July 23, 2025 • 37 mins
Hello and welcome to the 236th episode of The Thriller Zone with Dave Temple, Your #1 Thriller FIction Film & TV Podcast in the world!
Today we dive into the thrilling world of Steve Berry, the mastermind behind the gripping new book, "The List."
Spoiler alert: this episode reveals how the book was almost completely destroyed, and trust me, you’ll want to hear the wild tale behind that! We’ll also chat about the intricacies of writing thrillers, including some spicy advice on how to keep readers on the edge of their seats.
Steve shares his journey from a small-town lawyer to a bestselling author, highlighting the real-life inspirations that shaped his work.
So grab your favorite drink, sit back, and let’s unravel the secrets behind crafting stories that not only entertain but also provoke thought about the darker sides of human nature.
Takeaways:
- In this episode, we chatted with Steve Berry about the importance of writing structure, emphasizing the six C's that help create a compelling narrative.
- Steve shared a funny story about a book getting soaked by a cannonball splash, proving that not all book mishaps are tragic!
- We dove into the significance of outlining a novel before writing, noting that it can save a writer from many headaches down the line.
- Steve's advice for aspiring writers is straightforward: write every day to improve your craft, because practice makes perfect!
- The discussion also highlighted how thrillers differ from mysteries, focusing on the suspense of 'what will happen next' rather than just solving a crime.
- Lastly, we explored how real-world experiences can fuel fictional stories, with Steve revealing that his own legal background inspired many plot elements in his novels.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Steve Berry
- Mark Greeny
- Tim Chandler
- Blake Snyder
- Lee Child
- John Grisham
- Cotton Malone
KEYWORDS, thriller podcast, writing tips, Steve Berry, author interviews, thriller novels, book masterclass, storytelling techniques, character development, plot structure, suspense writing, creative writing advice, publishing industry insights, reader engagement, novel pacing, moral conflict in fiction, outlining a novel, writing process, fiction writing tips, literary themes in thrillers, book recommendations
Host and former radio star David "Dave" Temple interviews the biggest, brightest, and best thriller writers of thriller fiction, thriller and mystery films, thriller and suspense television, and more. With four years on the podcast, nearly 25 years of radio experience, and another 15 years as an actor and voiceover narrator, Dave has the credibility required to access and interview the very best and New York Times bestselling authors in the world. Tune in each week as he breaks down the magic, or the "secret sauce" of his guests. During his segment called "Best Writing Advice," Dave's audience learns the very best insights to what makes a super successful thriller fiction writer.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hello and welcome to theThriller Zone.
Guess who?
Dave Temple, your host.
So nice to have you here ontoday's show.
A prolific author, you'veknown him for many years.
I'm gonna give you a hint.
The word cotton shows up inone of his books.
But today it's D. Berry.
(00:24):
Today it's the list.
And stay tuned to find out whythis book got completely destroyed.
Also find out what this bookmasterclass has any relevance to
today's show.
That's right, it's a doozy.
Hey, by the way, as you haveheard me say before, I love it when
(00:47):
I hear from my listeners.
I love it when you just writein and say, hey, Dave, what's happening?
What's going on?
I like your show.
I hate your show.
Doesn't even matter what it is.
Either way, I'd love to hearfrom you.
You can drop us an email@the thrillerzonemail.com.
you can also visit our websiteat the thrillerzone.com of today,
I had a recording come in froma Tim Chandler and he left me this
(01:08):
voicemail.
Let's take a listen.
Hey there.
I found your YouTube podcast interviews.
I was looking for informationMark Greeny and discovered him and
a whole bunch of other authorsI love.
So keep up the good work.
I appreciate it.
And I'm working on my ownThriller novel.
So maybe someday I'll get achance to talk to you directly.
Thanks.
You have a good day.
(01:28):
Awesome.
Thank you, Tim Chandler.
And if you'd like to leave usa recording, as you know, you can
just go to our website, the thrillerzone.com.
you'll see that littlemicrophone at the bottom.
Click on it, record it andleave it for us.
We'd love to hear from you.
All right, without any furtherado, please welcome one of the guys
that has taught me quite a bitabout writing.
Probably one of the greatestwriters out there today, the one,
(01:51):
the only, Steve Barry, righthere on the Thriller Zone.
Steve, you got me curious,what were you wearing before?
I had a T shirt on.
I live in Florida, so I wear abathing suit T shirt all day long.
I mean, it's 100 degreesoutside right now.
So I go get in the pool.
I come back.
I don't really wear.
I just had a T shirt on, sothat's not very good.
(02:13):
Well, there are some people inthe audience that would probably
really enjoy that.
Yeah, I don't want to kind ofkeep the image up.
All right, a couple things.
You got your.
All your ducks in a row.
You got your lights, you gotyour Microphones, you got a handsome
back background.
You got.
We got 30 minutes.
I'm going to try to get in andout so you can get back to your pool.
Okay.
(02:33):
100 degrees.
Get out of here.
It's probably 97 outside rightnow with 100% humidity.
It's like a steam bath out there.
But that's Florida.
Yeah, I used to live in NorthCarolina, so we got close.
But I have family in Miami.
And when we go down this timeof year, which is not very often,
I'm like, what the hell are y'all doing?
(02:56):
You just get used to it.
I'm.
I've lived in all my life, soI'm very accustomed to it.
Well, Steve, first of all,welcome to the Thriller Zone.
This is a huge honor.
Well, thanks for having me.
I don't think I've ever beenon this show before.
No, you haven't.
And I wasn't even aware thatyou did podcast because I, you know,
I hadn't shown up on my radar.
But to be able to get you, andI've been trying for this for some
(03:18):
time.
I'm.
I'm quite excited.
Okay, well, glad.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Now, the book comes out on the22nd of July.
So when will this air?
I'm dropping you on Wednesdaythe 16th.
That's a week before.
Can you push it to the 23rd by chance?
Well, dude, your wish is my command.
Look at that.
I'm going to show you that.
And let's assume the book'salready out.
(03:38):
Let me show you how easy this is.
Arrow to here.
Done.
Couple things.
Speaking of.
Speaking of pool, I was goingto show you this beautiful book,
but it got kind of.
It got my.
I was out by the pool lastweekend and some kid decided to.
And I laid it down on my chair.
Some kid decided to do a cannonball.
(04:02):
Completely soaked.
It took me about four days tohang it to dry, and the back is flipping
off.
But the good news is I gotthrough it and it's.
It's a dandy reed.
Thank you.
That's my first piece of showand tell.
And then I'm going to getdrilling on you.
Okay, go ahead.
Here's my second piece of thisold piece of shit book called Masterclasses.
(04:22):
Just my book.
July 2019.
I met you at Thriller Fest.
You won't remember.
I was a lot younger then, andthis was.
And I'm going to sound likeI'm blowing smoke, but I'm not because
I got.
I can rattle off all the otherpeople I Sat in on their presentations.
(04:44):
But yours, for some reason,got multiple highlights.
Oh, very nice.
So you were in my master class.
I was in your master class.
And I was like, excuse my language.
But I was like, holy, thisguy's breaking it down for me.
Like, boom, boom.
I will never for.
I don't know why yours stuck out.
I think it's because you were.
You're so.
No nonsense.
(05:05):
When I'm.
When I'm teaching writing, Ijust lay it out the way it is.
That's the way I was taught,so that's the way I do it.
Well, can I just bring up acouple quick things?
I won't belabor too much, butthis is the six C's of story structure.
Correct.
And if you have a lisp, you'rereally messed up.
The thick thieves of Thori structure.
Yeah.
(05:26):
Act one, act two, act three,character conflict.
Crucible is act one at about20% of the book.
Correct.
Act two, complications riddledwith subplots.
That's act two.
60%.
That's 60%.
And your remaining 20% forthose mathematicians in the audience
is act three with crisis,point and conclusion.
(05:49):
Now, that is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 C's.
Now that.
I mean, that's all it is right there.
And I started applying that tomy stories right away.
And it works.
It's the.
It's a.
It's the way I was taught.
It's the way stories are to belaid out.
(06:09):
And when you read a story thatyou don't like or why you don't stick
with it, you'll usuallyidentify that that rule has been
broken somehow in some respects.
Now, I'm a big fan of BlakeSnyder's Save the Cat, but it can
get a wee bit convolutedbecause it's like 15 or 17 points.
(06:32):
I can't recall, but this is somuch easier.
Try to keep it simple becauseit's hard enough as it is.
You don't want to make it anyharder, you know?
Yeah, it's hard enough.
But thank you for rememberingthe stuff.
I'm glad it helped you.
Well, Steve, I don't want togeek out too much for you, but I'm
going to say, once again, this was.
(06:53):
This was a turning point for me.
That was the last time Itaught that class.
I haven't never taught it since.
Well, I feel blessed to havegotten into it.
2019, that was a big year forme because I got to meet all my writing
stars.
That was 2019.
This show is now officially,as of last week, four years in the
making, and you're going to belike 200, almost 50 episodes.
(07:16):
So we're, we're doingsomething right.
Very good.
Because Covid came after andthere was no thriller fest in 2021.
And then I haven't been backto Thriller fest since then.
Yeah.
All right, two more points andwe're going to bounce off.
One is outline a novel beforeyou write.
Now, I, I have.
We have talked about pantsersand plotters until my head's gonna
(07:38):
spin off.
But you said you make acomment about if you don't get the
structure right, and if youdon't at least contemplate outlining
it, you're.
You're fubar.
Well, not until.
Yeah, you've got to do it inthe beginning.
I did the first four novelsthat way.
After you do.
I've done 27.
Now after you do a few, youdon't have to outline the whole book,
(08:00):
but you do have to have a, apattern of where you're going.
I, I stay about 50 to 75 pagesahead of myself outlining, but I
have a journal.
But you just get a little bitbetter feel for it.
I'm a little more of a pantsernow than a, than a planner.
As the older I've gotten, I'vegot a little more.
But that just comes from experience.
You just get it.
You just get better at beingable to plot well.
(08:22):
And you also have a.
Such a natural rhythm to your writing.
You know, the scene sets up,you paint the picture of the, the
world.
Then you get into dialogue.
You give.
You give us just enoughsubtext of, oh, what's going on in
the room?
And there's more dialogue.
I'm a big dialogue fan.
So last thing.
This is the one thing.
(08:42):
I have a great big pinkquestion mark.
And I said, if I ever get tomeet Steve one day, I'm going to
ask him this.
So here we close with this.
All right.
Sequels do not work in thrillers.
Nope, they do not.
Because you have to assume asequel is.
A sequel is.
You have to have read thefirst book.
If you have not read the firstbook, the second book is completely.
(09:03):
You're completely lost.
Doesn't work in thrillers.
Works great in mystery, worksgreat in romance, Works great in
science fiction.
Doesn't work in thrillers.
It's never worked in thrillers.
You have to have a completestory finished, done.
Now, if you want to take itand go forward with that, that's
great.
But it's got to be a secondcomplete story that does not Rely
(09:23):
on the reader having to readthe first one.
Okay, okay.
All right.
That makes sense.
That's the difference.
It's like Godfather 1 andGodfather 2.
You can watch Godfather 2 andnever seen Godfather 1.
Yeah.
And you know exactly what'sgoing on.
That's not a sequel.
That was it.
That was a continuation of the story.
The story just kept going andthat's the way thrillers have to
(09:45):
be.
They've never.
I wish we could.
I wish we could write itepisodic like that and hang and go
to the next one and doanother, but it's.
No one's ever successfullydone that.
No one.
Not in the thriller business.
The successful thrillerwriters are like Cussler.
Each one is standalone.
(10:05):
There are series, but theystand alone.
Jack Reacher, same thing.
Series, but standalone.
Same with mine.
You can read mine in any orderyou want and you can skip around
and you won't have a problem.
You won't have any problem whatsoever.
The trick to writing a series,every book has to be the same, but
different.
Same, but different.
(10:26):
That's the trick.
Yeah.
Boy, there's.
There's.
There's.
That's a line you hear overand over, isn't it?
Same, but different.
But Lee Child taught me that.
Same, but different.
What's he doing now, by the way?
He's kind of semi retired now.
Yeah, yeah, he lives out inthe west in Wyoming and Colorado,
and his brother writes thebooks and he kind of just kind of
(10:49):
oversees it now.
Yeah, they're both such dandy guys.
I just.
I really like them.
All right, well, the.
Now, the list, as we mentionedearlier, and please excuse the.
Usually I get hardbacks orI'll get a little bit better, but
you know, the water did thedamage in this one.
It's.
The idea is kind of secretcontrolling force behind world events.
So I'm famous for my two part question.
(11:12):
So first of all, what inspiredyou to tackle this theme?
And secondly, how much of itdo you feel reflects our current
reality versus just pure fiction?
Well, I wrote the book as well.
You may or may not.
Now, I wrote the book 33 years ago.
The original story was written33 years ago.
(11:33):
Now, it was not ready to print.
I mean, it was terribly written.
So it went in a drawer and Irewrote it during COVID I took it
out during COVID in 2020 andjust rewrote it.
The story is basically thesame, but how it's told is very different.
Because I'd learned so muchabout how to write a novel, so I
was able to Write it in awhere readers can read it.
The book is.
(11:54):
The story is kind of autobiographical.
I lived a lot of this.
I lived a lot of what BrentWalker does.
I was a small town lawyer.
I represented the electricalunion at the mill.
I represented the company.
And one day I was in anarbitration hearing and it just kind
of occurred to me, I said,well, wait a minute now.
What if the company justdidn't worry about all this?
(12:17):
What if they didn't worryabout arbitrations?
What if they were self insuredand they had a way of controlling
their high cost items?
Their retirement program isself funded.
What if they could control thepayouts of that in a very unique
way?
And that way, of course, was murder.
(12:38):
If they used murder to controlall that.
So it occurred to me, I saidthis would be a pretty interesting
way for a company to get anedge on everybody else.
And so the list was born and Iwrote it.
The Firm by Grisham was reallyhot then.
It was a hot, hot book at that time.
So its influence is clear herea little bit.
But this is a very differentbook from the firm, a very different
(13:01):
book in how it plays out.
But it just occurred to mewhat would happen if a company decided
to kill off their problems andnot worry about it.
You know, you don't kill themall, you just kill a few.
Enough to keep you solvent.
Yeah, yeah.
And so the list came from that.
Does it reflect anything inreal life?
No, it's strictly fiction.
(13:21):
I mean, just strictly an ideaof mine.
Or is it?
Yeah, who knows?
Who knows?
Who knows?
I gotta tell you, that openingprologue, one of my favorite.
I got a note here that Iusually make notes in here.
One of them said one of thebest prologues I've read in years.
That that is.
Well, I wanted you to get afeel for what.
(13:42):
How these guys work and whatthey do and how they put it together.
I wanted you to see them.
This book's a little unique inthat I don't hide the fact of what's
going on in the.
This book.
You know that right up front.
Yeah.
There's no secret of whatthey're doing, it's just how they're
doing it and then how it unravels.
Yeah.
How it comes apart.
(14:02):
This is about the unravelingof all of this.
Not, you know, I. I rememberwhen I first wrote it, I tried to
keep the secret, but it madeno sense, you know?
So when I rewrote it, Iadjusted all that.
I said, there's no point in that.
This, this is about theunraveling and Brent Walker getting
caught up in that unravelingand what's going to happen to him
(14:25):
while all this plays out.
Well.
And I found it interestingbecause at the beginning, I'll admit,
when I'm reading it, I'm like,well, I know exactly what's going
right out of the gate.
And in an instant I'm like, itdoesn't matter.
I'm along for a ride becauseyou gave me two different points
of view.
And so you start off in thisnice, warm fuzzy.
(14:47):
I'm a big fan of warm fuzzy.
And then a little bit comes inout of nowhere and you're like, oh,
I didn't see that coming.
But I think what I most enjoy,Steve, is the precision with which
the bad guys work and thethought behind it.
Yeah, there's a rules.
(15:08):
These are not haphazard things.
They're very good at what theydo because they don't want to get
caught.
Right.
And of course, you just don'tmurder anybody.
It has to be.
They kill people, but in avery ingenious way.
And they give a lot of thoughtto it.
Now what happens, of course,is greed takes over and stupidity
(15:28):
comes with greed, and youstart making mistakes, and that's
what happens.
And so like I said, when Irewrote it, I made those adjustments
that this is about theunraveling of this problem, not me
shocking you.
What they're doing.
I mean, I wanted you to know.
You learn pretty much in thefirst 50 pages what's going on.
Yeah.
(15:48):
You know, but then.
But what you don't know,there's a little more to it than
what you think.
And that's what comes later.
Yeah.
And that.
That's what's so deliciousthat I could hide from you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you did, sir.
I remember a conversation Ihad with an SBI agent.
God had been about 30 years ago.
He.
(16:09):
I was over at his house, we'rejust hanging out, having a beer,
and he and I.
And he had some photographslaying around.
And he goes, do you want tosee some of these?
He knew I was interested inwriting, and I said, sure.
And they're murder scenes andpretty violent ones.
And one that forever is burnedin my memory, sad to say, was this
person got hit multiple timeswith a ball peen hammer upside the
(16:32):
head.
And I said, boy, who had anyidea it was that kind of damage?
He goes, well, when you thinkabout what this is made of.
And then we went on from thereand I said, listen, let me ask you
something.
I'll call him Steve.
Steve.
What?
What?
Is there a way?
What is there a way?
And if there is, what is theway you can get away with murder?
(16:52):
He stopped and he looked at meand he said, there's one way.
Now of course I'm thinking,okay, this is going to be a doozy.
Let me hear what it is.
And he goes, one way and oneway only.
I said, what is it?
He said, never tell anyone.
That's true.
(17:14):
That's it.
He goes, yeah, never tell anyone.
Not your friend, not yourlover, not your best friend, not
nobody, period.
That's why the professionalhitmen are so good at it.
You know, they tell no one.
They do.
No one.
And that's what the priorityprogram was.
Everything is tight, right in there.
Tight.
No mistakes allowed, nomistakes tolerated.
(17:34):
And so that's what occurred tome when I wrote the book the first
time.
I said, you know, you couldget away with it if you're careful
and if you, if you use your brain.
But as I said, eventuallyhuman beings are involved and greed
and takes over and mistakesare made.
And that's what the book's about.
Well, you know, a lot ofthriller writers as I've spoken to
(17:58):
with over the four years, theysaid, you know, they kind of sometimes
will shy away from polarizing ideas.
It made me wonder, what aresome of the reactions that have surprised
you most from readers in this time?
Well, I mean, what I deal withwith the Cotton Malone series, you
know, is I deal with very.
I deal with things from thepast that still have relevance today.
(18:21):
And so the topics are veryrelevant today.
And I try to keep them astopical as I can.
A lot of times people get alittle too much and they don't realize
that it's fiction, it's not real.
Yeah.
And you know, they'll want totell me this and that, this and that.
And of course you want towrite back and say you do understand
that this is not real.
It's not.
(18:42):
I made it up, you understand.
And so, but they, they want itto be so close and, and I've.
That's sort of my own faultbecause my Cott Malone books are
about 90% to history.
I keep them about 90% toreality, I trip them up about 10%
and I put a writer's note inthe back of the book to tell you
where that happens.
So I'm careful there.
(19:03):
This book, it'll beinteresting to see what the reaction
is from it.
You know, that, you know,companies can be somewhat cold hearted,
companies can be somewhatbottom line Oriented and it'll be
interesting to see what, whatfolks find here to, to call me out
on.
There's always something ineach book for.
(19:24):
Some reason, and I hope thisis the compliment that I am intending
because it is one of my alltime favorites.
One of those movies that ifit's on when I am just lounging about,
maybe it's a cloudy day herein San Diego and it comes on, I'm
gonna watch it.
And it's Michael Clayton.
Yeah, I like that.
I know that movie.
And it, for some reason, thisbook reminded of me.
(19:46):
It's.
It's the subterfuge, it's the sea.
You know, you, you're kind offamous for secret societies and hidden
truths.
This doesn't have a secretsociety, but it certainly has one
great big fat glaring secretin it.
And it's the way that it'sunpeeled and unraveled that makes
me so intrigued.
He's a fixer.
That's what he does.
He fixes things.
And of course, things unravelon him as well.
(20:08):
It's kind of like here, it'sjust a little more.
The stakes are a little higherhere and that people are dying from
it, but it's just a.
It just occurred, you know, asI said, a lot of this came out of
my own practice because I wasa lawyer like Brent Walker is, and
I lived in a town similar towhere Brent lives.
And we lived in a company town.
(20:28):
And when you're in a companytown, you know, things are very different
in a company town because thecompany runs the town.
And I lived in one of thosefor about 10, 12 years until the
Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base came.
And that all changed.
Everything changed.
Wasn't a company town anymore,but it's just a.
It's a.
It's a peculiar institution,particularly in the South.
(20:51):
There used to be so many of them.
They're all gone now.
I don't think there's any left anymore.
But St. Mary's was one for along, long time.
For about 45 years.
You know, you talk about.
This book was written so long ago.
If you were to write it againtoday, like you could just.
Yeah.
Rework the whole world.
(21:13):
Knowing what you know today inthe, in our current times, what would
you.
Do you think you've done differently?
No, I wouldn't do anything.
That's what I did in 2020.
That's exactly what I did.
I brought the book forward.
Oh, copy that.
You know, forward 30 years.
Adjusted certain things.
For example, when I wrote thebook the first time there were no
cell phones.
Oh yeah.
Remember?
(21:33):
No cell phones.
Yeah, yeah.
So I had to, I had to readjusteverything because, you know, Brent's
looking for a telephone for phone.
He doesn't have to have that anymore.
So I had to, I had toincorporate new technology, computers.
We didn't have computers in1992, you know, on our desks either.
We didn't have any of this stuff.
So I, I basically did thatduring COVID I brought the book forward.
(21:56):
I also tightened it up.
The original book was about 11516.
This was about 103.
So I took out about 13,000 words.
So I tightened it and got itmuch tighter.
100,000 word thriller is agood length for a thriller.
So it's very tight, whichmeans it moves very fast.
This is, this is superb timingfor the question I was just getting
(22:20):
ready to ask you.
What do you feel is kind ofwhat I call the sweet spot for thrillers?
Well, the number one thing yougot to do, you got to thrill.
I mean, absolutely, you haveto have thrills from the page one
all the way through.
You've got to have.
You've got to thrill the reader.
The reader's got to be keptoff guard at all times because remember
(22:43):
the difference between amystery book and a thriller.
A mystery is about what happened.
A thriller is about what'sgoing to happen.
Those are two different waysof plotting things.
So you've got to have a thrilland you've got to keep that going
all the way through.
And you've got to keep thereader engaged all the way through.
(23:03):
That's the number one thing.
Pacing in a thriller is so important.
And that's really what Ichanged here more than anything in
the rewrite.
As I picked up the pacing, Imade the pacing much faster.
This book really moves very,very fast.
A lot happens very quickly.
And more specifically for thatquestion, so I can put a finer point
(23:25):
on, it is the sweet spot ofnumbers because you said you went
from 120ish to around 1ish.
You know, what do you thinkballpark number for like the ideal
thriller read?
Ideal.
I mean, I mean a thriller, athriller shit needs to be as long
as it needs to be.
That's really what needs to be.
But I would say that if youget much over about110,115, it better
(23:48):
be really interesting, itbetter be really good.
Because your reader, you know,you got to look at it closely.
I used to, I used to writethem in around the 115 level.
I do it now.
Around 100.
I just turned in next year'sCotton Malone book, and it's 92,000.
That's the tightest I've everdone it.
Wow.
Now, that's hard.
I mean, shorter is better, butShorter is harder.
(24:12):
Yeah, a lot, lot harder.
And.
But.
But 92,000, it just clips.
I mean, there's no filler.
There's no.
It just moves.
Everything's moving quick.
And as I get older, I'm tryingto write the books tighter, tighter.
And people would say, well,you didn't write as many words, so
it was easier.
No, no, actually, it was much harder.
(24:32):
It was extremely harder.
It's much easier to write120,000 words than it is to write
90,000 words, but you try tokeep it.
I think a good thriller inthat hundred thousand, you know,
range is a good length that athriller writer ought to be looking
at.
Much over that.
I did one book at 130,Charlemagne Pursuit.
It's the longest book I everdid, but it was a big story.
(24:56):
It was a very large story.
Yeah.
That's the longest I've ever done.
And then most of the othershave stayed down in that 110, 115
range.
So I would encourage.
Shorter is always better, so Ialways encourage them to go short.
Now, two things pop into my head.
One is I just read a bookrecently by a new author, Thomas
(25:16):
Trang Dead Neon Dirt.
I'm gonna hack the title.
It doesn't matter.
The book was clocking at about82, 85.
That thing read so fast.
Yeah, yeah, I read it in one day.
It was just brilliant.
Point number two.
I'm talking to Emily Bessler.
You know her.
She was on the show recently,and we were talking about this very
(25:38):
topic.
And she goes, david, I'll tellyou the truth, David.
And I'd love to imitate herperfectly because she's so sweet,
but I don't care if it's 110,120, 130, 140 if you keep me reading.
And it's interesting, I don'tcare how long it is.
That's.
She goes, I agree with her.
Yeah, but it better be reallygood when you get up in that 120.
And she said, but.
(25:59):
But it better be so good,because you're asking a lot of the
reader.
You are.
You're asking a lot of thereader at that point.
And now in the fantasy world,you can do that.
They want very thick books.
They want big, giant books,you know, but in the thriller business,
no, no, no, no.
No, they want it tight.
Get it as tight as you can, asyou can do it because the tighter
(26:20):
you write it, the quicker youcan read it and the read, the.
More intense is the read.
And I, I personally feel like,you know, I, I, I like these guys
who were cranking about alittle bit faster than they used
to be.
I remember the time, youremember this time you were doing
it one book a year, maybe oneevery year and a half.
Even, you know, knocking ontwo years door now it's like the
(26:42):
people are going, oh, I wantone a year minimum.
I'd really like to have two a year.
What are your thoughts on that?
I can't, I, I have done that recently.
Recently I've had two a yearbecause I did the Cotton Malone series
and I did Luke Daniels series.
But I had help here.
I had Grant Blackwood helpingme with here.
I physically can't write twobooks a year because of the amount
(27:02):
of research and everythingthat goes into these.
There's no, there's, there'sjust no way.
But I could do it with Grant's help.
So for the last three yearsI've, last two years I've had two
books a year and, but that'sover now.
Now we'll go to one book, backto one book a year and I much prefer
that.
Well, there is something aboutyour storytelling is a bit more languorous
(27:24):
than I generally read.
I'm reading about two, threebooks a week and so I'm kind of looking
for that super fast read.
But you know, you still,you're not in Thomas Wolf territory
where he's clocking 140 andyou know, he spends an entire chapter
as he's walked into the room.
He hasn't even gotten into theroom and done anything yet.
You know, so it's a literary style.
(27:45):
And he wrote in a literary style.
Yeah, you can't do that in thethriller business at all.
I, so I, I try to keep theCott Malone books, as I said, I just
did 92.
I'm hoping to keep them allbetween 90 and 100 now.
Yeah, that's what I'd like todo because I, I know this, this one
I just finished.
My wife is my first editor whoreads it.
(28:06):
She came up and said, thatthing just read.
Wow, that thing read fast.
Yeah, 92,000.
Read fast, really quick.
And so that's what you wantand that's what I'm going to try.
But as I said, it's harder.
It's much harder.
Well, I'm not going to try todo the math in my head, because I'm
not that great of amathematician, but I'm looking back
to your 20, 60, 20 rule.
(28:26):
And if I had 90,000 as a roundnumber, that would be 18,000 in.
The front and back and therest in the middle.
See, you did it so much fasterthan me.
18,000 roughly, would be 20,probably 40, 50 pages in the front,
(28:49):
40, 50 pages in the back, andthen the rest in the middle.
You know what I love aboutwatching you, Steve, is you've done
it for so long.
It's kind of like good golfers.
They don't get up and theydon't do a whole lot of practice
swings.
They knew what the swing will do.
They know what the grip willdo, what the swing will do.
They just get up and rip it.
I'm the same way.
I can.
I play golf very fast.
(29:09):
Yeah, very fast.
I can do 18 holes.
We do 18 holes around here inabout two and a half hours.
Okay, that is moving.
We move, we don't.
Because I'm not going to hitit any better thinking about it.
Yeah.
Isn't that the truth?
Yeah.
Oh, that whole.
That whole.
Okay, I'm going to do this,and I'm going to do this and just
hit it.
And the guys I don't want toplay with are the guys who do this.
(29:33):
Temple, get your head down.
Yeah.
Watch your right hand.
You shut the hell up because I.
You're in my head too much.
Just.
Just hit it.
Just hit it.
We're rolling on our clothes.
I just.
I got two big points here.
There.
Maybe my.
Called my fancy questions.
I don't know.
One's on the protagonist,one's on the antagonist.
First of all, one of the mostfascinating aspects of your protagonist
(29:56):
in the list is how he's caughtbetween his ideals and the machinery
of power that he uncovers.
How much of his moral conflictwas inspired by your own observations
of people in power?
Quite.
Quite a bit, actually.
I watched.
I watched that conflict inpeople, not necessarily with murder
involved, but with otherstakes involved.
(30:16):
When business executives aremaking decisions that adversely affect
a great many people withlittle or no empathy for what they're
doing and things.
I watch those things.
And so, as I said, this is alot autobiographical that I got to
experience and be with.
So that quandary, thatconflict, I call it the conflict
of the human heart.
(30:37):
Conflict of the human heart isthe best conflict you can have in
a story because everyone canrelate to it.
And Brent Walker definitelyhas some conflict here.
He's got problems with whathappened with his wife.
He's got problems with thelove of his life that he may or may
not need to be with.
He's got all kinds of issuesthat he's got to deal with.
And then while that's goingon, here comes all this other stuff
(31:02):
piled right on top of it.
And folks, it's.
The other stuff is the reasonwhy you want to read it.
Yeah, we're not going to tellyou that.
That I could hold secret.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
And now on the antagonist, hein the list isn't just a villain.
And I love villains that arereally smart and calculated.
They're a chilling reflectionof how influence can be weaponized.
(31:24):
Now, how did you build suchcalculating yet believable figure?
And were they inspired by anyreal world figures or events you
were seeing at that time?
I would say yes.
I saw people make some veryheartless decisions.
Now, I represented theemployees for a while and then I
represented the company for a while.
So I saw it on both sides of that.
(31:47):
And it occurred to me, youknow, what if these people were just
totally amoral?
What if they had no valuestructure whatsoever?
What if they just didn'tsimply cater?
And that's really where thestory came from as it began to hit
me as I saw these very callousdecisions that were made sometimes
to the detriment of a lot of folks.
And those happen every day.
(32:08):
And just in the list, theyhave much more graphic and much more
deadly consequences.
Yeah, we see some of thatgoing on right now in our current
state of affairs.
Politically, I could infer ifI wanted to not go deeper, which
I won't.
Yeah, me neither.
But, yeah, you have to becareful with those decisions sometimes,
(32:30):
you know, there's consequencesto what you do.
Isn't that the truth?
And that's what the list isall about.
There are consequences to whatyou do.
There are consequences to whatyou do.
Yep.
That sounds like something.
My dad.
My dad was a Methodistminister growing up, so he had a.
He had a.
He was always infer.
(32:50):
Nut now you can do that, son.
Yeah, if that's what you think.
Now, I've taught you the.
What I think is the right way.
But if that.
If that's what you think youneed to do.
But I want you to know thereare going to be some consequences
down that road and you aregoing to have to handle.
Not me.
You can't come back to me andgo, but, dad, help me.
And that's basically what thelist is about.
(33:11):
And Brent Walker's Forced todeal with those.
Yeah, well, Steve, as weclose, and I.
Of course, you didn't tell methis when we're.
When you're up on stage in2019, but it's the closing question
that I have for all my authorson the show.
What is your best writing advice?
Now, this is especially forthose aspiring writers who want to
(33:31):
make it in this crazy, kookyworld of publishing.
It's simple, and it's not cliche.
And I'm deadly serious when Isay this.
You have to keep writing.
There's only one way to learnthe craft of writing, and that is
you have to do it.
You can't talk about it.
You can't think about it.
You can't hope it'll come to you.
You have to sit down every dayand write every day, all the time.
(33:56):
Because all you can hope foras a writer is what you wrote today
is a little bit better thanwhat you wrote yesterday, and what
you write tomorrow is a littlebit better than what you wrote today.
You never get good at it.
You never get great at it.
You just get a little bitbetter each day as you learn how
to do it.
And that there's only one wayto do that, and that's write.
(34:16):
You have to write all thetime, and you have to learn the craft
of writing because you have toteach yourself.
There's no such thing as awriting teacher.
No one can teach you anything.
But there are people, justlike I did with you.
There are people that canteach you how to teach yourself how
to write.
And that's what we did with that.
We gave you some tools, andyou use those to teach yourself.
(34:38):
And that's the only way to dothat, is to write.
Just so.
That's my advice, and it's superb.
You broke it down for me.
What's that now?
How many years ago?
Six years ago.
Six years ago.
And it was.
It just for some reason,you've seen a coin drop in a slot
and it just goes.
It was just like that.
(35:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
No, I appreciate you, and I. Ihave followed your career for a while
now.
I'm gonna guess you'reprobably about 50, 55.
Right?
Thank you.
When.
And this is just my ownpersonal curiosity, when.
When was the first time.
How old were you?
When you sat down, you said,you know what, Steve?
I think I can do this.
35.
(35:20):
When I wrote my first word.
But I didn't get publishedtill I was 47.
Wow.
There was 12 years from theday I wrote my first word to the
day I sold my first word.
I wrote eight manuscripts,five went to New York houses, rejected
85 times.
I made it the 86th time 12years after I started.
(35:41):
I have to let that sink inbecause people are sitting there,
they're so used to, oh, I getthis deal right away.
If I don't get it right away,Wait a minute, what's going on?
So 12 years.
85 rejections.
Yeah, it was a long processfor me to get published.
I was published first in 2003.
Now I'm 27 books later.
(36:03):
Wow.
Okay.
So to that point, if you couldgo back and tell that younger Steve
your best advice, personaladvice, hey, Steve, come here.
I want to put my arm aroundyou and give you a little.
What would it be?
Start sooner.
Start sooner.
I ignored the little voice inmy head.
Every writer has a littlevoice in their head that tells them
to write.
I ignored that voice for 10 years.
(36:24):
And so I wasted the 80s.
I wasted 10 years.
I could have gotten started sooner.
I might have got published sooner.
Might have had a little more,you know, a little more time before
the e revolution took over andthe industry changed, you know, but
I didn't.
I ignored the voice.
So if you have that littlevoice in your head telling you to
write, do not ignore it.
(36:45):
Sit down and do it.
I am so glad you said thatbecause I was having this conversation
with my wife inside the lasttwo weeks, and we were talking about.
She goes, look at theevolution you've had.
I'm like, yeah, but these areall self published.
I haven't landed the bigdeals, blah, blah, blah.
She goes, yeah, but thinkabout how long you've been at it.
And it.
And I.
My mind went back to.
It was the late 80s, early90s, when I would find myself in
(37:09):
spare times just jotting downnotes and I'm almost done.
And I thought, oh, I. I can'tbe a Steve Barry.
I can't be a James Patterson.
I'm not going to be a Michael Crichton.
These are all guys that I kindof looked up to.
And I'm like.
And I just went.
But to your point.
But you can.
But you can't.
But you can.
Yeah, you actually can.
That's the great thing about writing.
(37:30):
It's an acquired skill.
And you can acquire it.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Well, folks, if you want tolearn more, go to steveberry.org
that's O R G Steve.
Once again, the book is thelist right here, folks.
You're going to pick it up.
Thank you so much for the giftof your time.
Thanks for having me.
It's out in stores everywhere.
Check it out.
Your number one podcast forstories that thrill the Thriller
(37:54):
Zone.
Hello and welcome to theThriller Zone.
Guess who?
Dave Temple, your host.
So nice to have you here ontoday's show.
A prolific author, you'veknown him for many years.
I'm gonna give you a hint.
The word cotton shows up inone of his books.
But today it's D. Berry.
(00:24):
Today it's the list.
And stay tuned to find out whythis book got completely destroyed.
Also find out what this bookmasterclass has any relevance to
today's show.
That's right, it's a doozy.
Hey, by the way, as you haveheard me say before, I love it when
(00:47):
I hear from my listeners.
I love it when you just writein and say, hey, Dave, what's happening?
What's going on?
I like your show.
I hate your show.
Doesn't even matter what it is.
Either way, I'd love to hearfrom you.
You can drop us an email@the thrillerzonemail.com.
you can also visit our websiteat the thrillerzone.com of today,
I had a recording come in froma Tim Chandler and he left me this
(01:08):
voicemail.
Let's take a listen.
Hey there.
I found your YouTube podcast interviews.
I was looking for informationMark Greeny and discovered him and
a whole bunch of other authorsI love.
So keep up the good work.
I appreciate it.
And I'm working on my ownThriller novel.
So maybe someday I'll get achance to talk to you directly.
Thanks.
You have a good day.
(01:28):
Awesome.
Thank you, Tim Chandler.
And if you'd like to leave usa recording, as you know, you can
just go to our website, the thrillerzone.com.
you'll see that littlemicrophone at the bottom.
Click on it, record it andleave it for us.
We'd love to hear from you.
All right, without any furtherado, please welcome one of the guys
that has taught me quite a bitabout writing.
Probably one of the greatestwriters out there today, the one,
(01:51):
the only, Steve Barry, righthere on the Thriller Zone.
Steve, you got me curious,what were you wearing before?
I had a T shirt on.
I live in Florida, so I wear abathing suit T shirt all day long.
I mean, it's 100 degreesoutside right now.
So I go get in the pool.
I come back.
I don't really wear.
I just had a T shirt on, sothat's not very good.
(02:13):
Well, there are some people inthe audience that would probably
really enjoy that.
Yeah, I don't want to kind ofkeep the image up.
All right, a couple things.
You got your.
All your ducks in a row.
You got your lights, you gotyour Microphones, you got a handsome
back background.
You got.
We got 30 minutes.
I'm going to try to get in andout so you can get back to your pool.
Okay.
(02:33):
100 degrees.
Get out of here.
It's probably 97 outside rightnow with 100% humidity.
It's like a steam bath out there.
But that's Florida.
Yeah, I used to live in NorthCarolina, so we got close.
But I have family in Miami.
And when we go down this timeof year, which is not very often,
I'm like, what the hell are y'all doing?
(02:56):
You just get used to it.
I'm.
I've lived in all my life, soI'm very accustomed to it.
Well, Steve, first of all,welcome to the Thriller Zone.
This is a huge honor.
Well, thanks for having me.
I don't think I've ever beenon this show before.
No, you haven't.
And I wasn't even aware thatyou did podcast because I, you know,
I hadn't shown up on my radar.
But to be able to get you, andI've been trying for this for some
(03:18):
time.
I'm.
I'm quite excited.
Okay, well, glad.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Now, the book comes out on the22nd of July.
So when will this air?
I'm dropping you on Wednesdaythe 16th.
That's a week before.
Can you push it to the 23rd by chance?
Well, dude, your wish is my command.
Look at that.
I'm going to show you that.
And let's assume the book'salready out.
(03:38):
Let me show you how easy this is.
Arrow to here.
Done.
Couple things.
Speaking of.
Speaking of pool, I was goingto show you this beautiful book,
but it got kind of.
It got my.
I was out by the pool lastweekend and some kid decided to.
And I laid it down on my chair.
Some kid decided to do a cannonball.
(04:02):
Completely soaked.
It took me about four days tohang it to dry, and the back is flipping
off.
But the good news is I gotthrough it and it's.
It's a dandy reed.
Thank you.
That's my first piece of showand tell.
And then I'm going to getdrilling on you.
Okay, go ahead.
Here's my second piece of thisold piece of shit book called Masterclasses.
(04:22):
Just my book.
July 2019.
I met you at Thriller Fest.
You won't remember.
I was a lot younger then, andthis was.
And I'm going to sound likeI'm blowing smoke, but I'm not because
I got.
I can rattle off all the otherpeople I Sat in on their presentations.
(04:44):
But yours, for some reason,got multiple highlights.
Oh, very nice.
So you were in my master class.
I was in your master class.
And I was like, excuse my language.
But I was like, holy, thisguy's breaking it down for me.
Like, boom, boom.
I will never for.
I don't know why yours stuck out.
I think it's because you were.
You're so.
No nonsense.
(05:05):
When I'm.
When I'm teaching writing, Ijust lay it out the way it is.
That's the way I was taught,so that's the way I do it.
Well, can I just bring up acouple quick things?
I won't belabor too much, butthis is the six C's of story structure.
Correct.
And if you have a lisp, you'rereally messed up.
The thick thieves of Thori structure.
Yeah.
(05:26):
Act one, act two, act three,character conflict.
Crucible is act one at about20% of the book.
Correct.
Act two, complications riddledwith subplots.
That's act two.
60%.
That's 60%.
And your remaining 20% forthose mathematicians in the audience
is act three with crisis,point and conclusion.
(05:49):
Now, that is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 C's.
Now that.
I mean, that's all it is right there.
And I started applying that tomy stories right away.
And it works.
It's the.
It's a.
It's the way I was taught.
It's the way stories are to belaid out.
(06:09):
And when you read a story thatyou don't like or why you don't stick
with it, you'll usuallyidentify that that rule has been
broken somehow in some respects.
Now, I'm a big fan of BlakeSnyder's Save the Cat, but it can
get a wee bit convolutedbecause it's like 15 or 17 points.
(06:32):
I can't recall, but this is somuch easier.
Try to keep it simple becauseit's hard enough as it is.
You don't want to make it anyharder, you know?
Yeah, it's hard enough.
But thank you for rememberingthe stuff.
I'm glad it helped you.
Well, Steve, I don't want togeek out too much for you, but I'm
going to say, once again, this was.
(06:53):
This was a turning point for me.
That was the last time Itaught that class.
I haven't never taught it since.
Well, I feel blessed to havegotten into it.
2019, that was a big year forme because I got to meet all my writing
stars.
That was 2019.
This show is now officially,as of last week, four years in the
making, and you're going to belike 200, almost 50 episodes.
(07:16):
So we're, we're doingsomething right.
Very good.
Because Covid came after andthere was no thriller fest in 2021.
And then I haven't been backto Thriller fest since then.
Yeah.
All right, two more points andwe're going to bounce off.
One is outline a novel beforeyou write.
Now, I, I have.
We have talked about pantsersand plotters until my head's gonna
(07:38):
spin off.
But you said you make acomment about if you don't get the
structure right, and if youdon't at least contemplate outlining
it, you're.
You're fubar.
Well, not until.
Yeah, you've got to do it inthe beginning.
I did the first four novelsthat way.
After you do.
I've done 27.
Now after you do a few, youdon't have to outline the whole book,
(08:00):
but you do have to have a, apattern of where you're going.
I, I stay about 50 to 75 pagesahead of myself outlining, but I
have a journal.
But you just get a little bitbetter feel for it.
I'm a little more of a pantsernow than a, than a planner.
As the older I've gotten, I'vegot a little more.
But that just comes from experience.
You just get it.
You just get better at beingable to plot well.
(08:22):
And you also have a.
Such a natural rhythm to your writing.
You know, the scene sets up,you paint the picture of the, the
world.
Then you get into dialogue.
You give.
You give us just enoughsubtext of, oh, what's going on in
the room?
And there's more dialogue.
I'm a big dialogue fan.
So last thing.
This is the one thing.
(08:42):
I have a great big pinkquestion mark.
And I said, if I ever get tomeet Steve one day, I'm going to
ask him this.
So here we close with this.
All right.
Sequels do not work in thrillers.
Nope, they do not.
Because you have to assume asequel is.
A sequel is.
You have to have read thefirst book.
If you have not read the firstbook, the second book is completely.
(09:03):
You're completely lost.
Doesn't work in thrillers.
Works great in mystery, worksgreat in romance, Works great in
science fiction.
Doesn't work in thrillers.
It's never worked in thrillers.
You have to have a completestory finished, done.
Now, if you want to take itand go forward with that, that's
great.
But it's got to be a secondcomplete story that does not Rely
(09:23):
on the reader having to readthe first one.
Okay, okay.
All right.
That makes sense.
That's the difference.
It's like Godfather 1 andGodfather 2.
You can watch Godfather 2 andnever seen Godfather 1.
Yeah.
And you know exactly what'sgoing on.
That's not a sequel.
That was it.
That was a continuation of the story.
The story just kept going andthat's the way thrillers have to
(09:45):
be.
They've never.
I wish we could.
I wish we could write itepisodic like that and hang and go
to the next one and doanother, but it's.
No one's ever successfullydone that.
No one.
Not in the thriller business.
The successful thrillerwriters are like Cussler.
Each one is standalone.
(10:05):
There are series, but theystand alone.
Jack Reacher, same thing.
Series, but standalone.
Same with mine.
You can read mine in any orderyou want and you can skip around
and you won't have a problem.
You won't have any problem whatsoever.
The trick to writing a series,every book has to be the same, but
different.
Same, but different.
(10:26):
That's the trick.
Yeah.
Boy, there's.
There's.
There's.
That's a line you hear overand over, isn't it?
Same, but different.
But Lee Child taught me that.
Same, but different.
What's he doing now, by the way?
He's kind of semi retired now.
Yeah, yeah, he lives out inthe west in Wyoming and Colorado,
and his brother writes thebooks and he kind of just kind of
(10:49):
oversees it now.
Yeah, they're both such dandy guys.
I just.
I really like them.
All right, well, the.
Now, the list, as we mentionedearlier, and please excuse the.
Usually I get hardbacks orI'll get a little bit better, but
you know, the water did thedamage in this one.
It's.
The idea is kind of secretcontrolling force behind world events.
So I'm famous for my two part question.
(11:12):
So first of all, what inspiredyou to tackle this theme?
And secondly, how much of itdo you feel reflects our current
reality versus just pure fiction?
Well, I wrote the book as well.
You may or may not.
Now, I wrote the book 33 years ago.
The original story was written33 years ago.
(11:33):
Now, it was not ready to print.
I mean, it was terribly written.
So it went in a drawer and Irewrote it during COVID I took it
out during COVID in 2020 andjust rewrote it.
The story is basically thesame, but how it's told is very different.
Because I'd learned so muchabout how to write a novel, so I
was able to Write it in awhere readers can read it.
The book is.
(11:54):
The story is kind of autobiographical.
I lived a lot of this.
I lived a lot of what BrentWalker does.
I was a small town lawyer.
I represented the electricalunion at the mill.
I represented the company.
And one day I was in anarbitration hearing and it just kind
of occurred to me, I said,well, wait a minute now.
What if the company justdidn't worry about all this?
(12:17):
What if they didn't worryabout arbitrations?
What if they were self insuredand they had a way of controlling
their high cost items?
Their retirement program isself funded.
What if they could control thepayouts of that in a very unique
way?
And that way, of course, was murder.
(12:38):
If they used murder to controlall that.
So it occurred to me, I saidthis would be a pretty interesting
way for a company to get anedge on everybody else.
And so the list was born and Iwrote it.
The Firm by Grisham was reallyhot then.
It was a hot, hot book at that time.
So its influence is clear herea little bit.
But this is a very differentbook from the firm, a very different
(13:01):
book in how it plays out.
But it just occurred to mewhat would happen if a company decided
to kill off their problems andnot worry about it.
You know, you don't kill themall, you just kill a few.
Enough to keep you solvent.
Yeah, yeah.
And so the list came from that.
Does it reflect anything inreal life?
No, it's strictly fiction.
(13:21):
I mean, just strictly an ideaof mine.
Or is it?
Yeah, who knows?
Who knows?
Who knows?
I gotta tell you, that openingprologue, one of my favorite.
I got a note here that Iusually make notes in here.
One of them said one of thebest prologues I've read in years.
That that is.
Well, I wanted you to get afeel for what.
(13:42):
How these guys work and whatthey do and how they put it together.
I wanted you to see them.
This book's a little unique inthat I don't hide the fact of what's
going on in the.
This book.
You know that right up front.
Yeah.
There's no secret of whatthey're doing, it's just how they're
doing it and then how it unravels.
Yeah.
How it comes apart.
(14:02):
This is about the unravelingof all of this.
Not, you know, I. I rememberwhen I first wrote it, I tried to
keep the secret, but it madeno sense, you know?
So when I rewrote it, Iadjusted all that.
I said, there's no point in that.
This, this is about theunraveling and Brent Walker getting
caught up in that unravelingand what's going to happen to him
(14:25):
while all this plays out.
Well.
And I found it interestingbecause at the beginning, I'll admit,
when I'm reading it, I'm like,well, I know exactly what's going
right out of the gate.
And in an instant I'm like, itdoesn't matter.
I'm along for a ride becauseyou gave me two different points
of view.
And so you start off in thisnice, warm fuzzy.
(14:47):
I'm a big fan of warm fuzzy.
And then a little bit comes inout of nowhere and you're like, oh,
I didn't see that coming.
But I think what I most enjoy,Steve, is the precision with which
the bad guys work and thethought behind it.
Yeah, there's a rules.
(15:08):
These are not haphazard things.
They're very good at what theydo because they don't want to get
caught.
Right.
And of course, you just don'tmurder anybody.
It has to be.
They kill people, but in avery ingenious way.
And they give a lot of thoughtto it.
Now what happens, of course,is greed takes over and stupidity
(15:28):
comes with greed, and youstart making mistakes, and that's
what happens.
And so like I said, when Irewrote it, I made those adjustments
that this is about theunraveling of this problem, not me
shocking you.
What they're doing.
I mean, I wanted you to know.
You learn pretty much in thefirst 50 pages what's going on.
Yeah.
(15:48):
You know, but then.
But what you don't know,there's a little more to it than
what you think.
And that's what comes later.
Yeah.
And that.
That's what's so deliciousthat I could hide from you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you did, sir.
I remember a conversation Ihad with an SBI agent.
God had been about 30 years ago.
He.
(16:09):
I was over at his house, we'rejust hanging out, having a beer,
and he and I.
And he had some photographslaying around.
And he goes, do you want tosee some of these?
He knew I was interested inwriting, and I said, sure.
And they're murder scenes andpretty violent ones.
And one that forever is burnedin my memory, sad to say, was this
person got hit multiple timeswith a ball peen hammer upside the
(16:32):
head.
And I said, boy, who had anyidea it was that kind of damage?
He goes, well, when you thinkabout what this is made of.
And then we went on from thereand I said, listen, let me ask you
something.
I'll call him Steve.
Steve.
What?
What?
Is there a way?
What is there a way?
And if there is, what is theway you can get away with murder?
(16:52):
He stopped and he looked at meand he said, there's one way.
Now of course I'm thinking,okay, this is going to be a doozy.
Let me hear what it is.
And he goes, one way and oneway only.
I said, what is it?
He said, never tell anyone.
That's true.
(17:14):
That's it.
He goes, yeah, never tell anyone.
Not your friend, not yourlover, not your best friend, not
nobody, period.
That's why the professionalhitmen are so good at it.
You know, they tell no one.
They do.
No one.
And that's what the priorityprogram was.
Everything is tight, right in there.
Tight.
No mistakes allowed, nomistakes tolerated.
(17:34):
And so that's what occurred tome when I wrote the book the first
time.
I said, you know, you couldget away with it if you're careful
and if you, if you use your brain.
But as I said, eventuallyhuman beings are involved and greed
and takes over and mistakesare made.
And that's what the book's about.
Well, you know, a lot ofthriller writers as I've spoken to
(17:58):
with over the four years, theysaid, you know, they kind of sometimes
will shy away from polarizing ideas.
It made me wonder, what aresome of the reactions that have surprised
you most from readers in this time?
Well, I mean, what I deal withwith the Cotton Malone series, you
know, is I deal with very.
I deal with things from thepast that still have relevance today.
(18:21):
And so the topics are veryrelevant today.
And I try to keep them astopical as I can.
A lot of times people get alittle too much and they don't realize
that it's fiction, it's not real.
Yeah.
And you know, they'll want totell me this and that, this and that.
And of course you want towrite back and say you do understand
that this is not real.
It's not.
(18:42):
I made it up, you understand.
And so, but they, they want itto be so close and, and I've.
That's sort of my own faultbecause my Cott Malone books are
about 90% to history.
I keep them about 90% toreality, I trip them up about 10%
and I put a writer's note inthe back of the book to tell you
where that happens.
So I'm careful there.
(19:03):
This book, it'll beinteresting to see what the reaction
is from it.
You know, that, you know,companies can be somewhat cold hearted,
companies can be somewhatbottom line Oriented and it'll be
interesting to see what, whatfolks find here to, to call me out
on.
There's always something ineach book for.
(19:24):
Some reason, and I hope thisis the compliment that I am intending
because it is one of my alltime favorites.
One of those movies that ifit's on when I am just lounging about,
maybe it's a cloudy day herein San Diego and it comes on, I'm
gonna watch it.
And it's Michael Clayton.
Yeah, I like that.
I know that movie.
And it, for some reason, thisbook reminded of me.
(19:46):
It's.
It's the subterfuge, it's the sea.
You know, you, you're kind offamous for secret societies and hidden
truths.
This doesn't have a secretsociety, but it certainly has one
great big fat glaring secretin it.
And it's the way that it'sunpeeled and unraveled that makes
me so intrigued.
He's a fixer.
That's what he does.
He fixes things.
And of course, things unravelon him as well.
(20:08):
It's kind of like here, it'sjust a little more.
The stakes are a little higherhere and that people are dying from
it, but it's just a.
It just occurred, you know, asI said, a lot of this came out of
my own practice because I wasa lawyer like Brent Walker is, and
I lived in a town similar towhere Brent lives.
And we lived in a company town.
(20:28):
And when you're in a companytown, you know, things are very different
in a company town because thecompany runs the town.
And I lived in one of thosefor about 10, 12 years until the
Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base came.
And that all changed.
Everything changed.
Wasn't a company town anymore,but it's just a.
It's a.
It's a peculiar institution,particularly in the South.
(20:51):
There used to be so many of them.
They're all gone now.
I don't think there's any left anymore.
But St. Mary's was one for along, long time.
For about 45 years.
You know, you talk about.
This book was written so long ago.
If you were to write it againtoday, like you could just.
Yeah.
Rework the whole world.
(21:13):
Knowing what you know today inthe, in our current times, what would
you.
Do you think you've done differently?
No, I wouldn't do anything.
That's what I did in 2020.
That's exactly what I did.
I brought the book forward.
Oh, copy that.
You know, forward 30 years.
Adjusted certain things.
For example, when I wrote thebook the first time there were no
cell phones.
Oh yeah.
Remember?
(21:33):
No cell phones.
Yeah, yeah.
So I had to, I had to readjusteverything because, you know, Brent's
looking for a telephone for phone.
He doesn't have to have that anymore.
So I had to, I had toincorporate new technology, computers.
We didn't have computers in1992, you know, on our desks either.
We didn't have any of this stuff.
So I, I basically did thatduring COVID I brought the book forward.
(21:56):
I also tightened it up.
The original book was about 11516.
This was about 103.
So I took out about 13,000 words.
So I tightened it and got itmuch tighter.
100,000 word thriller is agood length for a thriller.
So it's very tight, whichmeans it moves very fast.
This is, this is superb timingfor the question I was just getting
(22:20):
ready to ask you.
What do you feel is kind ofwhat I call the sweet spot for thrillers?
Well, the number one thing yougot to do, you got to thrill.
I mean, absolutely, you haveto have thrills from the page one
all the way through.
You've got to have.
You've got to thrill the reader.
The reader's got to be keptoff guard at all times because remember
(22:43):
the difference between amystery book and a thriller.
A mystery is about what happened.
A thriller is about what'sgoing to happen.
Those are two different waysof plotting things.
So you've got to have a thrilland you've got to keep that going
all the way through.
And you've got to keep thereader engaged all the way through.
(23:03):
That's the number one thing.
Pacing in a thriller is so important.
And that's really what Ichanged here more than anything in
the rewrite.
As I picked up the pacing, Imade the pacing much faster.
This book really moves very,very fast.
A lot happens very quickly.
And more specifically for thatquestion, so I can put a finer point
(23:25):
on, it is the sweet spot ofnumbers because you said you went
from 120ish to around 1ish.
You know, what do you thinkballpark number for like the ideal
thriller read?
Ideal.
I mean, I mean a thriller, athriller shit needs to be as long
as it needs to be.
That's really what needs to be.
But I would say that if youget much over about110,115, it better
(23:48):
be really interesting, itbetter be really good.
Because your reader, you know,you got to look at it closely.
I used to, I used to writethem in around the 115 level.
I do it now.
Around 100.
I just turned in next year'sCotton Malone book, and it's 92,000.
That's the tightest I've everdone it.
Wow.
Now, that's hard.
I mean, shorter is better, butShorter is harder.
(24:12):
Yeah, a lot, lot harder.
And.
But.
But 92,000, it just clips.
I mean, there's no filler.
There's no.
It just moves.
Everything's moving quick.
And as I get older, I'm tryingto write the books tighter, tighter.
And people would say, well,you didn't write as many words, so
it was easier.
No, no, actually, it was much harder.
(24:32):
It was extremely harder.
It's much easier to write120,000 words than it is to write
90,000 words, but you try tokeep it.
I think a good thriller inthat hundred thousand, you know,
range is a good length that athriller writer ought to be looking
at.
Much over that.
I did one book at 130,Charlemagne Pursuit.
It's the longest book I everdid, but it was a big story.
(24:56):
It was a very large story.
Yeah.
That's the longest I've ever done.
And then most of the othershave stayed down in that 110, 115
range.
So I would encourage.
Shorter is always better, so Ialways encourage them to go short.
Now, two things pop into my head.
One is I just read a bookrecently by a new author, Thomas
(25:16):
Trang Dead Neon Dirt.
I'm gonna hack the title.
It doesn't matter.
The book was clocking at about82, 85.
That thing read so fast.
Yeah, yeah, I read it in one day.
It was just brilliant.
Point number two.
I'm talking to Emily Bessler.
You know her.
She was on the show recently,and we were talking about this very
(25:38):
topic.
And she goes, david, I'll tellyou the truth, David.
And I'd love to imitate herperfectly because she's so sweet,
but I don't care if it's 110,120, 130, 140 if you keep me reading.
And it's interesting, I don'tcare how long it is.
That's.
She goes, I agree with her.
Yeah, but it better be reallygood when you get up in that 120.
And she said, but.
(25:59):
But it better be so good,because you're asking a lot of the
reader.
You are.
You're asking a lot of thereader at that point.
And now in the fantasy world,you can do that.
They want very thick books.
They want big, giant books,you know, but in the thriller business,
no, no, no, no.
No, they want it tight.
Get it as tight as you can, asyou can do it because the tighter
(26:20):
you write it, the quicker youcan read it and the read, the.
More intense is the read.
And I, I personally feel like,you know, I, I, I like these guys
who were cranking about alittle bit faster than they used
to be.
I remember the time, youremember this time you were doing
it one book a year, maybe oneevery year and a half.
Even, you know, knocking ontwo years door now it's like the
(26:42):
people are going, oh, I wantone a year minimum.
I'd really like to have two a year.
What are your thoughts on that?
I can't, I, I have done that recently.
Recently I've had two a yearbecause I did the Cotton Malone series
and I did Luke Daniels series.
But I had help here.
I had Grant Blackwood helpingme with here.
I physically can't write twobooks a year because of the amount
(27:02):
of research and everythingthat goes into these.
There's no, there's, there'sjust no way.
But I could do it with Grant's help.
So for the last three yearsI've, last two years I've had two
books a year and, but that'sover now.
Now we'll go to one book, backto one book a year and I much prefer
that.
Well, there is something aboutyour storytelling is a bit more languorous
(27:24):
than I generally read.
I'm reading about two, threebooks a week and so I'm kind of looking
for that super fast read.
But you know, you still,you're not in Thomas Wolf territory
where he's clocking 140 andyou know, he spends an entire chapter
as he's walked into the room.
He hasn't even gotten into theroom and done anything yet.
You know, so it's a literary style.
(27:45):
And he wrote in a literary style.
Yeah, you can't do that in thethriller business at all.
I, so I, I try to keep theCott Malone books, as I said, I just
did 92.
I'm hoping to keep them allbetween 90 and 100 now.
Yeah, that's what I'd like todo because I, I know this, this one
I just finished.
My wife is my first editor whoreads it.
(28:06):
She came up and said, thatthing just read.
Wow, that thing read fast.
Yeah, 92,000.
Read fast, really quick.
And so that's what you wantand that's what I'm going to try.
But as I said, it's harder.
It's much harder.
Well, I'm not going to try todo the math in my head, because I'm
not that great of amathematician, but I'm looking back
to your 20, 60, 20 rule.
(28:26):
And if I had 90,000 as a roundnumber, that would be 18,000 in.
The front and back and therest in the middle.
See, you did it so much fasterthan me.
18,000 roughly, would be 20,probably 40, 50 pages in the front,
(28:49):
40, 50 pages in the back, andthen the rest in the middle.
You know what I love aboutwatching you, Steve, is you've done
it for so long.
It's kind of like good golfers.
They don't get up and theydon't do a whole lot of practice
swings.
They knew what the swing will do.
They know what the grip willdo, what the swing will do.
They just get up and rip it.
I'm the same way.
I can.
I play golf very fast.
(29:09):
Yeah, very fast.
I can do 18 holes.
We do 18 holes around here inabout two and a half hours.
Okay, that is moving.
We move, we don't.
Because I'm not going to hitit any better thinking about it.
Yeah.
Isn't that the truth?
Yeah.
Oh, that whole.
That whole.
Okay, I'm going to do this,and I'm going to do this and just
hit it.
And the guys I don't want toplay with are the guys who do this.
(29:33):
Temple, get your head down.
Yeah.
Watch your right hand.
You shut the hell up because I.
You're in my head too much.
Just.
Just hit it.
Just hit it.
We're rolling on our clothes.
I just.
I got two big points here.
There.
Maybe my.
Called my fancy questions.
I don't know.
One's on the protagonist,one's on the antagonist.
First of all, one of the mostfascinating aspects of your protagonist
(29:56):
in the list is how he's caughtbetween his ideals and the machinery
of power that he uncovers.
How much of his moral conflictwas inspired by your own observations
of people in power?
Quite.
Quite a bit, actually.
I watched.
I watched that conflict inpeople, not necessarily with murder
involved, but with otherstakes involved.
(30:16):
When business executives aremaking decisions that adversely affect
a great many people withlittle or no empathy for what they're
doing and things.
I watch those things.
And so, as I said, this is alot autobiographical that I got to
experience and be with.
So that quandary, thatconflict, I call it the conflict
of the human heart.
(30:37):
Conflict of the human heart isthe best conflict you can have in
a story because everyone canrelate to it.
And Brent Walker definitelyhas some conflict here.
He's got problems with whathappened with his wife.
He's got problems with thelove of his life that he may or may
not need to be with.
He's got all kinds of issuesthat he's got to deal with.
And then while that's goingon, here comes all this other stuff
(31:02):
piled right on top of it.
And folks, it's.
The other stuff is the reasonwhy you want to read it.
Yeah, we're not going to tellyou that.
That I could hold secret.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
And now on the antagonist, hein the list isn't just a villain.
And I love villains that arereally smart and calculated.
They're a chilling reflectionof how influence can be weaponized.
(31:24):
Now, how did you build suchcalculating yet believable figure?
And were they inspired by anyreal world figures or events you
were seeing at that time?
I would say yes.
I saw people make some veryheartless decisions.
Now, I represented theemployees for a while and then I
represented the company for a while.
So I saw it on both sides of that.
(31:47):
And it occurred to me, youknow, what if these people were just
totally amoral?
What if they had no valuestructure whatsoever?
What if they just didn'tsimply cater?
And that's really where thestory came from as it began to hit
me as I saw these very callousdecisions that were made sometimes
to the detriment of a lot of folks.
And those happen every day.
(32:08):
And just in the list, theyhave much more graphic and much more
deadly consequences.
Yeah, we see some of thatgoing on right now in our current
state of affairs.
Politically, I could infer ifI wanted to not go deeper, which
I won't.
Yeah, me neither.
But, yeah, you have to becareful with those decisions sometimes,
(32:30):
you know, there's consequencesto what you do.
Isn't that the truth?
And that's what the list isall about.
There are consequences to whatyou do.
There are consequences to whatyou do.
Yep.
That sounds like something.
My dad.
My dad was a Methodistminister growing up, so he had a.
He had a.
He was always infer.
(32:50):
Nut now you can do that, son.
Yeah, if that's what you think.
Now, I've taught you the.
What I think is the right way.
But if that.
If that's what you think youneed to do.
But I want you to know thereare going to be some consequences
down that road and you aregoing to have to handle.
Not me.
You can't come back to me andgo, but, dad, help me.
And that's basically what thelist is about.
(33:11):
And Brent Walker's Forced todeal with those.
Yeah, well, Steve, as weclose, and I.
Of course, you didn't tell methis when we're.
When you're up on stage in2019, but it's the closing question
that I have for all my authorson the show.
What is your best writing advice?
Now, this is especially forthose aspiring writers who want to
(33:31):
make it in this crazy, kookyworld of publishing.
It's simple, and it's not cliche.
And I'm deadly serious when Isay this.
You have to keep writing.
There's only one way to learnthe craft of writing, and that is
you have to do it.
You can't talk about it.
You can't think about it.
You can't hope it'll come to you.
You have to sit down every dayand write every day, all the time.
(33:56):
Because all you can hope foras a writer is what you wrote today
is a little bit better thanwhat you wrote yesterday, and what
you write tomorrow is a littlebit better than what you wrote today.
You never get good at it.
You never get great at it.
You just get a little bitbetter each day as you learn how
to do it.
And that there's only one wayto do that, and that's write.
(34:16):
You have to write all thetime, and you have to learn the craft
of writing because you have toteach yourself.
There's no such thing as awriting teacher.
No one can teach you anything.
But there are people, justlike I did with you.
There are people that canteach you how to teach yourself how
to write.
And that's what we did with that.
We gave you some tools, andyou use those to teach yourself.
(34:38):
And that's the only way to dothat, is to write.
Just so.
That's my advice, and it's superb.
You broke it down for me.
What's that now?
How many years ago?
Six years ago.
Six years ago.
And it was.
It just for some reason,you've seen a coin drop in a slot
and it just goes.
It was just like that.
(35:00):
Yeah, absolutely.
No, I appreciate you, and I. Ihave followed your career for a while
now.
I'm gonna guess you'reprobably about 50, 55.
Right?
Thank you.
When.
And this is just my ownpersonal curiosity, when.
When was the first time.
How old were you?
When you sat down, you said,you know what, Steve?
I think I can do this.
35.
(35:20):
When I wrote my first word.
But I didn't get publishedtill I was 47.
Wow.
There was 12 years from theday I wrote my first word to the
day I sold my first word.
I wrote eight manuscripts,five went to New York houses, rejected
85 times.
I made it the 86th time 12years after I started.
(35:41):
I have to let that sink inbecause people are sitting there,
they're so used to, oh, I getthis deal right away.
If I don't get it right away,Wait a minute, what's going on?
So 12 years.
85 rejections.
Yeah, it was a long processfor me to get published.
I was published first in 2003.
Now I'm 27 books later.
(36:03):
Wow.
Okay.
So to that point, if you couldgo back and tell that younger Steve
your best advice, personaladvice, hey, Steve, come here.
I want to put my arm aroundyou and give you a little.
What would it be?
Start sooner.
Start sooner.
I ignored the little voice inmy head.
Every writer has a littlevoice in their head that tells them
to write.
I ignored that voice for 10 years.
(36:24):
And so I wasted the 80s.
I wasted 10 years.
I could have gotten started sooner.
I might have got published sooner.
Might have had a little more,you know, a little more time before
the e revolution took over andthe industry changed, you know, but
I didn't.
I ignored the voice.
So if you have that littlevoice in your head telling you to
write, do not ignore it.
(36:45):
Sit down and do it.
I am so glad you said thatbecause I was having this conversation
with my wife inside the lasttwo weeks, and we were talking about.
She goes, look at theevolution you've had.
I'm like, yeah, but these areall self published.
I haven't landed the bigdeals, blah, blah, blah.
She goes, yeah, but thinkabout how long you've been at it.
And it.
And I.
My mind went back to.
It was the late 80s, early90s, when I would find myself in
(37:09):
spare times just jotting downnotes and I'm almost done.
And I thought, oh, I. I can'tbe a Steve Barry.
I can't be a James Patterson.
I'm not going to be a Michael Crichton.
These are all guys that I kindof looked up to.
And I'm like.
And I just went.
But to your point.
But you can.
But you can't.
But you can.
Yeah, you actually can.
That's the great thing about writing.
(37:30):
It's an acquired skill.
And you can acquire it.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Well, folks, if you want tolearn more, go to steveberry.org
that's O R G Steve.
Once again, the book is thelist right here, folks.
You're going to pick it up.
Thank you so much for the giftof your time.
Thanks for having me.
It's out in stores everywhere.
Check it out.
Your number one podcast forstories that thrill the Thriller
(37:54):
Zone.
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