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00:00:15
Today we welcome on his second ever Pub day.
00:00:20
Welcome to the podcast. Connor Sullivan.
00:00:24
Thanks for having me, guys. We're excited because I read.
00:00:30
Sleeping Bear, right? When it came out was flat-out.
00:00:34
Impressed love the book and I've been savoring and waiting for
00:00:38
some more of your stories and I got Chris to read it and the
00:00:41
minute he read. It said man we got to have this
00:00:43
guy on the Pod so we're making that a reality today.
00:00:47
Awesome. Well thanks for having me guys.
00:00:50
Yeah, thanks for taking your time out of your busy day on Pub
00:00:53
day. Congrats on that.
00:00:54
He's okay. By the time you guys are
00:00:56
listening to this podcast, go out and get your copy of Wolf
00:00:59
Trap, great book. And we weren't able to get you
00:01:03
on when Sleeping Bear come out. So I hope you know, will take
00:01:06
some time to discuss that I but obviously we want we want to dig
00:01:10
into wolftrap, you know, that being your this year's novel.
00:01:12
But we have a lot of questions about Sleeping Bear.
00:01:14
So yeah, let me start with just tell us who is Connor Sullivan
00:01:18
for people out there who I haven't read either of your
00:01:21
books, you kind of exploded onto the scene.
00:01:24
You've got Emily Besler on your team, David, the publicist, our
00:01:27
readers, are very aware of both of those voices in the industry.
00:01:31
So how did this all begin for you?
00:01:34
This probably my writing Journey probably game began about 10
00:01:38
years ago when I was 21. My goal before that was to make
00:01:44
the Olympics. And skiing, I got kind of close
00:01:47
and then I broke my leg and then when was not able to rehab to
00:01:53
compete at the level I was at, so I had to retire from that at
00:01:56
around age, 20 21. And that's kind of, when I, you
00:02:00
know, I think deep in the back of my mind, I always wanted to
00:02:03
be a writer, my dad's, a writer. But, you know, I was really into
00:02:08
reading like, Vince Flynn, Brad for those type of books.
00:02:13
And I just kind of just want, you know what, I'm gonna take a
00:02:16
run at this and, you know, of course, Eight years, nine years
00:02:21
later I'm published. But yeah, I went to school for
00:02:25
it. I at the time I kind of wanted
00:02:28
to get into film in Hollywood. I dip my toes in that a little
00:02:31
bit. It wasn't for me, move back home
00:02:34
to Montana or I grew up and wrote Sleeping Bear, many, many
00:02:39
times. But I would say when I move back
00:02:42
to Montana a couple about 45 years ago, that's when I put
00:02:46
about six months into do the draft of Sleeping Bear, that
00:02:49
ended up getting. Wished.
00:02:52
So, that's kind of me. Yeah, we can definitely tell,
00:02:55
you know, in Sleeping Bear obviously mainly set in Alaska,
00:02:58
but, you know, obviously, your Montana Roots really came
00:03:00
through and I noticed that I was talking to Mike that.
00:03:04
I really thought Alaska itself became a character in that
00:03:08
novel. And we're, you know, we, this is
00:03:12
the No Limits pod, but we've also we've broken down every the
00:03:15
Trap novel, we're in the middle of doing all of Brad's Brad's
00:03:19
novels and we love a good. Eddie and I really enjoyed, you
00:03:24
know, just being immersed in that area.
00:03:27
I felt like, you know, you were taking me there and I could
00:03:30
visualize it, you know, perfectly.
00:03:33
Yeah, I get that. I get that a lot.
00:03:35
People always say, you know, Alaska as a setting or Montana
00:03:39
as a setting. Yeah.
00:03:41
I mean, I'm just kind of it with the Montana stuff.
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I'm just kind of putting up the mirror to what, you know, my
00:03:47
life is like, you know, in kind of one of the more remote states
00:03:50
in the world and the country. You know, with the Alaska thing
00:03:53
I think I'll people are always shocked to find out that that
00:03:55
area of Alaska that I wrote about I've never went there.
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Oh wow, really. Yeah, when I was writing
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Sleeping Bear, I had no money and no money to travel to
00:04:05
Alaska. So, I just started like reading
00:04:09
a ton about that area and then cold calling people who live in
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Eagle Alaska. Hmm.
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I was watching a lot of Alaska State Troopers to understand
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that and then, you know, just cold calling these people and
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it's pretty amazing. What people, you know, when you
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call them explain, who you are that time, I was not published
00:04:28
or even close to being published and, you know, I would just kind
00:04:31
of ask them. Russians about the profession
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and then say 99% of them, they love to talk about themselves
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and their jobs and especially, you know, a cool job Like a
00:04:41
Village public. Safety officer who gets by bush,
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plane everywhere in Alaska. So yeah, yeah.
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That that level of research really signs through how much I
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felt on the ground. You even added a flare of the
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indigenous, the local cultures you had the trooper who is kind
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of ruining the culture of the Town, bringing all of his
00:05:02
Problems there. Yeah and it as you spoke it
00:05:05
reminded me of an early Vince Flynn you know since he brought
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up that you were a fan he was grinding it out you know in
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Minnesota selling books out of the back of his trunk he just he
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was going to make this thing happen and his research.
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He just kind of wrote to the CIA.
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He was like hey is there anybody who I can meet with who will
00:05:21
just break us down and explain it?
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And we had on this podcast, Rob richer who took him in and later
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would become the chief of the near East Division.
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Something betrayal, you know, is very closely connected to and
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Really see a lot of that. Hustle in what you're saying,
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how do you change that up for Wolf Trap?
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Because you're going to South Arabia, you know, it's almost
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like Palace Intrigue. I felt like the way you captured
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Alaska. Not just Alaska politics, but
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Alaska life and culture. You kind of got a piece of that
00:05:48
here with the Saudi Arabian government.
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You really took us inside of their Dynamics, their
00:05:53
relationships and, and the power plays.
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Yeah. You know, again, you know, I,
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you know, I got my, I got a two-book deal with Emily.
00:06:02
Besler in, I think it was 2019 or early 2020, you know, and I
00:06:08
finally had the money to do research, right?
00:06:10
And then covid. So once again, I was not able to
00:06:14
leave my house and I get I just I just, you know, devoured books
00:06:20
on Saudi Arabia, the Saudi royal family.
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And I'm also very lucky. I have a amazing network of
00:06:27
people who helped me with my books, family friends that have
00:06:31
known forever. Of theirs that I became very
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close with over the years, you know, a lot of these guys, they
00:06:38
have been in Afghanistan for 20 years, they retire.
00:06:41
And they come to Montana, bunch of them, are our neighbors, and
00:06:45
they have, you know, this knowledge that is hasn't really
00:06:50
been seen before. In fiction, you do see it
00:06:53
sometimes but you know I was able to really kind of get a
00:06:57
peek behind the Looking Glass into ground branch and not just
00:07:01
ground Branch with people. He's very high up.
00:07:03
You know number three at the CIA, stuff like that who you
00:07:08
know can lead me in the right direction of a person who worked
00:07:11
with the Saudis who go to these Saudi palaces.
00:07:15
So I'd always put, I'd always kind of put in these little
00:07:19
Easter eggs into what some of my friends have experienced out of
00:07:22
Saudi Palace, you know, I don't know if it made the Final Cut of
00:07:26
wolftrap, but there there was a couple sentences about, you
00:07:31
know, you go into The big palaces and you're in the most
00:07:35
you know amazing room you've ever been in and you know you
00:07:39
think you're going to get served the best meal in the world and
00:07:42
the Saudis are notorious for when they invite Americans
00:07:46
they'll get like a thousand Big Mac you know her McDonald's it's
00:07:53
just big Donald's and they're like look who we got and you
00:07:56
know all these high-level American diplomats or you know
00:07:59
CIA guys are back. Okay.
00:08:02
Thank you, like, you know, so I, you know, it's just little
00:08:05
things like that, that I, you know, kind of like, the like
00:08:09
latch onto and put in my books, you know, to follow that up.
00:08:13
Something else you've put in both books?
00:08:16
Is this firm connection? Not exactly a one-to-one with
00:08:20
reality, but very close hints. I mean, as I think through it,
00:08:25
you had a khashoggi style character here.
00:08:27
Even a name that was similar. You've got a Crown Prince kind
00:08:31
of reminding me of MBS even got a Joe manchin type of character.
00:08:36
This West Virginia politician. I feel like you're making some
00:08:40
really, really close analogies here to the real world.
00:08:44
Is that something you've done purposefully has that just come
00:08:48
through your writing or were you doing?
00:08:50
I feel like you were doing it consciously.
00:08:51
I mean, you even had Putin, you know, ya book one, Putin in a
00:08:54
bathrobe yeah yeah with the Sleeping Bear of the Putin
00:08:58
thing. Yeah.
00:08:59
That was definitely something but in Really had to tone that
00:09:03
down a lot, really? Okay.
00:09:05
And we'll, you made me, Emma is like look, we don't want you
00:09:08
getting poison. So yeah, that scene I did change
00:09:11
that to make it more palatable but still pretty funny thing
00:09:16
about good. Yeah, we got the point in terms
00:09:20
of Wolf Trap and you know, I I would say that every single
00:09:24
event that happened in Wolf Trap is based on a real event that
00:09:29
I've heard on the news but mostly through To my network of
00:09:33
friends. The craziest thing that you
00:09:37
wouldn't think is real happened and I think and you know, I
00:09:41
always, you know, some of you like well you know, this that
00:09:43
was seemed kind of outlandish like how could you you know
00:09:47
shoot a dead body and make it look real?
00:09:48
Well that was real that was based off of Something my friend
00:09:53
did and had to do so. You know, it.
00:09:57
And then the khashoggi I wanted to write, you know, about the
00:10:01
royal family and their corruption what they're doing.
00:10:06
You know, at first in the early drafts of it, I didn't even
00:10:08
change their names. It was the people, I was
00:10:11
khashoggi. It was that and then I.
00:10:13
Yeah. And then I changed it because I
00:10:14
was like, I don't want to get, you know, whacked.
00:10:18
So I just, you know, I had to change their names and then And
00:10:22
I kind of took what happened? And then extrapolated it like
00:10:25
what would happen if khashoggi lived, you know, what if they
00:10:27
were able to get to him a couple days before?
00:10:31
So I just kind of did I took reality and I tweaked it a
00:10:35
little bit and I extrapolated, you know, it and I made it kind
00:10:39
of a little bit bigger than life in certain spots but yeah,
00:10:44
definitely did it on purpose so I thought so yeah.
00:10:49
Yes, I wanted to ask you, you know, both of these are
00:10:52
stand-alones that kind of makes you want to call it outlier, but
00:10:55
just a little bit different, I guess we're especially in this
00:10:58
folder. Thriller genre, people tend to
00:11:01
write series. Was that like a conscious thing
00:11:03
that you wanted to do? Or did you, you want to write a
00:11:06
novel? Because we could have more
00:11:08
Cassie and papa gay like that they seem in in Sleeping Bear.
00:11:13
You know. I just assumed we were going to
00:11:15
get more of them, but you know, what was your thought process
00:11:18
for that? Yeah, so we're sleeping bear.
00:11:21
You know, that was just a weird idea that came to me you know I
00:11:25
just the concept was so kind of outlandish and I wanted to just
00:11:29
try to make it seem as plausible as possible.
00:11:33
The the Brian room character and Wolf Trap.
00:11:35
I've had that character in my head for, you know, ten years
00:11:39
and you know, at the time it was like a Navy SEAL, he was like a
00:11:43
Navy SEAL and then, you know, all that kind of got really.
00:11:48
You know, there's a lot of that going on right now with, you
00:11:51
know, jack cars, Navy SEAL, Brad Thor.
00:11:54
So I want to do something a little bit different and I
00:11:56
always wanted to write this book.
00:11:58
So I knew, when I finish Sleeping Bear, I was going to
00:12:00
take a stab at, you know, this character in a completely
00:12:04
different Standalone. And I am writing a sequel to
00:12:07
Wolf Trap right now about halfway done with that.
00:12:10
So I will be doing hopefully, you know, a series with the
00:12:14
Brian room character is, you know, if people are buying it
00:12:17
all, keep keep. Eating it and, you know, writing
00:12:20
Sleeping Bear. I never intended it to be a
00:12:24
series. I just thought it was going to
00:12:25
be a standalone. I mean, you guys have to
00:12:27
understand, I was writing Sleeping Bear.
00:12:29
I thought I had a better chance of like winning the Powerball
00:12:32
then getting it public. So it wasn't like, it was
00:12:34
nothing in my head of like, AA, man, the sequel.
00:12:37
No, it was just, I'm going to write this thing.
00:12:39
No one's ever going to see. It's going to go in the bottom
00:12:42
of the drawer or whatever. So I was just very lucky with
00:12:45
that. But, you know, I that being said
00:12:48
I do, I think I will eventually write a sequel to Sleeping Bear.
00:12:52
I just have to figure out, you know what?
00:12:54
I'm going to write about, you know?
00:12:57
So right now, I almost appreciate that, you know, just
00:13:00
wanting to tell a good story and you could tell that you had a
00:13:03
good story and you weren't worried about this universe
00:13:07
where we live in the world of Ip right now and it's all about,
00:13:10
you know, what can we do dollar dollar dollars?
00:13:13
How can we? I mean obviously you know with
00:13:15
I'm very interested in this room character going forward.
00:13:17
So I'm going to keep buying Your books but you know I just
00:13:20
appreciated you know, this is the telling of a good story.
00:13:23
We don't I don't often see that now especially in the genre so
00:13:28
well, thank you. Yeah.
00:13:29
And I think, you know, I did want to try to do two different
00:13:33
stand-alones for my first two books, I have not really seen
00:13:36
that in the genre ever, right? So, we'll see if it works.
00:13:43
Yeah, and something Chris brought up to me when we were
00:13:45
talking about the books and we were both at Like whoa, wait,
00:13:49
this is a standalone. It's not book to and and we were
00:13:52
kind of like, well that makes it very accessible, you know,
00:13:55
sometimes if you're trying to introduce a reader to Scott
00:13:59
Horvath and they're like, whoa, there's 20, whatever books.
00:14:02
Where do I even begin? It could be a barrier or it can
00:14:05
seem overwhelming. It's kind of cool that you have
00:14:08
these different stories, you know.
00:14:09
Hey, what are you into? If someone's into more female
00:14:11
protagonist Army Ranger kind of family?
00:14:15
Dynamic, go there or brought in Rome, you know, Of someone
00:14:19
dealing with a lot of personal struggles who kind of isolated
00:14:22
himself. Mmm, you're kind of, you're
00:14:25
throwing a lot at the wall and seeing what sticks.
00:14:27
A lot of it is sticking and that's going to allow different
00:14:29
entry points for different types of readers.
00:14:31
Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, yeah.
00:14:35
Although I see some similarities now that I think about it.
00:14:38
Cassie Gail also is kind of going off onto her own, you talk
00:14:41
about doing something different, I feel like something else
00:14:44
different you've brought to the genre with both characters their
00:14:48
kind of Owners and there's a lot of solitude in in each of them
00:14:52
and sometimes that's very healthy, sometimes it is
00:14:56
unhealthy and you've kind of been playing with that idea.
00:14:59
Is that something in your storytelling?
00:15:01
That just comes naturally? Is it something you identify
00:15:04
with? Because both characters they
00:15:05
wanted to escape in a sense not just escape the bad stuff but
00:15:08
even Escape was there therapy. You know, with Cassie going out
00:15:12
on this trip, was that something you're aware of and because that
00:15:15
really came through in your writing, that's interesting.
00:15:17
I never had Anyone kind of put it like that, you know, that
00:15:22
might be coming from, you know, me and my life.
00:15:25
I mean, I went I kind of left Hollywood to go, you know, shack
00:15:30
up in Montana and write books, you know, I kind of just put
00:15:34
everything into it. I, you know, I didn't have a
00:15:36
back-up plan, it was just this. So maybe that was and I did, you
00:15:41
know, I really cut down on my social life and I really put a
00:15:44
lot of time, you know, into learning the craft.
00:15:47
So maybe that's It's some of it just you know veteran friends
00:15:52
I've had who you know are getting out of you know, years
00:15:58
in Conflict zones. They they they do isolate
00:16:02
themselves and I've seen it and you know, that's not a very good
00:16:05
place to you know, have them be a you need, they need help a lot
00:16:09
of the times. And so I think I think that
00:16:11
isolation had to do, you know with my life and a little bit,
00:16:14
what I was seeing, you know, some of my friends go through.
00:16:19
But yeah, I could see that it takes on that personal level
00:16:22
that empathetic level for, yeah. I guess just to follow up on
00:16:27
that. Like what would you say makes a
00:16:29
Connor Sullivan book, like what water, what was it?
00:16:33
What is it? Got to have to be a Connor
00:16:35
Sullivan book. I don't I don't even know if I
00:16:38
know that yet. I feel like Connor component
00:16:40
doesn't really know what he's doing yet.
00:16:42
He's they're not fair enough throwing things at the wall and
00:16:45
seeing what sticks and I would say, right now it's just my
00:16:48
research, I research so much and to the point where it's like
00:16:55
pretty much Much just high-level procrastination of not, right.
00:17:00
But, you know, I know, I think that when I decided to write in
00:17:05
the genre, you know I went back. And this is probably seven.
00:17:10
Yeah, seven or eight years ago when I decided to go into the
00:17:13
genre, you know, I went to Barnes and Noble and I bought
00:17:16
every paperback. I could of, you know, Vince
00:17:20
Flynn the Brad Thor's, you know, everything.
00:17:24
And I just kind of just went Page by Page, making notes of
00:17:28
the red pen, for months of like, you know, what's here, what's
00:17:31
not? What can I add to this?
00:17:34
You know, in, as a young guy breaking The genre because you
00:17:38
still want to do it, have it be the same, but you want it to be
00:17:41
different, you wanted to have your, you want to have your own
00:17:43
kind of spin on it. And I and that's just kind of
00:17:47
what I did. I just, you know, and whatever
00:17:50
that process led me to, and I guess that that put me here.
00:17:54
So the process is working across the process as they say.
00:18:00
So I like, we like a cow a good cover on this book.
00:18:03
I got to be honest, we a big part of our podcast is we like
00:18:06
to not judge the book by the cover, but judge the cover by
00:18:09
the book. And I think all three that I've
00:18:11
seen because I've seen two covers for sleeping there.
00:18:14
I'm not aware if there's any more but those are rock-solid.
00:18:17
The wolftrap one is awesome. I'm vibing with all of them, you
00:18:22
tell us how much input you had on that.
00:18:24
What was it? Like when you first saw the
00:18:26
designs in the mock-ups where you overall satisfied with how
00:18:29
these came out Out. Oh yeah, I love every single
00:18:34
cover. They've given me.
00:18:36
I have had zero say and everything that has been done.
00:18:39
I have not processed, trust me. Yes, I haven't even been able to
00:18:45
name. One of my books, that's all
00:18:47
Simon & Schuster. So I'm Stu really.
00:18:51
Yeah. I'm 0 for 2 on that.
00:18:52
They didn't like Anyway names, which is fine.
00:18:55
But yeah, I really, you know, I was I love the blue.
00:19:00
Her on the paperback of sleeping embarrass.
00:19:03
I would I kind of wish that was the, you know, original one
00:19:06
because when they show me that I was like, that's incredible.
00:19:09
Like, that's an incredible line. And then with Wolf Trap, I just
00:19:13
I loved it. It wasn't actually, until I got
00:19:16
the hardcovers couple weeks ago of wolftrap that I noticed that
00:19:20
some of the Wolves of Judges floating in the snow, there's no
00:19:23
prints behind them. So I wish I woulda caught that,
00:19:26
I never caught that and I haven't had anyone catch it
00:19:29
either. But if you look really carefully
00:19:31
at the tracks going through, oh yeah.
00:19:35
There's Bear Tracks heading up and that's kind of a no Maj to
00:19:38
Sleeping Bear. There's wolf tracks and said A
00:19:41
Bear Tracks heading up which I thought was pretty cool man.
00:19:45
I mean the Shadows to are a nice touch because the Shadows make
00:19:48
you think they're really there. Where if you're missing a detail
00:19:51
like the tracks in the wrong place, it doesn't even matter.
00:19:54
Yeah because the Shadows make it look real.
00:19:56
Yeah but yeah I love the Wolf Trap cover I think.
00:20:00
It was so great. So I guess you kind of touched
00:20:04
on something that you know, we've we've got we ask this
00:20:07
question, almost everyone with that on but you're the first one
00:20:10
to like, sort of be honest with us.
00:20:11
But what sort of goes through that process of like naming a
00:20:14
book like you you come and say this is what I want and they're
00:20:18
like, I like this one instead. Like, how does it work?
00:20:23
And it happened to Vince Flynn. His first book term limits.
00:20:25
He had a god-awful title for and it was before he published a
00:20:30
thing was friends or somebody was There's no way you're using
00:20:33
that title. I think with stand up for your
00:20:34
rights or something, his first book.
00:20:36
Yeah, it's a radical. And they were like, no way.
00:20:39
So funny. Yeah.
00:20:41
The for Sleeping Bear. I didn't even have a title.
00:20:46
I think when I send it into my agent, I just, I was like, I
00:20:50
can't figure out what like, what this could be called because I
00:20:54
mean the book like kind of invades multiple genres, and I
00:20:59
just didn't understand. And then my agents came up.
00:21:01
Of Sleeping Bear. And I thought that was just
00:21:05
genius. And then I went back and kind of
00:21:06
Incorporated the new title into the book a little bit.
00:21:10
And then with Wolf Trap, I had a completely different name for
00:21:14
it. Based off the name of the
00:21:16
operation. That was being carried out, and
00:21:20
then Simon & Schuster, kind of put the gave like the know on
00:21:25
that pretty quick. Once I handed the manuscript and
00:21:27
then what did I do? That was right.
00:21:30
So they were like it's going to be called Wolf Trap and I kind
00:21:35
of just like blinked and I was like there's no wolves in my
00:21:38
book and they're like 102 rewriting.
00:21:43
So I put their my book, that works out because judging a
00:21:48
cover by the book, we always say it.
00:21:51
Has to relate to the setting and the scene and I'm now I didn't
00:21:55
see this connection until you brought that up.
00:21:58
I'm now feeling like I'm Brian Rome, you know?
00:22:00
I'm on. That ledge on.
00:22:02
I'm having that bird's eye view down at the Wolfpack and looking
00:22:06
at this cover. Now I'm kind of freaked out
00:22:07
because I didn't think about it that way.
00:22:10
And it goes back to this idea of that.
00:22:12
I said, it's almost like a psychological Thriller with what
00:22:14
he's going through with the depth of emotion.
00:22:17
You take us to where you going for a psychological Thriller
00:22:20
because when we're in, Bryan, Rome's head, it's really
00:22:23
captivating. Yeah, I mean that's one of the
00:22:27
things that I really, you know, when I was studying the genre,
00:22:32
one thing I really noticed were a lot of cardboard characters, a
00:22:37
lot of not a lot of what's going on in this person's head and why
00:22:41
so, you know, I wanted to take a stab at kind of doing more of a
00:22:46
deep dive into having little more well developed characters.
00:22:50
You know, most of the characters in my book are based off of real
00:22:52
people that I either know, No, or, you know, that you are on
00:22:56
the news. So I was able to really like,
00:22:59
you know, dive into the Cassie Gales and Sleeping Bear and Jim
00:23:03
Gales and then the Brian Rome character in a wolf trap.
00:23:08
But yeah, I definitely wanted it to be more.
00:23:12
Well-rounded is great. I, you know, just a sort of a
00:23:16
side question. What were you doing in
00:23:18
Hollywood? On your online?
00:23:19
Is that you were reading? Yeah, cream place is that?
00:23:22
Yeah yeah. So I A script reader.
00:23:26
I basically I worked for Warner Brothers, and my job was to sit
00:23:29
into her in a room when I wasn't covering a desk, but covering a
00:23:33
desk as you work for like, a producer or director, or
00:23:35
whatever you use answer, phones and you're in charge of the
00:23:37
schedule. It's a miserable existence.
00:23:41
I knew I wanted to be a writer. So I kind of took even a lower
00:23:45
rung position just to read scripts.
00:23:48
So for a couple years, I just sat in a room and I read
00:23:51
thousands of scripts that You know I went to school for
00:23:56
writing looking back on it. I wouldn't say I learned
00:23:59
anything that much you don't need to go to school to be a
00:24:01
writer whatsoever. You do need to study the craft
00:24:06
and write for years and just deal with, you know, rejection
00:24:14
all the time, you know what I mean?
00:24:15
So like and so that's so my schooling was at Warner Brothers
00:24:19
sitting in a room reading scripts and because scripts, you
00:24:23
know, you can read a In an hour and a half, you know, I we could
00:24:27
just blow through these things where it takes like 10 hours to
00:24:29
read a book. So I was able to it was kind of
00:24:33
like I was able to study the craft of Storytelling in a
00:24:37
condensed version. So it was like, you know, what
00:24:41
works in this script what doesn't work in this script, how
00:24:45
can I translate that into novel writing in terms of the, you
00:24:48
know, the broad story? And that's kind of where I if I
00:24:52
were to look back on like, You know, the most beneficial time
00:24:57
in my life, career-wise, it was deep diving into scripts then
00:25:03
transitioning into the genre and then you know, having my own
00:25:08
twist, putting my own twist on it learning on the job?
00:25:12
Yeah, for sure. Have you crossed paths with
00:25:15
Chris? Howdy, I know he just came on to
00:25:17
the scene, I guess around covid. But yeah, we've had them on
00:25:19
three times and we like, to dig into his screenwriting
00:25:22
background as Writer in Hollywood and who's produced
00:25:26
multiple of his works on screen and you totally see that come
00:25:31
through in his writing, just something with his dialogue and
00:25:34
his crisp maneuvering through the plot.
00:25:37
It it almost grips you in a forces you forward, just because
00:25:41
it's almost like you're reading a movie script and I feel like
00:25:45
your books. It's a slight different lesson
00:25:47
you learned from those screenplays.
00:25:49
I'm wondering about these Mysteries that you set up for
00:25:51
us, you know, like in TV or movies.
00:25:54
It's always a mystery box. There's that one thing the
00:25:57
audience doesn't know and that's what keeps you on the edge of
00:25:59
the seat and drives the plot. Yeah, I mean did it in Sleeping
00:26:02
Bear, right? We had and maybe my favorite
00:26:04
part of the book on the trail of Cassie going missing and these
00:26:09
almost forensics of how the tent is ripped and what items they
00:26:13
find left behind and how the dogs reacting.
00:26:15
And then here you give us this mystery box of the villains, the
00:26:19
plot right there. There's nicknames their secret
00:26:22
code words. There's this cabal, you know,
00:26:24
Pulling the strings behind the scene.
00:26:26
It's almost Wizard of Oz, ask do you feel like that's something
00:26:29
you you adapted or learned from the storytelling through
00:26:32
screenplays, kind of leaving out the reader with a little bit of
00:26:35
mystery? Yeah, so 100%.
00:26:38
So like what you were saying about that box?
00:26:40
I use a different term for it. So, I use that.
00:26:44
You say the mystery box of like, you know, what's happening?
00:26:47
The audience's to figure it out, I call it the question tool, and
00:26:51
that question tool serves as a vehicle for Or, you know, your
00:26:55
book or your screenplay. So I always like to, you know,
00:26:59
take my favorite book which is Dennis lehane's, Mystic River.
00:27:02
Have you guys read that book? Very good didn't read it.
00:27:05
So all the movie that I suggest reading that book, the movies
00:27:08
been a book. Yeah, yeah, the book is really
00:27:10
good. Yeah, the movies, one of my
00:27:11
favorite movies but like that, that book and there's something
00:27:14
about that book. So if you were to, if you were
00:27:17
to dissect that book, which I have many times, the the vehicle
00:27:24
the Action tool is who killed Sean Penn's daughter right who
00:27:30
killed Katie Marcus and that whole time, they're bringing you
00:27:34
along for a ride. You know that that mystery box
00:27:37
is finding the girl's death, you know, Gillian Flynn who wrote
00:27:41
Gone Girl, studied Mystic River. And then she wrote Shark ah
00:27:46
sharp objects and then you know, Gone Girl and she said the same.
00:27:50
I heard her in an interview say kind of the same thing.
00:27:53
She said I wanted to write Right?
00:27:54
When I wanted to write sharp objects, I wanted to write about
00:27:58
domestic abuse in women, right? And when she was writing drafts
00:28:03
of us, she couldn't figure out what the hell her book was
00:28:05
about. It was just a bunch of
00:28:06
nonsensical violence, and then she went back and looked at
00:28:10
Mystic River and said, oh, the vehicle is the question to a
00:28:14
missing girl and then she went back foot in, you know, the
00:28:18
century the plot of what drives sharp objects.
00:28:21
So that's kind of what I always try to do in my books is like
00:28:24
With Wolf Trap, there's multiple questions in a web of complexity
00:28:30
kind of probably too much of it because it drove me.
00:28:32
Insane to write it, but I don't know how you kept track of a lot
00:28:36
of what's going on there. That web was intricate.
00:28:39
That was almost real name stuff. Yeah.
00:28:43
I always joke that I, you know, I basically wrote wolftrap the
00:28:50
opposite way that I should have written, well, crap, I should
00:28:52
have everything laid out but in Instead like an idiot, I had
00:28:57
this amazing setup of what was going to happen.
00:29:00
I wrote the first third of the book twenty times thought I was
00:29:03
good and then I had four or five months left to right the whole
00:29:06
book. And I don't know, I mean I
00:29:10
always was talking about a conspiracy in the beginning of
00:29:12
the book and as a writer you know the book was doing for five
00:29:17
months. I didn't even know what the
00:29:18
conspiracy was. I had to sit down and write it
00:29:22
out and it was just and I you know, my Brain just made it so
00:29:26
complex, it was just a disaster, but I think it worked.
00:29:29
I think it kind of blows off, so it's definitely much more of a
00:29:32
cerebral book. I would say than sleeping bear.
00:29:35
Like yeah, you're really trying to categorize everything and and
00:29:39
understand it. It's almost like you created
00:29:40
though. Here's the real cool part of it
00:29:43
is the verisimilitude. You feel like this is a real
00:29:46
Administration, you know, every author who does this is going to
00:29:50
have a president going to have director of the CIA, you know,
00:29:53
the DCI and the dni and you're going to be in the sit room.
00:29:56
But this is the first time I felt like I was in the sit room
00:29:59
and it was packed, you know, usually I'm there with one or
00:30:01
two characters like this can't be real, it's not going to be
00:30:04
three people in a room making these decisions.
00:30:06
But with you, it's like this really felt like how it would
00:30:09
be. I've got 18 different voices.
00:30:11
I've got people the backbenchers, right?
00:30:13
Sitting near the door off to the side.
00:30:15
I've got people running around in the background.
00:30:17
I feel like you created a whole Administration Soup To Nuts.
00:30:21
Yeah, I know, and I'm a complete idiot for making it back.
00:30:25
I was just when I was writing it, I was just cursing myself
00:30:28
because it's like when you when you set out to write a book, you
00:30:32
have an idea of it. Are you have you have kind of a
00:30:37
sense of what you want it to be and then you then have to sit
00:30:42
there and I call it like chopping wood, you know, like
00:30:45
you got to chop it every day and that's just writing and trying
00:30:48
to get the vision in your head on paper, right?
00:30:54
That's So hard. And you know, at the end of the
00:30:58
day, you just kind of it's never going to be perfect.
00:31:01
It's never going to be exactly what you wanted it to be, but
00:31:05
it'll be something kind of close to it.
00:31:08
And that's how that's how I kind of rationalized finishing
00:31:13
wolftrap when I did. But, you know, I will say in the
00:31:16
the sequel that I'm writing right now.
00:31:18
Hi, I forced myself to write an outline.
00:31:23
Get it done. Everything up beforehand and at
00:31:26
the writing is so easy right now.
00:31:28
It's like kind of panic inducing.
00:31:30
I'm like, what am I doing wrong here?
00:31:32
You know, is something I didn't go to wall.
00:31:34
Like it's going too well, but I really focus on not having the
00:31:38
plot beaches Bonkers. Like I really made it pretty.
00:31:43
Dang, simple. And I'm focused more on real
00:31:46
character relationships and character building as opposed
00:31:50
to, you know, crazy giving it is.
00:31:53
Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:54
Yeah. I was just about to ask you are
00:31:56
you a pantser or a plotter? And you see for this book you're
00:32:00
going, You're Going more plotter then I would say I'm both pants
00:32:06
and then I plot when I need to. Yeah, my dad basically made me
00:32:12
outline. My third one.
00:32:13
He's just like, do you ever want to go back to how rest you were
00:32:17
in the last five months of that book?
00:32:19
And I said absolutely not. He's like just you know then
00:32:22
figure it out right now, before you start writing.
00:32:24
That's what I've done learning on the job.
00:32:26
Like we said, yeah, yeah. So that pants are applied, are
00:32:30
we going to give a shout-out to the crew reviews crew?
00:32:33
I'm a pretty sure you've been on with them.
00:32:34
Is that right? Yeah, those are great, guys.
00:32:36
Okay, we don't have as much bourbon here but maybe next
00:32:40
time. Yeah.
00:32:42
Yeah, Lessons Learned, I can't wait to see what you've got in
00:32:46
store for that book. I mean, you took us to Alaska,
00:32:49
he took us to Russia, I was quite frankly surprised, we went
00:32:52
to the Middle East this time. Can you give us a little hint?
00:32:54
It at what's coming in the next one.
00:32:56
Yeah. So I will say that it has to do
00:33:00
with China. Yes.
00:33:02
But the majority of the book takes place in New York City.
00:33:07
Aha, yeah. I just needed to stop
00:33:11
globe-hopping so much, but yeah, it's going to take place in New
00:33:15
York City. It'll be, you know, more of a
00:33:17
domestic type threat and then it's going to head over to China
00:33:21
and then it's going to get complicated again.
00:33:23
I'm sure. When China's in play gets very
00:33:27
complicated. Yeah, we've noticed a lack of
00:33:31
it's been touched on some but it seems like it's too easy, not
00:33:36
easy but like, you know, an enemy sitting right there to be
00:33:39
used as a villain or as a, you know, In your novel and for some
00:33:44
reason, you know, I think Brad is touched on it a little bit
00:33:48
you know like Kyle's been not willing to go there.
00:33:51
Some of the other novels you know they either really focus
00:33:54
internally you know because of as we whatever our nation is
00:33:58
right now you have this like villain you know over just
00:34:02
sitting over here. I'm excited that you're you're
00:34:05
going to go there? Yeah it's going to be it'll be
00:34:09
fun. I think I got a pretty Good plot
00:34:12
drawn out on this one, and it's working.
00:34:14
So we'll see. But when you sit down to write
00:34:19
em, do you just do is it morning and afternoon?
00:34:22
You just like, bang out a couple hours.
00:34:24
Like, what's it? What's your process?
00:34:26
So it depends on where I am in the process.
00:34:32
My wife likes to call it like the beginning.
00:34:34
My honeymoon phase with my book because I have this idea in my
00:34:40
head, it's so great. Have, you know, twelve eleven
00:34:44
months to write it? It seems like all the time in
00:34:47
the world, I just, it's like that.
00:34:50
It's like when you watch a movie about a writer it, they're just
00:34:52
sit down and just write their novel.
00:34:54
It's not, that's as far from what it's actually like.
00:35:00
But the first like month or two of me writing a novel is pretty
00:35:03
much that I, you know, we'll sit down and I have inspiration and
00:35:07
then I'll kind of just float around and do what I want.
00:35:11
And then, Then usually like when I'm nine months out, it goes to
00:35:16
very strict regiment. So sometimes I will write from
00:35:21
like 8:00 in the morning to noon.
00:35:23
Take a two hour break. I usually go do something
00:35:26
outside taking the dogs for a walk on a hike, shoot my bow,
00:35:31
just something that's not writing and I'll come back and
00:35:34
then I'll do about a three-hour session in the afternoon.
00:35:39
When it gets more to crunch time, I'll usually You start
00:35:42
writing around like 11 in the morning and then I will write
00:35:47
till like midnight. So I'll write about 13 hours
00:35:50
straight and that's when I'm like I need to finish my book
00:35:54
and then I'll sleep, make sure to.
00:35:57
I'll probably sleep into like eight or nine, get eight hours
00:36:00
and then Super strict with my diet because it's like, you
00:36:04
know, if you eat a pizza and you try to write, you're going to
00:36:06
fall asleep. I'll just tell you right now and
00:36:09
do it if I don't. Yeah, you got To stay.
00:36:12
You gotta like really feel your brain like in like no alcohol
00:36:17
and those last couple of months, you know it's just like I gotta
00:36:20
be like on it. So disciplined sounds like a
00:36:25
good way to lose some weight right.
00:36:27
Yeah. Write a book on weight loss.
00:36:29
Oh yeah, that writing Wolf Trap was so horrible in my body.
00:36:34
Like I like withered away. I was sitting down all the time
00:36:37
and I just yeah, that's not good.
00:36:40
So I'm I definitely now like I work out at some point in the
00:36:46
day, every day doing something because then, you know, your
00:36:50
brains ready like your body feels good.
00:36:52
Rain feels good. And you can actually be the most
00:36:54
productive. So that's what I do.
00:36:58
Well, thanks for taking us behind the curtain of a day in
00:37:00
the life, as always real interesting.
00:37:02
We've had like, super veteran authors on.
00:37:05
We've had people with their first book and you're kind of
00:37:07
right in that healthy middle, you know, working on number
00:37:09
three, sharing the lessons that you've learned, I really like
00:37:12
that, you know, we want to respect your time on Pub day
00:37:15
here, you had a long one. Just something occurred to me as
00:37:19
we were talking and I didn't think this was the plan but in
00:37:22
my mind I keep coming back to it.
00:37:24
There's no reason these two characters can exist in the same
00:37:28
universe. Yeah, and the whole plot has
00:37:31
really nothing to do with the other in terms of there's no
00:37:33
conflict of like what Cassie went through in Russian, Alaska
00:37:37
could still have been happening with Custer and crew doing what
00:37:40
they're doing and Wolf Trap. Is there an opening is the door
00:37:43
open a little bit to kind of see Cassie.
00:37:46
Brian Paul, Brady Gail one day on the ground together.
00:37:51
I get that a lot. So this is a when I went out, I
00:37:56
think I first started Wolf Trap, it was in the same universe and
00:38:00
then I got advice from James, Patterson and he told me do not
00:38:07
have it in the same universe and I said what I said, Why?
00:38:12
And he goes, you know, all that attention, you're getting right
00:38:16
now in Hollywood with Sleeping Bear.
00:38:18
I said, yes, because they cut you a check, basically it for
00:38:23
the option of that book, right? So they cut a check for two
00:38:27
options, Sleeping Bear. And, you know, they hold it for
00:38:31
18 or 24 months and then they pay you again.
00:38:33
But in the contract and every kind of option.
00:38:36
Contract is like this. They want an option to the
00:38:40
universe, not the book. Look so on your other content
00:38:45
Soho. Now I they're completely
00:38:47
different. So now in Hollywood's come in
00:38:49
for Wolf Trap, I get paid twice. I get paid for sleeping bear and
00:38:55
wolf trap. Now, if I put one character and
00:38:57
they shared a universe of the universe of shared the person
00:39:01
who just option me owns Wolf Trap.
00:39:04
Wow, Phil Patterson figure. That out pretty early in his
00:39:08
career and you know he has some hilarious stories of You know,
00:39:11
about that, but he he told me to split them up because you're
00:39:16
going to be getting paid more money, you know, for essentially
00:39:20
the same amount of work. So That's what is great advice
00:39:26
that plus your screen writing background?
00:39:28
You can talk to talk about that and really really understand
00:39:31
that if I say yeah, wow, so it was amazing advice and I really
00:39:35
I tell, I always tell writers that to do that.
00:39:38
So we still want more Cassie, we still want more Gail.
00:39:41
Yeah, I know it. One day, one day I am going to,
00:39:44
I am going to do that. I don't know when it's going to
00:39:45
be, but I need to figure. I gotta I gotta have some
00:39:49
inspiration for the story first. Maybe maybe Gail will go missing
00:39:52
or something, I don't know. We'll see.
00:39:57
All right, well we like to close up this podcast by asking, you
00:40:00
know what, what is the last great thing?
00:40:02
You've either washed red TV show, but when you have free
00:40:07
time, what's the last thing you've seen?
00:40:11
What's the last really good thing I've seen.
00:40:14
Um have you guys ever read the book or mean I've only I haven't
00:40:19
read the book. I've only seen the TV show.
00:40:21
It really flew under the radar it's called 000.
00:40:24
Have you heard even heard of though I heard about it I want
00:40:27
it. I want to watch it.
00:40:28
Yeah, I've had a lot of people tell me to watch it and I kind
00:40:31
of just blew it off because it just looks like, you know, kind
00:40:36
of what narcos is. And I love narcos the first
00:40:38
couple Seasons narcos but Zero is about the drug trade, but
00:40:43
it's about the actual like mules, like the international
00:40:47
mules, like on cargo ships and it's based off of real life.
00:40:52
So the guy who wrote the book wrote it, I think it was
00:40:55
published a long time ago at 12:15 years ago and I'm pretty
00:40:58
sure he's still in hiding from the cartel, like, Kim as he just
00:41:03
really opened the door on it and they made.
00:41:07
I want to say it's on Amazon Prime, but, I mean, it really.
00:41:10
Really flew under the radar and it's fantastic.
00:41:14
Check that out. Yeah, that sounds good.
00:41:16
You mentioned the shipping containers.
00:41:17
I read a book about inside the world of international cargo
00:41:21
shipping and like it was nonfiction.
00:41:23
It was a journalist, there's a woman who invades herself with a
00:41:26
crew that goes across the oceans.
00:41:28
Mmm, there's a thriller novel there.
00:41:30
I was writing this journalists account, this team a lie, one of
00:41:33
the ships. It's lawlessness.
00:41:35
It's a whole nother world out there.
00:41:37
Okay, this is this is ripe for a thriller.
00:41:40
Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's it was a
00:41:42
great show. So, well done.
00:41:44
Me and Chris. How do you always talk about
00:41:45
that show together? I feel like we're the only two
00:41:47
I've ever seen it but we love to be love to talk about that.
00:41:50
The other one I really liked that came out with a couple
00:41:53
years ago was it's called Counterpoint or counterpart ass
00:41:58
with jkc. Yeah.
00:41:59
Yeah. That was what really well done.
00:42:01
I like that really cool premise. Makes you think very cool.
00:42:05
Yeah I was I was bummed that God that got canceled.
00:42:08
It didn't get continued. Right right, right.
00:42:10
Well Connor, we had a blast talking with you, and I'm just
00:42:13
going to end with two quotes here from people.
00:42:15
We love on this podcast. As Jack car says, wolf trap.
00:42:19
A must-read Thriller from a brilliant new talent in the
00:42:22
genre. And James Patterson says,
00:42:24
remember the author's name, our audience will absolutely
00:42:28
remember your name after picking up these two books.
00:42:30
Thanks for joining us tonight. Connor and congrats on book.
00:42:33
Number two, awesome. Thanks so much for having me,
00:42:35
guys. I was a blast All right.
00:42:41
What do you think? Our patrons are special
00:42:42
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00:42:45
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00:42:49
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00:42:53
review using a podcast or Spotify.
00:42:56
You can find this online and throw a pod.com or on Twitter
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00:43:06
Abigail.