Stephen White - Alan Gregory discussion

It's August 7, 2012 and today LINE OF FIRE was released!!!! I met Stephen White for the first time at Chautauqua in Boulder. This is the only author signing that is charged admission and it was SOLD OUT (it always is). I have never gone before and I always regret it so this year as soon as tickets were available I made myself buy a ticket and commit to going. I am so glad that I did - it was an amazing experience in all aspects - so amazing that it warranted it a brand new discussion thread :-) I have so much to share with you all that I won't be able to post in in just one comment so stay tuned......

You have to know a little about me to understand why this was such a big event for me. First of all, I get extreme anxiety when I think of driving in a congested area or unfamiliar places. I avoid driving to Denver or driving down Boulder because I don't like dealing with the parking situation - I typically take the bus to these destinations. I live in what is called "The Boulder Bubble" and I don't venture out much and I avoid change. I have been doing better lately though :-) For one thing I just started a new job last week working at a Chocolate Factory and at the end of July I drove to my hometown in Southern Utah for the first time in seven years - but those are stories for another time.

Chautauqua is literally just up the street from where I live. All I have to do is drive up Baseline and I'm at the foot of the iconic flatirons. However, I don't go very often because I'm anxious about parking. This is the second time I've ventured up the street to Chautauqua this year. The first was to go hiking earlier this year. Both times I was able to find a place to park with no problems so perhaps I will get myself up there more often :-) No matter how irrational my fears are, the fear is real. Lately I have been trying to face my fears and succeeding!

Okay now a little more background on why the writing of Stephen White is such an important part of my life. I joined goodreads in 2009 and the Stephen White - Alan Gregory group was the first goodreads group I created about 3 months after joining goodreads and getting familiar with the site.

I moved to Boulder in 2006 and read my first Stephen White novel. I was raised LDS (Mormon) and very active in the church but I had stopped going earlier in 2006 and this was a very big thing in my life. Stephen White's books (especially Higher Authority) served as a bridge as I moved from Utah to Boulder and I told Stephen that tonight. He told me that Deseret Book (the church owned bookstore - and my former employer) had ordered a large quantity of Higher Authority and they were shipped, but then Deseret Book realized what the book was about and never put them on the shelf, but they also never returned them - so that was kinda funny because he never knew what they did with them :-)

Another way that I can relate to the Alan Gregory series is that I was married to a person with a disability for seven years. The series has main character with MS and Stephen White himself has MS - the impact of a disability on a person's life and the people around them is shown very well in these novels.

After finding a parking place with little trouble, I walked up the street to the Chautauqua Community House. Built in 1918, apparently the place has no air conditioning so it was very hot. The event was sold out but I found plenty of seats and a great vantage point on the upstairs level.

I think now I will just share with you what Stephen White said during his talking and answering questions. I took lots of notes :-)

ABOUT THE ENDING OF THE SERIES

Stephen had previously planned on writing 23 or 24 books in the series. "I've been contemplating the end - I didn't know it was on the near horizon..." Book #19 was originally going to be a kidnapping story with Raoul being kidnapped (which is kinda funny since his wife was kidnapped in an earlier book). When Stephen got his new contract there wasn't really any change in the money he would be paid but there was a change about digital books. With the changing book industry he wanted a contract that guaranteed an actual printed book because not everyone will switch to digital and he felt all his readers deserved to read the conclusion. As he was considering the character arcs, "I suddenly couldn't see over that horizon."

Stephen White's first book was Privileged Information "My goal all along was to revisit that issue at the end." In the past two weeks, Stephen has decided to re-write the subplot of book #20 because of the Aurora Shootings - apparently there was going to be a connection to Warning Signs.

LINE OF FIRE

"There are things in that last 100 pages that you should not miss."

*There are changes from the ARC* You may want to re-read the last 7 chapters of the book - starting at chapter 37.

Line of Fire is set in Boulder at the end of Summer/ early Fall 2010. RED FLAG WARNING was the original title. Stephen tried to capture the sense of what it was like being in Boulder during the fires of 2010. Line of Fire is about a community in jeopardy and the jeopardy that Alan finds himself in.

QUESTION & ANSWER PERIOD
FIRST QUESTION: Higher Authority - How much is Factual?

ANSWER: Stephen said Higher Authority is often referred to as "My Mormon Book".

This series started off by Stephen writing one book "Privileged Information" but he couldn't fit everything he wanted to into one book so he wrote the second book not as a sequel but more as a "sibling". In an early version of book two, Alan died because there was no contract for a third book. "I thought I was done with these guys."

Then at a writers conference, Stephen was a bar watching a newscast with Tom Brokaw talking about the Clarence Thomas hearings. The person Brokaw was interviewing said that if Clarence Thomas was turned down, Orrin Hatch would be nominated. This got Stephen interested and he started doing research.

Stephen's brother was living in Salt Lake City. "I knew nothing about the Mormon Church". Stephen read about 30 books on the church, made 6 trips to Utah and about 50 calls to the church ("They had no idea what I was doing"). "I researched and researched and researched. One of my best sources was The Book of Mormon." The character of Harley in Higher Authority served as a tour guide through Mormon Country and was based on a friend of Stephen who had joined the church. "I did so much research, it was coming out of my ears. I think I got more right than wrong."

QUESTION: WHICH BOOK SOLD THE MOST COPIES?

ANSWER: The Last Lie (the most recent book before Line of Fire) sold the most in Hardcover and Digital.

For the first 15 years of Stephen's writing career Mass Market was what really paid the bills. His first 5 New York Bestsellers were Mass Market Bestsellers. Private Practices went big because another author couldn't make her deadline and they featured White's book as a replacement.

I'm tired ... will post more another day :-) Coming up next.... Stephen White answers the following question:

WHY DID YOU KILL OFF ADRIENNE?

Note: only those quotes in parenthesis are direct quotes. Other answers might be paraphrased. I am trying to share as accurately as possibly the information that was presented.

QUESTION: Why did you kill off Adrienne?

ANSWER: "Next year, you'll be asking me why I killed off _______".
In the book that Adrienne died, the entire set-up was actually for Sam to die. Then I realized it didn't feel like he was dead so I sacrificed Adrienne and didn't have to rewrite anything.

I leave fair clues in my stories to solve the puzzles but I don't write to create puzzles.

"My life would be a lot easier if I outlined. In order to outline I need to know the story - and I don't. I write in a way that I can choose from a lot of choices."

"It was set up for two deaths. If you re-read you'll see 'yeah, Sam could have died'."

As I was writing, that's the way it felt - that she just died.

QUESTION: After the series is finished - can we expect to see some of these stories you had in mind in another format?

ANSWER: "That's a great question, but it's mine so you don't get credit for it."

mentioned Kill ME and Siege. The original idea in The Siege was to have Alan treating one of the kids in the tomb and getting real time updates but it didn't work so Stephen sent Sam to New Haven and was really happy that he had developed the character of Sam in a way that he could do that.

Some Ideas that Stephen is considering:

There is a very real possibility of bringing back the characters of Dee and Poe that we met in The Siege. It will not be a Boulder book.

2-3 movie ideas. One of them is based partly on a Line of Fire subplot and the character of Amanda.
"Movie scripts are very small compared to books."

Idea for a television series - maybe a next project with Jeffrey Deaver. 10 months from now to write a series pitch.

There are two books Stephen has been postponing for about 10 years. One deals with Coolidge and the Great Depression - Historical. The other is pirate book with a Carribian setting.

"I'm sitting on a lot of ideas - it may come down to whether someone is willing to pay me."

After the series is complete, the next book written by Stephen White may be written under another name. There is a sales number attached to published names. "Writers like me feel like we are our sales history."
"My first editor told me I was born to be a Pseudonym."

"There are things in that last 100 pages that you should not miss."

Nice summary of the evening! I was there too; that's me and my wife just getting to our seats in the upper right corner of the photo he posted on FB.

One other thing he said that caught my attention: After what you quoted above, I think he added "...and there are some things I hope you do miss."

I am close to that last 100 pages now. Quite a ride so far...

Awesome! :-) I'm currently reading Warning Signs.

Roger wrote: "Nice summary of the evening! I was there too; that's me and my wife just getting to our seats in the upper right corner of the photo he posted on FB."

I was upstairs too :-) I was in the far Left where it is cut off. It was kinda hot in there - have never attended an event at Chautauqua before.

Dustin Crazy little brown owl wrote: I was upstairs too ..."

Yes, I saw your comment to his original posting of that photo on FB. I also took some pictures, and uploaded one of them to his FB page. I can't figure out how to share a whole FB photo album outside of FB, so here are links to some individual photos:

pic1
pic2
pic3
pic4
pic5
pic6
pic7

I also bought the hard cover there for him to sign, and told him we were from Buena Vista. He told me that BV was mentioned several times in the new book, but I didn't think it was going to be all because of the prison here! Shoulda known... ;-)

That is a nice Line of Fire 7 picture album you got there. I like your comments at the bottom each photo.