It took me a bit of time, but I finally got the full Q&A from my Brad Meltzer interview typed up. The interview took place at Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C. and it was recorded so that everything you read is verbatim (except for stupid typos and lack of commas).

From Meltzer’s website:

"Brad Meltzer is the best-selling author of The Tenth Justice, Dead Even, The First Counsel, The Millionaires, The Zero Game, and his newest novel, The Book of Fate. He’s also the writer of the Justice League and the co-creator of the TV show, Jack & Bobby."

I should have a full article based on this interview, the book, and two events I went to with him by next week. The Q&A is after the break.

[Brad doing a book signing]
Scott: With the novels and comics, since they are so plot driven, how do you keep the characters motivated and keep it character driven.

Brad: For me the most important thing I do for each book is work those characters. Period. I have this plot, but the most important thing for the plot is the characters. I’ll spend 6 months doing character sketches and filling notebooks with details about eh character and 90 percent of those details you’ll never see in the novels. It’s about their favorite books, their crushes in high school who they liked when they were in college and who they thought they were when they were in college. Who they thought they were in high school and who they wanted to be. Most of them are little details but its those little details that make us who we are so I’m by the time I’m done I’ll do a dating game for all my characters and if I don’t have a different answer for all of them, what’s you favorite food, your favorite movie, your favorite book, what are your desires… if I don’t have a different answer for each character then I’m not done with the character.  Now that being said, if I do my job correctly then I don’t have to tell them what they should do. They tell me how they should react to the plot.  And I don’t care how good your plot is, if your reader does not care about the characters they will not follow that plot for five pages, but if your reader loves the character they will follow the worse plot for an entire book. They will follow that character for 1000 pages they will follow that character for another book just to see what they can do next. So for me, what I’m most proud of with this book isn’t the plot at all. The plot is window dressing. I’m most proud of Wes. It’s his transformation and that character and taking the character of every bad thriller that is out there and destroying that character in chapter one is a very conscious goal by me. This was me saying to the genre that this is stupid we do this every time that we have this almost superhuman character that saves the day in almost every single book. Everybody does it so I decided to wreck him in chapter one and see if I could take this shattered character do to the same thing. And that is what I’m most proud of with this book. The character work, not the plot part.

Scott: With Wes, other than the fact you did break him, which I found completely different from other novels, I thought it was externalizing too a lot of stuff you wouldn’t normally see. He has a scar on his face and is constantly conscious of it. Why go that route?

Brad: You know obviously the scar on his face is, and not to get too literary snobby here, is of course to signify what is going on inside of him so what he is on the outside is what he feels on the inside, but also from a story standpoint and this is just a personal part of it. What to say to my father. My father had cancer a few years back and he had a thing on his head and we didn’t know what it was. He was scared to go to the doctors and when he finally went they said it was a squamous cell cancer and they ended up cutting out of his forehead a hamburger size patty from his forehead. If you saw my dad today the first thing you will see is that scar that marks his fast is a big thing right here. Boom. And I’ve always been amazed at how much better he has dealt with it than I would have if in the same situation. That in many ways was how Wes was born. Somehow it just became something that happened and that’s the answer and that’s how I have that broken character. Obviously his whole journey is to not care about his face.

["Book of Fate" Press Kit and ARC Advance Copy]
Scott: How do you limit the number of characters and when there is too many and when you don’t have enough?

Brad: That’s like the pre-course definition of pornography. You know it when you see it. It really it’s a gut feeling you have to say I’m confusing my reader or my reader wants more.  I know in this novel it’s the most ambitious I’ve ever been with point of view and things like that. It follows two different villains from two different views and then the heroes. And on the hero’s side it follows Wes, Rogo’s view, and later Lisbeth. I’m all over inside all of these characters.   It was a lot of puzzle pieces but to me that was the fun of the book with watching each of these pieces smashing in the middle.

Scott: You don’t write the same book again, but your novels have a similar structure and tone. In that, how do you keep your character voices so unique? How do you keep Wes from “The Book of Fate” from sounding like Ben in “The Tenth Justice?”

Brad: That is why Wes was a character. I literally couldn’t start this book because I felt like I was re-writing my other books. I said that I pride myself that I don’t turn out a book every year. I pride myself on the fact that every book is different. Are they— can I be classified in a genre? I guess. I know they are all thrillers, but I like different worlds. And I couldn’t start this book until I figured out why Wes was different from every other character I’ve written. Then once I had that. Nico is a character I’ve never written before. I’ve never written anything close to that. Maybe its I’m getting older or maybe I’m getting wiser, or maybe its just dumb luck, but I look back at my other books and I say, you know I used to write villains which are scary when you meet them and you use them when you want to use them. I said you know what? Lets get into their point of view. In this novel you get as much information and motivation from my villains as you do the protagonist. I spent as much time working those villains as I did the other side.  I mean just yesterday someone said to me that when they got to the end of the book they were rooting for Nico. I just thought that was the best compliment I could get. They were on his side and he’s the craziest person ever. But when you have a person rooting for someone like that, you know you have a good villain.

Scott: Jumping around a little bit here…

Brad: Oh I’m sorry. I feel like I’m just going on about what you don’t want to hear.

Scott: No no no. It’s fine. It’s much better to have someone say too much that give me quotes that are way too short.  …I know you write comics but do you have any desire to do a creator owned comic book?

Brad: You know, if time was not an issue I would. But when I do the comics I love playing with those established toys. I love playing with Superman and Batman, but as much as I love that there is nothing like your own toy. Even though a creator owned book can be like that the novels are the houses I get to build brick by brick with my hands and I like that. My novels are my creator owned books. So I feel like when I play with comics I’m going to go play with the established toys and when I do the novels I’m going to build a house.  But if time weren’t an issue I probably would do creator owned comics and that’s something I may try to figure out in the future.

Scott: How much research do you do for the novels?

Brad: That’s why I can’t write a book a year. I could do a book a year but they would be garbage and this book was three years in the making and it took me six months of character work, almost two years of studying former presidents and trying to get with Clinton and Bush and studying LBJ and how Truman dealt with leaving the Whitehouse and it just took time. Even the Freemason stuff, to wave through all the nonsense to get to the facts took time. The research pays off, but it takes me about two years to get a book done.

Scott: What about the actual writing process?

Brad: The writing process, it all kind of happened at once.  Well the first six months there is no writing at all because of the research and character building. After that it takes me a year and a half to write the book.

Scott: How much would you say your novels change from the first draft till the final version?

Brad: They change… the main character tends to not change. The main character is who I understand the best and I know. So with this book its about Wes. From the moment I hit page one I’m foreshadowing the ending and I know where I’m going with him. What I did in the additional drafts was more than anything else is work the villains and make them more believable and then work the minor characters and make them more believable.  The reason for that is that with the first draft I’m short handing my writing. I’m so focused on that main character and the story I don’t take the time to worry about the other details.

Scott: When you are in the process of writing a novel. Do you do character first? Then mess with the story? Then do research? Then back to character? Or how do you do it?

Brad: I mean you do it all together but I always have some nugget. With this one I knew it was about a guy who died and then later comes back to life. I knew that was the jumping point. I liked that idea. Then I got a letter from former President Bush that said he likes my books. I don’t care what your politics are, but that’s a great letter to get. So in my mind, if you are the former president you get a free book. So I sent him one and a letter saying “Can I come see what your life is like?”  The way I saw it was that here was a guy who was the most powerful man in the world, but now he has so much free time that he can write me fan mail? I had to see what his life was like.  He was kind enough to let me and my wife go to Houston for a week to spend time with him and Barbra Bush. I also went up to Clinton’s office in Harlem and both were once in a life time opportunities. So at that point I was researching gossip columnist and I was convinced my story would star a gossip columnist, but after that I knew my main character would be an aide to a former president. From there the plot switched around and grew.

Scott: Being a fan of your novels, one of the things I was worried about was the dust jacket description which made it sound like-

Brad: Dan Brown.

Scott: Yes! I thought it was going to be Meltzer doing Brown, but I was like “no no no!”

Brad: Right and once you start reading it you see.

Scott: Yeah I got into it and was like “oh ok., phhhhhhew.”

Brad: The first thing about this is that I started this novel three years ago so I couldn’t have possibly copied anything. I didn’t know. I sort of just got lucky that Brown decided to make his next novel about Freemasons and set it in D.C.  Once I got started writing I had already read the DaVinci Code, but I was like “Boy do I need to not do that.” I will say that for the marketing of “The Book of Fate” its good for Warner to try and hit that audience, but it got to a point where I started complaining about it. I said, “your not being a fair the reader.”  –Have you seen the early jacket cover?

Scott: Yes. I had an early copy of the novel and that’s why I was so worried.

Brad: Right. The early galley doesn’t make the novel sound like me. I told them to get rid of that because it was miss leading people and it’s not the book I wrote. That’s when they realized I was right.  The nicest compliment I’ve gotten about that is that I use that whole thing as a red herring in the novel.

[Book party at the Freemasons Temple/Headquarters in D.C., Brad is in the pink on the left]

Scott: Why even get involved with the Freemasons and bring them into the story at all?

Brad: Because I just thought it was awesome. I thought it was a part of American history. As a history major I thought it was incredible. I mean what it is in the book is an incredible seed for something mysterious and its unexplainable. Two hundred years ago they marked the streets of D.C. and to this day, no one knows why. The Freemasons will say they marked it and point a pentagram to mark the city to say its protected, but you can only see it from above. Back then air travel didn’t exist. So either the Freemasons anticipated air travel by a hundred years or they thought aliens were coming. Either way there is no rational explanation for doing that. I love that. And the idea that eight signers of the Declaration of Independence, 9 signers of the U.S. Constitution and 15 former presidents were Freemasons, that’s craziness. I mean out of 43 presidents, that’s crazy.

Scott: That is a large chunk of them.

Brad: Yeah it’s a huge percentage. That’s what drew my intention and that’s why I wanted to bring the reader in to see it as Nico’s view. I wanted them to get into the whole conspiracy, but I wanted them to scare themselves.

Scott:  Speaking of views, why did you write the novel with both first and third person views?

Brad: You know I did “The Tenth Justice” in all third person. “Dead Even” was third person with two points of view. But I wanted to try first person so “First Counsel” was all first person. “Millionaires” was written first person with two points of view. Then with “Zero Game” I decided to do both first person and third person. With this one I wanted do first and third and not kill anyone off as a main character. The truth of it is, I think I switch it up because I don’t want to write the same book. If you said to me, what scares me more than anything, it would be being the author that churns out a book every year and gets worse and worse with every book. That’ my fear and I will do anything I can to make sure I’m never in that rut. I’ll write a new character, I’ll change points of view so I’m interested and that’s just the way I see it.

Scott: Now you said earlier that you were a history major? How did you go from that to writing?

Brad: I went to a job. I came out of college with some debts. I went to a guy in Boston who was working for a game magazine. He said come work here. I’ll teach you about this world and I thought what a great deal. He said if you love it you stay and if not you leave with some money in your pocket. It was a great deal. I moved to Boston and I had no idea about what I would do with my time. I decided to write a novel. It was a complete lark. Everyone has a novel in them and I decided I was going to write mine. My first novel got 24 rejection letters. There were only 20 publishers at the time so four of them sent me two rejection letters just so I would get the point that they weren’t interested. It was a disaster, but I realized in that year that I loved it. So I decided I would write another, but that first book still sits on my shelf published by Kinkos. But with that first book I realized I loved writing. So after that I started the book that later became “The Tenth Justice.” With that I just got lucky.

Scott: Now I’ve seen you mention a lot of places that you’ve lived. Where did you actually grow up?

Brad: I grew up in Brooklyn till I was 13 then I moved to Miami. My dad lost his job and uh at forty years old he had 1200 dollars to his name. He took myself, my mom, my sister and me. We got into the car. We had no where to live, we ended up in Florida and started our lives over form scratch. Then after college and law school I moved here to D.C. Well actually my first job was here in D.C. and then after law school my wife and I lived in Maryland for ten years.

Scott: where did you go to law school and why there form a history degree?

Brad: I was a history major in undergrad. I took year off to work at that magazine. Then I went to law school.

Scott: So if you went to law school after working at the magazine is that where you wrote “Tenth Justice?”

Brad: In law school. It was a crazy year in law school. I didn’t write it the first year. I wrote half of it the second year and then finished it up.

Scott: Out of all the novels you have written, which is your favorite?

Brad: It’s like choosing your own child.

Scott: Well, which are you proudest of? Or what aspects of all your writing are you proudest of?

Brad: What I love about “Tenth Justice” is that its my first. I didn’t know anything about writing and I didn’t know anything about thrillers. It’s pure instinct. It was almost no plotting. I just jumped into the deep end of the pool to see if I could swim. I love that its raw in that sense. But when I look at “The First Counsel” I think it’s the first book where I learned how to write and I was in control of what I was doing. I was conscious of every move as opposed to just this is my intake and lets go with it.  I also have to say “Book of Fate” for characters, well Nora from “The First Counsel” and Wes from “Book of Fate” are the characters I’m proudest of that I’ve ever written. I think they are characters that even now, I can’t let go of. Like with Wes, I’ve not written him in almost a year and I’m still thinking about him. 

Scott: What other jobs have you had, even odd jobs?

Brad: My favorite, I worked for four years in high school scooping ice cream.

Scott: Oh that’s great. Being from Ocean City I know exactly what that’s like.

Brad: Well tell me if you did this then. When a customer was a real jackass to you did you use your pinky to break off the bottom of their cone?

Scott: Oh my god yes. I would do that with sugar cones.

Brad: Right so then twenty feet away the ice cream would drip all over their shirt. That was my passive aggressive move.

Scott: Man, I’ve dealt with nasty nasty tourist before I would do that all the time. That’s funny to think you went from that to a world famous author. Actually, now that I think about it, do you have any advice for would-be-writers?

Brad: I had 24 people send me rejection letters. I had 24 people tell me not to write and that I should give it up. I don’t look back on it and say “I was right and you were wrong. Hahahah.” That’s a pig headed way to look at it. But what I take away from it is that in life there are exceptions. All I took me to eventually break in was for one person to say “yes.”  What I think every writer should do, is that they shouldn’t let anyone tell them, “no.” Life is completely subjective and its just one persons opinion. Its cliché, but you won’t ever reach your dreams if you don’t chase them.

Scott: Any advice on getting an agent?

Brad: I’ll spare you my full agent chaos story, but here is the best trick. Go find a book of someone who writes in your sense of humor, your tone, your sensibility, or whatever it is that you think it is and check the hardcover acknowledgments. You will see that they will all thank their agents and that’s how you get an agent. That’s how you find agents who have good people working for them.

Scott: Why should readers pick up “The Book of Fate?”

Brad: Why should someone pick up any book? Good characters and good stories. That’s it. If I can’t say it’s a good story or say it’s going to keep you turning the pages then I didn’t do my job. I always say go to www.bradmelzter.com, my website, and read the first chapter. If I don’t have you by chapter one then I don’t deserve to have you for chapter two and I’ll always put my work where my mouth is and if I don’t have you then that’s it.

Scott: When is “Jack and Bobby” coming out on DVD?

Brad: Awww man. Everyone asks me that. I don’t know what they are doing. There was a point where they said they were doing it and now I’ve not heard anything. And once you get canceled I’m sure you go to the bottom of the priority list. The good side of that is that once you get canceled you get labeled a cult classic.  Even so, it was a fantastic and humbling experience. Unfortunately, only you and my mother watched.

Scott: Anything else you’d like to say about any of the topics we talked about?

Brad: No. I think that’s pretty much it. More importantly, thank you for reading the book. Anything I say is nonsense. What is important is what is between the covers. I would say, don’t believe the hype, the press kits they send you or anything I say. Just read the book and make up your mind. If you read the book, which you have, then nothing in this interview matters. I mean you know what I’m talking about. You saw the original galley for the back of the cover. You’re like “what the hell is that?” Even I was surprised by it.

Scott: Seriously. I was so worried it wasn’t going to be you.

Brad: Of course, but you’ll see now in the real version that its fixed. Nothing from that first galley was in the book. I got it and I was like, “What are you doing? I understand you think you got something here but you’re tricking the readers.”