Bill Dietrich, besides being a nice guy with a soft, dry wit and a novelist,is also a Pulitzer-winning journalist, historian and naturalist. He' now out with The Emerald Storm, his fifth rollicking adventure with 19th C. swashbuckling hero Ethan Gage
--> How many rejection slips did you get before your first novel was published? None! Not that I didn't deserve some. I completed a draft of Ice Reich on an icebreaker, reworked what even I knew was a mess, sent it my agent, and got a call saying editor Rick Horgan at Warner Books was interested...except he didn't like my plot. (The problem was that I had Hitler as a character, and he said people's impressions of Adolf are too vivid for a newbie novelist to pull off that necessary suspension of disbelief. Get rid of him. 'But then the whole pot collapses,' I said. 'Exactly. If you can rework an outline by tomorrow morning, I'll go to the staff meeting and try to sell your book.') Well, that was a test, of course...so I stayed up all night and figured out how to fix it. We then worked together on revising the novel and it was published with some success. This is not a typical author story. I was lucky. Dumb. Determined. Desperate. Flexible. All useful attributes for the successful writer.
--> Have you ever thrown away a book that you just couldn't make work? No, but I have a drawer-full of ideas and beginnings that didn't get beyond the outline stage. I've pitched many books that got a thumbs-down from editors. Like many authors, I've found the trick to be some for of perserverance, both in finding an idea that fires up an agent and editor, and in writing one book after another. Perspiration, not inspiration.
--> Is it still exciting to publish a new book even after all this time? Of course, but there's nothing quite like that first book just like there's nothing quite like the birth of your first child. To hold it, squirming between the covers, in your hand! (The book, not the child.) Yet each successive book is an exciting act of tangible creation. In how many jobs do you get to see your name plastered on your work product, see people react to it, and find it on a shelf? Magical! I've also discovered there's a literary community of writers, readers and booksellers that believe in the written word and are cheering each other on. Ebooks are fine, but it's the paper hardback in the cramped and cozy store like Seattle Mystery Bookshop that you cherish. That's where it becomes real.
--> Do you get ideas for new books all the time and you keep them written down, or does one come to mind when you need one? I do get ideas I jot down (or curse myself later if I don't) but it's a long way from idea to intelligent outline, and from outline to actual book. So a notion is just that, a notion. My Ethan Gage series, set in Napoleonic times, adheres to the history of the era so in that case it's, 'Okay, 1804, what was going on in the world, and so where can I send Ethan?' I'm looking for dramatic events in exotic locales with intriguing real-life people, so that means more systematic research than waiting for inspiration. I AM envious of books and movies built on a clever twist that makes me wonder, 'Why didn't I think of that?' And I do think the subconscious is always working; sometimes a solution will come abruptly after a night's sleep.
--> Do you have entire story arcs mapped out when you begin a trilogy or a series of related books? No. I don't know where Ethan is going next or what's going to happen to him, though I have developed a general sense of the history of the period. J.K. Rowling mapped out Harry Potter to this climax of an Armageddon and resurrection as a coming of age saga. Real history is less conclusive. Gage is growing through the series, but I enjoy the slow process of discovering what he's up to next. If I figure out what he's doing with his life it implies I've figured out what I'm doing with mine, which is unlikely.
--> Do you know how a book/series is going to end when you begin it? I work off outlines, trying to sell the proposal to a publisher before the actual writing. While some authors say such planning inhibits creativity, I found myself writing me way into too many dead-ends and having to back and fill in my early novels. I'm also dealing with real history, even in stand-alones like Blood of the Reich, and so the saga has to correspond somewhat to reality. So I have at least a rought idea of the likely ending and the character arc. Despite this, deciding what the book is REALLY about and refining the ending comes in the writing process.
--> Was it difficult to go from non-fiction to fiction and which do you like better? I started as a journalist, which is useful for learning research techniques, meeting deadlines, writing regularly, being edited, and so forth. Yet journalism is a deliberate strait-jacket in which you try to keep yourself out of the story, and so fiction is both liberating and a challenge: you're forced to ask yourself, who am I and what do I really have to say? I still enjoy non-fiction and my novels are stuffed full of fact, because I think readers enjoy learning. But I enjoy fiction because it can be much more conclusive in real life. In reality, problems are more managed than solved, relationships are often inconclusive, and there is no happily ever after. Fiction allows climax and triumph; it's a mirror of reality but condensed and heightened. That's fun.
--> Do you have to enter a different mind-set to write different stories? I have to decide whether to put on my journalist hat or novelist hat, first of all. And in novels, my characters insist I get inside their head. Ethan is more raffish than me, and female characters such as Rominy in Blood or Valeria in Hadrian's Wall require that I cross gender and age boundaries. One thing writers need is empathy, the ability to see the world through other's eyes. I think my best villains are sympathetic ones; troubled souls we can relate to at some level. I like my baddies such as Jurgen, Aurora, Silano, and Raeder.
--> Is there any kind of book you would like to write but haven't? I'm pecking along at a young adult book, and because I read eclectically and want to try so many genres, I'd need a century to try them all. The authors I envy are those who write something profound, lasting, and accessible: To Kill A Mockingbird is an example, and I'm nowhere near such a tale. We are who we are, writing what we can. Someone asked Stephen King why he wrote such creepy horror novels and he replied, 'What makes you think I have a choice?', which is a wonderful answer. My own career has taken unexpected twists and turns that I expect to continue.
--> If you could change anything about your writing career, what would it be? To be a zillionaire who win the Nobel Prize for Literature would be nice. More realistically, I fantasize about Hollywood picking up my books and actually making a GOOD movie from them. But the best payoff is simply when a reader says 'I really enjoyed it' or 'You got me interested in X' or 'You changed my life.' (This last has actually happened a few times.) We're trying to communicate with another human being, and how sweet it is when that happens. So I want to be widely read, and read for years to come.
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