Posted on March 28, 2010 - by admin

Author Interview – Jim Overturf

What’s the hardest part of writing a book?

For me, in writing mystery novels, it’s keeping track of events, actions, thoughts and movements throughout the entire manuscript so as to avoid repetition and duplication.

I do not write lineally, starting at page 1 and working to page 500.  I write scenes all over the place, whenever they strike me, sometimes in the middle of the night.  Only after half the book is written do I try to settle into a lineal mode of writing.  Often I wind up with the same scene two or three different ways, without even realizing what I’m doing, because the same scene or theme works in Chapter 4 and Chapter 6 and again in Chapter 8, under different circumstances.  My editor catches most of these, but we both miss a few.

What are your current projects?

The third book in the Kurt Maxxon series, Carpentier Falls is going into editorial review.  I am currently scoping the fourth book in the series, Centralia, and will start writing it as soon as Carpentier Falls is sent to the publisher.

How long does it take you to write a book?

The first book in the Kurt Maxxon series, Masonville took over 20 years to prepare and about 14 months to write.  The second book, Kings Rapids, took about 14 months from start to ready for publication.  The third book, Carpentier Falls, looks to be taking about ten months from start to ready for publication.  I would like to maintain the one-book-per-year mode.

What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your books?

How incredibly difficult it is to avoid my natural tendency, after thirty years of writing training programs, to slip into the Tell-Tell-Told technique of writing.

For thirty-years I developed hundreds of training programs in which the major emphasis is the (1) tell them you’re going to tell them [something], (2) tell them the [something], and then (3) tell them you’ve told them [something].

But the Tell-Tell-Told theme doesn’t work in fiction.  Readers don’t like it.  Fiction must move at a fast pace from here to there, and readers cringe at the delay that Tell-Tell-Told introduces.

I’m still having problems with this, in Carpentier Falls, as pointed out by my editor.

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

I read a lot.  I stack up books to read while I’m working on one of my books, and then when I get the story ready for editing, I start reading down the stack.  I also play the stock market; not as a day trader, or anything like that.  I watch the markets every day and make trades trying to catch the ups and downs of it.  Nothing big or Earth shaking.  Just enough to have fun and keep my portfolio growing.