, both of which have served me well.

I can’t talk about writing without talking about reading. I’ve always been a voracious reader, and reading is to me like breathing, eating and sleeping—essential to survival. Being able to spend my time on both sides of that equation—reading and writing—is a tremendous privilege and a source of much satisfaction.

DF: Who were some of your early influences and current favorites?

IT: I sound like a broken record, but I can’t overstate the importance of the Nancy Drew books by Caroline Keene. The series has it all: intrigue, danger, suspense, and strong, smart female characters. Reading those books taught me that women can not only be detectives, but also write detectives. I also love the fact that Nancy is shared by multiple generations; my mom loved the books, my sisters and I loved the books and my nieces love them, too. Other favorites from childhood are the Encyclopedia Brown series and the Choose Your Own Adventure books. 

My current favorites are many of the names you might expect; Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, Ace Atkins, Reed Farrel Coleman, Ann Cleeves, Chevy Stevens, and Elizabeth George. I recently enjoyed Suitcase City by Sterling Watson and Now You See Me by S.J. Bolton. On my TBR list is Vanished by Joseph Finder.

DF: What is your writing process like? Do you listen to music? Outline? Did your process change at all between your first novel, Loyalty, and Brutality?

IT: I never listen to music when I work. I find it too distracting. I like quiet with the exception of the soundtrack of downtown Seattle, which is just outside my window. Sirens, car horns, and the occasional street musician serve as good background noise.

My writing process can best be described as “herding cats” in that I always wish it were more straightforward, but I don’t think that’s the nature of the beast. I start with a general concept that raises lots of interesting questions. For example, in the case of Brutality, I was fascinated by the relationship between sports, health, money, and our sense of identity. As the body of compelling data grows, why do we continue to participate in activities that compromise our health? How do we define entertainment? What are we willing to sacrifice in the name of toughness, and what happens to our identities when certain activities are no longer a part them? Once my brain is working on the questions, I come up with a general plot and then write extensive character studies to populate the universe I’m creating. I can tell you all sorts of things about the characters that will never explicitly show up on the page, but I believe their backstories make them more three-dimensional. When I start writing, I know where I want the story to end up, and I usually outline the first chunk of pages—30 or so—and continue to do that as I progress. Lots of things change during the actual writing phase, and I may alter the course while I write, but I couldn’t sit down and start without some kind of plan. I liken it to captaining a sailboat; you should have a map and compass with you, but if conditions change, you need to respond accordingly. I like to think of it as a loose framework that fosters creativity.

The most significant change from one book to the next is that I’ve gotten more confident about the process itself. At those moments when I feel like I’ll never finish or a plot point will never be resolved, I can remind myself that I’ve felt that way before, and it’s always worked out in the end. 

DF: How did the idea for Brutality originate?

IT: I’m always keeping my eyes open for a good story or usually just the kernel for a good story. This entails reading the newspaper, reading news online and watching true crime television shows. The entire book writing process takes a year so I have to find a subject matter that holds my attention. I can’t expect readers to be interested if I’m not!

I don’t remember the exact moment that I got the idea for Brutality, but I had a general sense that there was an interesting turning of the tide that was happening in terms of sports and concussions. This is to me an extremely juicy topic, and my goal is always for my books to pose complicated questions for readers with no easy answers. I especially like situations where one’s theoretical and practical responses might actually be different. Maybe you’ve read the research and decided your child shouldn’t play football due to the risks, but what if you were raised in a football-loving family? What if the family rituals certain around football? What if you identify strongly as a fan? It’s between that rock and a hard place where the most interesting stories live.

DF: How much of yourself ends up in your main character Fina Ludlow?

IT: This is a tough question for me to answer since she wouldn’t exist without me, but we are different in many ways. I have only sisters, no brothers, and I had a great relationship with my father when he was alive and have a wonderful relationship with my mother. I think that the qualities we share are being independent, determined and hard workers with a strong belief in standing up for what we think is right. We differ in that Fina says things I’d like to say, but I’m way too polite to actually utter them! That’s the great thing about fiction; you can make people say and do exactly what you want them to without any real-life consequences!

DF: Since you’re a Boston native and that’s where your books take place, what details of the city did you want to capture and what clichés about Beantown did you hope to avoid?

IT: One of the things I love about Boston that I wanted to convey in the books is the breadth and depth of the city in terms of its people and their passions. There are so many world-class things about the city: its medical facilities, higher education, the arts, professional sports teams, as well as a strong sense of pride and history that shows up in things like the multiple generations of families who serve in the police and fire departments. People from all over the world come to Boston, and on any given day a visitor could be seen by a specialist in a top-notch hospital or watching a baseball game sitting above the Green Monster. I wanted Fina’s adventures to reflect that diversity. She may spend time interviewing a potential client in the ICU at Mass General or visiting the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, but you’ll also find her at Kelly’s Roast Beef eating fried clams and a lobster roll. It’s fun for me and readers to ride along with her.

I wanted to avoid the misconception that everyone from Boston or its environs has the typical Boston accent. Lots of people do, but lots of people don’t. This was an interesting issue when we were casting for the audiobook. Some of the contenders had badly done Boston accents—trust me, there’s nothing worse—and it was really distracting. The voice actress who has recorded all three audio books, Rebecca Soler, does a terrific job without the accent. She’s also from Boston, which proves my point that the accent isn’t a given!

DF: We did a podcast interview with Boston P.I. John Nardizzi who also used his professional skills to develop a writing career. What did you learn through your program at the University of Washington that helped you create your series?  

IT: I learned a lot of practical information in terms of detection that Fina employs, like how to mine information from public records and how to conduct effective interviews, but the thing I was most surprised by was my shifting attitudes toward personal injury attorneys. One of my instructors did a lot of work for the kinds of attorneys who advertise on television, like Carl Ludlow, and I learned that in certain circumstances, those attorneys are the only thing saving victims from financial ruin. Perhaps a single mother is injured in a car accident that wasn’t her fault, but if she doesn’t have health insurance or other safety nets, the dominos in her life can quickly fall. Maybe she misses work to go to physical therapy, but then she can’t pay for day care, and then she loses her job, but has no one to watch her kids when she looks for a new job, and what about all those doctors’ bills? Many of us are lucky enough to have layers of support that keep us from the brink—both financially and emotionally. For people who don’t have that, personal injury lawyers can be lifesavers.

One of my primary motivations for earning the certificate in the UW program was so that I could create a character who knew her stuff. Fina breaks the rules and some laws, but that’s always a conscious choice on her part. She’s not incompetent; she just marches to the beat of her own drummer!

DF: Now that you have three novels under your belt, what’s next?

IT: I’m putting the finishing touches on book number four in the series, which will be published in June 2016 with the plan to continue the series. The first two books are in development at ABC to be a television series, and although I don’t have any involvement in the creation of the show, I’m really anxious to see the producers’ interpretation of the universe I’ve created. I always enjoy the opportunity to meet readers and look forward to doing even more of that this year. I’ll be attending the Bouchercon Convention in Raleigh in October and speaking at the Book Group Roundup in Colorado Springs in November. It’s particularly energizing to interact with readers when I’m starting the next book in the series; their excitement is contagious!

DF: What’s your advice to aspiring authors?

IT: I like to quote Winston Churchill when giving advice to aspiring writers, but with a caveat. He said, “Never, never, never give up” and I believe that may be the only difference between a frustrated unpublished writer and a published writer. The caveat is that you have to learn to accept criticism and to incorporate feedback so as to improve your work. You need to be thick-skinned to be a writer, and if you can’t bear to hear negative feedback or are convinced that your work can’t be improved, you might be in the wrong line of work. The critical question to keep in mind when fielding criticism and suggestions is: “Does this make the work better or just different?” Better is better, but different is just someone else’s book.

DF: Can you please name one random fact about yourself?

IT: As a sixteen-year-old, I worked the 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. shift at a small local AM radio station. I did everything—wrote copy, called police and fire stations for news, and delivered on-air segments, including sports. I pity the Red Sox fans who had to suffer through my game reports. I read copy from the wire, but I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about, and I have to imagine that was obvious!

To learn more about Ingrid Thoft, visit her official website, like her Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter @IngridThoft.

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Master of Disguise: 11 Questions With Author Erica Wright

Erica Wright (Photo courtesy of the author)

By Daniel Ford

I’ll have plenty more to say about Erica Wright’s The Red Chameleon in next week’s 5 Books That Should Be On Your Radar post, but for now I’ll tell you that Wright’s main character, private investigator Kathleen Stone (or is it Kat? Or Katie? Or Katya?), is the perfect blend of brassy, troubled, and master of disguise.

Wright talked to me recently about what she wanted to do before discovering writing, the origins behind The Red Chameleon, and how she fell in love with her characters.

Daniel Ford: Did you grow up wanting to be a writer, or was it a desire that built up over time?

Erica Wright: I wanted to be a zoologist until eighth grade biology class when we dissected a frog, and I passed out. My teacher was close with my mother and thought, "How am I going to call Paula and tell her that I killed her daughter." I survived, though, so they're still friends. I have been writing poems and stories for as long as I can remember, but never considered pursuing publication until my twenties. I grew up in a town of 500 people, and while their professions are varied (the coolest is a beekeeper who owns her own farm), there are no novelists that I know of. So it was a gradual realization that I could write for a wider audience than myself.

DF: Who were some of your early influences in the crime genre, and which modern crime writers are you currently hooked on?

EW: The first book I remember re-reading as a child was Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn. It's not a mystery, but it set the tone for my gothic interests. I've never met a ghost tour I didn't like. In college I went through a Poe phase, but also enjoyed Doyle. (Do we have to say Sir Doyle?) I'm pretty sure that I would still be obsessed with the BBC "Sherlock" if I'd never read The Hounds of Baskerville, but there's also something fun about re-imagining the classic stories. In terms of modern mystery writers, I'll read anything by Sara Gran or Megan Abbott. And I love my press mate M. R. C. Kasasian's Gower Street Detective books, another take on Sherlock Holmes.  

DF: What is your writing process like? Do you listen to music? Outline?

EW: My background is in poetry, so my favorite part of fiction writing is the routine. With a new poem, there's a lot of work that doesn't feel like work. You're walking around the block, thinking about whether "shatter" or "shudder" works better in stanza three. When focusing on a novel, I set daily goals for myself, say, two hours or two thousand words. While I might have to heavily edit what I produce, the effort is satisfying. I didn't use an outline for the first draft of The Red Chameleon, preferring the so-called "pants-ing" method. Of course, that meant that the first draft needed some overhauls to get the plot in shape. I used a loose outline for its sequel, The Granite Moth, and have a detailed outline for the third book. Maybe next time I'll be done experimenting and can settle on an approach that works every time. Probably not.

DF: Where did the idea for The Red Chameleon originate? 

EW: I started teaching in the English Department of John Jay College of Criminology in the fall of 2006. My students were pursuing careers I knew nothing about. They wanted to be detectives, forensic specialists, CIA operatives, FBI agents. I started researching these fields to have something to talk about during our conferences. Since most graduates would end up in the New York Police Department, I became somewhat familiar with the training requirements and different opportunities. While I hoped that none of them would go undercover, an often dangerous and demoralizing job, I was fascinated with this small part of police operations. I was also reading a lot of mystery writers at the time—Janet Evanovich, Sue Grafton, M. C. Beaton—so looking back, it almost seems inevitable that I started tinkering with this book. At the time, it surprised me.

DF: How much of yourself ended up in your main character Kathleen Stone?

EW: In his book Here Is New York, E. B. White writes, "On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy." I remember reading that opening sentence in the Strand bookstore and feeling a thrilling jolt of recognition. Small town life has its advantages, but privacy isn't one of them. I lived in the city for 13 years, and it was great that nobody knew what I was doing unless I told them. Kat takes her need for privacy to whole other paranoid (rightfully, it turns out) level, but I definitely share that impulse.

DF: When you finished your first draft, did you know you had something good, or did you have to go through multiple rounds of edits to realize you had something you felt comfortable taking to readers?

EW: I fell in love with the characters as I wrote, particularly Dolly. I sat down to write a scene that conveyed Kat's wigmaker, Vondya Vasiliev, as a sort of mother figure. Then Dolly, a drag queen at a famous club called The Pink Parrot, was there, just hanging out. In the books, Dolly sort of insists on being Kat's friend, and that's how I felt about him as a character, too. He insisted on being in the book. What I mean to say is that when I finished my first draft, I knew I couldn't abandon any of these people even though the plot in general and many scenes in particular needed some major rewrites.

DF: The Red Chameleon has gotten some great reviews from the likes of The New York Times Book Review, O Magazine, and Publisher’s Weekly. What has that experience been like?

EW: Fainting goats have nothing on me. As might be obvious from my frog story, if I'm overwhelmed, I fall right over. I managed not to pass out when I read The Times review, but I started sweating and my ears started ringing. It has meant a lot to me that reviewers have written about my book. Not only is it a debut, but it's out from an independent publisher. Even the ambivalent responses haven't bothered me because I know how much effort it takes to read a book and articulate a viewpoint. Book people are the best people.

DF: How do you balance writing and marketing your work (i.e. book tours, engaging with readers on social media, etc.)?

EW: I set aside a little time each week for what I think of as the business side of writing. I see if I have any work that's ready to be sent out, query bookstores about readings, make sure my website doesn't look too amateurish. Last week, I spent an hour creating a newsletter signup form via MailChimp. (My brother's a tech genius, so hopefully he's not reading this. I'm sure that should have taken me about five minutes.) In general, though, I think it's better not to stress about self-promotion. I definitely post to Facebook and Twitter about personal news, but try to make sure that the majority of what I share is about other people. Or, you know, breaking taxidermy news.

DF: What’s next for Erica Wright and Kathleen Stone?

EW: A sequel to The Red Chameleon, The Granite Moth, will be released this November, so lots more shenanigans.

DF: What advice would you give aspiring authors?

EW: Root for others as much as you root for yourself. And if that sounds cheesy, I promise that it's actually kind of selfish, too. If you celebrate the success of friends, you get to have a lot more cake.

DF: Can you please name one random fact about yourself?

EW: I was named after Erica Kane, Susan Lucci's character from "All My Children." Well, “named after” might be a bit of a stretch, but my mother watched the show and liked the name, so here I am. No Emmy, but I do like a good villain. 

To learn more about Erica Wright, visit her official website or follow her on Twitter @eawright.

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Writing Fedora: 10 Questions With Historical Crime Writer Kelli Stanley

Kelli Stanley

By Daniel Ford

You’ve got to respect a writer who pursues her craft while wearing a smart fedora.

Kelli Stanley’s biography on her official website could double as Writer’s Bone’s mission statement:

“Kelli earned a Master’s Degree in Classics, loves jazz, old movies, battered fedoras, Art Deco and speakeasies.”

It gets better. Stanley is best known for her Miranda Corbie series of historical noir novels and short stories set in 1940 San Francisco. City of Dragons won the Macavity Award for Best Historical Novel, and was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Shamus Award, a Bruce Alexander Award, and an RT Book Reviews Award. She also writes a “Roman Noir” series that takes place in ancient history.

Stanley took a break from the past, pushed back her fedora, and answered a few of my questions about her novels and writing process.

Daniel Ford: When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

Kelli Stanley: I’m not sure if I ever did, actually—writing was just something I did. Poetry, mainly, though I wrote my first play (a noir, of course) when I was 8 years old. I loved writing term papers, speeches, letters, anything.

At the same time, because writing was so much a part of me, I never considered pursing an actual career in it…so my academic history is checkered with experimentation. I was a drama major for a couple of years, flirted with film and English, and finally settled on art history and classics, with a Master’s Degree in the latter.

It was during my collegiate career as a classic major that I was first exposed to Steven Saylor’s mystery series set in Late Republic Rome, and I thought to myself “Gee…I wonder if I could do that?”

Translation was one of the aspects of classics that I enjoyed the most (and something for which I won awards), but I didn’t want to concentrate solely on translation. And the closer the “terminus” of Ph.D. approached, the more squeamish I became.

I eventually realized that the breadth of study in classics is one of the key elements that drove me to its pursuit, and that a doctorate would kill the very thing I love, i.e. force me to specialize. I’d already written Nox Dormienda in my senior year (while also working on my thesis), so I threw caution to the winds and decided to pursue publication—which is different than deciding to be a writer, and a whole lot more complicated.

Alea iacta est, and I crossed the Rubicon in 2007 when I got word that my book would be published the following year.

DF: What is your writing process like? Do you listen to music? Outline?

KS: I outline in order to interweave the usually-two-but-potentially-more subplots of the novel and to maintain a suspenseful pace punctuated by dramatic beats—a must with writing crime fiction, especially anything with thriller overtones. For me, an outline is like a road map from which you are free to deviate when you find a side road that begs for exploration.

I only listen to music that Miranda might hear or encounter, and I do that for research and inspiration—not while I’m actually crafting sentences. Writing is its own music, and writing a novel is like a composing a symphony—and music gets in the way of music.

DF: You’re best known for your Miranda Corbie series of historical noir novels and short stories set in 1940 San Francisco—which include City of Ghosts, City of Secrets, and City of Dragons. What drew you to noir and who were some of your early influences? What made you decide 1940s San Francisco as a setting?

KS: I’ve always been drawn to the period of American history from the 1920s through the end of the WWII. I’ve also always adored film noir. As a little girl, I could do a mean Jimmy Cagney impression! I must have been born with a noir gene. Not many people in my third grade class could figure out why I was writing a play about gangsters, spies, and an unfaithful, treacherous girlfriend.

My actual taste of literary noir didn’t come until I was an adult, however. I grew up reading Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie as a child (and Dame Agatha is far darker than many people think).

Raymond Chandler was my first real writing teacher. I devoured everything he wrote, and realized style, as he once said (and I paraphrase) is all a writer really has to call her own, so you need to develop it, hone it, and protect it. Hammett followed—to him, I owe the importance of existential, tough-as-nails realism, the moral force of class warfare, and the beauty of bare-bones story-telling.

I think of Chandler and Hammett as (in a bizarre way) the Catullus and Horace of hardboiled literature. The latter two were contemporary Roman poets who were both brilliant in contradictory and complementary ways, as were Hammett and Chandler. Other influences include Cornell Woolrich, Vera Caspary, Daphne du Maurier, and (particularly in opposition to his misogyny) James M. Cain…along with a host of other writers, including those who wrote for Hollywood.

I’ve been at least as influenced outside the genre as inside—because, frankly, I don’t really believe in genres. Because I grew up reading constantly—mostly poetry and literature—I’ve been influenced by a range of authors and poets from Thomas Hardy to Steinbeck to Poe to James to Shakespeare to Dickens to Saroyan to Fitzgerald to Austen to Hemingway to Nathanel West to Shirley Jackson to Whitman to Sophocles to O’Neil to Ray Bradbury to Tennessee Williams to…you get the idea. I guess the linking component is great writing, particularly with a strong lyrical aspect or skeletal framework.

As for San Francisco…well, I live here. It’s a fabled city with a fabled past, and a distinct type of noir atmosphere that is older than Los Angeles’—stemming from her Gold Rush days of desperation, sweat, and broken dreams. It’s a city with a corrupt police force at the time (Los Angeles did not have the lock on that, sadly), and with Hammett as the inspirational literary pipeline. It also embodies the dichotomy of outrageous beauty coexisting on top of ugly social conditions and nostalgic, romantic views of the past vs. historical truths…a main theme I explore with the books.

DF: How long did it take you to complete your first novel? Has your writing process changed in anyway since that initial endeavor?

KS: I was working on my thesis at the time, so actually writing it took about a year and a half. My process has become more solidified, if no less terrifying. Ask virtually any published author and they’ll tell you the same thing: you wonder whether or not you can write with every book you face. It’s the horror of the vacuum, that blank page fear, and the sad fact that most of us are terribly insecure.

DF: Do you have an in-depth research process?

KS: I research constantly. I don’t have anything I’d dignify by calling it a process. There are a few things I do with every book, however: go to the main library and research newspapers from the dates I’ve selected for the narrative; research Life Magazine from the same dates; consult my many, many of-the-period reference books; study photos and videos and any pertinent documentary footage; search out and secure story-related ephemera to add to my ever-growing collection. That collection, by the way, includes all kinds of souvenirs from the World’s Fair on Treasure Island, train schedules, journals, railroad china, and all sorts of other inspirational and forgotten bits of daily life that I use to flesh out the books and make them seem three-dimensional.

I’m something of a fanatic about research, and was very honored that City of Dragons won the Macavity Award for best historical mystery.

DF: You also write a series set in first century Roman Britain—which include the novels The Curse-Maker and Nox Dormienda. How did the idea for this series come about and what are some of the defining attributes of “Roman Noir?” KS: Well, as I mentioned earlier, I was staring at “the end,” aka matriculation. So, in a sense, “Roman Noir” was, itself, born from a noirish desperation to find something to do with my degree and my life that wasn’t just the typical “get a doctorate, go teach” path.

KS: As for what it is…firstly, it’s a playful pun on the French literary term for noir or hardboiled. Secondly, it’s my idea of translating the sometimes strange but always human ancient world into a more modern and relatable feel and style. Noir and hardboiled conventions suit Rome and suit the culture…so, in this case, instead of Latin poetry, I’m translating history.

That said, as a classical scholar, my research is extremely accurate. When I speculate, I do so with the evidence and credentials to make an argument or write a journal article. That’s one reason I was so honored and delighted to win the Bruce Alexander Award for Nox Dormienda, my debut novel.

Some people get confused by the approach. They apparently believe that Romans should be written according to the upper class British or Transatlantic accents with which they are nearly always portrayed in film and television. I mean, c’mon—Romans weren’t all wordy, nerdy, rhetorically grandiose characters. Not that my language in the books is anachronistic—far from it. The metaphors and similes so associated with hardboiled are based on actual history and actual Roman culture.

DF: True or false: You write while wearing your fedora.

KS: True. I wear my “writing fedora,” which is a beat-up vintage Champ felt. The reason is that it’s a visual cue for my partner to know I’m “in the zone,” i.e. don’t talk to me unless it’s really important.

I own many fedoras—from red to orange, from summer straw to winter felt, vintage and modern—but other than my old Champ, I don’t wear them around the house.

DF: What does the future hold for Kelli Stanley?

KS: Right now, I’m working on the next Miranda Corbie novel, City of Sharks, which is the last one on this particular contract. I hope to be able to write more Miranda and to hopefully pen not just another Roman book, but a few other things rattling around in my head: a stand alone thriller, a YA, and assorted other projects.

DF: What advice do you give to up-and-coming writers?

KS: Research the business, because it’s in a constant state of flux. Choose your agent carefully, and don’t settle for publication at all costs—sometimes it’s better to wait to be published really well.

Think before you self-publish. Publication, whether it’s traditional or done through Amazon, is a business. Ask yourself if you really want to put in the time and energy necessary to undertake that venture. Finish the book before you even think about contacting an agent, editor, or other professional. And, most importantly, keep at it.

DF: Can you please name one random fact about yourself?

KS: My first record album as a kid was “Free to Be…You and Me”, based on the Marlo Thomas television show. It’s still a great album with a great message for children, and I highly recommend it!

To learn more about Kelli Stanley, check out her official website, like her Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter @kelli_stanley.

The Writer's Bone Interviews Archive

Noir Hop Artist Zilla Rocca On How He Crafted His Distinct Sound

Zilla Rocca

Photo by Edwin Hay

By Sean Tuohy

Musician Zilla Rocca put together two styles of urban story to spawn his own subgenre he calls “noir hop.”

His latest album, “No Vacation For Murder,” came out a few months ago and showcases the artist’s ability to create tragic tales set to head bobbing beats. His self-made tone is brooding and filled with an uncontrollable creative energy that kicks to break loose.

Rocca sat down with me to discuss his creative process, his views on the music world, and what the future holds for him.

Sean Tuohy: Where did your love of noir and hip hop come from?

Zilla Rocca: I fell in love with hip hop as a kid. I used to watch MTV all day as an only child, going back to when I was really young, when Young MC "Bust a Move" and Tone Loc "Wild Thing" and MC Hammer were on television all day. As I got older and was able to buy my own tapes like Naughty By Nature, Dr. Dre, Wu-Tang and such, I had officially caught the bug and I haven't looked back. I liked the sound of people rhyming, the way people used to dance, and the outfits they wore. It was like nothing going on where I lived in South Philly, which was predominantly working class Irish and Italian people listening to Top 40 or the oldies, like Sinatra.

I was always a big reader too, so I used to read young detective books like Encyclopedia Brown. I always connected with characters that were smart, that were curious, and that weren't afraid to pursue something, so later on when I realized what noir was, it made perfect sense to become a diehard fan of it. Now I read Hard Case Crime books, Elmore Leonard, Frederic Brown, David Goodis, and others. I'm fascinated by crime and how or why people commit it.

ST: When did you decide that you could smash the two worlds of noir and hip hop together?

ZR: Back in 2009, I made an album called "The Slow Twilight" as the collective 5 O'Clock Shadowboxers with Seattle producer Blurry Drones, which was heavily influenced by the noir flick "Blast of Silence." The album is about alienation and anger that never quite bubbles all the way to the surface. I realized then that I made something completely original and that I needed to take ownership of this new style, which I coined "noir hop". And ever since then, it's been my calling card with any project I release, from the artwork to the song titles to the stories on the records. It was the best decision I've ever made musically because it gave me a distinct identity.

ST: What draws you to the world of classic noir?

ZR:  I love classic noir because there's no time for bullshit. People have a clear purpose, whether their intentions are noble or heinous. The writing is quick and brutal. The world of classic noir is seductive and dangerous. The slang is thick, the men are tough, the women are devilish. There's a clear connection between the themes of classic noir and classic hip hop, namely that it's a reaction to a particular city and a particular set of morals. I've lived in almost every part of Philadelphia my whole life, and I've been around people who decided to join the Mafia and people who decided to become cops, people who became dealers and people who became junkies. So that aspect of the literature influenced my writing with hip hop, because hip hop is all about you representing what you know and where you're from.

ST: Which hip hop artist influenced you the most? Which noir writer influenced you the most?

ZR: I'd say Aesop Rock has influenced me the most musically because he showed me a long time ago that you can do whatever you want. For a long time, there were unwritten rules in rap about how you look, what your content should be, who you could emulate, etc. Aesop Rock completely destroyed every rule in the book and has made the most original music for over a decade in rap while always moving forward. His writing is unmatched. His slang is very coded. His production is swampy yet digestible. And his voice is like a death dealer. He gave me confidence to try things that the status quo would frown upon.

There's different noir writers who have influenced different songs and projects. "The Slow Twilight" is very Raymond Chandler influenced. I have songs that haven't been released yet that owe a huge debt to Ed Brubaker and Megan Abbot. My new album "No Vacation For Murder" is probably most influenced by David Goodis because he was a Philly guy who wrote about men near my age in my town making very bad decisions.

Zilla Rocca (Photo by Edwin Hay)

ST: You have built your own sub genre called "noir hop." What does it feel like to be the first of your kind?

ZR: I've noticed that my style and terminology has crept into the subconscious of my peers, which is corny in one way but flattering in another. It means that people have paid attention to my work, but could never fully maximize what I do because they're taking surface level pieces of my stuff—black and white videos, fedoras, whiskey, cigarette smoke, etc. People weren't doing that as much in indie rap before I made that my flag to wave five years ago. I've had other people point these things out to me so I know they too respect the architect.

ST: What is your writing process like? Do you have the lyrics first or the beat?

ZR: I read all of the time and watch a lot of television, so I'll catch a certain phrase and write it down in my notepad app on my iPhone. Or I'll overhear someone say something really slick in a conversation and write that down too. So when it's time to write a song, I skim through my notes for a phrase to spark the concept or hook. I like to write things that are vivid and use phrases no one else has ever uttered in rap, so my notes are like my cheat sheets to accomplish that. I never write without a beat because the beat determines everything: the mood, the flow, the story, the spacing of the words. And the notes I keep help me add some flourishes along the way once I figure out what to do. When I first started out 17 years ago, I used to write lyrics first and match them with a beat. I'll do that once in a while if I wrote a song and it got scrapped so I don't waste any lyrics. But 90 percent of the time, the music creates the words.

ST: You came out with "No Vacation For Murder" not too long ago. Can you give us the background on this album? How long did you work on it?

ZR: The album actually dropped a couple months ago after years of work. It took about two years to write the album and four years total to complete. It was inspired by real life betrayal by people that were the closest to me. I had to take time off from making the record because it was too heavy, so I put out a bunch of other projects that weren't as cumbersome to fill the time.

There's parts on the album that play out like revenge fantasies, and other parts on the album where I take full responsibility for even having those relationships in the first place. I did a lot of growing up from the time I wrote the first song to the time the album was getting mixed and mastered. So the trick was to figure out how to determine the narrative as an album, since I started off feeling like I wanted to exact revenge at all costs on people who had broken my heart, compared to feeling at peace and letting go of all those emotions years later. I can say proudly now that it's my best work, and that unfortunate set of circumstances were the best things to ever happen to me.

ST: Your single "Shoot the Piano Player" is a stunning one-act noir play set to an awesome beat. Where did this song come from? Why did you make this one of the first singles off the new album?

ZR: My producer Blurry Drones, who is the driving force behind The Shadowboxers’ aesthetic, sent me that beat a long time ago. I wasn't really impressed with it. And then one day my friend Has-Lo stumbled across it and thought he and I should tell a quick crime story to it in the vein of Raekwon and Ghostface Killah, two of our biggest influences, for a different project. We did the song pretty quickly, and after hearing it, I told Has-Lo that I had to have it for the album.

My director Pat Murray, who has done several of my past videos, came up with the entire concept. I love working with Pat because he's a visionary—none of the work we've done together looks like anyone else's videos in rap. He understands the mood I want when I do videos, and I give him 100 percent creative control, something most artists don't afford him when they hire him.

ST: The music video for "Shoot the Piano Player" is stylish and original. How did you decide to set the tone for the video?

ZR: Again, that's all Pat. He had previously used that location called the Physick House, a historical landmark in Philly, for a commercial shoot. It was very elegant and built in the 19th century. Lucky for us, we shot it on a Saturday afternoon when it was raining like crazy, so it gave us an added sense of doom. And Pat had the idea very early on to do all long shots for each take, so everything you see in the video had to be filmed non-stop with no edits. If anything was off, we had to start from the beginning and do it for the duration for the song. In short, Pat Murray is untouchable.

Zilla Rocca (Photo by Edwin Hay)

ST: What does the future hold for Zilla Rocca?

ZR: Who knows? I learned recently just to let things happen instead of trying to control everything. Since I've done that, I've been lucky enough to have favorable situations come together. It's better to attract good things rather than chase them.

ST: Can you tell us one random fact about yourself?

ZR: No matter what city I go to, someone will pull over, or stop me in the street, and ask me for directions. It's happened in Philly, Chicago, London, Phoenix, New York City, Los Angeles, and more. I guess I always look like I know where I'm going.

To learn more about Zilla Rocca, like his Facebook page, or follow him on Twitter @ZillaRocca.

The Writer's Bone Interviews Archive

Author S. Craig Zahler On Why Discipline and Imagination Trumps Money and Financiers

Cover photo courtesy of S. Craig Zahler

By Sean Tuohy

All writers want to set a tone and want to set themselves apart from the crowd.

Few do it well. Some barely pull it off. Others fail completely.

Author S. Craig Zahler succeeds spectacularly and puts miles between himself and other writers with his grim tone and no-holds-barred approach to writing. Zahler hit the scene hard with his debut novel A Congregation of Jackals, which was twice-nominated for awards and highly praised. His screenplay “The Brigands of Rattleborge” was ranked number one on the highly regarded The Black List.

With stories raging from western, crime, and sci-fi, Zahler proves that hard work and believing in your story is what makes a great writer. Zalher spoke with Writer's Bone about his daily writing process, gave us a glimpse of what’s to come, and allowed us a chance to see inside the mind of a true writer.

Sean Tuohy: When did you know you were a writer? Was it something you knew from birth or did you discover it later in life?

S. Craig Zahler: I have always been creatively inclined, but as a kid, I thought of myself as visual artist (comic book artist was a goal for me, as were animator and director), though yes, I did write some weird fiction even then.

When I went to Tisch/NYU in the early 1990s, in addition to not coming into contact with women, I studied animation, film, film history, music, directing, and cinematography rather than writing, though there were some perfunctory courses that showed me formulas I then quickly (and thankfully) forgot.

I think one of the major reasons that I enjoy writing so much and have had some success in this field is because it does not require me to be collaborative and it allows me to make things up as I go rather than plan everything and try to convince people of my instincts. Additionally, getting better at writing requires effort, discipline, imagination, a critical mind, and a strong fondness for fiction rather than money, fancy equipment, and financiers.

ST: Recently on Writer's Bone a contributor expressed some self-doubt about identifying as a writer, despite a lifetime of writing. Have you experienced doubt as a writer? Have you always felt comfortable calling yourself a writer or was it something you grew into with each milestone of success as a writer?

SCZ: Anybody who writes is a writer, but for me, the term in the traditional sense has a professional connotation that is connected to generating revenue from writing—having people pay to read my work. Prior to making a living as a novelist and screenwriter, I wrote a lot of music criticism (for Metal Maniacs and some ‘zines), and although I was paid for a lot of this, I did not classify myself as a writer since my vocations at the time were as a cook, and to a lesser degree, a cinematographer. I’d say, “I write for a metal magazine,” but not, “I’m a writer,” even though I had written a massive, still unpublished two book fantasy series called Slaves of Uzrehan’be (which was me splitting the difference between Clark Ashton Smith weirdness and George RR Martin gray morality), and some plays (two of which I directed), and six screenplays, and a ton of music criticism. But this writing felt like I was trying to crack “being a writer” rather the actually “being a writer.”

When I got a three-picture deal with Warner Brothers and writing became my full time job, I felt comfortable saying, “I’m a writer.” This felt far more accurate on the day that I sold my novel, A Congregation of Jackals to Don D’Auria at Dorchester.

As far as doubt, I have always believed in my abilities, but less so the industries of publishing and filmmaking to which I sell (or attempt to sell) my material.

ST: A Congregation of Jackals was a somber and thrilling debut novel; how long did you work on the project?

SCZ: Thanks for the kind word regarding the book. I wrote A Congregation of Jackals in three and half months, including all of the revisions other than the tiny ones that I did with the publisher that took only a few days.

ST: What is your writing process like?

SCZ: My process is to have a general direction for the story—doors to which I am guiding the main characters. Then, I get in the mind of the protagonist and proceed toward those doors.

While I do this, I try to surprise myself every single day. An important thing for me is to limit the amount of words that I am allowed to type in a day to about 1,100 so that I never chase myself into a corner or plot on autopilot. If it’s all flowing too quickly, too naturally, I feel it’s too easy and has probably been done before and will not contain enough distinct invention. I’m usually surprised by which characters live and which die in my fiction.

ST: Do you have any special rituals that you have to perform before or after a new project?

SCZ: Certainly. I write seven days a week until the story is done. I do this lying down on my stomach in bed, like I’m sliding into home plate.

I write my allotment of words for the day, revise this chunk twice, and then leave it alone for the most part until I finish the whole piece (which I write in order from beginning to end, making occasional adjustments).

Usually, after two or three hours of work, I reward myself with my “morning” coffee, which is at about 5 or 6 p.m., since I usually wake up around 2:30 p.m. Then, after I have finished my writing (and completed my daily workout), I put on my “saving music,” which is a song selected as the daily reward for completing the day’s work. I tend to keep one song per project, so each book or script has its own theme. “Blood Red Skies” by Judas Priest was the song I listened to every day while writing A Congregation of Jackals. Marvin Gaye’s “Trouble Man” is what I am listening today when I finish working on my new book. Usually it’s soul music or heavy metal, which are my two favorite kinds of music, followed closely by progressive rock. The Persuaders, Nate Dogg, Ritual, Altars of Oblivion, Tavares, Ennio Morricone have all provided me with saving music.

ST: What project are you the most proud of?

SCZ: This is a tough question, since I am very critical, and although I am proud of all of my books and albums—they survived my personal process of brutal nitpicking so I can now stand behind them—of my 48 completed pieces (six novels, 37 scripts, and five albums) different pieces have different elements of which I am most proud.

I think my horror western Wraiths of the Broken Land is my most vividly written and intense piece, though it is way too dark for many readers and so comes with that caveat. My science fiction book Corpus Chrome, Inc. is my most imaginative and emotional book experience. It plays to emotional aspects that are very meaningful to me specifically, and is less gratifying in normal narrative ways than most of my tough guy material (i.e. the crime and western stuff).

In terms of my music, I’m very proud of my recent “Realmbuilder” album, “Blue Flame Cavalry,” which made some important year-end best of lists for the first time. (This is doomy epic metal, influenced by stuff like Manilla Road, Thin Lizzy, Manowar, Reverend Bizarre, Summoning, Blue Oyster Cult, and Cirith Ungol).

As for unpublished works, there is a novella/script called Hug Chickenpenny: The Panegyric of an Anomalous Child as Told in Twenty-Seven Chapters that is very, very dear to me and gets the strongest emotional reaction of all my unpublished work.

ST: You combine grim noir and the west in your works very well; where did this fascination come from and what, if any, core similarities do you believe these two genres share?

SCZ: I think classical crime and traditional westerns are historically very different, since the earlier are generally urban experiences, often heavy on colorful language and plotting, and the latter are more adventurous and expansive types of tales in which a group of people are dealing with civilization in the wild. Though yes, there are many exceptions to these distinctions.

Some of my favorite film noirs ever like “Gun Crazy” (directed by the master, Joseph H. Lewis), “Nightfall” (directed by the amazing Jacques Tourneur, based on a David Goodis book) do both things, but something like “The Big Combo” (also directed by the master, JH Lewis) or “The Sweet Smell of Success” (probably my favorite script ever) lack the adventure component.

With the exceptions of my comedy material, I try to make everything that I write vivid and atmospheric, whether it is a crime, science fiction, horror, or western piece. I did not set out to write a “noir western” with A Congregation of Jackals, but a western in which the feelings of dread and unease and remorse were there throughout. For a lot of people, this heaviness translates to “noir,” especially since I did not make A Congregation of Jackals a vicious horror western the way I did with Wraiths of the Broken Land.

My upcoming book Mean Business on North Ganson Street is noir/crime, though it certainly has some of what I like about classical westerns is in there too, especially the idea of a man defining himself and imposing his morals upon others in a wild terrain.

ST: Do you have any upcoming projects that you can tell us about?

SCZ: My science fiction novel Corpus Chrome, Inc. was recently released by Raw Dog Screaming Press. It is very weird science fiction that is more character focused than is typical for the genre. At the risk of seeming like a self-aggrandizing jackass, I’d recommend it to fans of authors like Ted Chiang, M. John Harrison, Phillip K. Dick, Gene Wolfe, and Ursula K. Le Guin. There is no specific work by any of these genre luminaries that mine actually resembles, but like a lot of these authors’ books, Corpus Chrome, Inc. explores sociological themes, identity, the arts, and the limitations of the human body and mind…and is not at all traditional sci-fi.

I’d also like to mention Mean Business on North Ganson Street, which will be coming out from Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Press in September. It offers the smoothest and most enjoyable reading experience of all of my books, and it definitely contains all my sharpest dialogue to date.

In film, I hope to get my movie “Bone Tomahawk” off the ground, but this is a slow process with dozens of variables that I can’t control. It is heartening that two years later, Kurt Russell, Richard Jenkins, Jennifer Carpenter, and Peter Sarsaard are all still on board!

And I am currently in a creative back and forth process with Park Chan-wook, who intends to direct my western script, “The Brigands of Rattleborge,” which is shaping up to finally get made by him and the producers of “Zodiac” and “Wolf of Wall Street,” which are certainly amongst the very best pictures to get through the Hollywood system in recent years.

ST: What advice would you provide to up and coming writers?

SCZ: Finish your work and show it to people. Sitting on an unfinished book or script is as bad as not writing it at all—actually worse, since you’ve spent time doing stuff for no reason unless you consider yourself the only important audience or do it for therapeutic reasons.

Be critical of your own work, but don’t strive for perfection, since it’s unattainable. I limit the amount of time I allow myself to revise my books and scripts or else I would tweak them forever (and consequently, write a fraction as much material). Set limits and deadlines and stick to them. Sometimes it helps to tell other people what your deadlines are so that you can’t alter them.

ST: What is one random fact about yourself?

SCZ: A lot of my favorite authors started in or mainly wrote for the pulps: David Goodis, Clark Ashton Smith, H.P. Lovecraft, Norvell W. Page, Donald Wandrei, Max Brand, Robert E. Howard, Elmore Leonard, Isaac Asimov, Phillip K. Dick, and Arthur C. Clarke.

To learn more about S. Craig Zahler, visit his official website or his page on Good Reads. 

The Writer's Bone Interviews Archive

Mystery Novelist Lawrence Block On Why Writers Must Go On

Lawrence Block (Photo courtesy of the author)

Lawrence Block has been writing crime, mystery, and suspense novels longer than the millennial generation has been alive.

Block started out writing midcentury erotica in the late 1950s and eventually introduced the world to colorful characters such as cop turned private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.

He recently answered questions from Writer’s Bone on why New York City is a fixture in his novels, and what mantra his writing process follows.

Writer’s Bone: New York City is normally the setting—and a character—for your stories. What draws you to the Big Apple?

Lawrence Block: It’s my home. I first visited New York in 1948; my father and I took the train down from Buffalo and spent a long weekend at the Hotel Commodore. I first lived here in 1956, and it’s really been my home ever since, although I’ve spent stretches of time elsewhere. John Steinbeck put it best in 1953: "New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition murderous. But there is one thing about it-—once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough."

WB: Can you tell us about some of your earliest work?

LB: I started writing for publication at a young age, and my earliest stories appeared in the digest-sized crime magazines. They’ve since been collected in One Night Stands and Lost Weekends.

I’d been doing this for a year or so when a couple of publishers, Midwood Tower and Nightstand, spawned the genre of midcentury paperback erotica, and I found it a productive learning ground—although I sometimes think I may have stayed too long at the fair.

WB: Was there a time as a writer that you felt hopeless about the craft? If so, how did you work past it?

LB: There has rarely been a time when I haven’t felt hopeless about something or other. Beckett said it in eleven words: “You must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.” And one does, at least until one doesn’t.

WB: You tend to write about detectives, thieves, and hit men. Where does this interest come from?

LB: I have no idea. I’ve known a few detectives, a couple of thieves, and at least one fellow with a couple of bodies on him. But I was writing about such folk long before I was acquainted with any of them. And I know a lot of lawyers and doctors and schoolteachers and guys who sell insurance, and rarely write much about any of them.

WB: Matt Scudder is one of the most beloved and interesting private detectives of the latter part of the 20th Century and in to the 21st Century. What is Matt’s staying power?

LB: I’m probably not the person to ask. If I were to guess, it would be that Matt has aged and evolved over the years, but that may better serve to explain why I’ve continued to find him interesting.

WB: Is Matt Scudder meant to be the voice for New York City?

LB: No, not at all. 

WB: So many of your characters have neat quirks, are they based on anyone?

LB:

Rarely.

WB: What is your writing process?

LB:

Again: “You must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.”

WB: As a New Yorker what are some of your favorite spots in and around the city? Is there a place in the city that really gets your writer’s mind ticking?

LB:

I spend most of my time in Greenwich Village.

WB: Who were some of your early influences?

LB:

I grew up reading the realistic American novelists of the first half of the 20th Century, and when I began writing crime fiction, I read widely in the genre.

WB: Where did

A Candle for the Bag Lady

come from? It stands out as far as detective short stories go.

LB:

There’s a song quoted in the story, and I’d written it a couple of years before I wrote the story. Beyond that, I’ve no idea where the notion came from.

WB: Who are some of the up-and-coming mystery writers you enjoy?

LB:

I usually avoid this question, but I’ve enjoyed Wallace Stroby’s books a lot lately, so I’ll mention him. But just this once.

WB: What is something you wish you knew when you first started being a writer?

LB:

How fast the time goes.

WB: Do you think stamp-collecting hit man Keller will ever come to the big screen?

LB:

One never knows. There’s probably more chance for a television series, but long odds either way.

WB: How has the mystery genre changed since you first started writing?

LB:

Immeasurably.

WB: If you had to solve a case which fictional detective would you want to help you?

LB:

Oh, Bernie Rhodenbarr, for sure. He has the most fun.

For more on Lawrence Block, check out his official website lawrenceblock.com, follow him on Twitter @LawrenceBlock, or like him on Facebook.

For more interviews, check out our full archive.