Birds of Prey - Crouch Blake - Страница 33

JOE: That 16,000 word section features Javier (Snowbound), Luther Kite (Locked Doors), Mr. K (Shaken), Alex Kork (Rusty Nail), and Charles Kork (Whiskey Sour) on the side of evil, along with cameos by Kiernan (Run), Donaldson (Serial), Lucy (Serial), Dwight Eisenhower (Endurance), Isaiah (Abandon), Swanson, Munchel, and Pessalano (Fuzzy Navel).

They went up against the forces of good, Jack Daniels, Clayton Theel (Draculas), and Tequila (Shot of Tequila.)

It was like a greatest hits battle royale, and so much fun to write.

Which is part of the reason the end product is over 120,000 words long and took two years to complete. This double novel takes place between all of our other novels, filling in gaps, expanding back-stories, and revealing clues to our upcoming collaboration, STIRRED.

BLAKE: There are some huge clues in here, no doubt. To me, the benefit of writing something like this, is that we’re using characters who have already been battle-tested in other books. We know they work, we love to write them, and so instead of spending all our time inventing and developing brand new characters, we’ve taken this group and put them to work building an entire monster of a book.

JOE: I’m pretty sure this hasn’t been done before. Not on this scale. Not with two authors completely meshing their worlds together.

At least, not in horror fiction. Comics and TV shows have been doing this for years. Superheroes and Supervillains always appear across many titles, and who didn’t love the 70s when Magnum PI would appear on Simon & Simon, or Mork did a cameo on Laverne & Shirley?

BLAKE: Let’s talk about how our collaborative process has developed over the last two years. With SERIAL, we started out emailing each other back and forth until a scene was finished, and there was a big element of gamesmanship, of not knowing what the other guy was up to and using that energy to propel the scene into interesting places. Then with KILLERS, we started using Google docs, which we’ve talked about previously, allowing us to write in the same document at the same time. But what interests me most is how our writing style (when we write together) has changed. I think we’ve truly developed a Konrath/Crouch style that is quite different from our individual styles. It seems like we edit each other much less now, and I think that’s because I know what kind of a sentence will pass your bullshit test, and vice versa.

JOE: It’s become pretty seamless, and we’re often finishing each other’s sentences, or anticipating what the other will do next. As a result, we can write 3,000 words faster than it would take either of us to write 1,500 individually, because we’re rewriting and polishing on the fly.

I also like it when we divvy up workloads. “Blake, go and add description to the Porter intro, and I’ll work ahead on the first Alex scene.” It’s a lot of fun. Almost like a hive mind is writing the story. Since writing is such a solitary profession, to be able to create stories and worlds with a partner is like getting a new toy.

BLAKE: You write very fast on your own, but for instance, today we wrote about 5,000 words, which is an astronomical word count for me.

JOE: That’s because you’re slow, like a snail surfing on molasses. At the same time I was working with you, I was working with Ann Voss Peterson on FLEE, our spy novel. We did about 4,000 there, too.

BLAKE: Show off.

So we’re going to finish the last piece of this puzzle, STIRRED, this summer. That’s going to be the conclusion to your Jack Daniels series and my Andrew Thomas series. In a way, writing SKU has laid the perfect groundwork for how we’re going to approach writing that novel together. It’s going to be a blast.

JOE: Hopefully the fun we’re having will translate to the page, and give our fans—both new to us and long-time readers—something to enjoy.

Do you believe tools like Dropbox and Google docs are going to change the way writers write?

BLAKE: Not on a massive scale, no. I still think most writers are solitary beings, introverts by nature, and that most books will continue to be single-author. It’s a wonderful thing to collaborate, but you have to find the right partner, not only someone who thinks like you and tells stories like you, but who you respect enough to let them change your words. That’s a tall order, and without getting all sentimental and shit, we’re very lucky to have crossed paths.

JOE: I dunno, man. I’ve done this Google docs thing with you, Ann, and Barry Eisler, and we’ve all enjoyed it. I think it’s just a matter of time before we see big shots giving it a try. Especially since ebooks have made it so easy to release work.

It’s worth mentioning here that there is no way we would have been able to do this in the traditional publishing environment. This is a 120,000 word double-novel, published in segments over the course of twenty-four months, where the protagonists are mostly serial killers. Our agents would have laughed at us, and no publisher would ever have taken on this project.

BLAKE: Except Brilliance Audio. Yay, Brilliance!

JOE: They’re very forward-thinking. But they also pay attention to the market. The previous installments we’ve written have sold very well, and readers seem to get what we’re trying to do.

Would you call this metafiction? Experimental? Or am I being big-headed (well, more than usual) in thinking this is a natural evolution of narrative structure?

BLAKE: No, I think it’s all of that. But mainly, it’s just two guys writing the kind of book they would be totally geeked to read if their favorite writers ever attempted such a project.

JOE: We have truly been liberated by technology here. I can’t emphasize that enough. There have always been writers who collaborate. Ellery Queen was two guys. Preston and Child are bestsellers. But with SKU, we were literally on the same page, at the same time, adding to each other’s sentences before they were finished. We couldn’t have written the gunshow scene on two separate typewriters. We couldn’t have even written it via email, as we did with SERIAL.

I believe DRACULAS, and SKU, represent a new way of creating stories.

But then, I’ve also been drinking.

BLAKE: Well I haven’t…yet…and I agree with you. I just want to see more writers doing this sort of thing. Imagine if Stephen King and Dean Koontz did something like this.

JOE: Better yet, imagine if King, Koontz, and Kilborn did something like this? Or Crouch, Patterson, and Harris?

BLAKE: I’d buy it.

JOE: So would I. As long as it was less than $5.99. Now let’s talk about the sex scene…

BLAKE: Um yeah…you and I have written quite a bit together, but nothing like this. And I was actually staying at your house when we wrote this, so it was a bit strange being in the same room, writing the Alex/Luther conjugal visit at the same time.

JOE: I wouldn’t call it uncomfortable, exactly. But it was a pretty hot scene, and there were certain points where I didn’t want to make eye contact with you. That said, I think we did an admirable job of not succumbing to childish giggling. Mostly.

BLAKE: Think we’ll ever release a single work containing all novels, stories, and novellas in this combined universe, which we’ve written to date? It would be something like 1,500,000 words.

JOE: That would require us getting the rights back—rights currently held by our legacy publishers. I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Last question. Are we really, truly done with this story?

BLAKE: I think we’re done for the time being, but I don’t want to say that a continuance is completely out of the question. Our characters seem to have this strange habit of never really dying…

Tampa, 1978

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you about the dangers of hitchhiking?” the driver said. “You never know who’s going to pick you up.”