Robert Gregory Browne is a man of many talents. He’s had a successful life as a Hollywood screenwriter, until one day, he decided to give the old pen and pad a try for a new kind of writing medium: the novel. And the rest, as they say, is history. Robert has now become a big international success story with novels like Kiss Her Goodbye, Whisper in the Dark, and the upcoming, Kill Her Again.
Signing books at the Santa Barbara Book Festival, from left to right: Authors Gayle Lynds, Michael Mehas, and Robert Gregory Browne
Robert was terrific with poignancy and craft as he spoke this past weekend as part of the Thriller/Mystery panel discussion at the Santa Barbara Book and Author Festival. Afterwards, I had the opportunity to discuss with Robert some of the secrets of his success, which we now bring to you. To learn more about Robert, please visit his Web site at www.robertgregorybrowne.com.
1) You worked in Hollywood for many years as a screenwriter. What would you say are the major differences between writing for the screen and writing a novel?
When you write for the screen, you’re generally writing under someone else’s direction. It’s true that you might originate an idea or even write the first draft, but after that, all bets are off. You are at the mercy of producers, studio executives and the director and actors if the project gets that far. Which is another problem. Few projects ever get that far and your work winds up on somebody’s shelf, never to be read again. If you’re lucky enough that the project DOES progress, then nine times out of ten you will be fired and another writer or two or three will be brought in to “improve” the script. This particular pill is easier to swallow, of course, because they pay you a boatload of money. But it is creatively unsatisfying, to put it mildly.
When writing a novel, you’re basically on your own. You originate the story, you find the right tone, you create the characters, and there is never the threat that someone down the line will be replacing you or that a director will be changing the work to fit his “vision” and claim ownership. Once the first draft is done, you get the benefit of an objective eye — your editor — to help you make improvements. But what I was amazed to discover when I got into publishing was that the decisions were ultimately up to me. If I chose not to make changes, so be it. I was regularly told that it’s MY book and that I should do what I think is best for the work. Now, more often than not, that means agreeing to the changes because a good editor will find flaws in story logic and characterization that the writer is too close to see. But I’ve been fortunate so far that most of the changes requested for my books have been minimal. Simple housekeeping tasks. And I can honestly say that the books came from ME and no one else. They are my babies and I’m happy to accept praise or blame for them.
On a storytelling front, novels and screenplays are very different animals. Screenplays are restricted. Screen stories tend to be external and abbreviated and move in a linear fashion. You have only so much time to tell the story and it all has to be seen or conveyed through dialog and the characters’ internal thought processes are left out (unless you’re watching a really bad movie where everyone tells you exactly what they’re feeling).
With a novel you have a lot of room. Your characters can go anywhere. The reader knows exactly what they’re thinking and feeling because you are inside their (the characters’) heads. You can jump forward and back in time without resorting to cinematic trickery. You can get deep into the character development and really allow your readers to know who they are and why they do what they do. Why they react the way they react. Writing a novel is freedom. And it’s a wonderful feeling to have that freedom.
2. It appears as though you have a large international fan base. What is it about your writing that appeals to an international audience?
I write crossover books. Books that straddle a couple of different genres. They tend to be viewed as crime fiction, but I also throw in a bit of the supernatural or metaphysical to keep things lively. And I think readers, particularly in Europe, tend to like these kinds of books, and I know they’re getting more popular over here. In Britain, you’ll find that there’s a long history — at least in television and radio (they still do audio drama there) — of cross-genre stuff. You’ve got great shows like Dr. Who, which has been around for decades, that tends to bend the genres quite a bit. So I think people in Europe are more inclined to suspend their disbelief than Americans might be — although that’s certainly changing fast. If you look at the romantic suspense field here in the U.S., you’ll find all kinds of genre-bending work. And readers are devouring it. And that’s beginning to spill over to the so-called mainstream readers. Then, of course, you have writers like Dean Koontz, who is extremely popular and has been doing this kind of stuff forever. And TV shows like Heroes and Supernatural and Fringe, that regularly explore similar territory.
3. I noticed you have a Weblog at murderati.com. Why do you write a blog?
Well, Murderati is a group blog, so I only show up twice a month, every other Wednesday. I used to have my own blog, Anatomy of a Book Deal, but it became too time-consuming. What you don’t realize until you get a publishing deal is that it’s very tough to find time to do much more than write novels. Because writing novels isn’t simply sitting down and writing. It’s rewriting, editing, going through the copy edits, proofing the galleys. By the time the book gets to publication, you have probably read it at least half a dozen times, and that’s not a task that’s very time-friendly. So writing a daily blog is no longer possible.
The reason for writing the blog? First, it’s a great way to express yourself immediately, at a gut level often, and pretty much discuss anything you want to. It’s kind of a nice break from writing fiction. But another reason for writing a blog is because it gives you exposure. When I was writing Anatomy of a Book Deal, I was regularly getting 30,000 unique hits a month. That’s UNIQUE hits, which generally means 30,000 people were reading the thing. That’s A LOT of exposure. And, hopefully, a lot of potential fiction readers.
4. You’ve mentioned that you like to write “reversals” in your stories. Could you explain to a novice writer what a reversal is, and how it works?
A reversal simply means putting a spin on the reader’s expectations. At the panel you and I did together, I mentioned William Goldman’s example of a reversal and I think it’s a great one: you’ve got a guy trapped in a cage and there’s a key hanging on the wall next to it that’s JUST out of reach. So the guy does everything he can, spends forever coming up with a way to reach that damn key, and when he finally, miraculously has it in hand, he sticks it in the cage’s lock and — oops, it’s the wrong key. He’s still trapped.
5. Your first novel had a metaphysical twist. And you advertise as writing thrillers with a supernatural twist? What is it about the metaphysical and the supernatural that makes you want to write about them?
The first book, KISS HER GOODBYE, actually grew out a sense of panic. I was looking for screenplay ideas at the time, sent off a bunch of one-liners to my agent and manager and the next day they had a conference call with me saying, you know, you really need to come up with something more interesting than these. We doubt we can sell any of these ideas.
So, in a panic, I sat down and came up with about four or five ideas that I thought would be fairly mind-blowing, and one of the ways to do that, it seemed, was to throw in an unexpected supernatural twist. Not in a crass, commercial way, but in a way that was organic. That GREW out of the story. If it didn’t make sense to the story, I wouldn’t bother with it.
KISS HER GOODBYE was one of those ideas and when I pitched it to a friend, novelist and screenwriter Kathy Mackel, she said, “Jeez, you should write this as a novel.” I had never written a novel at the time, but I had wanted to for decades and the thought intrigued me. So, at her prompting I finished the thing and before I knew it I had a publishing deal. I haven’t looked back since.
The next book, WHISPER IN THE DARK — which will be out in February in the U.S. (it’s already out in Europe) — was also one of those ideas, but the final book is decidedly different from the original premise. And the third, KILL HER AGAIN (May 2009 in the UK and Sept. 2009 in the U.S.), is the book that leans most heavily toward the supernatural, and is, I hope, one heck of a ride for the reader.
I do think, however, that the word supernatural is misleading. When most people hear it, they think ghosts and goblins and vampires and the like. I don’t have any ghosts or goblins or vampires in my books and don’t know if I ever will. But I am drawn to the unexplained. And I guess, in a way, my books are my meager attempt to explain the unexplainable….
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