Ask the Author: Patrick Oster
Answered Questions (11)
Patrick Oster
my book club is reading "The World According to Garp" by John Irving. I read it a long time ago and really liked it. I'm interested to see what I get out of it this time. Probably going to focus on the writing since I know the basic story, but I'm sure there will be bits I've forgotten that will entertain me.
I also want to remember how it differs from the Robin Williams movie.
Next up: Michael Chabon's "Moonglow."
I also want to remember how it differs from the Robin Williams movie.
Next up: Michael Chabon's "Moonglow."
Patrick Oster
Some German friends wonder if I am related to Gen. Hans Oster, who was killed by the Nazis for trying to assassinate Hitler. Having a character find his roots in a fictional want might bring some surprises, both nice and nasty. Might be some not so good Germans in the ancestry along with this hero.
Patrick Oster
Nick and Nora Charles. fun and sexy. And pretty smart detectives despite all the booze they guzzle. great period stuff.
Patrick Oster
Very inspiring. Mexico has come a long way from when I was there and read Proceso, La Jornada and Unomasuno and watched journalists like Julio Scherer Garcia tell the "painful truths" of those days. In that chapter in my book I did on him and Mexican journalism, he wasn't sure the fight for more press freedom would be won, but clearly there have been many victories since then. And I, like he was then, am hopeful.
Patrick Oster
I did update the book in 2002 with a timeline and an afterword, so if you have the first edition, there is a little more to read in the later edition. I have no plans for a follow-up nonfiction book, but I am finishing up a spy novel that has some scenes in Mexico that draw from what I learned living there. I'm calling it The Sleeper List. I hope to have it out perhaps by spring of 2015. It will be my third novel.
Patrick Oster
As a journalist, I have spotted events or people that make me think they might be the core or at least a part of a novel. My comic novel The Commuter has a lot of information about cyber-hacking and counterfeit goods,two subjects of stories I have edited. The German Club is set against the fall of the Berlin Wall, which I covered 25 years ago as a reporter.
Once you have the backdrop, of course, you still have to come up with characters, and that often starts with just asking: so what kind of character do I need to fit into these real-life events? and once you have their resumes sketched out, you may find they begin telling you where the story should go. Really. It's spooky.
Once you have the backdrop, of course, you still have to come up with characters, and that often starts with just asking: so what kind of character do I need to fit into these real-life events? and once you have their resumes sketched out, you may find they begin telling you where the story should go. Really. It's spooky.
Patrick Oster
keep writing. in the beginning it will most likely be crap, as it was with me, but after Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours, you should be pretty good at it. Might even get published. Learn the craft. Read authors whose genre you like and see how they do it. Write out some pages rather than just reading them and you will eventually see some of their tricks. Writers have been stealing since the Bible, so don't feel ashamed. It's what writers do, adding their out spin and flourishes and creativity. And eventually people will be stealing from you.
Patrick Oster
You get to tell stories that move or amuse people who let you know of the impact. It's the feedback. If you're lucky, you make a few bucks on the side A very few bucks unless you get really lucky. But money should not be the point of writing. It's the craft and the satisfaction that you made something out of nothing. Art, if you will. Like Sondheim wrote in Sunday in the Park with George: "Look! I made a hat where there never was a hat."
Patrick Oster
don't have it. Been a journalist for 40 years. If I didn't write on time, I would have been fired. The main problem is keeping my butt in the chair as I type, particularly when the weather is nice. I guess that's writer's butt.
Patrick Oster
I have just finished a thriller set at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. the 25th anniversary of that historic event is Nov. 9. It's a story about how that wall came down so fast, and the answer isn't the famous tear-down-this-wall speech by President Reagan. Spies, murders, a famous Nazi, the CIA and a Chicago homicide cop tossed into those whirlwind times.
Patrick Oster
Riding the train to work. It's about a commuter who takes the same train line and decides, after being laid off from work, to follow fellow passengers he's always wondered about. He's a birder, so he figures it will be like bird watcher, but he finds out humans are a more dangerous species. for more details, check out www.patrickoster.com
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