Ben Erlichman (BE): Our very special guest today is best-selling, award-winning author Robert Liparulo. Thanks for taking time to give us some insight into your life as an author.
Robert Liparulo (RL): Thanks for having me.
Robert Liparulo
BE: So Bob, how did you get into writing (in general)?
RL: I knew I wanted to write—something, anything—since I was eight or nine. In fifth grade, I wrote an article about the Concorde’s first flight. It stopped in the Azores Islands, where I lived, and I wrote a piece that my teacher sent in to an Air Force publication. They published it, without knowing my age. I got a check and was hooked on writing. I knew then I wanted to make my living writing. I’ve been writing ever since.
BE: You were a journalist for quite awhile. How did your switch to fiction come about?
RL: I read I Am Legend by Richard Matheson when I was 12. I realized then that I wanted to write fiction. For years, I wrote short stories, but then the fiction market dried up for writers whose names weren’t Ray Bradbury and John Updike. To keep writing and make ends meet, I switched to journalism, primarily magazine articles. I thought then that I’d someday get back to fiction. For a number of years, I wrote celebrity profiles and interviews. In doing that, I became friends with some big authors. A few of them started calling me on a regular basis to prod me to write a novel. One day, I decided they were right, and I started getting up at three in the morning to write a novel for five or six hours. That manuscript became Comes a Horseman, which was my first novel.
BE: Has your desire shifted from journalism to fiction or do you still write both consistently?
RL: I was very blessed in my novel writing had enough interest from publishers that I ended up with a decent deal that allowed me to focus all my time on novel-writing. So now, the only non-fiction I write is an occasional piece like the essay on Thomas Perry’s The Butcher’s Boy that appears in the new book Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads.
BE: You’re now the author of ten books, four adult and six young adult novels, all of which are amazing (in my opinion). Which one(s) are your favorites? Which ones were the most fun to write?
RL: Thank you. It’s really hard to pick a favorite, or even to identify which were the most fun to write. I totally immerse myself in my stories when I write, so each one is engrossing and fun to write. I also have the freedom to write whatever story is on my heart at the time, which helps in loving each one. I have to say, though, that the Dreamhouse Kings books were particularly fun, mostly because they were written in the perspective of young people—mostly two brothers, ages 15 and 12. So I got to relive my youth, and that was a blast. I also liked exploring different times in history and putting these boys in danger so they had to find the places inside them where courage and doing the right thing reside. But then again, that’s something the protagonists in my adult thrillers usually have to do as well. Courage and standing up for the right thing are recurring themes in my stories. Couple them with my love of high-tech gadgets, especially weaponry, and I end up in worlds I really like spending time in.
BE: Tell our readers a bit about your best-selling Dreamhouse Kings (DHK) series.
RL: In the Dreamhouse Kings series, a family moves to a small town in northern California, so Dad could take a job as principal of the local middle and high school. They move into a run-down Victorian home, where they find a hidden hallway of doors. Each door leads to a portal to a different time in history. But not only can they go from the house to the past, people from the past can come through into their house. Someone does—and kidnaps Mom, taking her into some unknown place in the past. The family—primarily brothers David and Xander—begin a quest for Mom, which takes them to all sorts of dangerous and fascinating places throughout time. We slowly learn that the Kings are in the house for a very specific purpose, and they must do much more than “simply” find their mother.
BE: Are you planning subsequent DHK books?
RL: The next YA series is not about the Dreamhouse. It’s called Hunter, and will tell the story of two teens, a boy and a girl, who are trying to survive in a world in which most of mankind has been wiped out by a virus. They have to find the cure before it mutates and kills everyone else, and before a band of bad guys finds it. Of course, it’ll have a lot of adventure and suspense, a la the Dreamhouse story. Each Hunter book will include a Dreamhouse Kings short story, and then, after Hunter, I’m planning on writing another Dreamhouse series. The premise for the story is really never-ending, and the family is really hard to say goodbye to.
BE: Are going to write any more adult books in the near future/what are you working on now?
RL: I’m working on The 13th Tribe, which is the first of my adult thrillers into which I’m introducing a bit of the supernatural. We’re still about eight months from its publication, and since it’s a slight departure from the kinds of stories readers are used to from me, I don’t want to give away too much yet; I’d like it to be a surprise. I can say it takes a close look at vigilantes and how they do what a lot of us would condone or even do ourselves if we had the guts. They go after the child abusers, murderers and thieves who somehow escaped justice, whether through their own deviousness or loopholes in the law. I didn’t want to mimic what’s already been done so well with this topic—in books like Death Wish and even Batman, so I decided to explore two aspects of vigilantism that I felt have been underserved in literature: the cultural, societal and spiritual conditions that could allow vigilantism to flourish—and have in specific times in history; and the feelings vigilantism stirs in people who aren’t the vigilante or the criminal, but average bystanders. How do they sort through the moral implications, especially if they become the victims of unpunished crime?
BE: Could you briefly describe your conceptualization/writing process for us?
RL: Briefly, once I have the idea, I research for a couple of months. Then I start working on understanding the characters. By the time the research and characters are in place, I usually have some ideas about the story’s high points, its set pieces. Then I start writing. I try not to outline very much, because I want the characters to tell me what they want to do. I try to guide them, somewhat, toward the points in the story I know they should reach, but I want them to tell me how to get there.
I write by immersing myself in the story. That means spending about 16 hours a day writing. I try to do that straight through to the end. The I go back to tighten and tweak.
BE: You’ve got some very memorable characters in your books. What do you do to make your characters come alive for your readers?
RL: I don’t write bios or bibles for my characters. I prefer to “know” them, to have walked in their shoes. Once I’ve decided a few basics—their gender, their occupation, for instance—I try to live their lives for a while. It’s sort of like the method approach to acting: I listen to the music they would listen to and figure out why they like it. I think their thoughts, even when they’re opinions are contrary to my own. I speak the way they would. I go to businesses where they would work and learn their trade as much as time allows. I order what they would at restaurants. Once I start writing, I usually don’t refer to character cheat sheets because I know them so well—where they went to college, what their favorite book is, as well as I know my own tastes and background.
BE: Since you were a journalist for so long, you must’ve built up a substantial platform before getting published. What advice would you give to unpublished, newly published, or even seasoned authors who want to build their own platforms?
RL: Journals don’t often build platforms. Think back to the last article you read that you really liked, that go you thinking about the topic: Who wrote it. Most people don’t know. The exception would be theologians; they do get followings, but that’s not the type of non-fiction I wrote. But that’s ok, because the most important thing authors can do is write well. If you had two hours or a day to invest in something that will eventually build your readership, you would be far better off perfecting your craft, polishing that opening chapter or making sure every page has something interesting on it than in “building a platform” (which might include communicating with your fans, thinking of witty Facebook posts, building your website). It’s not that the non-story stuff isn’t important, but it should be an after-thought. It’s what I do when I’m taking a break from writing or researching. And I’ll be the first to admit that Facebook and website-building can be addictive. When most of your life is writing a novel that won’t be finished for months and published maybe a year after that, it’s refreshing to tackle tasks that you can complete quickly. But that’s part of the discipline of writing full-time. You have to always remember that nothing is more important than the story and how you tell it. Everything else merely supports that.
BE: What did the publishing process look like for you the first time around? What does it look like now?
RL: It hasn’t changed that much. Publishers always look for good stories, well told. They have meetings in which everyone there try to knock down the project. They do nothing but throw rocks at it, trying to find reasons not to publish it. The thinking is, if it survives their assaults, it’ll survive all the reasons books might fail, like competition and disinterest from booksellers. What changes—and it changes almost daily—is what publishers are looking for: Are YA’s hot today? Vampires? Thrillers? I don’t think that’s anything a writer should concern himself with. You have to write what you love to write, love to read, what’s on your heart—regardless of what the market is looking for. If you write it well, there will be a market for it, because great storytelling and imaginative ideas will always win out over fads. If you write against a fad and do it well, that’s when you’ll have a best-seller on your hands.
BE: You incorporate your faith into your stories in a subtle, yet powerful way. Do you think such subtlety is beneficial to your books’ success? Do you think a less overt Christian message is more beneficial to non-Christian readers?
RL: I don’t think it’s less or more beneficial. I think it speaks to different readers, ones who are looking for stories that are exciting, have eternal themes, and which don’t preach. There’s room for all levels of spirituality in novels. Some readers love the Amish, more preachy (more I should say more overtly spiritual) stories; and there are readers who like action and adventure, but they also don’t want their faith assaulted in the process. That’s the sort of story I read and write.
BE: Thanks so much for stopping by. Any last words of encouragement for those reading this blog, specifically for writers, and specifically for readers?
RL: For writers: read everything you can get your hands on and finish every writing project you start. Reading exposes you to people and things outside your own little world. It helps teach you about the way other people behave and think and talk. It gives you glimmers of other places and ideas—all things you can incorporate into your own stories. On top of that, you learn what works and what doesn’t in storytelling.
“Finish things” is simple to say, but not so simple to do. Discipline is essential to all writers, but as creative people, we’re easily distracted, often by other stories we want to tell. But if we get in the habit of finishing things, then we have products to show agents, editors, and publishers when the opportunity comes up. The ability to finish is a big question people in the publishing business has for wannabe writers. They’ve seen so many people with great ideas who either can’t finish a story or can’t execute it well. Prove you can right off the bat.
For readers: Support the authors you like. If their books aren’t stocked at your favorite bookstore or library, ask for them. Post reviews on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders…these reviews really do matter. They help buyers decided to give new writers a try (even if they’re new only to the buyer). Especially, these online buyers, who can’t pick up the book and check it out. Also, write to your favorite writers. It’s a lonely profession and we can use the encouragement. Every writer I know—from James Patterson to people you never heard of—has expressed doubt about the story he or she is currently writing: Is it good enough? Is it exciting? Will people care? Letters from fans make all the difference in the world, more so than sales. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been struggling with a scene and an email comes in from someone who just read one of my books and loved it—it totally charged me up again and the scene flows out of those positive feelings. All writers want to hear from their readers.
BE: Please check out Robert Liparulo’s work. He’s a fantastic author, one you should read. Definitely one your kids should be reading; his DHK series is great. In two weeks we’ll be talking with Jeremy Watkins, an old friend of mine who’s got some interesting ideas about life, God, ministry, and creativity. See you then.
elainemcooper
Lisa Lickel
James Scott Bell has a dandy book called The Art of War for Writers (which I highly recommend). In it, he explains that he often “snatches time” when he writes. He explains that he makes sure he is still productive in spite of distractions by snatching time to write whenever he can. He mentions that he writes in some weird places at some weird times, primarily on a portable typing thingy–not hi-tech like an iPad, but something simpler called an AlphaSmart Neo, which he says runs on two AA batteries. He stresses that no matter how you do it, make sure that you ARE doing it.
