Author Q&A with Greg McLaughlin

Author Q&A with Greg McLaughlin

*This post contains affiliate links*

1. Tell us about your writing/ published book(s):

I’ve loved writing since I discovered JRR Tolkien in Middle School back in the late 1970s. As a young teen, I wrote elaborate world-building medieval fantasies. None of what I wrote back then is any good. But through the experience, I became professionally proficient at chartography and recently contributed hand-drawn maps to other authors for their fantasy novels. I majored in English Creative Writing and pursued a career in Journalism, Marketing and Business Operations. I started writing fiction about twenty years ago. It took me eight years to finish my first novel, four to finish the next and from there I’ve averaged six to nine months per book for the last four years. To date, I’ve published seven fictional novels and one personal memoir. Ironically, I don’t write fantasy any more. I tend to write tense social-political thrillers, such as THE SECOND COMING, about the modern-day rise of a spiritual messiah, THE THIRD PARTY, about an independent candidate for President who faces dirty politics from the two entrenched parties, BROKEN ENGLISH, about a middle-aged father who is deported and left in a foreign city with no money, home or job or UNDER THE AURORA, about a suicidal homeless man who attempts to clean up his life and return to his long-lost daughter. I’ve also written two fun romantic comedies, including THE TRIPLE DATE, about rival marketing directors who compete for the same job when their companies merge, their children date each other and their single parents engage in a poorly hidden fling, and THE CURVE IN THE ROAD, about a man with a photographic memory, whose intense recollection of the crippling injury to his first love in his twenties inhibits his ability to commit to the wife he married in his late thirties or the boring job that he needs to pay his bills.

2. Where’s your favourite place to write? 

I have a large, mahogany desk tucked into a little nook off of my bedroom. It’s made of nice, sturdy, solid Oak. To my right is a window out to the street. To my left is the little stand where I perch my phone. I spend every night writing on my laptop until my brain gets tired and then tweeting until I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.

3. How do you approach starting a new book? 

I have to have a spark of inspiration. It can be as simple as a news article about a particularly interesting dilemma or event. It can be an experience I go through. It can be a memory from my childhood. But I need to have that moment where for just one millisecond, I see the whole story laid out in my mind. Usually the moment escapes me and I don’t remember the details. But once I find the theme and the feeling I want to explore, I’m usually pretty inspired and motivated to piece the story together and quickly draw up an outline. I’m definitely a hyper-planner. I decide up front what my hook will be, what my twist will be and how I will end the story. One of my first tasks is to determine the title of the story. For some reason, the title always comes to me during the planning phase, and I rarely waver once I establish it. I create all my characters and fully profile them before embarking on the actual writing of the novel. I outline each act and chapter, with particular emphasis on how I want to start and end each scene. Of course, I leave room for inspiration along the way. But I typically veer only very little from my outline once I’ve fleshed it out. I always write the story from start to finish without jumping around and stick very close to my original concepts.

4. What’s your favourite genre to read?

I like any story that makes me tense. I enjoy anticipating what will happen next and love to be surprised by a writer’s cleverness, especially when they pull off a twist that I couldn’t see coming, but that makes perfect sense. I tend to read pretty commercial novels like Creighton, Baldacci and Flynn. I have the deepest admiration for Stephen King. I also like edgy tension and thoroughly enjoyed the Steigg Larson GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO series. I still have a soft spot in my heart for JRR Tolkien and strive to reread THE HOBBIT and the THE LORD OF THE RINGS at least once a decade. Lastly, I have a whole group of beloved independent authors I’ve met on-line such as Rich Shifman, Brittanny Davis, Dominic Breiter, Barry Litherland, Jacinta Horgan, HR Kemp and so many more.

5. Have you always wanted to write?

I’ve been a writer since I was about eleven years old. I wrote a lot of poorly disguised Tolkien knock-offs throughout my teens. While those stories were nearly unreadable back then, my love for writing never wavered from that point. I wrote poetry and music in my late teens and skated through high school and college on my ability to write effectively. My tenth and twelfth grade English teacher, Mrs. Singer-Schwartz taught me a lesson I’ve never forgotten. She told me that a great writer must be PRECISE and CONCISE. The message there was to say exactly what you mean and do it as quickly and succinctly as possible. That one lesson really helped me hone my early creative instincts and focus my desire to create around my skillset to write effectively. In college, I wrote, directed and produced my own late-night campus comedy show, which I also hosted. My first job after college was as a journalist. And, now, for the past twenty years, I’ve developed into a decent novelist and author. So, I’ve basically engaged in a life-long love affair with the written word. And, I am proud to report that it is a happy and healthy marriage.

6. What do you do when you have writer’s block?

I’ve read so many books, articles, blog posts and tweets about how to work through writer’s block. And I can confidently say that I’ve learned nothing. I have no productive remedy for writer’s block and typically just don’t write until it goes away. I can say that being a hyper-planner and always having an exceptionally detailed outline helps me avoid the kind of writer’s block that sets in when you’ve written yourself into an impossible paradox or contradicted plot threads that can’t possibly co-exist. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have my weeks, even months where I’m completely frozen and can’t move forward. Some people will say to write every day whether you have writer’s block or not. They advocate the school of “working through it”. I don’t do that. I won’t write until I know exactly in my mind what I want to write. And, that’s typically where I experience blockage. When that happens, I stop writing, but I never stop thinking about my story. Every morning when I awake, all along my commute to work, during my lunch break, as I sit at my desk daydreaming and all night – even in my dreams – I never stop churning my story over and over in my mind, until one day, the path forward reveals itself to me and I break through the block.

7. Tell us about a scene that you loved but had to edit out of your book

As a hyper-planner, there are few occasions where my story takes a hard turn and I have to abandon significant plot points to go with the new direction. In a scary parallel to today’s COVID pandemic, I wrote a scene about three years ago about a pale, sickly seemingly homeless man, sweating and dizzy, who moves from one New York subway car to another, touching all the poles, sweating and peeing on the seats, hugging people unwantedly and generally bothering as many people as possible. As the day concludes, the man lays on a park bench in the shadow of the Freedom Tower, praying to his God and thanking him for giving him the strength to infect as many of the evil Americans as he could before the manufactured plague in his glands took his life. I wanted to work that scene into THE SECOND COMINNG, which has an element of terrorists trying to subvert the Messiah’s success. But the scene just didn’t fit. I still have it and intend to develop it further in the future into a new story I am planning.

 

8. Do you like reading the same books you write?

I love reading my own books. There seem to be two complete opposite camps on that topic; the self-loathers and the self-lovers. I really enjoy my characters and generally like the plot choices I make. I often pick up one of my own novels, find a random chapter and read for an hour or two. Re-reading my own writing reminds me of the feelings I experienced while assembling a series of events, or the choices I made to create a certain image, or even just the struggles I overcame to make a particular scene work. And it makes me happy to see the end results.

 

9. Do write under a pen name? If so, tell us about how you chose it:

I write under my own name; Greg McLaughlin, although, I recently discovered another Greg McLaughlin, who has also published novels. So, now, I wish I had gone with something like Gregory Mclaughlin Jr. or something just a little bit more distinctive. Nonetheless, my work is pretty consistent and differs from the other Greg McLaughlin, so hopefully, if either of us makes it big, there won’t be too much confusion.

 

10. How do you choose your book’s title(s)?

Honestly, the titles tend to come to me very easily. One of the first accomplishments for me whenever I set out to craft a new novel is to establish the title. As a hyper-planner, I have to know what my story is about, what I’m trying to say, and what existential point I’m going to try to make. I can’t get to the more detailed task of character-building or plot construction until I have that “big picture” vision. And, once I nail down the essence of the story, the title usually just naturally jumps into my head.

 

11. What advice would you give to someone wanting to write their first book?

Writing is hard. But thinking is easy. So, spend time thinking about what you want to write. Why do you want to tell this story? Why might someone else be interested in your story. Is that even a motivating factor? Picture your characters. Imagine them in your setting. Imagine them interacting with each other. Get to know them in your mind so well that you can predict how they’d react to different situations, how they’d respond to different personalities, what kind of dialog they typically speak, their values and motivations and how they make their decisions. Make sure you mull over the central conflict and have that as well thought out as possible. Some people write as they think, which is a wonderful way to capture ideas as you experience them. I don’t do it that way. I think of a story line and replay it over and over in my mind until I work out as much of the variation as possible. And that clears any doubt or confusion as I set out to write what I’ve replayed repeatedly in my mind. Bottom line is that there are a million people giving advice to new writers on how to write. My only fresh take is to spend as much time thinking as you do writing, and hopefully those thoughts and ideas will guide you on your path.

 

12. Do you do research for your books? If so, what kind of research?

I do hours of research before I write a single chapter. I tend to write about real places, so if they’re nearby, I visit those places and look around. I take pictures. I talk to people who live there. I go to the library and read up on the history of the town or city. If I can’t get there, I use Google Earth to zoom in and look around. For each character whose job or career has any bearing on the plot, I research that job to learn what work is done in that profession, what degrees are required, what skills are needed and what tasks are typically performed. If I can observe someone doing that job, I’ll take a few minutes and casually watch. For my novel BROKEN ENGLISH, I spent hours studying immigration law. I even spoke to an Immigration lawyer to make sure my characterizations were as close to accurate as possible. For UNDER THE AURORA, I spoke with homeless people in New York City and Seattle to understand where they came from, how they survived and what dreams and aspirations they had for themselves. I believe research breeds credibility and credibility contributes to my favorite word in the English language; VERISIMILITUDE.

 

13. How do you fit writing into your everyday life?

I’ve been blessed with the ability to subsist on very little sleep. If I get four hours of solid, deep sleep, I can go the remaining twenty hours of the day with high energy. I don’t drink coffee or alcohol and have a natural metabolic adrenaline that propels me through each day. If I sleep five hours, it’s almost too much. If I only sleep for three, I’m tired the next day. So, needing precisely four hours of sleep, leaves me a lot of extra hours at night to write. I finish working around six PM, spend a couple hours with the family. And then, when they go to bed at ten or eleven PM, I write from ten PM until two AM. I sleep from two AM to six AM and then do it all over again. On the weekends, I sleep in until eight AM. It also helps that my two boys are out of the house and in college now, so I have considerably more free time to focus than I did even a few years ago. I am well aware of the difficulty most people have in balancing their lives with their writing goals. I acknowledge the good fortune in my ability to sleep only four hours per night and feel blessed to have this ability.

 

14. How do you approach ‘world building’?

As a writer of contemporary fiction with my focus on the genre of social-political drama, my world-building is better-rooted in the real world than if I were still attempting to write fantasy as I did in my teens. As such, my tendency toward deep research goes a long way in helping me construct the setting, establish the characters and build the world.

 

15. How do you handle criticism

I crave feedback of any kind. I’m much more bothered when weeks go by that I don’t hear any feedback at all than I am by criticism. I recognize three forms of criticism. The best criticism is well-informed, THOUGHTFUL criticism. I get this from my brother, John, who is my biggest fan, and a group of writers I’ve met on-line who have read all my novels and really understand who I am and what I’m trying to do. When people in this group provide criticism, it’s always constructive and nearly always perfectly on point. I’ve learned to listen very closely to the criticism I receive from this group. There’s a second type of criticism that I listen to, but with a grain of salt. I call this CASUAL criticism. Over the years, I’ve engaged beta readers or swaps, who didn’t put a lot of effort into reading my work. They typically wanted me to read and praise their work and begrudgingly agreed to read mine in exchange. This feedback is usually a little less well-informed. It’s more superficial and subject to the whim and personality of the reader. This is important feedback, because it reflects the potential perception of the general readership public. But I’m just not necessarily going to rework my story around this feedback unless I hear it consistently from multiple sources. I’ve been fortunate not to experience the third form of criticism, which I call RETRIBUTIVE feedback. But I’ve seen it on-line where because one writer, in earnest, provides what they believe is fair and helpful criticism to another writer, the writer receiving the feedback, turns around and lambastes the writer who gave the original constructive feedback. I avoid people who I believe might react this way. And, so far, I’m happy to say, I have not been the recipient of this type of criticism.

 

16. Describe your perfect character to me:

I love a character who is pure and good on the inside and deeply flawed on the outside. Like a crispy French fry with a soft interior, or a hard-shelled chocolate truffle with gooey nougat in the middle, I love when a character’s hard exterior is difficult to penetrate. But, when the reader finally bites deeply into that character, they’re surprised at what they learn and what they come to admire. When writing about characters who fall in love with each other, I like to fall in love with them as well. The harder it is to bring them together, the more tension the relationship endures, the greater the payoff when it finally happens. On the far end of the spectrum, as a writer of tense thrillers with powerful protagonists and dangerous antagonists, I love to write villains who aren’t just evil to the core, but instead, have a value system that makes sense to them and guides them to do what they do. These antagonists are real not because they somehow want to be bad, but because they deeply believe they’re right in their behavior and their intentions. As much as I like to create terrible “bad guys”, I strive to sew just a tiny shred of doubt that maybe they might have a valid have a point in some off-beat, twisted way. Maybe their evil scheme is founded on something meaningful and even plausible. I try not to make any of my characters too black and white good or too clearly evil. I believe the shades of grey are where the best nuggets of tension exist and make for a more believable story. As a case in point, in my discarded scene with the terrorist spreading a contagious virus on the Manhattan subways, that antagonist deeply believed he was performing the work that his God asked of him. It begs the question; is he evil, simply misinformed, or, if viewed through just the right lens, is there any way one could find him to be justified?

 

17. Tell me about your current work

My latest novel, which works as a light drama, a mild romantic comedy or even a young adult romance, is called THE B TEAM. In keeping with my penchant for social commentary, it takes a satirical look at the small-town politics around youth sports and the bad behaviors exhibited by parents, coaches and league administrators. It revolves around a young boy, Braden Shaw, who loves to play baseball, his single mother, Ellie, who works three jobs to support him and the aimless college frat boy, Colt Gibson, who moves into the apartment above her garage on her ten-acre farm. Together the three of them set out to provide the boy with opportunities to learn the game, play on competitive teams and develop his skills and love of the game, while protecting him from the pressures and abuses of the people associated with the town program. Along the way, as sparks of romance flicker between Colt an Ellie, an indiscretion from Colt’s past, in the form of an NCAA cheating scandal, threaten to undo all the progress they’ve made in developing the positive environment of the B-Team.

 

18. Tell me about your main character

Colt Gibson played on an elite college baseball team and had nearly the skills to play professionally. But just not quite. Instead, he coaches with his legendary father and spends time with his old teammates at frat parties with sorority girls. When his father asks him to take the fall for NCAA recruiting violations of his own making, Colt finds himself fired from his job and exiled to a small rural Pennsylvania town where nobody knows him and nobody’s heard of his infamous college cheating scandal. He meets Ellie Shaw, a single mother, his age, who played softball at a rival college. They spar playfully and take an instant liking to each other. Colt imparts his baseball wisdom on Ellie’s son, Braden, and together, they combat the petty competitiveness, elitism and politics of the small-town parents, coaches and league officials in their one-traffic light rural farming community. Colt has reached that age in life where aimlessness ceases to be an admirably loveable quality. As he partners with Ellie, he slowly realizes that keg parties and college sophomores just don’t fulfill him anymore. He learns to care about his future and, more importantly, the happiness of the woman he is falling in love with. But, that women, who’s been burned by a cheating husband in the near past, has one thing she hates – cheaters. Colt must decide whether to hide his secret from her as he builds his connection with both her and her fatherless son, while helping her provide a positive, productive baseball experience. As much as Colt is already a full-grown adult, the story is still one of growing up, learning to be honest and facing the tough downfalls of life.

 

19. Would you want your book made into a film?

Absolutely. I’m working to convert it to a screenplay now. I have a friend who is a talented and successful independent filmmaker. He’s already working with me on one of my other stories. Unfortunately, the COVID pandemic has slowed progress. But, for sure. I’d love to see my story on film.

 

20. How many books do you own?

It all depends on what unit of measure you choose to use. You could say I have an entire house full of books. If you want to measure it in terms of shelving units, I have at least four separate bookcases filed with books. I also have bins in my basement. If you want to count shelves, I’d say maybe twenty actual individual shelves. But books? You want to know how many actual, individual books I have? That is very hard to say. Let’s argue that one shelf holds sixteen books. And, let’s say I have twenty shelves. That would give me a total of just more than three-thousand books. I also have a couple hundred more in bins in the basement, which might bring me up to thirty-five hundred. If you then want to count on-line, well, then, I’m not sure how to go about estimating that. I think I’ll take a page out of Mrs. Singer-Schwartz’s lesson plan to precisely and concisely say; MANY.

Greg’s latest release 

You can find Greg on Twitter.