My new novel, "Death in a Family Business" was inspired by experiences I had as a business magazine editor and as a SCORE counselor. The original working title was "How to Save a Sick Store," and while the business in the novel is very sick, and while the characters work effectively to save it, that title makes the book sound like something you'd find on the bookstore's "Business" shelves, which would be the wrong place.
Because I like novels that tell me something about how the world works, those are the novels I like to write. So even if you've never worked in a retail store or been to Japan, I trust you'll find the information interesting—not to mention the characters and the story.
"The Girl in the Photo," was inspired by the picture on the book's cover, a young Japanese woman sitting at a table smiling at the camera, a chrysanthemum virtually lighting her face. Who is she? Who took the picture? What is her story?
Like my first novel, "Getting Oriented," Japan plays a significant role in the new book although two thirds of the action takes place in the US. Unlike my first novel, the new one is not really about Japan (although readers will still learn things about the country and its culture). The new book is really about relationships between father and daughter, between father and son, and between brother and sister.
The reasons someone writes fiction are as varied as individual writers. I do it because it helps me impose--or discover--meaning and structure on experience. It helps me to live what I consider to be a full and productive life.
I knew I was a writer when, in junior high school, I wrote a humorous sketch for an English assignment. The teacher praised it and read it to the class, which laughed when it was supposed to. The piece even seemed to entertain the adults who read it. I realized that my words, my creations, could entertain and, as a result, people--including girls--would pay attention to me.
In high school, I wrote plays, stories, and poetry. In the Army, I wrote reviews and stories. In college, I wrote a column for the school newspaper and an unpublished novel. I found a job as a writer on a trade magazine and spent 25 years as a reporter and writer, raised a family, but always continued to write poetry, plays, and fiction. I became a ghostwriter and have now published 19 business books, but I never stopped writing fiction. I went back to college and earned an MA in creative writing.
I suspect my early novels did not find a publisher because, while I found the central character fascinating, readers did not find his character, his wants, or his challenges very engaging. While fiction has no unbreakable rules, a good general maxim is this: If readers don't care what happens to your main character they're not going to read your book. Ideally you want an interesting character in an interesting situation so that readers want to know what's going to happen next. Occasionally a writer will put cardboard characters in an extraordinary situation and sell a million books ("The Di Vinci Code," "Fifty Shades of Grey") but that's unusual.
The novels I enjoy reading tell me something about the world and the human condition. Ideally, they tell me something new. It's why I prefer a police procedural mystery to, say, Agatha Christie. For that reason, the books I want to write, ideally tell readers something about people and how they live, about the world and how it works.
Between the US Army, my undergraduate college experience, and regular practice ever since, I speak enough Japanese to have been hired to lead tours in Japan. It occurred to me that a tour would be an interesting situation to fictionalize...a diverse group of Americans...a foreign culture...an inexperienced guide...many opportunities for tension and conflict. And the thought became the seed that grew into the 240 pages of "Getting Oriented: A Novel about Japan."
With "The Girl in the Photo," it occurred to me that it would be interesting for the middle-aged children to discover a photo and a letter touching on a period in their father's life they knew nothing about.
While I did not consciously set out to do so, I find that I tend to put my imaginary characters in real places. I do not care for books that are set in an imaginary place (Ed McBain's 87th Precinct mysteries) or are coy about identifying their real setting. Someone could replicate the tour in "Getting Oriented," although, again, the tour in the book is neither the tour I led nor are the characters in the book portraits of people on my tours. The characters in both novels are composites of many people I've known. And although I think they live and breathe on the page, readers will have to tell me whether they do or not.
I am sometimes asked about the relationship between my non-fiction ghostwriting and novel writing. With a business book, I have a wealth of material to work from. I spend as much time as I can with the author to immerse myself in that world. I went to one author's day-long seminars then spent almost another day and a half interviewing him before I began his book. If the author has speeches, white papers, presentations, whatever, I want them all.
The author and I meet regularly throughout the writing process, although today that meeting may be via phone or e-mail. For one book, I did not meet the California-based author in person until after she published the book. I send the author every chapter as I write to ask for feedback, and some authors are far more hands-on than others, editing what I have written.
While I use fictional techniques to great effect in non-fiction (description, scene-setting, dialogue), I have no limits--beyond plausibility--in fiction. In a novel, I can tell you what a character is thinking and feeling. In non-fiction I can tell you only what I've been told or learned through research and experience.
Non-fiction is usually very clear about its natural audience: marketing executives, salesmen, general managers, advertising managers, whatever. Every article in the trade magazine for which I worked had to tell readers either how to make money or how to save money. A clear test.
Genre fiction is also clear: mystery, romance, thriller, paranormal, chick-lit, sci-fi, with subcategories under the major groups. With a book labeled, a bookstore knows where to shelve it. With a book not easily labeled--and I'm afraid my novels are just such books--publishers and bookstores have a much more difficult time.
Nevertheless, I was brought up to believe that if a book were good enough, it would eventually find an audience. Writing is immense work, but having written gives me enormous satisfaction. I can only hope that the readers who find my books receive half as much enjoyment reading them as I had creating them.
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