Matt Witten's Blog: Matt Witten's Blog: Random Musings

My thriller novel Killer Story comes out tomorrow, Jan. 17! Killer Story is about an idealistic journalist who launches a true-crime podcast to investigate the murder of an alt-right YouTuber she loved like a little sister, despite their political differences. "Riveting and irresistible--a deep dive into journalists' tactics, ambition, and cut-throat passion." - Hank Phillippi Ryan. From now through Jan. 23, Killer Story is a BookBub deal: it's only $2.99 on Kindle. Also: Harley Jane Kozak narrates the audiobook and she's great. I hope you'll give Killer Story a try!

It was three a.m. in Laugarvatn, Iceland, and I couldn’t sleep. Now partly that was because it’s still light in Iceland in June, and my circadian rhythms were bouncing all over the place. But there was a much deeper problem. Here I was, two thirds of the way through the first draft of my mystery thriller Killer Story, and doubt held me in its iron grip. Had I chosen the wrong murderer?

That seemed impossible. This was my sixth mystery novel, and I’ve written lots of mystery episodes for Law & Order, CSI: Miami, Medium, and other shows. When I start writing a mystery, there are things I’m not sure of: who all the red herrings are, and what all the plot twists will be. But two things I’ve always known, absolutely: who gets killed, and who does the killing. The beginning of the novel/TV show, and the end.

But now here I was, on my skinny little bed at the Gullkistan Artist Colony (great place, BTW; highly recommend), retracing the entire book in my head. I was finally facing up to the cold hard truth that my murderer didn’t really appear until page 80 of the book. I mean, he kind of showed up in the second chapter, but barely. And if there’s one thing about mysteries that I’ve always believed, it’s this: the audience has to meet the killer early. Otherwise the solution to the murder at the end of the book won’t be satisfying.

So I tried to think of ways to introduce the killer earlier. Maybe I could give him more to do in chapter 2. But it didn’t really make sense. Could I bring him in again at page 40? No, not really, it would kill the book’s flow.

Well, maybe page 80 is soon enough…

No, I’m kidding myself.

Panic set in, along with that old feeling I think all writers have: I’m a fraud.

And that’s when the thought hit me, born of desperation: if I have the wrong murderer, who’s the right one?

Well, it can’t be character X (avoiding spoilers here). It can’t be character Y. It can’t be character Z…

Or can it?

No, there’s no way it can be Z. For several important reasons.

Although, if it could be Z, wouldn’t that be cool?

But it can’t.

But what if…?

I lay in bed for another five hours, and by the time I got up for breakfast, or dinner or whatever it was, I had decided: the killer is Z!

First time I’ve ever changed that horse in midstream, and you know what? It worked out great! The end of the book, where the hero figures out who done it, is my favorite part.

I took away a couple of lessons from that. One is, if you have a voice inside you telling you that something isn’t quite right, listen to it. Honor it. (Unless it’s the voice telling you you’re a fraud. You can ignore that one.)

The other thing I learned, or relearned, is: it’s really valuable when you’re writing to take some time to reflect. Whether you’re in bed, out walking, swimming, or biking, try to get a little distance from your book and take the long view.

Maybe you’ll learn that your character Z is the killer!

I’m thrilled to report that the audiobook of Killer Story is now available on Audible and Amazon. Even better, it’s narrated by the actor/writer Harley Jane Kozak, who does a fabulous job. Harley is in my writing group, the Oxnardians. Every week for almost a year I brought in a chapter of Killer Story and asked Harley to read it aloud. So Harley’s performance became an integral part of my coming to understand the character. Her voice became, for me, the character’s voice. And it’s great to hear her performance in the audiobook.

Harley also narrated my last novel The Necklace, and it was the same story with that book.

So that’s the scoop! Enjoy!

I began writing Killer Story because I’m a huge fan of crime podcasts like Serial and Accused and crime documentaries like Making a Murderer and Jinx. At the same time, I’m a skeptic of these shows. I’m intrigued by how reporters sometimes omit key details or distort the truth in order to tell a better story. In this ultra-competitive era, getting clicks and followers can be more important than getting the truth.

Another inspiration for Killer Story is all the men and women I know in their twenties who are fiercely dedicated to going into journalism despite the huge obstacles they face. Journalism is such a rapidly changing field, with newspapers dying, internet news sites unable to find workable economic models, and decent paying jobs increasingly hard to get. These aspiring young journalists have a sense of mission that I admire. Their passion refuses to be denied.

I also found inspiration in my own life. All TV writers get fired at least once in their careers, or to use the industry parlance, they “don’t get their contracts renewed”; and that has happened to me as well. There are many reasons TV writers don’t get renewed – often it’s as simple as, there’s a new head writer who wants to hire people they’ve worked with before. But whatever the reason, losing your job is painful.

And it happens all the time in the newspaper industry. Will Doolittle, a reporter for the Glens Falls Post-Star, told me that when he started out twenty years ago, they had fifty reporters; now they’re down to eight. All over the country, newspapers are laying people off or going under.

So I created a main character in Killer Story, Petra Kovach, who is about to get laid off from yet another journalism job. She obsesses about all the things that just about everyone I know who’s ever lost their job, including myself, stresses about: Did I choose the right path in life? Is what happened somehow my fault? Will I ever get a job in the industry again?

But Petra gets back up off the mat and keeps on fighting.

As I’ve indicated, Petra is based partly on me; I identify with her feelings and forgive all her flaws. She’s a young woman who’s trying to make it in a very difficult business. Petra is also inspired by a brilliant young woman I know who, like Petra, is a first-generation immigrant with big dreams from an economically disadvantaged family. She’s working her way through law school now.

The murder victim in Killer Story is Olivia Anderson, a Harvard freshman and alt-right YouTuber. Olivia is inspired by the alt-right media figure Tomi Lahren. In the book, we meet her before she becomes a controversial young celebrity. While I’m not at all a fan of the political views that Olivia adopts, I found it intriguing to speculate about all the pressures that might have transformed this sweet, caring young girl into somebody who is, on the surface at least, a pretty unlikeable person.

Writing Killer Story gave me a renewed, healthy skepticism of the news media, along with a new appreciation for journalists like Petra who overcome all kinds of obstacles to bring us the truth about the world. I hope you are as captivated by Petra as I am, and that you don’t guess the killer until the very end! You can preorder Killer Story at https://www.amazon.com/Killer-Story-M....

Every Day, From Here to There

A Short Story

The old man lay on his hospital bed. His sweet brown-haired boy, sixty now, sat on the chair beside him, ready to give him his dying wish.

The boy opened the book and began. “One fish, two fish,” he read. “Red fish, blue fish…”

The old man closed his eyes.

Robert Gross, my favorite professor at Amherst College years ago, just wrote my favorite review of The Necklace. Actually it's a sociological analysis from an American Studies perspective, literary criticism at its finest, making me see my book in a way I'd never seen it before. Here it is:

"Susan Lentigo, the main character of The Necklace, is the classic American hero, leaving her small town in the East and venturing West to discover herself anew. In the novel, Susan is stripped of her money, reduced to scavenging for leftovers at fast food restaurants, and obliged to make connections with people unlike herself (Kyra the teenage rebel, the biker at the all-night coffee shop). She finds it hard to cast off the past, dragging that worn-out suitcase everywhere, its weight representing the crushing burden of her former life. But in the West, she comes to “trust herself,” as Kyra had advised, quoting Emerson’s credo. And as she does so, she learns to read the world with fresh eyes and discern the truth behind her daughter's murder. In short, Witten has built a long-running theme in American Studies – the individual reinventing herself in the West – into the structure of The Necklace. You could describe the novel as a mashup of the Innocence Project and Emersonian self-reliance."

I’m thrilled to present this guest post from my friend Chae Ko. For years I’ve loved reading Chae’s mom-son dialogues on Facebook, and I think they should go out to a wider audience. I’m so glad Chae agreed to post one of his dialogues here. Enjoy!

THE DRIVE HOME FROM THE ONCOLOGIST

Mom: So nice I have son take me to doctor. How I do when you not here?

Me: You’re lucky that I’m here then.

Mom: Too bad I don’t have more kid.

Me: What’s that supposed to mean?

Mom: Make easier for you. Have younger brother. Help out.

Me: How do you know that would happen? I might end up having to do it anyway.

Mom: Maybe live with me. Easier.

Me: I’m living with you right now!

Mom: I say make easy for you. I have three kid. They all help. Not just you.

Me: I suppose you’re right. Okay you should have a baby. Then you can leave me alone. It’s a win, win.

Mom: Oh? Really? You say I bother you too much?

Me: Well, you could do a little less.

Mom: You sad when I die. You have no more mom bother you.

Me: Okay now you’re just making me feel guilty.

Mom: No I just say. What better? I bother you and I alive? Or I no bother you but I dead?

Me: That’s an unfair question. Of course I want you to be alive.

Mom: See. Bother better. You say.

Me: How about being alive and not bothering me so much?

Mom: It experience for you. I bother you, you learn.

Me: Forget it. Let’s just talk about something else.

Mom: When I pregnant with you, my breast get so big. I have too much milk. You so scared when so much come out! You cannot drink too much. I had to throw away all the time.

Me: God why? Why?

Mom: Doctor say get surgery but I did not get. So now it stay bigger. Never go back to normal. Too much breast.

Me: No. God. Not,“why it’s still big”. Ugh. WHY you gotta tell me this stuff?

Mom: Because this son and mom time. Have fun conversation.

About the Author: Chae Ko writes comedies that explore shame and guilt, particularly the Asian-American kind. His stories are often inspired and fueled by embarrassing anecdotes, mental health, and a smothering Korean mother who shows her love by scrutinizing all his life's choices. Chae has been a screenwriter for Voyage Media, a board member for APAFT, (an organization that advocates for Asian American artists in theatre productions) and continues his work at the UCLA Extension Writers' Program to help others achieve their goals of becoming screenwriters. In his spare time, he gossips about himself to his two therapists and one psychiatrist to manage his chronic PTSD, anxiety, and panic attacks.

I LOVED Charles Willeford's Hoke Moseley novels. Read them 25 years ago and thought they were the closest I could find to Elmore Leonard.

This book, I wasn't so enthusiastic about. Good writing, but lazy plot. The most interesting thing about the book: the attitudes toward women and relationships and sex and sexual assault and suicide are so stunningly outdated! I'm guessing Willeford's attitudes were more or less mainstream at the time, and it was amazing to read this book and see how far our attitudes have shifted. It was kind of heartwarming actually, to see how much progress we've made. So that was basically my experience of this book: doing a fair amount of skimming and then reading the stuff that gave me sociological insights into the time. I found it interesting, and I don't regret reading this novel, but I didn't get the kind of enjoyment out of it that one usually hopes to get from novels.

(I wonder: if I read the Hoke Moseley novels now, would I find them similarly outdated? I've reread Leonard's books from the 80's and they held up quite well for me.)

Mystery and Suspense Magazine just published a piece I wrote called "What Makes a Good Thriller Cover?" It's about my collaboration with Oceanview Publishing on the cover of my thriller The Necklace. We did a lot of theorizing and ultimately came up with a cover I'm really happy with. Here's a link to the article: https://www.mysteryandsuspense.com/ps...
Enjoy!

The audiobook of The Necklace just dropped! It’s available on Amazon and Audible.

Harley Jane Kozak, the accomplished actor (Parenthood, Arachnophobia, When Harry Met Sally) and writer (Dating Dead Men and four other novels), narrates The Necklace. Harley is in my writing group, which means that every Friday for nine months I would bring in a chapter of The Necklace and ask her to read it out loud. She was fabulous. I began to see the heroine of the novel, Susan Lentigo, through Harley’s eyes, or voice.

So when Oceanview Publishing asked me to recommend a narrator for The Necklace, there was no question that I wanted Harley. I was thrilled when Oceanview agreed, and Harley said yes.

Enjoy!