Novels: Inspiration & Passion
A young writer once asked me how I managed to become a novelist. He had aspirations to write books – as planned to do so as soon as his first screenplay sold! The notion of writing TV and movies for him was intoxicating--one I can certainly relate to--and writing novels sounded kind of tough and time-consuming.
Years later, I thought about my conversation with that young writer. I have no idea whatever came of him, if he ever sold that first screenplay, or wrote page one of a novel in pursuit of his personal dream. Maybe he became one of my favorite thriller writers, Lee Child (I like to think so!). But where had I had come up with the notion to write novels? I had the desire to become a novelist since the age of twelve. But when I sold my first screenplay, my writing career took a turn and screenwriting became a full time challenge and occupation. I threw my creative energies into that direction, one that led me to remarkable success over the years. But I never gave up on the idea of writing a novel. To look at my journey leading to my first novel The Equalizer, you would have to go back to my teenage years. |
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Between the ages of 14 and 17, I wrote a series of boy’s adventures, , big, sprawling stories about a private detective named Mike Storm. Although there was never really any ‘detecting’ in these books, they were big action adventures. Mike Storm had two sidekicks: Rusty, a more seasoned veteran, and a young detective named Dick. As soon as I finished my first ‘Michael Storm’ book, I just started on another one.
I was constantly writing during these formative years, and while some of the books were quite long and thrilling (at least to me), they were not necessarily engrossing or well-written. In fact, far from it! But, the books were all completed, they all had a beginning, a middle, and an end, and I had a grand time writing them with titles like: The Mountain of Thunder,, The Master of Fear, The Guns of Freedom, The Final Stand. . They were really exercises in creative writing which would serve me well later in my career. While still living in London, I sold a script to a TV series called ‘Columbo’, soon found myself in Hollywood at Universal Studios as the showrunner on ‘McCloud’ and more TV shows and movies followed. With a TV and film writing career blossoming, I did not go back to the idea of writing books for a very long time, but the desire to become a novelist never left me. |
I created a TV series titled ‘The Equalizer’, and after that had been cancelled by CBS, I discovered that I still controlled all of the underlying rights to the show, including the ‘novel’ rights.
That started me thinking again about the idea of writing a thriller novel. I approached St. Martin’s Press because I had a liaison with an editor there who had been working previously with a major production company which held an option on The Equalizer. That option had expired, and I did not renew it. The guy from the production company had gone to work for St. Martin’s Press as an editor, so I approached him about the idea of my writing an ‘Equalizer’ novel. He said he’d think about it, but nothing happened with it until, some months later, when Sony Pictures expressed interest in the property as a feature film. Then this editor at St. Martin’s Press worked out a deal for me to write an ‘Equalizer’ book. It would not be a novel that mirrored the screenplay of the movie they were planning as a showcase for the talents of Denzel Washington. It would have a completely different plotline, but it would feature the main character, Robert McCall, who had resigned from his covert spy organization known as The Company and who had disappeared off the radar. |
The Equalizer novel came out just before the movie was released by Sony/Columbia in 2014, and sold well. I then came up with a sequel titled Killed in Action – An Equalizer Novel. The book is being published, also by St. Martin’s Press, on January 30th, 2018. So, with two thriller books under my belt, I find myself a published novelist in one of the world’s most popular genres.
The writing process that goes into a novel is quite different from writing scripts. Mainly because you have a wider scope with which to work. You can add scenes impossible to include within the confines of a screenplay, and there is much more latitude in terms of character development. That makes writing a novel much more rewarding, albeit more multi-layered and intricate. I still approach a novel in the same way I would approach a screenplay. I step it out – figure out the characters – work out where the inherent drama and conflicts are – but on a much broader canvas. And then, to paraphrase Steven King: This happens, and then this happens, and this happens. That’s what writing is all about, the stuff that happens, spurred by the imagination of the writer. And I often think back to my teenage years and tip my hat to Michael Storm… |
