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Book Club: "The Millionaires"
With Author Brad Meltzer
Hosted by Dennis Drabelle, Post Book World Contributing Editor
Thursday, May 2, 2002; Noon EDT
On Saturday, May 18, 2002 at 1 p.m. EDT, The Washington Post Book Club presents three of the most highly-acclaimed suspense writers of our time at the annual Book Club event hosted at The Omni Shorham Hotel. Join best-selling authors Sara Paretsky, Brad Meltzer and John Lescroart as they spend the afternoon with Washington Post Book Club members discussing and signing their newest novels.
Post Book World contributing editor Dennis Drabelle hosts author Brad Meltzer online Thursday, May 2 at Noon EDT to talk about his new book, "The Millionaires," and the May Post Book Club event.
Submit your questions ahead of time or during the discussion.
In "The Millionaires," Meltzer presents a breathtaking suspense story about two brothers, Charlie and Oliver Caruso, who come up with a foolproof crime at an exclusive private bank. But the perfect crime
could cost them everything they hold most dear.
Meltzer is also the author of the New York Times bestsellers "The Tenth Justice," "Dead Even" and "The First Counsel."
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
Dennis Drabelle:
I want to introduce Brad Meltzer, who has graciously taken time away from thinking up plots for both his novels and the Green Arrow comic, of which he is now guest-author to be with us this afternoon. As if we haven't imposed on Brad enough, he is also going to be appearing at the Washington Post Book Club's mystery extravaganza, Saturday May 18 from 1:30 to 3:30, with Sara Paretsky and John Lescroat, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. (See the ad and coupon on the back page of this coming Sunday's Book World for more details.)
As most of you know, Brad is the author of four novels that are not only chock full of surprises and suspense but also laced with comic relief. Plotting is a feature of fiction-writing that seems to be in the ascendance again, and mystery and thriller writers have helped show the way. So fire away with questions on that or any other aspect of Brad Meltzer's work.
Fairfax, Va.:
What is your new book "Millionaires" about? Also, do you plan on doing a suspense series (where each book refers to the previous book)?
Brad Meltzer: "The Millionaires" is about two brothers who have stolen a great deal of money and really quickly realize that it is impossible to hide in a world where your every move can be tracked. For the book, I spent two years calling up the government's top financial investigators and asking them "How would I hide from the government? And what are the best tricks you would use to find me?" Let's just say, this isn't a call that they would be able to answer today.
As for a series, there are references in all the books to tiny hidden inside jokes from the previous ones. But for now, I like doing each book as a stand alone. Also it is hard to explain how one character can get into so much trouble over and over again.
Arlington, Va.:
Hi Brad:
I understand you will be picking up the writing duties on DC's "Green Arrow" comic and am very excited for your debut in a few months. Any hints as to what this fan can expect from you, or what you have planned for Ollie?
Thanks!
Brad Meltzer: Kevin Smith has spent the last year and a half bringing Oliver Queen back from the dead. Now it is time to return him to his life (read into that in the most insane way that you want).
The editor of Green Arrow read The Millionaires and realized that the main character was named Oliver (which I named after the Green Arrow's Oliver) and he realized that he needed an Oliver that needed a writer. (Talk about subliminal advertising!)
Washington, D.C.:
Have any of your books been optioned for Hollywood?
Brad Meltzer: The Tenth Justice has been sold to Fox 2000 who are right now working on the fifth draft of the script. Will it ever get made? Not a chance in my mind but that doesn't stop my mom from picking out her dress to wear at the Oscars. As for the other books, Dead Even was optioned for a television show but CBS just passed and The Millionaires and The First Counsel are still under my control. To me, Hollywood is just icing on an already great cake.
italy:
are you trying to follow the john grisham steps?
Brad Meltzer: Only in the sense of trying to publish a book. Obviously, Grisham created the genre and I'll take the complement anyday but every writer is different. The first article I ever saw written about myself compared me to John Grisham Scott Torow, Jay McInereny (sp?), Bret Easton Ellis and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Every single one of them is wrong.
Arlington, Va.:
Brad, are you working on any new projects now?
Brad Meltzer: Currently I'm working on a new novel, so I'm in full research mode. I hope to start writing soon (his publisher asked nicely).
Dennis Drabelle:
I'm interested in some details--without asking you to give away too many trade secrets--of how you approach plotting. I remember reading that P.G. Wodehouse used to hang the pages of his first draft on a wall and move them around as necessary to tighten his plot. Do you do anything like that? Or use some other methodology?
Brad Meltzer: In my first apartment, my walls were too small so that method was out. Beyond that, I always start my plotting with my characters. The nugget of the plot shows me where it is going to take place and the characters show me the How. Of course, the best way to plot for me, is to keep talking it through with my family and friends. Including my wife and a few friends, I bounce everything off them first and they call b.s. where they want. Of course it spoils it for them, but if I can, I try to hide the big reveal even for them. In the new novel, I've already ruined it for them. They read draft after draft after draft.
If the characters aren't believable, a reader won't follow them after 10 pages and the greatest plot in the world will fall flat. But if the characters and their motivations ring true, the reader will follow for a thousand pages.
Dennis Drabelle:
Well, that's interesting. Most people would call your novels plot-driven, but you're saying they are character-driven.
Brad Meltzer: The character drives the plot. While I hate to play chicken and the egg, as a personal style of plotting, I always ask myself what the character would do next. I may set up the initial hook but it is up to the character to figure their way out of the puzzle.
Dennis Drabelle:
So does that mean that sometimes you have to change what might have been a clever initial plan because the charaacters make you do it?
Brad Meltzer: Absolutely. In The First Counsel, Nora -- the President's daughter -- kept refusing to do what I told her. In The Millionaires, while Oliver was more reliable, Charlie kept twisting the scenes that I had prepared for him. That to me is when writing is the most fun -- when the writer feels like the spectator as well.
Dennis Drabelle:
Would you steal money the way your characters do in The Millionaires if you were sure you wouldn't get caught?
Brad Meltzer: No, but I'd steal a cable television if I could get away with it. I despise those people -- $50 bucks a month and only one HBO.
Dennis Drabelle:
I have a couple of friends who are honest as the day is long but who steal cable that way.
Brad Meltzer:
Alexandria, VA:
Your novels are fantastic...did you write fiction during law school, legal career or earlier?
Brad Meltzer: I started when I graduated college and that is when I wrote my first novel, which was not even a thriller. It wasn't until law school that I got bit by the thriller bug. The Tenth Justice was written in law school and I've been writing ever since.
Dennis Drabelle:
You mentioned that your first novel was not a thriller. Do you ever have notions of writing another non-T? And if so, any idea what it might be about?
Brad Meltzer: Not right now. When thrillers get boring, I'll switch to something else, but for now I like my little paranoid fantasies. Plus, children's books are too hard.
I've done short stories for a football anthology that's coming out next year (not that I know anything about football). It is a variety of mystery writers writing about sports. I guarantee mine has the least sports in it. Other than that, all the short fiction I've written is available on our website www.bradmeltzer.com. Beyond that, I still lov e my unpublished first novel but the plot was necessary for me to hang the characters on -- I think of plots like a clothesline -- without the clothesline the characters fall to the ground. When I started writing, I wasn't a good enough writer to write a book without a plot. I still don't know if I am.
Detroit, Mich.:
Do you ever speak with Judd Winick, your former college mate? What is he doing now?
Brad Meltzer: Of course I still speak to my old college roommates. He is writing comics (shameless plug time: Go buy "Barry Ween: Boy Genius"), he is the real reason I started first thinking about being a real writer. When I met him in college, he told me he wanted to be a cartoonist and I thought it was a pretty cool idea but I just couldn't draw.
Dennis Drabelle:
I was struck while reading The Millionaires by the way it fits into the Enron Scandal, which I guess makes you sort of prescient. For example, without giving too much away, let's just say that accounting legerdemain looms large in the novel and that if the boys and girls at Arthur Andersen had been privy to your characters' high-tech methods they might never have been caught. Any comment on this strange congruence?
Brad Meltzer: This is a true story: last week, I got an email from an Arthur Andersen accountant. Also a true story: the people who taught me how to hide money are right now chasing bin Laden's assets. The tricks they taught me I put in the book. Final true story: The person who helped me figure out how to steal the money from the bank was a head of security who said it would really work.
I don't plan on this stuff but we just got lucky with the timing.
Brad Meltzer: When I wrote First Counsel which is about a White House lawyer dating a sexy wild President's daughter, a friend of mine asked me "Is it realistic to write about a President's daughter who has a wild night out and gets into trouble?" God bless the Bush daughters -- they went into that Mexican restaurant right after the book was published.
Alexandria, VA:
In your first book, "The Tenth Justice," you open by saying your lead character was "sweating like a pig." Why did you resort to a cliche on your opening page? How could you be so unoriginal?
Brad Meltzer: Even Homer nods (the classical one or Simpson). Sorry it didn't turn the world on its end for you but thanks for at least taking a look. Readers who picked up that first novel are the only reason why I'm doing what I'm doing today.
West Bloomfield MI :
Brad, I have completed the draft of my first novel - it is a niche book that I think I could market successfully if I self-published (I am in p.r). With first-time advances so low, what advantage does an established publisher offer? Is self-publishing stupid? You seem to do a ton of your own marketing. Thanks.
Brad Meltzer: First, main stream publishers offer one incredible thing: distribution. Self-publishing is an incredible new world and if you can do it full time, more power to you. But unless you can give it every single hour of your day, just realize that you are going to be the one that first has to put it in book stores. Even the biggest authors today at the biggest publishing houses still have to do their own PR. They don't give us Hollywood advertising budgets. With that said, there are hundreds of success stories from self-publishing -- just make sure you realize the work you are undertaking.
More important than any of that, congrats on finishing the novel. That is the actual victory. My first novel is still published by Kinko's -- so enjoy the fact that you even got to "the end".
District of Columbia:
What do you think about writers' groups and classes?
Have you attended?
Have they been helpful?
If so, what else has helped you develop as a writer?
What do you recommend for the millions of people who think they have a novel to write but don't have time or circumstances to get started?
Brad Meltzer: Gertrude Stein said it best "To write is to write is to write is to write ...." Classes or groups are great simply because they force you to write. I didn't ever take one but it was simply because I couldn't afford to pay for it. If you are motivated enough to write and if you have a group of friends interested to read it, you have an independent class. It's like riding a bike -- they can give you instructions but the only way to ride it is to get on and pedal -- the same with a novel, you have to hit the keys and pedal. Whatever forces you into that is what works.
Washington, D.C.:
First of all, I love your books. But here's the question. Have you ever experienced writer's block? If so, how did you overcome it?
Brad Meltzer: Somedays certainly don't go as well as others. When that happens, I just try to walk away: go for a walk, go for a drive, get in the shower, whatever it takes to let the brain soak up some more. Whatever helps you turn your brain off and on again ...
Dennis Drabelle:
Just to add something to Brad's answer about self-publishing, I should confess that Book World does not review self-published books. We get about 100 books or galleys (bound editions of books-to-come) from mainstream publishers a day and have enough trouble going through those to see which ones are worth reviewing. We rely on those publishers to make the initial cut on manuscripts; we can rely on them to have made an initial decision that a book they publish has passed certain standards of research, professionalism, etc. We simply don't have the time and person power to do this with the great number of unpublished mss. we might get if we agreed to assess them.
Washingon, D.C.:
Hi Brad,
I actually am from Miami too and went to NMB. Had Mr. Ulery too--i noticed the mention in one of your books.
I really enjoy your books. What made you decide to write full time? How did you manage the career switch?
Brad Meltzer: First of all, who are you? : ) I'm glad you caught the Ulery reference.
As for how I was able to start on the career, I started on my own but only was able to make it a career when someone paid me to do it. I was working during the day and writing at night. But if you love something, you find the time to squeeze it into your day. So for anyone out there who is considering writing a novel, unhook from this chat and go write it. It's the only way a novel ever gets written.
The year I started writing, I was at a business job after college that wasn't working out. Since the day wasn't stimulating, I figured I had two choices: watch TV or do something productive. I DID watch TV but slowly spent more and more nights talking to my imaginary friends. That's how I fell in love with it. If the job I was at had gone originally as planned, I probably won't be writing today.
Arlington, Va.:
When did you start writing your latest book and how did you come up with the idea? Dennis Drabelle:
And was the process any different from usual?
Brad Meltzer: I started writing The Millionaires almost three years ago and the idea came from a conversation with one of my friends. He knew I wanted to write about brothers and I really wanted to tackle the psychology of that and as we were talking one day, one of us said, what if he stole something small and got stuck with something big. The book was born from there.
As for the process, same as always. I just had to do more research because I didn't know anything about the financial world or Disney World.
Dennis Drabelle:
Now it can be told. Brad conducted this entire chat session in a phone booth at National Airport, though it is not clear whether he was wearing a cape. Now it is time for him to fly off somewhere, and we thank him for his time and his candid and his illuminating answers.
Brad Meltzer:
On one final note, I just hope everyone out there realizes how much I appreciate all the support with these books -- especially with this city, I couldn't do this without all the nice people out there (Yes mom, I mean you too). You can read all the first chapters of my books with more Q & A at www. bradmeltzer.com.
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