1:05

Ladies and gentlemen , welcome to the Nightmare Engine podcast

1:08

. My name is Dave Rugguz , I'm your host , so

1:11

we are actually doing a blast from the past

1:13

. So as I'm

1:15

recording this , we

1:18

are going to release it before

1:20

we release the episode we recorded before this . So

1:22

we are all over the place on this one . But we want to do

1:24

a very special introduction to a welcome

1:27

back to the Nightmare Engine podcast after

1:29

what seems like a few months now

1:31

, but things have been a little bit crazy on our end . Unfortunately

1:33

, my co-host , jay Bauer , is not going to be joining

1:36

me , so it's just going to be me this episode , but

1:38

Jay did send his warm wishes because he did

1:41

want to be here for this one . So this

1:43

is a really , really cool episode , friends . So

1:45

we've got the

1:47

one . The only Jonathan Mayberry

1:49

on the line . John

1:51

, how are you , sir ?

1:52

I'm doing well , man . I'm glad to be back

1:54

and glad to be here , and it's good to see you again . It's

1:56

been a while , yeah .

1:57

It's been a bit . It's been a bit , so

2:00

we ran into each other last year just briefly after

2:03

your talk was about

2:05

. I know the focus was a little bit on vampires

2:07

, but it was last year at 20 Books Vegas , which is a huge

2:10

independent publishing conference held

2:12

every single every year and has been going

2:15

strong and growing bigger every year . But at the

2:17

end of it it's a really cool event as well

2:19

, which is this huge author book signing that

2:21

costs nothing from

2:23

the author as far as dues go . I

2:25

think it costs $50 or something , but there's

2:27

300 authors there selling their books

2:30

and that was a pleasure to meet you

2:32

at Vegas , you know , coming out to

2:34

give your talks about your expertise

2:36

, specifically about horror , which has been a little

2:38

bit underrepresented just in general

2:40

. It's a small genre but it's a voracious reader

2:43

group . So I'd love to talk to you today

2:45

about you , your books

2:47

, your knowledge , which is clearly

2:49

vast in the industry , and

2:51

, you know , tell us more about you so that readers

2:54

can get to know who you are if they haven't

2:56

, for whatever reason , ever heard of you , which is

2:58

which would be a shame . So please

3:00

, jonathan , tell us , tell us all about you .

3:02

Well , the brief version of this is I'm

3:05

a . I'm a New York Times bestselling author in a number

3:07

of different genres . I write horror , science fiction

3:09

, fantasy , epic , urban

3:11

and dark fantasy , thrillers

3:13

, mysteries . I write comics from Marvel , idw

3:16

and Dark Horse . I edit a we're

3:18

Tales magazine and we just put out a hundredth

3:20

anniversary anthology . Writing

3:22

teacher and a retired jujitsu

3:25

master and college

3:27

teacher .

3:28

Wow . So how long have you been

3:30

in the industry , Like what was the

3:32

first publication you had and what year was that

3:34

?

3:35

So that's a little . It's a complicated answer . So let me , let me

3:37

give you the career path . I

3:40

actually went to school , to college

3:42

for it , on a journalism scholarship . My intention was

3:44

to be the intrepid reporter who

3:46

tore down the corrupt , you know whomever . And

3:49

while that I was graduated from high school , not

3:51

that long after a watergate . So

3:53

we wanted to be that guy . You know , woodward

3:55

and Bernstein , every through college

3:58

I switched my interest from

4:00

newspapers to magazines . So

4:02

, my friend , they always say write what you know

4:05

. So my very first publication was

4:07

an article in Black Belt magazine , I think 1978

4:11

. And then I went on to write

4:13

about 1200 features , you

4:15

know . Probably a third of them were martial

4:18

arts or self-defense oriented . But I

4:20

also wrote about everything skydiving , bartending

4:22

, you know , families , all sorts of stuff . I

4:26

also did , weirdly , greeting

4:28

cards . The

4:31

short , the short anecdote there is I was , I

4:33

was a bodyguard for years and bodyguards

4:35

tend to get injured because they have to protect the person

4:37

they're , you know , in charge of , and

4:40

sometimes that means you get the first stab , wound or cut before

4:42

you then have to turn and fight . And

4:44

I I won instant . I got smashed by

4:46

a van . I was at home , I was all banged up and cast

4:48

and everything . And I was

4:51

going through a book called Writers Market and

4:53

I saw that one of the listings there

4:55

was that Hallmark was starting

4:57

a new line called Shoebox . They were looking for people to write

5:00

greeting cards and I love sarcastic

5:02

greeting cards . So I contacted

5:04

them with , you know , I sent out , sent 12

5:07

, you know jokey , snarky

5:09

card ideas and

5:12

they called me and said look , we're launching within

5:14

Shoebox this line of really

5:16

nasty cards about this cranky little

5:18

lady and we'd like you

5:20

to retool them . So it would be her saying these

5:22

snarky things . So the

5:24

character's name is Edith . I was the . I wrote the first

5:26

12 in that line , didn't credit . The

5:28

character wrote the first 12 . So that was in

5:31

another early publication thing , while

5:34

I taught at Tempe University for years

5:36

and while I was teaching there I taught martial

5:39

arts , history , women's self-defense and jujitsu

5:41

and I wrote the textbooks for my

5:43

classes and . But the first book

5:46

I ever published was the judo

5:48

textbook for a class taught by

5:50

my friend Norma Sharra , who's now an indie

5:52

filmmaker , and that

5:54

was 1991

5:56

. After that I did a bunch of nonfiction books , some

5:59

some of martial arts . But the moment

6:01

of change for me in terms of publication is

6:04

. I had this four book deal with a small press

6:06

in Philadelphia . I did three martial arts books

6:09

and when it came time for me

6:11

to tell , tell the publisher what I wanted to

6:13

do with the fourth , I said I'd like

6:15

to do a book about the folklore

6:17

of supernatural predators around the world

6:19

throughout history . And

6:22

there was this long moment of just crickets

6:24

chirping he's waiting for me to

6:27

drop the punchline of this joke . And

6:29

then he realized I was serious so

6:31

he agreed to it because contractually

6:34

he had to accept my pitch

6:36

. But he did make me change my name

6:38

for that one book . So he came

6:40

out . The vampire slayer's field guide to the undead

6:43

came out in 2002

6:45

, somewhere in there by

6:47

Shane McDougall , being being the

6:49

Scottish for John McDougall being one of the Scottish clans

6:52

that my answers came from . But

6:55

researching that , the weird , you

6:58

know , the supernatural monsters , the folklore , the urban

7:00

legends , cryptids , all that got

7:02

me interested in fiction

7:04

based on the folkloric versions of

7:06

monsters as opposed to the Hollywood versions . But

7:09

I couldn't find much and I complained

7:11

about it enough at home . My wife said oh

7:13

, you stop bitching about it and just write the damn

7:15

thing . I

7:19

sat down to write it took me three and a half years to write

7:21

that book . I had never taken a creative

7:23

writing class . The novel Ghost

7:25

Road Blues was what came out of it and

7:28

I went up liking it so much I went to

7:31

try to get an agent , got one quickly . She sold

7:33

it to the second publisher , looked at it and

7:36

then it came out in 2006 , which is when my

7:38

fiction career began and

7:40

was nominated for two different Stoker

7:43

Brom Stoker Awards . I lost the

7:45

novel of the year to some cat named Stephen

7:47

King . You may have heard of him .

7:49

Oh , if that guy , we don't talk about him .

7:51

Yeah , he's up and cunning guy . I think he has a future

7:53

ahead of him and

7:55

I want the category for best first novel

7:58

and that was actually the one that

8:00

mattered most to me because

8:02

it kind of validated my whole . Should I

8:04

try this fiction thing ?

8:06

I just love to get beat out by Stephen King . I could

8:08

just rep that like the only person

8:10

that beat me was Stephen King .

8:12

Fine you know , the funny thing

8:14

is when I when I met him first time I met

8:16

him was at the Edgar Awards . He

8:18

was being inducted as Grandmaster and we talked

8:20

for about 40 minutes and he pointed out

8:22

and I had one , he had one

8:24

. He'd beat me by two votes , right

8:27

, he pointed out to me that he had two sons who were voting members

8:29

. Thank you so

8:34

, but but it was a huge great guy , it was

8:36

great fun . And now I mean that was 2006

8:39

. Now it's 2023 . I am

8:41

a third of the way through my 50th novel

8:43

50 . Wow , I

8:45

was a writer and I was a writer in my long the way . I started writing

8:48

comics . I've done 150 short stories and

8:50

a ton of other stuff . It's

8:53

weird because I went from not

8:55

knowing anything about fiction to it

8:57

being my entire life . Right

8:59

, I wish to how I started

9:02

it earlier , like in

9:04

my 20s , kind of like my buddy

9:06

, kevin J Anderson . He started writing fiction

9:09

when he was 26 . He's published 175

9:11

novels . Wow , like an amateur

9:14

. In comparison , I'm in

9:16

the slow lane , but I'm working

9:18

to catch up .

9:19

Yeah , I've been . I've been blessed to be in a couple

9:21

of his story bundles . Luckily

9:23

I had genre hopped a few times where I was , had the

9:25

ability to be in the same

9:27

I wouldn't even say it's the same virtual

9:29

company as somebody like him . So that was quite . That

9:32

was quite amazing .

9:33

And if you're . I don't know if you've met him at 20

9:36

books , but he's one of the nicest guys , one of my closest friends

9:38

. Now he's one of the nicest guys in the world

9:40

and he's very

9:42

, very supportive of up and

9:44

coming writers because he's one of those people that believes

9:46

we need more writers in the business

9:49

. They are not competitive , it's under

9:51

. It's under staffed . We need

9:53

more writers , indy or traditional

9:55

, doesn't matter . Get those books out there and he's all

9:57

about it .

9:58

Yeah , and one thing that amazed me about him is the effort

10:00

he puts into the creative

10:02

writing program . He's got up there and as a

10:04

Colorado state , there is it yeah

10:06

.

10:06

Western Colorado , western

10:09

Colorado state . He teaches the MFA program

10:12

for , but he also co-founded

10:14

the superstars writer seminar , which is

10:16

right Springs . I'm now

10:19

on the board of that and it's

10:21

it's great because it was . It was founded by him

10:23

, jim Butcher , brandon Sanderson

10:25

, jody Lynn Nye and somebody

10:29

else who's named James

10:32

Arnott . What is his first name ? James Arnott

10:34

?

10:34

I think so a bunch of no names

10:36

, right .

10:37

Yeah , I don't know which end

10:39

of a pencil to use . And it's

10:42

become a really important conference

10:45

because it focuses entirely

10:47

on the business of writing for

10:49

indie or traditional , how

10:52

to get and print , how to do it right , how to build a career

10:54

out of it .

10:54

Right , yeah , I

10:57

looked into his MFA program . I happened

10:59

to find one that was cheaper because

11:02

I was in the service and then

11:04

I'm a police officer , so they gave me huge

11:06

discounts that allowed me to basically

11:08

go to school almost on

11:10

pennies , you know , whatever cost normally

11:13

, and I was taking a huge interest

11:15

because 20 books was putting out these

11:17

scholarship opportunities as

11:19

well . And so to Kevin's MFA program

11:21

and had a low residency and so I'm like , well , I'm working full-time

11:23

, so it would be excellent to have a low residency . So

11:26

I ended up going to my school . I went

11:28

to Liberty and

11:30

finished my MFA in like 13

11:32

months . I think I just finished that and I'll

11:34

be teaching at my local community college

11:37

. They asked if I could pick up

11:39

a couple English courses . It's almost like pro bono at

11:41

this point because of how much they can pay , but I'm

11:43

like it's for the joy of it , you know , it's for the wonder

11:46

of being able to share my knowledge of writing

11:48

with young students , and being

11:50

able to . It's not something you get into it like I'm going

11:52

to get rich off of teaching creative writing .

11:55

Nobody gets off of teaching , but one

11:57

of the advantages of teaching is it

11:59

gives you an opportunity to see another side of

12:01

the creative process . You know the

12:03

academic world comes at it from a different angle than

12:06

you know guys in the gutters like me

12:08

who are just , you know , slogging at it . There's

12:11

a lot to learn from teaching at college

12:13

. As I said , I taught at Tampi University

12:15

for 14

12:17

years , not writing , but martial arts

12:19

and so on , and it taught me so

12:22

much about organization

12:24

and structural

12:26

thinking . So the college

12:28

experience is really useful for people . It's great

12:30

.

12:31

Yeah , I'm really blessed right now as well . So I'm a

12:33

police officer . I just left patrol and

12:36

left the agency I was with , and so now I'm

12:38

over at a university I'm

12:40

, so I'm at Concordia University with a police officer

12:42

, and so they love the

12:44

idea . So the word has gotten out that I've written

12:46

I think I've written 18 or 19 novels at this point but

12:48

they've gotten out that I do something other than police

12:50

and so for the students to see

12:52

, that is a really cool interaction to have , because

12:55

now I have something to connect with them . I'm like , hey , not only

12:57

am I , you know , I'm possibly adjuncting there

12:59

as a position opens up , teaching English

13:01

. But it's

13:04

really weird . Apparently they go through adjuncts really quickly Apparently

13:06

, everywhere does , but it

13:09

is what it is . But it allows me to connect

13:11

with them , especially young writers , and say , hey , look , I've

13:13

been through the ringer . Like

13:15

I tell everybody . My story said I believed in this so

13:17

much that I sold my gym . I had

13:19

a gym , I sold my gym , I sold my business

13:21

to jump 100% into writing

13:24

and was and

13:26

failed so miserably that I ended up having to donate

13:28

plasma to pay for book covers . That's

13:31

, that's how much I believed in it . And so now

13:34

to this day , I can say my blood and sweat equity is

13:36

in my books and I think that's that's something that's

13:38

it's worth holding on to

13:40

. So I was supposed to be one book quickly

13:42

turned into 18 and basically the future

13:44

for me is what I'm doing , and it's

13:47

an amazing feeling because I was . I was

13:49

like you , was very young and I was like I want to

13:51

write and then something shut me down . You

13:53

know and that's a longer story , but I

13:55

got shut down for about 20 years . I didn't come back to

13:57

writing until I was in my mid

13:59

20s and then it was like man

14:01

, I wish I'd been writing that whole time . I

14:03

wish I hadn't done that .

14:05

Yeah , I mean I writing

14:07

until I did my first novel

14:09

. Writing was never my full time gay , you know it was

14:11

a bodyguard as a bouncer , taught women's

14:14

self defense and other things at Tepi

14:16

University , ran a dojo , even

14:18

ran a program for police called cop safe , teaching

14:20

law enforcement officers to arrest people , you

14:22

know , in a way that keeps them the lowest rung of the force

14:24

continuum while the officers safe

14:27

. And plus , I did

14:29

some training programs for SWAT and special forces

14:31

over the years . So you know , all

14:33

of that is fun stuff , but it wasn't right

14:35

. Right , I've read the course materials

14:37

, but that's not the same thing . But that , that

14:39

book on monsters I did changed

14:42

the entire direction of my life . And

14:44

now I

14:46

am not only making a really good living

14:49

as a writer , I am so freaking

14:51

happy these days . Right , you know this

14:53

is this is I truly found

14:55

what I wanted to do when I grow up . Right

14:57

, I figured it out at 48 . I'm now 65

15:00

. But you know I'm going to keep writing . I

15:03

often joke that when I die I want

15:05

to be buried with a laptop and a good Wi-Fi connection

15:08

.

15:10

Yeah , that's , that's a

15:12

. It is a weird . It

15:14

feels when it clicks , it feels like

15:16

a piece that just fit in right , you know , and

15:19

there's a labor . To the love . I would say that , like

15:21

there's , there are times that I'm like man

15:23

it feels like a slog . I'm like that

15:25

what I just put down is crap . But I think everybody deals with

15:27

that , especially when they're doing something that they love . Yeah

15:30

, because there are points of it that you're not

15:32

going to love at some point . You know , at some point

15:34

in time you're going to be like this is work and it is work

15:36

.

15:36

It is work that you love , but it is still work and

15:39

that's one of the things I try to talk

15:42

, to try to explain to younger

15:44

writers or newer writers coming up . A

15:46

lot of them think it's all about it's some sort of magic

15:48

, that they wait for the news and they mythologize

15:51

the process of writing . And yes

15:53

, there is a certain I guess you could

15:55

call it magic in the creativity that happens in your brain

15:57

. But that's writing . Publishing

16:00

is a different thing . Publishing is a business and

16:03

it was Ray Bradbury who

16:05

told me this when I was 12 . He was one of

16:07

my mentors when I was a kid and one

16:09

of the things he told me was that writing is an art . It's

16:11

the intimate conversation between the writer and the reader

16:14

. It's all about art . Publishing is

16:16

a business whose sole concern is selling copies

16:18

of art , Whether they , you know , they can

16:20

get into business for love of books , but it's at the end of

16:22

the day , it's mercantile . So when

16:24

I get up in the morning to write , I am going

16:27

to work . I even say you know , even in my office

16:29

, as you're in my condo

16:31

. I tell my wife I'm going to work and she

16:34

doesn't bother me . And you know

16:36

I turn off my phone ringer and I'm

16:38

at work . And

16:40

that focus on business

16:43

not only I mean people

16:45

think that it's some sort of a selling

16:47

out or cheapening of the creative process

16:49

. It's just the opposite . Every writer

16:52

you can name whose books you've

16:54

seen in bookstores and libraries , approach

16:56

it like a business . None of them were

16:58

just like magically . Suddenly their book showed up

17:00

. You know , even Jack

17:03

Kerouac had a literary agent and they that's

17:05

how they get to the point

17:07

where they can write for a living

17:09

is being able to manage the business

17:12

side of things as well .

17:13

Yeah , I mean managing reader expectations

17:15

as well . You know , whatever your genre

17:18

just gives us an idea of what people want to want

17:20

to read and what the boundaries generally are set

17:22

. And your skill that you

17:24

develop the art allows you to bend

17:27

and break and kind of get in

17:29

between those genre lines but still tell a

17:31

story that people will read , that will

17:33

inevitably sell . I mean that's and

17:35

that's .

17:35

That's a big argument for education

17:38

. You know , learning not just like

17:40

. All people come to writing with a natural storytelling

17:43

gift , I mean those of us who do this . We

17:45

have something we're born with , but the more you

17:47

learn the craft of it , the actual elements

17:49

of storytelling and look for those elements

17:51

in the works of successful books

17:53

, the more easily you're able

17:55

to manipulate the language to be able to tell not

17:57

only the story but but a story

17:59

that carries the components of emotion

18:02

and empathy , depth

18:04

, layered content and so on

18:06

. If the more you know about the structure

18:08

of it and how it works , the more

18:10

stories you can tell , and you can tell them in

18:13

a way that are more easily

18:15

received by the reader . So education

18:17

is a huge part of that .

18:19

Yeah , and I would say that part of my education

18:24

into the craft and into the businesses is

18:27

not just reading books on sales and

18:30

on mindset , but also on picking

18:32

up every great literary work that I can

18:34

from any genre , adding it to my list

18:36

of need to be read and studying

18:39

it and reading it . And I have that curse now where I can't

18:41

read anything as a reader anymore . I read it now

18:43

as a writer , which means that I get a little bit of

18:45

the entertainment . Then I'm otherwise . I'm like that's a really

18:47

good paragraph .

18:48

I mean , that's kind of how I got my start

18:51

with fiction because , as I mentioned earlier , I

18:53

had never taken a creative writing class . So

18:55

when I sat down to write , what I did is

18:57

I took the six books

19:00

that were the closest to

19:02

the genre I wanted to write . I

19:04

was writing Small Town Horror

19:06

, american Gothic is the genre , and

19:09

so I you know Sounds Lopak , stephen King , ghost

19:12

Story , peter Straub , the Haunting of Hill , help , the Shrink of the

19:14

Action , et cetera , read them as a reader and

19:16

then read them multiple times as a writer

19:18

, looking specifically for elements

19:21

of craft . You see , like

19:23

what is the balance of dialogue to

19:26

narrative prose in action

19:29

scenes , the way , say , stephen King does it , the way Robert

19:31

McCammon does it , and you

19:33

know , not to copy but to understand

19:35

how different skill

19:38

practitioners of the craft are able to manipulate

19:40

things . So reading as a writer

19:43

is a key element . You should read

19:45

, first for entertainment , sure , and

19:47

then , you know , deconstruct it . And I even took it all the way back

19:50

to writing outlines , for you know what

19:52

I think might have been the bones of the

19:54

book .

19:55

Yeah .

19:56

I've shown a couple of those . Like Peter Straub , I had shown

19:58

him the outline for Ghost Story and

20:01

it matched his outline like

20:03

about 75% . Wow , because

20:05

there's an internal logic to storytelling . It's

20:08

an equation of cause

20:10

and effect . This action

20:13

plus this action plus this action inevitably

20:15

leads to this conclusion . And

20:18

if you know , if you understand that

20:20

, understand what the equation is , you can look

20:22

for it in other books . You can see where the first

20:24

and the second act end . You

20:26

can see how they build in motif and

20:28

allegory and subplot and so on . You

20:30

see where they lay clues and

20:33

you see the carpentry . That

20:36

is how the thing

20:38

got built and to me that not

20:40

only informs me as a writer

20:42

but it deepened my appreciation as a reader to

20:45

see how skillfully that was managed .

20:47

Yeah , it becomes one of those things where you

20:49

recognize patterns in

20:51

things that you enjoy . You know , you start seeing like

20:53

I started writing the books that I

20:56

wanted to read or that I did

20:58

read , and not for , like you said , not for copying

21:00

, but almost for like emulation , for understanding

21:02

the story structure it gives . You know , I

21:05

didn't get my MFA until 14

21:07

books late it , 14 books in . But

21:09

even then I don't feel like the MFA

21:12

gave me anything that I couldn't have picked up from

21:14

reading enough , from writing enough and

21:16

from searching for the information in craft books

21:18

and that sort of thing . So it just condensed the information

21:21

, the bare basics of it , into an

21:23

eight-week period and said here you go , do the

21:25

best you can with it .

21:26

It's a tool in your chest use it , and

21:28

now you know how to use that tool , so that makes

21:30

you more skillful at your trade , right

21:33

, and that's what it's all about , you know , I mean .

21:36

So I love this story that you tell us . You've been

21:38

telling about this first lore

21:40

book . So I it was really

21:42

impactful and I've been talking about it for over a

21:44

year to my friends

21:46

and to my writing group . I have a small writing group , you

21:48

know . You talk about Brandon Sanderson . One of the things that Brandon Sanderson

21:51

did was he influenced me to

21:53

go get a writing group , and so I did . I

21:55

went and I searched for five people who were like

21:57

me , in my similar situation . You know , kind of

21:59

kind of my ilk , you know , and

22:01

said I need , I need help

22:03

, I want to help you . Let's help each other , let's

22:06

critique , let's be objective , not subjective

22:08

, and let's share our writing . You

22:10

know , before it's polished , before an

22:12

editor's had it , let's share it . You know , and

22:15

I would say that's probably been my greatest

22:17

source of any kind of

22:20

step forward in my career has been having that group

22:22

. So I really thank him for that and so I take these

22:24

tidbits from people like him and people like you . And

22:26

one of the things you talked about was I don't know what

22:28

and I've been meaning to ask you this , so I'm really excited

22:30

to do it here what was the piece

22:32

of lore ? What was the ? It was a vampire , but

22:35

it was a head that

22:37

detaches it's what country to come from

22:39

? Detaches from the body and starts floating

22:41

around the room .

22:42

It's .

22:42

Vietnam , From Vietnam . So the

22:44

Vietnamese believe that a vampire is what ? Can

22:46

you explain it ?

22:47

It's kind of a energy being

22:50

. It the head and entrails , tear itself out of the

22:52

body , looks around and finds

22:54

a victim and , depending

22:56

on which part of Vietnam , and sometimes they

22:58

have similar beliefs in

23:00

Laos and Cambodia . Some of the versions

23:03

of the vampires feed on blood . Some eat I

23:06

don't know how they eat if it's just a head and entrails , but they

23:08

eat people . But most often

23:10

they take out some life essence

23:12

, the life , energy or breath or something

23:14

, and that's what they feed on . Then

23:16

they return to their bodies . It's

23:19

, I mean , and there are variations of this around

23:21

the world the Lugeru Lugeru

23:25

, depending on the spelling again in Haiti

23:27

, it's different variations

23:30

of it , where an

23:33

old crone will tear her skin

23:35

off and become a ball of light like a will of the wisp

23:37

and fly around and again

23:39

attack people for life energy and then she returns

23:41

to her body . So there are variations of

23:43

that around the world and that's one

23:45

of the things . And after I did that first book

23:47

, I actually wrote five more .

23:50

On Lour around the world .

23:51

Yeah , folklore . Four are about folklore

23:53

. One is about what would happen if zombies were real , and

23:55

that was all about asking experts what

23:58

would we do and how would we research and so on . But the others

24:00

are about supernatural

24:02

predators of various kinds , ranging from

24:04

hundreds

24:07

of different variations on vampires and werewolves

24:09

. Ghosts Like

24:11

zombies are interesting because the

24:14

only true zombie is the Haitian

24:16

zombie from that religion

24:18

. But the ghoul

24:20

that George Romero created , the flesh eating ghoul

24:23

, is actually based on or

24:25

they called it a zombie . He didn't , but they put

24:27

that name on it but he actually based

24:29

it on ghouls from Middle

24:31

Eastern folklore . You see , it's something he had read

24:33

in college the Al Ghul

24:35

, desert Demon and there

24:38

are a number of flesh eating creatures

24:41

that are sometimes grouped under

24:43

vampire , but they're actually

24:45

closer to the fictional version

24:47

of the zombie that we have from the Romero films

24:49

. And that's the fun

24:51

thing about this folklore . There are hundreds and

24:54

hundreds of variations of every kind of monster

24:56

. My favorite

24:58

monster variation is

25:00

actually a werewolf creature called

25:03

the Benendante . It means the Goodwalkers

25:05

, and it's from Livonia

25:07

. You'll find traces

25:10

of this in Italy , poland

25:12

, a couple other countries , germany

25:15

, a few other countries have like pockets of

25:17

beliefs where there

25:19

are werewolves who claim that , people

25:22

who claim they're werewolves and they say that at night

25:24

when they become a werewolf , they go to fight

25:26

evil . So they're actually the

25:28

guy werewolves and

25:31

I love that concept . I've written a whole bunch of short

25:33

stories about a Benendante character and

25:36

in fact I even added a Benendante

25:38

character into a Solomon Kane

25:40

short story . I did for part of the Robert

25:42

E Howard anthology . But I find it fascinating

25:45

that you know they're also known as the Hounds

25:47

of God , which I think is a really cool

25:49

name , and

25:51

they show up all over . Nowadays the

25:53

Benendante families who claim to be descendant

25:55

of Benendante no longer transform

25:57

. They're more like Wiccan these days . They come to the

26:00

house and so on . But these

26:02

are family histories

26:04

that go back to the Etruscan

26:06

times . Wow , I

26:08

mean like ancient , ancient beliefs

26:10

of people who were evil

26:13

, fighting monsters , and some of them got arrested by

26:15

the Inquisition and tortured to

26:17

try to force them to admit that they were apostates

26:19

of hell . And there was

26:21

a couple that they couldn't the Inquisition could

26:24

not break and , believe me

26:26

, they tried . You know they were not half

26:28

measures . And there's one

26:30

guy , tyce . They couldn't break him . They

26:32

finally released him and he's the one they called the

26:34

Hound of God because they could not believe that anyone could

26:37

endure what they put him through were

26:39

he not protected by God . I don't think . Well , that's

26:41

badass yeah .

26:43

Yeah .

26:44

That is the Strigoni Benefitsi , by the way , and

26:47

that's actually part of Catholic church

26:49

history , where they would have warrior

26:52

monks who would go out and capture

26:54

vampires , torture

26:57

them until they drove

26:59

the evil out of their systems

27:01

and then these vampires would then embrace

27:04

God and they'd

27:06

become essentially assassins for

27:08

the church and it's an actual church

27:10

history . I love

27:12

that it's in church history .

27:14

Yeah , I mean , I

27:17

would really love to see what the archives are

27:19

. That's the one

27:21

place I want to go in this world . It's not just to

27:23

see what's if

27:25

there's anything revelatory there , it's to see what the church

27:28

thinks is worth hiding .

27:29

That's what I'm interested in . Yeah

27:33

, and the fact that you are intrigued

27:35

by that just shows you're a writer , because all of us have been

27:37

hit with that at some point or another . Like damn

27:39

, I wish I spoke 10 ancient languages and had

27:42

a key to the Vatican Library .

27:43

Yeah , well , yeah , it's one thing to be able to get in there

27:45

, it's another thing to actually know what you're looking at , and

27:48

it could take a lifetime to . I mean , I think I read a story

27:50

about a guy who it took

27:52

him a lifetime to learn the language needed

27:54

to transcribe one article and

27:57

he had to go and become part

27:59

of some sect rise up to the top

28:01

in order to get access to that section to

28:03

read that article . And then the story is hilarious

28:05

because at the end it said it said it was basically a

28:07

recipe for pea soup . He thought it

28:09

was going to be .

28:13

And that is . That's an awesome story and

28:16

that's probably what some of it is , and some

28:18

of it may be histories that there isn't

28:20

necessarily anything

28:22

, you know , life changing . It

28:24

might just be stuff that they used to believe that's so stupid they

28:27

don't want people to know . They used to believe it . Go ahead

28:29

, you know . But I

28:32

just love the fact that there are so many types of monsters out there . One

28:34

of the curious things is that almost

28:37

everything that people know about

28:39

, like , say , fighting vampires and werewolves

28:41

, is based on what fiction

28:43

people have created , Right

28:46

Folklore . Some

28:48

quick examples it nowhere

28:51

except in China , except in the juncture

28:53

of China . No other vampire species

28:55

around the world throughout history is afraid of

28:57

sunlight None If sunlight

28:59

was added to the vampire lore . When

29:02

they were filming the silent movie Nosferatu , most

29:05

of the crew had just walked off because

29:07

they weren't getting paid . The lighting guy is

29:09

one of the last guys there and they couldn't afford to fill the big

29:11

ending . So he said look , we've

29:13

been shooting the vampire in darkness , let's just make it that

29:15

he can't abide the light and have sunlight kill on the

29:17

director's like sure , fine , let's do that . So

29:21

the whole thing about a vampire

29:23

not being able to enter unless he's invited , was

29:25

made up by Brahms Stoker . A little side

29:28

note there the Rosenbach Museum

29:30

in Philadelphia has all of Brahms Stoker's research

29:32

notes , so every Halloween I would give

29:34

a lecture there , you know , and talk about

29:37

the writing of Dracula . Well

29:39

, he had made Dracula so powerful

29:41

in the first third of the book that by

29:43

the time he got to ink England he would have

29:45

just killed everyone .

29:46

Right , right .

29:47

Stoker , you know , had to go back

29:49

and create limitations on his power , not

29:52

being able to walk around . I'm

29:54

sorry , not being able to enter unless invited was one . The

29:57

other was making them afraid of a cross . That

29:59

was folklore . In fact , there

30:02

are quite a few vampires in different parts of Western

30:04

Europe , Just as an example , who

30:07

live a normal life by day , go into church and everything

30:09

else , but they're also vampires Interesting . A

30:12

lot of things were added to it and because we

30:14

most people learn about monsters from books and movies

30:16

, they don't know that

30:18

there is a different version of those creatures and folklore

30:20

, which is going

30:22

back to my first novel . It's why Rook Goes Red Blues

30:25

, because I wanted to pit human

30:27

characters against vampires

30:29

when all they knew about how to fight them came from books

30:31

and movies . Pretty high attrition rate

30:33

as a result .

30:34

Yeah , well , and it's doing something different

30:36

. Right , and I think that was the topic of your

30:38

lecture was one way I read 20 books was

30:40

do something different with what's out there

30:42

. You know you're talking about maybe a vampire

30:45

that feeds people

30:47

and instead of takes from them , it feeds them

30:49

. You know , kind of like blood type O , universal donor , that

30:51

sort of thing , you know . And

30:53

so I think that's really , really fun

30:56

because it gives you a lot to work with it

30:58

, lets you stand out and

31:00

also , at the same time , is that you pay respect

31:03

to the lore , the

31:05

fiction , the literature , because you're saying , look , I know

31:07

what the opposite was , or I know what

31:09

the real thing is , let's do the opposite , and if I did

31:11

it well , then the reader is going to be like

31:13

man , this was something different and I really

31:15

appreciate that .

31:16

Yep , and also in

31:18

when we look at some of the folklore

31:21

creatures and then write fiction based on it . We

31:23

get to explore themes that are often overlooked . Like

31:25

you know , dracula is 500 years old . How

31:28

the hell do you stay ? How

31:31

do you not go crazy ? Being an immortal , you're

31:34

going to live forever . That can't be fun

31:36

, right ? Because

31:39

if he has any kind of an organic brain

31:42

, it's about only so

31:44

much storage capacity . It's like a computer , you know

31:46

. Once it gets full , it's done . So you

31:49

know , you just have a full brain and

31:51

you're just moving through life century after century

31:53

. I think vampires are

31:55

cranky because they're bored .

31:57

Yeah , we always see them as these . They're

32:00

always depicted as high class and sophisticated

32:02

, because sophisticated people tend to live

32:05

in . You know , they live for the . I

32:07

would say they live in the moment , as they savor

32:09

every moment , but also , at the same time , they're perspective

32:11

towards the future .

32:12

Yeah , and , by the

32:14

way , that is also a fictional

32:16

construct . The Highborn Vampire

32:19

was invented by John Paul

32:21

Adori and Sheridan Lafano

32:23

and Brom Stoker . None

32:26

of the vampires prior to that in folklore

32:28

were highborn . They were . You know , most often

32:30

the vampire is just somebody in the village who

32:32

became one for whatever reason , making

32:34

different ways to create a vampire and

32:36

they become the predator . But the Highborn

32:38

thing , my guess

32:41

was it's an attempt at social commentary

32:43

, the way the rich feed off the poor .

32:46

Yeah , I think . And horror is an interesting vessel

32:48

too , because you can . You can do

32:50

so much with horror . That

32:52

especially because horror is an emotion , a

32:55

close cousin to romance , which is also a emotion

32:57

you have to . I think in horror

33:00

you are naturally expected to feel

33:02

some sort of emotion , worst most

33:04

other genres . You have to inject that

33:06

emotion through character . You

33:08

have an expectation already , what you're going to

33:10

assume . You know then , and that's

33:12

, I think that's really interesting because you

33:14

know the vampires being this symbolic

33:17

right of the

33:20

rich on the poor . You have other lessons

33:22

that are taught , like I was . I just

33:24

watched Stephen King's new

33:26

release movie and I was kind of

33:28

like at the beginning of the movie I'm like good luck , good luck

33:30

, please do good . You know , and and this one

33:33

was on his bloodlines the introduction

33:35

to Salem slot or , excuse me

33:37

, is , it sounds no , no introduction to I'm

33:43

so blanking on the name right now , I'm so sorry , pet

33:47

cemetery , excuse me , that's right , right

33:49

and so the the thing that stood out the most

33:51

to me was the end narrative

33:54

from the main character . He said sometimes dead

33:56

is better , you know . And so that made me really

33:58

, you know , think to myself . I'm like man , like what

34:01

would be so bad in life that

34:03

you'd prefer it dead , you know , and that's

34:05

kind of the thing it's like you , kind of like you're talking about with the immortals

34:08

, and like what , what would your life

34:10

be ? You know , ask those those types

34:12

of questions what could , what

34:14

could go wrong , you know , if you don't live , if you live

34:16

forever , or what if you do live forever , but your body still

34:18

kind of deteriorates over time ? Like what is that like

34:20

?

34:22

I had a story that I'm going to be . I

34:26

get invited to a lot of anthologies . I have a story that I've

34:28

already plotted out dealing with immortality

34:30

, where a vampire is bitten when

34:32

they already have AIDS and

34:35

the AIDS progresses

34:37

, though slowly , it doesn't

34:39

go away . It's part of who are once they become

34:41

a vampire . So the vampires feeling

34:43

themselves get sicker and sicker , but

34:45

they're never going to die , and that that puts

34:47

a different slant on immortality .

34:49

Yeah , yeah , definitely . I mean , that's some

34:51

horror , allows you to ask those questions

34:53

and allows you to channel it through

34:55

a vessel of some sort , normally through paranormal

34:57

, or it's through a creature feature . You know , one of my

34:59

favorite , favorite books I've ever , and there's

35:02

only two things in the world that really

35:04

scare me . They're really weird . But I

35:06

, I don't like trains , like

35:08

trains , the locomotives , not like Metro

35:11

, but like old steam locomotives , and

35:14

I don't like the creature , the Wendigo . I think

35:16

that creature to me , especially the old

35:18

Lord the Wendigo , that terrifies

35:20

me and you know , especially because when you think

35:23

about what the Wendigo

35:25

spirit has to do

35:27

, or what the person has to do to

35:29

be infected basically by the wind of spirit , they

35:32

have to be at a point of starvation , so , so

35:34

much that they're willing to eat their

35:37

companion , their friend , their , their

35:39

family , whatever , whatever they have available . So

35:41

that situation is so tense and so dire

35:43

, and then they get to reap the consequences

35:46

of it . Which is you become , this , this creature ? And

35:48

so for me , I'm like . People get put into situations

35:51

all the time and it says what ? What is our situation

35:53

going to be in that moment ? It's

35:55

, it's , you know . People say we don't judge

35:57

each other at our best , we judge them when they're

36:00

at their worst . You know , what did you do when everything

36:02

was bad versus when everything is good ? And

36:05

so I think horror allows us to ask those

36:07

questions . It allows us to present them in

36:09

a way that people can kind of personify

36:11

and embody .

36:12

Yeah , it does , and that's one of the reasons I love zombie

36:15

stories so much , because in the zone

36:17

in the typical zombie story you have Monsters

36:20

that you know present and , as a result

36:22

of the spreading infection , the infrastructure

36:25

collapses . When you can

36:27

no longer call for help , you

36:29

are on your own . And when you are completely on your own

36:31

, you're also who you

36:33

really are , not who you want to be perceived

36:36

as . So one of the examples

36:38

I use been talking about this If

36:40

there's a zombie apocalypse , you have a captain of industry , right

36:43

Person who can pick up a phone or snap

36:45

his fingers and anything is done for him because he

36:47

pays everyone around him and can afford the best . Every

36:50

you know his toilets clogged . He gets the top plumber

36:52

in the area to come when

36:54

the zombie apocalypse happens and there's no

36:57

one answering his calls . Who is

36:59

he ? You know what is his real identity

37:01

and he may not even know until

37:03

all of his comforts and all of his First

37:05

responders taken away . But then you get a guy

37:07

who's down down the street running a hot

37:10

dog truck . You know he's . He's

37:12

. He's the one who fixes the toilet , he's the one it does

37:14

all the stuff , because he can't afford to call anyone else

37:16

. He learned how a whole bunch

37:18

of skills that are basic

37:20

survival skills that stretch a dollar

37:22

, find you know what food has the most

37:24

value , you know for the dollar . Because he

37:26

needs to stay healthy , needs his kids to stay healthy , doesn't

37:29

have much money and there's all the different reasons . He's learned

37:31

to become self-sufficient . He

37:33

may wind up being the charismatic leader that leads

37:36

a group of people to safety , because

37:38

he's always been Closer

37:40

to his true self . It's true as self as he's

37:42

a survivor . And

37:44

you know , in zombie films , when

37:46

our affectation is stripped away , we

37:49

get to as writers , we get to explore

37:51

drama . When you have characters laid to the

37:53

bone , you know personality is gone

37:55

and it's what made

37:57

movies like night of the living dead

37:59

so effective . George

38:02

Romero the side note is was a good friend of mine

38:04

the last eight or nine years of his life and we

38:07

talked endlessly about how this works

38:09

. The , he said , the

38:11

characters of Ben , barbara

38:13

and I forget the name of the guy in the cell

38:15

, or Dan maybe , I'm not sure Would

38:18

probably all like each other had

38:21

they met in any other circumstance , because

38:23

nothing was pushing them to the edge

38:26

of their psychological

38:28

stability or Nothing

38:31

is highlighting their inability to

38:33

make good , clean decisions

38:35

, decisions in a crisis . So

38:37

they would probably have gotten along if

38:39

they were on three seats at the diner that Ben

38:41

talks about in the movie . They would probably

38:44

just chat , you know . But then you put them

38:46

in a crisis where they can't be that

38:48

and , like you know , the guy in the cell or his Daughters

38:50

dying , his wife is , is freaking

38:52

out because they can't do anything for her . Ben

38:55

is , you know , he's trapped and

38:57

White rural Pennsylvania

38:59

. That can't be a good thing in the 60s

39:02

. And Barbara to solve her brother murdered

39:04

and she's freaked out . She's in post-traumatic stress

39:06

like in Sun Onset . None of

39:08

them are the versions of themselves they

39:10

play day to day and that made

39:12

that movie so compelling . It's still watchable

39:14

all these years later .

39:16

Yeah , and zombies . Zombies provide that medium

39:18

. That's . That's a perfect example . It's

39:20

never the zombies . The zombies are the easy part

39:22

stick them in the head and they're done .

39:24

It's not . It's never the zombies , it's always

39:26

the people right , which is why in

39:28

most zombie films you set

39:30

it up Zombie , zombie , zombie

39:33

and then you have this long middle act

39:35

where it's all about the cat , the people interacting

39:37

. But even shows like the walking

39:40

dead they had a whole episodes where the zombies were

39:42

not only incidental , they were almost

39:44

irritating . Yeah , zombie would

39:46

come in , you'd kill one just to see . You can

39:48

remind the audience . Yes , we know it's a zombie story , but

39:50

the story was about the character . You know , the humans . The

39:53

zombies have no personality . You

39:55

know . Sure , if you're watching something like girl with all the gifts

39:57

or warm bodies or something , a zombie has

39:59

personality , but they're very variants on

40:01

the theme . In in

40:03

the straight zombie story , eventually the zombies

40:05

become kind of one

40:08

note . That's why , for those funny , a

40:10

lot of people talk about the zombie rules , as

40:12

said to have by George Romero . They never

40:14

get those rules right . He changes

40:16

the zombies nature in every single film

40:18

. Each time the zombie is getting closer

40:21

to a new , evolved state by

40:24

Day . Of the dead

40:26

. There they're talking and using our gun . In

40:29

in land of the dead they lead a revolt

40:32

in diet , in

40:34

diary . That's kind of rebooted the first film . But skip

40:37

forward to survival . The dead , the zombies

40:39

even learn how to Negotiate with humans and

40:41

use animals as a food source instead of humans

40:43

. It shows evolution . That's

40:46

what are always intended , because

40:48

he said otherwise . They would be and

40:50

I'm quoting him directly boring as fuck

40:53

.

40:55

Yeah , and I , in

40:57

my thesis paper , I wrote about something and I don't

40:59

think I was the original pointer of them , of

41:01

this type of idea , and I don't think I'm the only one to recognize

41:04

it . But zombies provide that situation

41:06

where you take a bunch of people and you stick them in a confined

41:09

area and let them just explode on each

41:11

other and see what happens . Stephen King did

41:13

that . It's called the King method , is what I called

41:15

it in my paper . If it's , yeah , and what

41:17

it was was , you know , under the dome , is a perfect

41:19

example . What happens if a dome comes over and

41:21

all these people are first to interact with it ? What

41:23

happens if you take two people , stick them in a hot car

41:25

where a dog is trying to kill them ? You

41:28

know what happens when you take a town you serve , you know

41:30

, and the vampires you can't go outside because the

41:32

van , the vampires , are owned .

41:33

The night , you know right .

41:35

So it's , it's , it's the King

41:37

method is is forcing the interaction

41:39

through the medium of the scary thing , and

41:41

I just think that that's it's so much fun

41:43

and and it's so different than

41:46

you know . There's there's werewolf knocking

41:48

at the door . You can do more . You can do

41:50

more with what you have and and

41:53

and I don't think in , especially

41:55

in George Romero's for films is like if

41:57

it weren't for the people , it's just zombies

41:59

wandering around .

42:00

It's it's all about the people all

42:02

about people and I

42:05

, like you know , he and I loved working

42:08

on on some projects . We did a project called nights

42:10

plural , nights of a living dead anthology

42:13

and it's Moderately

42:16

close being picked up by MGM plus for a TV

42:18

series Wow . And we just asked

42:20

some of the top zombie writers around To

42:23

write stories and

42:25

all of them gave us character driven stories . The

42:28

zombies were there . The zombies are the crisis . They're

42:30

the canvas on which you paint a story about human

42:32

, you know Survival . And

42:34

it goes back to a saying that one of the first

42:36

things I ever learned about fiction , richard

42:39

, I mentioned that Ray Bradbury was

42:42

a mentor of mine . So Bradbury and Matheson

42:44

were , for three years , mentors of my , from age

42:46

12 , one for three

42:48

years . And

42:50

one of the things Matheson told me is

42:52

that he said we're not

42:54

in the business of giving happy characters a good week

42:56

. Our job

42:58

is to step in , kick , kick

43:01

the door in , break all the furniture , chase them out of the

43:03

house with a hatchet and let them survive

43:05

on the main streets . And this is that's

43:07

, that's fiction , because Writing

43:09

fiction is crisis . Even

43:11

a romance boy meets girl , boy gets

43:13

girl , boy loses girl . Crisis . Boy

43:16

finds girl again , maybe , but the crisis

43:18

is the turning point of the drama and you

43:21

know , look at kids books . The pokey

43:23

little puppy lost loses his ball

43:25

. Right Curious

43:28

George does something and he's in a crisis

43:30

. It's all about crisis . The

43:33

zombie stories just make it a little easier . Monster

43:36

stories make it a little easier . It's

43:39

strays from the point a bit when

43:41

the monster is Retains its

43:43

personality , which is why often vampire

43:46

stories are carved out From

43:49

a lot of horror stories . Unless they're , you know

43:51

, pretty edgy , like 30 days of night , it's

43:53

a pretty edgy film . Twilight's

43:56

not an edgy film , you know the

43:58

vampires are . There are bad guys , good

44:01

guys , but you can reason with them to a degree

44:03

, right ? So it that

44:05

becomes a conflict story , not

44:07

a monster story right , yeah

44:09

, the .

44:10

But I had a , I had a co-writer , one of my co-writers

44:13

. He said he said , man , I'm really stuck , like

44:15

I don't know what to do next . I'm

44:17

like , throw a problem in there , something small

44:19

, throw any kind of problem , it could

44:21

be anything . Just , you know , this one's a

44:24

space horror . So we're talking , we're we're writing

44:26

about . Our inspiration

44:28

is event horizon , which is one of my

44:30

favorite movies ever and the only movie

44:32

that's ever managed to scare me and

44:34

Damn good movie . Yeah , and

44:36

it went under the radar . I try to tell everybody about it

44:38

. I'm like man , you got to see this movie . If you hadn't seen

44:40

it , you're missing out , and so

44:43

it it . So I just

44:45

told him to put a rip in the suit . He's

44:47

walking by a jagged piece of metal , rip in the suit

44:49

and then he's like man .

44:50

That work , just a little bit of a

44:52

problem , and it forced a conversation

44:54

between the characters a great example

44:56

of that not a horror film , but , but a

44:58

great example of that point is the Martian

45:00

. Things just certainly go wrong

45:03

for him and if they didn't

45:05

, it would just be a guy waiting for rescue

45:07

, you know , but his potatoes

45:09

died because the you know

45:11

, the habitat rips , etc . Etc

45:13

. That makes a story . You know

45:15

you always want that extra thing and

45:17

anytime a writer is , he doesn't know

45:19

what to do next . Have you know , either

45:21

invent a new character and have him cause a problem

45:23

or just have something go wrong , and that

45:26

now you've got pages of problem solving and

45:28

character explanation that evolves

45:30

during the problem solve . It's

45:32

great .

45:33

So here we are , readers giving away

45:35

our solutions . So if you wonder

45:37

why everything keeps going wrong , it's because we got to a

45:39

writer's block . If

45:42

it seems like we're not getting anywhere , well , it's because

45:44

we came to a stopping point . We needed something to move

45:46

the story forward .

45:47

So yeah , and by the way

45:49

, that's also one of the things that editors are good

45:51

for . A given example of this in

45:53

my fourth novel , patient Zero , the first of my

45:55

Joe Ledger thriller series , I had

45:57

had a villain that I thought was really you know , I

45:59

thought I had crapped them really well and he was , you

46:02

know , an elegant nuance , a lot of different . You

46:04

know characteristics , but he was , he

46:06

was a loner character and he was always in his

46:08

own head and my editor said that's great , but

46:10

he's not interacting with anyone . Give

46:12

him someone to talk to . Create a Watson for

46:14

him . And I created a character

46:16

for him to talk to . Not only did it bring

46:19

my villain much more to life and give

46:21

him more dimension , it also

46:23

suggested new ways in which the two

46:25

of them could amp up the troubles for the good

46:27

guys . So editors

46:29

, you know , are very cognizant of the fact

46:32

that you may need to put more

46:34

characters , more subplots , more twists , more events Into

46:37

your story . To take it from the

46:39

story you wrote to the one that should be published .

46:42

Right , yeah , I think that's . Um , you

46:45

know , circle back a little bit . That's that

46:47

. That becomes the effort

46:50

, right , the creative energy that we inject

46:52

into these stories , as we say we

46:54

need something here and we add more . And

46:57

we , but we had to add the right thing the Watson

46:59

. You know , you mentioned the Watson . Let's , let's give

47:01

a little reveal . I know what the Watson is , but I don't know anybody

47:03

else knows what the Watson is . So can you explain your

47:05

version , what you think the Watson is ?

47:07

Yeah , I mean , if this , if the Sherlock Holmes stories

47:09

have been written , you know , in third person

47:11

about Sherlock Holmes , we none of us alive

47:13

today would know about them . They

47:15

, the fact that Watson

47:18

was there to constantly ask questions

47:20

, to be the person that that

47:22

Holmes and his theatricality was fooling

47:24

you know , and or sort of stalling

47:27

for the big reveal , that's what makes

47:29

the story so well . I mean all those moments

47:31

when Watson , you know

47:33

it's Holmes to say to I see you've

47:35

been to the betting office , you know how , do you know that

47:37

that he'd go through all the different reasons , right , and

47:40

Watson

47:42

would be amazed and he becomes our proxy . A

47:44

second character creates that role . So

47:46

a Watson is a great , great foil for the main

47:48

character as well , as maybe the

47:50

fact that the Doyle made him the

47:53

Biographer for Holmes allowed

47:55

Watson's personality , which was much

47:57

richer and more complex than Holmes

47:59

, to drive the narrative . He's likable and approachable

48:02

. Is is not

48:04

at all likeable . He's

48:07

. You know , if you knew him in real life you'd be like

48:09

you could have told me this shit at the beginning

48:11

of the case Rather than stringing me along . But

48:14

you know that that's , that's Victorian

48:16

era . You know Drama . But

48:19

Doyle did something very progressive . He

48:21

moved the whole Sherlock Holmes type

48:23

of story into the 20th century by having that

48:25

, that foil . There's two characters Little

48:29

side note , just pet peeve . I hate

48:31

when they make Watson into a bumbling idiot in

48:33

movies . My favorite Watson

48:35

was Edward Hardwick in the Jeremy

48:38

Brett Sherlock Holmes . He

48:40

was an intelligent , reasonable , accomplished

48:43

individual who just was not a super

48:45

genius and he was in the presence of super genius , but

48:48

he often challenged

48:50

Holmes in some of his moral and legal

48:52

decisions . They , they argued so and

48:55

that gave them not only a

48:57

reality in their relationship , it

48:59

showed the evolution of an actual

49:01

friendship , a believable friendship , and

49:04

we like Holmes more for his affection

49:06

and respect for Watson . Yeah

49:08

, the battle rathbone . Nigel Bruce , sherlock Holmes

49:11

. You know Nigel Bruce was

49:13

a was it was a . The character play was an idiot

49:15

. Yeah , yeah and and Watson's

49:18

a doctor . Yeah , he's a medical doctor

49:21

and a former soldier . Yeah , you

49:23

know , man's got a whole lifetime experience . You

49:25

know Martin Freeman's Watson

49:28

was pretty good in the in the Benedict Cumberback Holmes

49:31

. They went a little overboard with the

49:33

Jude Law version in the Robert

49:35

Downey juniors , but at least they went in

49:38

the direction of having him more intelligent rather than

49:40

less .

49:41

Yeah , he became kind of the subject of Sherlock's

49:44

pranks and jokes and stuff like that . But

49:46

he kind of viewed him as an equal and almost like I need you . And

49:48

there was that , there was that arc in there too . It was like hey

49:51

, like you need me , kind of a thing , and that

49:53

worked out great . Oh yeah , but

49:55

you're exactly right , if without , without

49:57

Watson , I mean , we'd be absolutely bored , you know

49:59

. And so one of the things I like to

50:01

to point out and this is one of the

50:03

lectures I plan to give , and I asked this question and

50:05

I say the parts of the Caribbean movies

50:08

, are you , are you familiar with them ? Yeah

50:10

, I asked people say who's the main character and they're like Jack

50:12

Sparrow and I'm like , well , it's Captain Jack Sparrow

50:14

and no , it's not , it's actually Will

50:16

Turner . Yeah , whole movies about

50:18

will turn up , but will Turner is so boring

50:21

and he is the subject of everything that

50:23

happens in there . He doesn't do anything proactive

50:25

ever , minus a couple of sword fights . Yeah

50:28

, it's Jack that's actually going after the things

50:30

that he wants . And then he's flamboyant and funny

50:32

on top of it and he's kind of got this superhero-esque

50:35

quality to him or everything kind of I like

50:37

to associate him with , like Domino

50:40

from X-Men , where he just got luck

50:42

on his side . That's his superpower , because

50:44

the dude's been killed a couple

50:46

of times , eaten a couple of times . I mean it just

50:48

somehow makes it , you know , and

50:50

without , without you

50:52

know him it's just about will turn and we'll turn , doesn't

50:54

do anything , and so .

50:57

And you know I have nothing against Orlando Bloom , it's

50:59

just the character was written to be a dull

51:01

duller . I mean I think they

51:03

may have been so afraid that he'd be so

51:05

heroic he'd outshine the

51:08

scripted version of Jack Sparrow , and then one , of course

51:10

I was just Tells

51:13

his name , the actor I play , sparrow

51:15

, johnny Depp . When Johnny

51:17

Depp just went whole hog and went , you know , full

51:19

Keith Richard in In

51:22

the role . It even made

51:24

the other characters paler

51:27

still , you know , to the point where you

51:30

can't wait for his , his part to get over

51:32

. So we get back to Sparrow and also the rest

51:34

of the crew of the various ships , because

51:36

they become interesting .

51:38

Yeah , they did that . Later on in the series . I think they started

51:40

, you know , making the other characters more interesting . They

51:42

even gave Barbosa an arc to like

51:44

who it . I think they did well to dev to

51:46

evolve the series . It became entertaining

51:49

enough that I would watch all the way through , you

51:51

know all of them just to see . And they and

51:53

lich and of course , because I'm I

51:56

love anything to do with lore they

51:58

enrich the lore of the world and they made the world bigger , you

52:00

know , like they're supposed to do in a series , so that that

52:02

just felt good .

52:04

Yeah , there

52:06

are a couple other Things

52:09

, going back to the horror world , that that

52:11

make horror such a unique and fun

52:13

genre , one of which is , you

52:15

know , the Van Helsing character

52:17

and

52:20

it's been borrowed that . That character

52:22

been borrowed by almost every

52:24

thriller movie we've had since . Even

52:27

if it's not horror , science fiction , just a thriller movie , there's

52:29

usually somebody who knows what's

52:32

going on and Stoker

52:35

built him so beautifully into the story

52:37

that in a lot of ways it

52:39

is . You know , he rivals

52:42

Mina and Dracula as

52:45

the main character . Everything

52:48

he does Makes

52:50

the story pivot because of his

52:52

knowledge and he's the one that gives us

52:55

the information , the rules of the story

52:57

. I love , I

52:59

love building in characters like that . In

53:03

various works I've done , I've had them be kind

53:05

of blatantly Van Helsing's , even with the point where characters

53:07

joking that refer to he's our van

53:09

Helsing Having characters

53:11

that are giving information on the

53:13

fly and they serve that role

53:16

without it being Too much of a narrative

53:18

dump , you know , like info dump and

53:20

I love . I love that sort of thing

53:22

and I'm

53:25

one of those people that my favorite parts of

53:27

, say , a Dracula movie is not

53:29

Dracula , it's always the Van Helsing right

53:32

in the air of Peter Cushing is Van Helsing . Yeah

53:34

my second favorite is Frank Finlay

53:37

from the Louie Jardin

53:39

Van Helsing illusion on Dracula movie

53:41

. Yeah , and

53:43

it's . It's a great character that has a lot of potential

53:46

, a lot of twist to it and there's usually

53:48

a bit of innate dignity to

53:50

the character too . He's that , the

53:53

end product of us having learned , and therefore

53:55

you know the proof that knowledge

53:57

is power .

53:58

Yeah , and that's , um , you

54:00

know , horror can do that with , with just just

54:03

the knowledge of something unknown

54:05

, right ? Because that's that's what it becomes down to

54:07

with with the horror genre specifically

54:09

. It breaks down to the fear of the

54:11

unknown , right ? Because we , because at some

54:13

, at some point , we understand how , if we can

54:15

understand how to kill the thing , the fear goes

54:17

away , because now we're imbued with confidence .

54:19

So a lot of times it comes adventure story

54:21

at that point .

54:22

Exactly , and so you have to be very careful where we put that

54:24

adventure in , and we still have to make sure that our heroes

54:26

are not Exactly heroes . The horror

54:28

point of Horror is not

54:31

to defeat the villain , is to survive

54:33

the villain , and that's what horror is about

54:35

.

54:35

And and that's one of the reasons that we

54:37

have so many bad horror films out there because

54:39

a lot , of , a lot of script writers Don't

54:42

understand that what they do is they , they

54:44

, they have the , the characters learn the rules

54:46

, follow the rules , kill the monster and then , for some reason , the

54:48

monster is alive again in the post

54:50

credits moment . And that's

54:52

Lazy storytelling

54:55

, it's lazy writing .

54:56

Yeah , perfect example is the first alien movie . Alien

54:59

is a 100 isolation

55:01

creature feature in space and it

55:03

is essentially the same Same start

55:06

. A build up as a like a haunted house would

55:08

be right . But she gets tools

55:10

to defeat the thing along the way . But

55:12

it costs her every step of the way to get

55:14

those things and she fails miserably every

55:16

single step . The , the creature

55:19

, is a perfect creature and we are human , and

55:21

that's the thing that that makes it so terrifying

55:23

is that it is designed Specifically

55:25

to be our counter and the only

55:27

thing you can do is survive . But

55:30

then you get into the later films and it's like now

55:32

she's a super soldier because somehow she only only

55:34

her Knows the inf . Only

55:36

she knows the information about the alien . And then it's

55:38

like that's why people complain so much about whatever . The

55:40

alien number I think is number three , with all those

55:43

space marines . I think that's .

55:44

I think that's what I think it would come to was

55:46

that number two .

55:47

Okay , so the the prison was a little bit better

55:49

, but still alien . Number two was like I was

55:51

like , okay , this is just more like an action sequence , but I like

55:53

, I like the alien creature , so I'll

55:55

watch it .

55:56

Yeah , no , might , might , take a minute . I've been . I've

55:58

done a lot of work with the aliens license

56:01

. I edited alien bug hunt and aliens

56:03

versus predator anthologies uh

56:05

, aliens . The second film was actually my

56:07

favorite action film of all time . Um

56:09

, because it was shot as an

56:11

action film , was never intended to be a horror film , but

56:13

james cameron like , I got to meet him

56:15

a few years ago and he

56:18

talked to me . I asked him about that because you know I was working

56:20

on the anthologies and he said he said ridley

56:22

scott made a perfect horror movie . Why

56:24

would I go and try to write it , do a sequel

56:27

? Perfect film . There is nothing

56:29

about that movie that needs needs repairing

56:31

through a sequel . I just wanted

56:33

I love action . I , you know terminator was

56:35

an action film . I wanted to write an action

56:37

movie and this is what I did and it

56:39

was a perfect Act . Well , almost

56:41

perfect action film . There is one

56:43

Real flaw in that movie

56:45

and it bugs all my friends around the

56:47

navy . They leave nobody on the ship , seriously

56:50

nobody . Apart

56:55

from that , I love everything else about that movie

56:57

. Um , and it was . You

56:59

know , it wasn't intended to be hard . Right

57:01

from then on , I don't think the script

57:03

writers really grasped Either

57:06

the value of either the two films

57:08

. They had movies with lots of action and

57:10

they had movies with jump scares , but they

57:12

did not create a good horror film or

57:15

a good action film . And

57:17

the only movies in the in

57:19

the alien franchise I like are the first

57:21

. Two predators is the same way . I only

57:23

like one and three incredible Because

57:25

they're they're similar and you know a

57:28

bunch of really tough characters up against an unbeatable

57:30

foe and the only way you're going to win is through

57:32

ingenuity , and that's a

57:34

hard sell when you have something an advanced

57:36

race , that is their

57:38

entire culture is hunting you . How do you defeat

57:41

? First film was was a lot of

57:43

fun . Second film got

57:45

a lot of fun . The rest of them Could

57:47

be bothered .

57:48

Yeah , I think that and this would be a good point to

57:50

leave off on that that the

57:53

thing that allowed the especially

57:55

the predator film to , that allowed the

57:58

character that was Arnold Schwarzenegger to survive

58:00

, was it was Listen to

58:02

the words he used come , kill me , come on

58:04

, kill me . He was reducing himself down

58:06

to the one from this huge muscly action

58:09

figure Guy that was capable of

58:11

doing you know insane Things on

58:13

the combat , in combat and in

58:15

general , just being ultra strong , and all this they

58:18

reduced himself down to the sniveling covered

58:20

in mud , hiding in a hole kill me , kill me , kill me . But

58:22

that was the moment , that human moment

58:24

, that he basically knew , like

58:26

I'm either going to die or this is going to work .

58:29

Yeah , without that moment it would have

58:31

been as bad as commando Humanize

58:35

the character . That's what made it work so well

58:37

. And he put

58:40

a little bit of that humanity

58:42

into the first Conan movie . Second

58:44

one's on and the remake sucked . But the first

58:46

one he he got broken all the

58:48

way down and then he

58:50

had to build himself up and it's his

58:53

loss of confidence in who

58:55

he believed he had become Faulted

58:57

. Yeah , we had to reclaim

58:59

his confidence and , uh , I

59:02

thought that that was really really well done . And

59:06

, by the way , I don't know if you can see Listeners

59:09

camp right behind me Is

59:11

a book on my shelf . It's currently on the wanderer very

59:13

first book ever bought .

59:15

Wow , and you still have it .

59:16

I still have it . I actually started out with

59:19

Conan as as my

59:22

preferred reading other than what was assigned

59:24

in school , but it when I was eight , I think

59:27

Wow , incredible . But

59:29

even the character in the story wasn't . He

59:32

wasn't always a good guy and he wasn't always right right

59:34

.

59:36

Well , excellent , Jonathan

59:38

man , we've run the gambit

59:40

, holy crap . That

59:43

flew yeah .

59:44

Are you going to be at 20 books again this year ? Yes

59:46

, sir , I am , yeah , you're going to have to do more talking .

59:49

Yeah , absolutely , I think it'd be great . I think this

59:52

is just a fun , fruitful conversation and

59:54

I think I think our readers

59:57

will enjoy to see pull pull back the curtain a little bit . We

59:59

went a little bit more into the craft and stuff like

1:00:01

that . I think the readers are , our listeners are really going to

1:00:03

enjoy that , and so that's

1:00:05

a little bit different than we normally do and

1:00:08

I'm starting to feel like they're interested

1:00:10

in that kind of thing . A lot of readers are writers , or a lot of writers are

1:00:12

readers . You know , all writers should be readers , but

1:00:14

I think I think that's that's very cool to see

1:00:17

behind the mind as well , of what

1:00:19

we come up with .

1:00:21

Yeah .

1:00:22

And why exactly ? And we're you know . It's more

1:00:25

than just asking where do you get your inspiration ? I think

1:00:27

that's kind of a boring question . I'm like it's

1:00:29

kind of dead . You know , let's , let's go deeper

1:00:31

, you know .

1:00:32

Well it's . It's like one of the most common questions

1:00:34

a horror writer gets is

1:00:36

from people who don't yet understand I

1:00:38

say , yet understand the genres . They

1:00:41

say you know what makes you write about monsters , make

1:00:43

you love monsters so much ? I don't love monsters . I

1:00:45

don't write about monsters , I write about people . I write about people

1:00:47

who fight monsters . Right , I

1:00:49

grew up in a very poor , very abusive

1:00:52

household . My father was career

1:00:54

criminal who ran a local chapter of the KKK . Terrible

1:00:56

environment to grow up in . Wow . I

1:00:59

got involved in martial arts as a kid because I knew one

1:01:01

day , one of these days , I was going to have to fight

1:01:03

him , and so

1:01:05

I wound up at age 14 defeating

1:01:07

my own monster . I understand

1:01:10

what it's like to grow up in the presence of something

1:01:12

that appears to be overwhelming odds . It was

1:01:14

six foot eight , three hundred and eighty pounds of muscle

1:01:16

.

1:01:17

Yeah .

1:01:18

I'm six four . I was six two by the time I was 14

1:01:20

, but you're still tired over me . I

1:01:22

beat my monster , so I write about stories . I

1:01:25

write stories about people who are confronting

1:01:27

something that appears to be insurmountable

1:01:30

. It's a

1:01:33

horror novel , a disaster

1:01:35

novel , deep space , science

1:01:37

fiction , apocalyptic story . They're

1:01:39

up against something that nothing in their life has

1:01:41

prepared them for that moment . So how do they level up

1:01:43

? Yeah , and those stories

1:01:46

are

1:01:48

my favorite kind of story

1:01:50

when you have to become

1:01:52

better than you are by

1:01:54

not holding on to who you think you are , become

1:01:57

who you should be . And you

1:02:00

know , van Helsing was my hero

1:02:02

as a kid . Yeah , he told them

1:02:04

how to beat a monster .

1:02:05

Yeah Well , what an incredible , incredible

1:02:08

story , and thank you for sharing you know about

1:02:10

, about your childhood , and what you know brought you to

1:02:12

be the person you are today . I think that's that's

1:02:14

really important for people to know . I have no shame

1:02:16

in telling people I was a soldier and now I'm a police officer , and

1:02:19

there are people asking me why do you want to be a police officer ? And

1:02:21

so I don't like bullies . I've never liked

1:02:23

bullies and people who you know , people who steal from people

1:02:25

, people who beat their wives , people who who

1:02:27

hurt animals and people who litter these are

1:02:29

all bullies in some respect and I don't like them . And

1:02:33

so I don't write about I don't

1:02:35

like monsters , I don't like bullies . I write

1:02:37

about them because they're real and they're , and you know , and

1:02:39

sometimes it may take the form of a when to

1:02:41

go , sometimes it might take the form of a vampire

1:02:44

, but this is just one bully that

1:02:46

we got to , we got to deal with . You know , and often

1:02:48

the bully bullies use power . That's what

1:02:50

they use over you is to is is power .

1:02:53

And and a superpower that that people can

1:02:55

use against them is actually empathy Understanding

1:02:58

what it means to under empathy for

1:03:00

yourself , empathy for the bully , not

1:03:02

necessarily sympathy . You're

1:03:04

standing and then finding

1:03:07

out how to be in the path of that so

1:03:09

that it does not do harm to somebody standing behind

1:03:12

us . Yeah , empathy becomes an incredible

1:03:14

resource in a lot of different areas

1:03:17

of life , but also is a great resources . Or

1:03:19

, as a writer , you

1:03:21

have to feel what the characters feel good

1:03:23

and bad and inhabit the

1:03:25

skin so you could write a story that is

1:03:28

no matter how fantastically

1:03:30

elements , believable sort

1:03:33

of at real people in extraordinary

1:03:35

circumstances . And it sounds like you're

1:03:37

doing that and that's what I do , and that's

1:03:40

why we're probably both going to continue

1:03:42

writing and writing and writing until they

1:03:44

, as I mentioned earlier , they bury us with our laptops .

1:03:47

Yep , I have to . I have to . I don't

1:03:49

have a choice . I'm actually one of my processes

1:03:51

right now is is writing down where

1:03:54

all of my stories are , so that way they

1:03:56

can , my , my family , whoever

1:03:58

has access to them , can finish the ones that

1:04:00

I was writing , and I'll leave instructions on how

1:04:02

to finish it so I don't leave any of them

1:04:04

undone .

1:04:07

I have a writer friend I'm not going to mention

1:04:09

names yet because they it's not publicly

1:04:11

announced , but who's who's ? In really dire

1:04:13

physical circumstances . He may

1:04:16

not survive , and I'm

1:04:18

one of the people that will probably be completing some

1:04:20

of his uncompleted works . That's

1:04:24

that's . That's an interesting legacy . Sometimes

1:04:28

, you know , we want to do that , so our

1:04:31

stories can not only live on beyond us but can

1:04:34

be completed in

1:04:36

a way that speaks to the same

1:04:38

humanity

1:04:40

that that we were

1:04:43

striving for , and we wrote them or

1:04:45

started them .

1:04:46

What an incredible ask . You know

1:04:48

. You know you've reached somebody and this is I

1:04:50

know this is a little aside and we're going a little bit over here , but I

1:04:52

think it's worth it . But what an incredible

1:04:54

ask when you say I

1:04:56

think you know me

1:04:58

and my story and the way I write

1:05:01

and what I stand for enough Will you finish

1:05:03

my novel ? Will you finish my series ? Look at what Brandon

1:05:05

Sanders did with Robert Jordan I mean , we're talking about a massive

1:05:07

series , exactly , and

1:05:09

what an incredible feat . And you know , and so that's

1:05:11

congratulations to you . That should be something

1:05:14

I'm sorry about , your friend , but that should be something we're celebrating

1:05:16

that you were , you were potentially asked to

1:05:18

finish somebody else's novel or their works

1:05:20

. I don't know what he's working on , but you know , congratulations

1:05:23

to you . That means that you've connected with that person

1:05:25

in a way that they feel comfortable with something

1:05:27

, that that this is , this

1:05:29

is their dying breath , right , or something close to it

1:05:31

. I mean , you know their names

1:05:33

on it and that's going to be , that's going to be something forever

1:05:35

. So congratulations to you and I'm sorry , if you're a friend

1:05:37

, I'll pray for him , but that's , I

1:05:40

think that's man . We'll talk about a tender

1:05:42

note , but definitely , definitely a

1:05:44

great place to say you

1:05:47

know what . This was totally worth it

1:05:49

and I think that the conversation was worth it . It was

1:05:51

all a blast and I'm really , really appreciate you taking

1:05:53

your time out of your business schedule . I don't think you said you had to interviews

1:05:55

every single week .

1:05:57

Every single day this week , yeah , and

1:05:59

next week . I've got 11

1:06:01

in the next 12 days . But

1:06:04

you know , and some of them are , you know , overseas as well

1:06:07

. And the first thing I will say for any readers

1:06:09

, any writers who are out there listening

1:06:11

, if you go to my website

1:06:13

, which is Jonathan mayberrycom , and spell my last

1:06:15

name right , it's MAB , not M a , y , b

1:06:17

, m a , b or Y . On my website

1:06:20

there's a one of the pages is free stuff

1:06:22

for writers how to format

1:06:24

a novel , sample of one of my comic book scripts , how

1:06:26

to write a query letter , how to write a synopsis

1:06:28

really useful stuff . They're

1:06:31

all downloadable , free PDFs . Go grab what you

1:06:34

need , share with your writer friends .

1:06:36

Absolutely . I'll see if I can link that in the comments below . So

1:06:39

, ladies and gentlemen , Jonathan

1:06:41

, I know you told us , but give us the name of the

1:06:44

book that you want people to pick up if they

1:06:46

never heard of you .

1:06:48

They've never heard me patient , zero patients

1:06:50

. It combines horror and

1:06:52

action and science

1:06:54

my three favorite things and

1:06:56

it's the first of my Joe Ledger thriller series

1:06:59

. I am writing the 14th

1:07:02

book in the series right now and have

1:07:05

the next couple sold already , and it's

1:07:07

it's a fun , relatable

1:07:09

character . He's emotional damage

1:07:12

goods who uses his damage to be able to

1:07:14

be really good at his job . So

1:07:16

and I think you can use ex soldier

1:07:18

, ex cop , now spec ops guy

1:07:20

for international troubleshooting

1:07:23

organization .

1:07:24

Very cool . So , Joe Ledger excellent , I have

1:07:26

seen it . I've got the first book . It's actually

1:07:28

in my in my libraries I definitely it's

1:07:31

my . My bump it up on my to be read list . That's

1:07:33

um . Thank you for that , Jonathan mayberrycom

1:07:36

. I'll make sure there's a decent link in there

1:07:38

so that people know how to spell your name correctly . But

1:07:42

, John , thank you for your time tonight

1:07:44

.

1:07:44

I appreciate it my pleasure , brother

1:07:46

, and this has been quite a lot of fun and I hope

1:07:48

, hope to come back someday .

1:07:50

Absolutely . Yeah , we do bring repeats on . I

1:07:52

know we've got a couple of scheduled , so I'll definitely

1:07:55

keep you in the loop . So , ladies and

1:07:57

gentlemen , you're listening to the night marriage podcast . This

1:07:59

is going to be episode number one , season two

1:08:01

of the

1:08:03

podcast , and I'm calling in from October

1:08:06

16 , so I will be publishing this one as soon

1:08:08

as possible . Ladies and gentlemen

1:08:10

, thank you for your time and have a good night .

1:08:11

Take care guys .