Dust Jackets: Conversations with Authors
Dust Jackets: Conversations with Authors
Interview with Author Mike Lynch
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Author Mike Lynch discusses his diverse writing career, creative processes, and the transition from novel writing to screenwriting.
Maggie explores Mike's background as an author of science fiction, romance, and nonfiction. His early works included a nonfiction history of Dublin, California. His science fiction work includes the series of When the Sky Fell, which he co-wrote with author Brandon Barr.
He also co-authored Alcatraz: The Last Escape with Ken Widner, which inspired an Alcatraz podcast and a television project for the Discovery Channel.
His Inspiration stems from "what if" scenarios, societal observations regarding the role of the church, or accidental misinterpretations of words (e.g., the title Mind Writer came from someone suggesting Mind Rider).
Despite working across various genres, certain recurring elements define his body of work. He likes an underdog narrative. His overarching themes involve ordinary people thrust into extraordinary or impossible situations who must navigate challenges to survive intact.
Hello, welcome to Dust Jackets: Conversations with Authors. We speak with authors across many genres about their books, their creative process, and how they manage it all. I'm Maggie Lynch, and today I'm interviewing Mike Lynch. No relation. Let me read his bio from Amazon. Mike Lynch is an award-winning author whose first book, Dublin, came out in 2007, followed by several SF novels co-written with Brandon Barr, some romances co-written, and a nonfiction Alcatraz *The Last Escape* co-written with Ken Widner. He's also published a number of novellas, short stories, and writing articles in various magazines and anthologies. Turning his attention to film, two of his screenplays have been optioned by production companies, and he has featured an episode of Expedition Unknown, hosted by Josh Gates, in relation to his Alcatraz books. In his spare time, Mike devotes himself to fending off the forces of evil. Mike, welcome to the podcast.
Mike Lynch:Well, I appreciate you letting me on here.
Maggie Lynch:Oh, thank you. I just wanted to get something straight for my listeners before we get started because our last names are the same.
Mike Lynch:Yes,
Maggie Lynch:and I wanted to clarify that we are not related, and I'm not treating you like a family member. I'm treating you the same as I do all of my Dust Jack authors interviewees.
Mike Lynch:Although I think you did mention when we first started communicating that this is I have the same name as your son. I believe he said
Maggie Lynch:that's right. Yes, yes. His his name is Mike Lynch as well, and I also have a a brother, but it's in my maiden name, who's also Mike Michael Patrick, so there's a lot of them running around, and I think when we first talked, we kind of tried to see if our lynch names crossed in any way, and it didn't seem that they did. We're like from different parts of where lynches seem to evolve in the world.
Mike Lynch:Yeah, Beck and I are.
Maggie Lynch:yeah, and I I think that the Lynch, my husband's side of the family, was more in the Scotland and and Norse.
Mike Lynch:Oh, okay.
Maggie Lynch:So, okay, so let's kind of get started. Your bio was very impressive. I'm especially impressed with the diversity of writing skills that you have-nonfiction and fiction, screenplays and short stories, and articles. The majority of writers seem to choose just one, maybe two genres, and stick with it. So, did you set out to be a specific type of writer when you started writing, like a novelist or an essayist, and then branch out to all these other things, or did it just kind of happen as life changed and daily influences progress? And the second part is moving forward. How do you see the balance of what you choose to write?
Mike Lynch:Well, for me, I first wanted to be in... Well, I was going to say right out of high school, but that's actually not true. I people have asked me in the past, you know, are are writers born or are they made? And I tend to lean more towards the the born part because when I was young, I used to imagine stories that I would write down on, you know, on a piece of paper, and I draw pictures, and I just sort of attach a story to it. And yeah, I mean, obviously they were terrible and not very interesting, but you know, when you're seven, eight years old, it's the best you can do. So even at that young age, I was already thinking about ideas about oh I can draw this and write this little story on a piece of paper kind of a thing. But it was really in high school that I took a creative writing class because I thought that sounded interesting of oh I can write stories in class and imagine you know characters and different things to write about, you know, to fulfill the class assignments, and and I did enjoy it. I had a very good teacher who cultivated our creativity, and and it was very positive experience. So right after high school, I thought, you know, maybe I can write a novel. Maybe I have it within me to to to tackle something very big like that. And and I did try. I did write one, and it was actually on the old manual typewriters back in the day before computers. This was long, long ago, and I just had this desire. I want to publish a novel. I want. I want to have my story out there that people can enjoy, and it took many, many years for that finally to happen, but. Prior to that, I was actually coincidentally I was doing some genealogy with my fam on my family, and I live in the Bay Area in California, and my family in the in the 1800s emigrated from Ireland to the town of Dublin, which is about 20 miles east of Oakland, and as I was doing genealogy, I met the person who was running the the Heritage Center there, the History Center. And at this at the time, they were wanting somebody to write a history of the town. And for some reason, she asked me. I don't know why. I didn't had met her before, and I thought, sure, I'll I'll give it a try. And so that was actually my first book, the book about Dublin. And it was it just happened to be nonfiction. It's you know pictures and stories of the town from its you know earliest history to modern times, so that one just sort of fell into my lap. I wasn't aspiring to do that, but I just thought, well, hey, a book's a book, I'll I'll give it a shot. But my my heart was really about fiction, and I and I tend, as you pointed out, I tend to lean more towards science fiction, but I have interest in other in other areas. So I consider myself a novelist as a writer primarily, but have branched out into other areas.
Maggie Lynch:Wow! Well, it warms my heart that you think of science fiction as your first love because I'm in the same boat, even though I've written much less of that than other things, so that's wonderful. When you and you say you've branched out, I was wondering because I have seen a lot of science fiction novels that that you've written, but then you also started getting into screenwriting, and so what kind of led you to that? There aren't very many novelists or even nonfiction writers who go to screenwriting because it's a very different way of looking at the story.
Mike Lynch:Yes and no. So, for about 15 years, I focused on books. Now, as a writer, I I will admit I probably didn't do it in the best way. Meaning, as you pointed out, usually when you have a writer, they tend to stick with one genre, maybe two, because your your hope is that you you write either a story that are standalones, that's just a you know one and done kind of a story, or it becomes part of a a series. You know, three books, four books, five books, kind of thing, where you have this. The character has ongoing adventures or stories to tell, and so you have multiple multiple incarnations in book form. And the reason you do that is because you you want your audience to find you, and then like your work, and then as you publish new books, they're gonna be very excited about it, and and you know buy your books, and then hopefully that'll make you more of a successful writer because you know selling books is rather difficult. And for me, I didn't do it that way. I for me it was this. I would have an idea for a story, and oftentimes I would jump genres. You know, I I started with the science fiction, and then I did an archeology adventure, then I did a political thriller, and I even I even wanted to try a romance. My my wife loves Hallmark movies. I've watched a few myself, just as just to you know support her in her hallmark addiction, and and so I thought maybe I can do something like this. It was just kind of more of an experiment as a writer of can I can I write something like this? And so I tackled a story and came out with it. And so the problem with that is, you know, if you keep jumping genres, then you can't build momentum. So I, but for me, the stories always came first. It just whatever story I thought of that would be interesting to write about because you're going to be devoting a year or two of your life to that story. You know, the year of writing it, and then then it gets published, and you have to promote it to, you know, audiences in different ways that you can think of to you know as a marketer of your work. So it has to be a story you're really interested in that you're going to spend a lot of time with these characters. You're going to live this other life with these people, mostly in your head, of course, and little on you know on the computer screen. And you write, you rewrite, you revise it, and then the publisher gets it, and then they want their changes and so forth. And so it has to be really important to to do that. And so it just happened to be, whatever story they came up with, it would be like, well, that's the genre it's going to be in because that's what's appropriate to the story, and so I would work on that, and and I was able to find publishers that would work with me, even though I didn't, like I said, didn't build the momentum, and so I did that for a number of years, and I found that I was, I had some skill at writing a story. I was able to find publishers to publish a story, which is which is a very difficult task. You know, finding the publisher, and then trying to market the story for me was not my strongest skill, and. So after a number of books and years had gone by, I thought, you know, some books you think like I think this one can really have a strong audience. This one really can resonate with people, and when it doesn't happen, when you think it could, it's a little demoralizing. And most writers face this. You know, most are not going to be best-selling authors. It's just it's just the reality of publishing because there are hundreds of 1000s of writers and only so many people to buy books, so there's just the rare few that are going to really make a big mark in the in the marketing world in the publishing world, and so I thought, well, I wonder if maybe I can look at screenwriting as an option because you can write the story, find you know producer directors, pub or not publishing houses, production companies that would be interested in in producing this, and then I don't have to sell it. I've sold it to them, and they're the ones that are going to create it and then do all the marketing and all the promotion for, and I don't have to do that now. Also, knowing that you know, you go, let's say, you know, 10,000 to one of being a writer to get your book published. You go from that to a million to one being a screenwriter. Yeah, much more difficult, much more challenging, and and as you pointed out, it's a different kind of writing. I mean, on on one level, it's it's exactly the same. I mean, when you when you talk about characterization and story structure, you know, you have milestones of life, you have the setbacks, the challenges that they have to face, and then you have the you know the climactic ending for the story that resolves all the characters issues that are brought up along the way in in your novels, but as far as writing that, it's very different than than writing a novel. It's it's really bare bones. You know, if if you write if let's say an average book is 100,000 words, you know, 350 pages. Well, for a not, or I mean, I'm sorry, for a screenplay, it's going to be approximately 100 pages, maybe a little bit longer, 110 pages. So it's about a third of a novel. So if you wrote a novel and you adapt it into a screenplay, you're dumping two thirds of the story to make it fit into a screenplay, and now a lot of that is when you write. I'm sure you've seen screenplays. You know, it's basically location, time of day, maybe some some interesting little thing that makes a that you want to bring out for that scene, and then basically it's just dialog, you know, back and forth dialog. You know, you don't you don't get into what's in the character's mind. You don't know what what they're thinking generally. So, because unless you do a voiceover, that's like if you've ever seen, for example, you know, Shawshank Redemption, very famous example of Morgan Freeman doing voice voiceovers throughout the movie, so that the the audience knows what's going on in their in their heads. Generally, that's not encouraged. That tends to be sort of a weakness in in screenwriting. So you have to show everything, you know, through their actions or through their facial expressions or their tones of voice. It you have to it's on the screen. You don't see what's going on in their head unless they're like a really, really good actor that can emote things through their just their demeanor. But you don't put that on the page of what they're thinking. You have to do what they're saying and what they're doing. So you have to really strip it down to the to its barest essentials.
Maggie Lynch:Well, and it seems that in spite of the odds being even worse for screenwriters, the fact that you have two options is pretty good.
Mike Lynch:So, so you know, one of one of the nice things about when you when you publish a book, as I mentioned before, you know, you wear two hats as a writer. You wear the creative hat, the one that's just inventing the story, the the location, the characters, the the events that are happening, and then you sell it to a publisher. Well, now you have to put on your business hat, and you take away the creativity part, and then now it's all it's all marketing, and how can I get my my story out there that gets attention, and and people are intrigued with it, and so the more creative. Well, I guess you can be a little bit creative in your marketing. You know, the more out of the box thinking, the better. I mean, you have the traditional like you go to a bookstore, which I've done. You talk to the manager and say,"Hey, I'm a local author. I have this book. You know, here's the copyright number. It's not self-published because if you self-publish, you can't sell out of a bookstore because it has to be in the database with the Library of Congress and all that. And and and if they can buy copies from the from the publisher, then they set up a day where you set up your table, usually by the front door, and you have your little sign that says, "I'm an author. You know, come talk to me, kind of thing. And you try to sell books, or you go to if you do like science fiction, you do like Comic Con kind of a thing where there's a lot of science fiction fans, and you you get a table there that you have to you know pay for to have your little booth, which is sometimes not cheap, and you know online, you know you have marketing online through your website that you create for the book, or Facebook, or Instagram, or whatever social media that you you tap into to announce to the world that you're a published author, and you just do this for months and months and months and months, and try to make some sales, and then try to make the publisher happy because you promise the publisher that I can sell this book, and that's why they're taking a chance on you, and not lose money on the book that you hope makes them a profit. And it's it's a lot of work. It's it's and you're and whatever you do, it's never enough. You can always do more somehow, some way to get the word out about your book. And it's just it's it's it it kind of wears you down after you do this year after year after year, and that's why I thought the screenwriting would be easier in some ways, but it's harder in others. And so it was you know it's just learning the hustle. You just have to hustle to get people's attention. You send out. I'm not a cold call person, but I'm a cold emailer. I would send emails out to directors, producers, production companies. You know, you have a little picture of your of your project. You have a little blurb. You know, you have the screenplay written, and you just you just try to entice them to say, "Hey, I think we can work together with this project. And you just send them out, and sending them out, and send them out until you get that response of somebody who's interested, and then you cultivate that relationship, and then through them you meet other people, and you network. It's all about networking when it comes to screenwriting, and and I've gotten to meet some very interesting people in in the business that you know 10 years ago I never thought I'd get to meet. I mean, people that are like kind of important in in the industry that you know I can I can reach out to them and and have conversations with them, and they'll answer my calls when if I need to talk to them. You know, which is like, wow, who am I that they would answer my calls and stop what they're doing to talk to me about something? So it's it's intimidating in some ways because these are important people, but on the other hand, it's you know just the fruition of a lot of hard work.
Maggie Lynch:Right. Well, and the other thing about screenwriting is options do not mean that it is ever made.
Mike Lynch:No, no, it does not. Yeah, I've had one book that I've had it optioned several times. I keep getting really close. Like they they love the story. They're like, yeah, I want to work with you. I want to make this happen. I want to see the movie too, and they start talking to people. They start pitching it to investors and producers, and we start getting some interest. And they start having meetings, and then invariably, what? And I've had this happen multiple times where it's like they just fall off the face of the earth. They don't talk to you anymore. They don't call you back. They don't answer your emails. They're gone, and you don't know what happened. Right? You know, was it that they just lost interest in the project, or were they? Oftentimes, they're working multiple deals at the same time-456, 10 deals-and then they land one that works, and then they're they don't have time for the everyone else, so they just they move on without you because they got the thing that they wanted, and they don't tell you that they don't you know they make it sound like you're my one and only guy, and you and me we're going we're going to make this happen until they stop taking your calls.
Maggie Lynch:Right, that's so so true. I have a a writer friend who has had an option on one of her books for 15 years now,
Mike Lynch:yeah.
Maggie Lynch:But they do keep renewing, and you know she's made over a couple $100,000 just on the option.
Mike Lynch:Wow! So they're still interested, but they they can't get the financing behind it. Is is what the problem is, and that's usually what happens. Sp, that's really what happens is is is the money. If you don't have the money, you don't have a deal. And and they'll promise you the sun, moon, and stars. And oftentimes, you know, they're you know they're like, yeah, let's we'll talk, we have conversations, and then when you finally try to get them to back it financially, that's when they disappear usually because they don't want to pay anything if they can help.
Maggie Lynch:No, no, they want someone else to pay. Exactly, that's what they're looking for. Right. Yeah.
Mike Lynch:Exactly. And so it's the financing that is the hardest for any. Well, financing and distribution. That's the other half of it for for screenplays.
Maggie Lynch:Well, and in a lot of ways, that's true of publishing books as well. And it's gotten more and more difficult, I think, for for the big publishers in particular, because they're always chasing what they think was most popular the year before, and yet they're buying something that isn't going to be published for 15 months or more, and so they're. Always like just behind the curve, and yeah, it's a it's the the creative whole industry is difficult, but it sounds like you love it, and that's what's really important, because if you don't, you couldn't possibly stick with it because you're not a millionaire, or at least not from your books. Maybe you are a millionaire.
Mike Lynch:Yeah, I'd be homeless if I didn't have a day job. So right,
Maggie Lynch:So one of the things I wanted to ask you is, in the majority of your titles that I've seen, you are the sole authors. But you do work a lot With co-writers, and I don't know very many people who do that. I know some people in romance who do that, but they're usually people who are already doing really well for themselves, and they come up with, let's say, a series idea that they don't think they can really flesh out themselves, and so the two work together just on that series. So, could you kind of describe, you know, how you make those choices as to why you're going to co-write or when you're not going to co-write? And for people who are listening to the podcast, you know, what advice would you give them around what works and what doesn't.
Mike Lynch:So for me, the way that I my the my first novel because I did the Dublin book first, and then but like I said, that was sort of a one that just sort of fell into my lap. So when I when I was working on my novel was the sci-fi novel. It's called When the sky fell, and I'd written it, I'd rewritten it, I'd polished it again and again and again for a number of years. Went to writers' conferences, met with acquisition editors that are looking for you know if you go to a writers conference, they're looking for new stories, they're looking for the diamonds in the rough. The they haven't made your name, but you got some talent, and they're like, "Okay, we can work with this person because we see potential in them. And you make your pitches to them, and did that for a number of years, and they have an initial enthusiasm. And then after the conference was over, and it's been a few months go by, you reach out to them, "Hey, what'd you think of my story that I sent you? Or not the whole story, but the you know like a chapter or two, and the you know the the query letter, and and then it'd be like well you know and they'd always find a reason why it wouldn't work, and they'd pass on it again and again and again and and finally after a while I reworked that first book so many times I couldn't really see it anymore because I just kept going over it, and I thought I need a fresh pair of eyes to look at this to see is it worth publishing, and if it is, what's wrong? What's the problem that it's just not getting that publisher to sign it? And so Brandon Barr, who was we we had met online, he was a fellow sci-fi writer. We we started sharing each other's work with each other, and we just clicked. We just kind of spoke the same language, and we just had a good rapport with each other. And I thought, well, maybe he would be the guy to do that. So he he was at the time he was focusing on short stories and didn't feel quite ready to tackle a novel on his own yet. He was working up toward that, and so he agreed to to to look at it, and I made him a co-author of the story. He was basically of the editor, but I I thought as an incentive, I'll I'll get his name on the on the front cover because I wanted somebody that was involved in the story that it was important to them to to do the editing. I I could have hired an editor. I mean, any writer can, but you're taking your chances. They could be a great editor and they work well for you, or they can just butcher your work because they're doing it the way they want to do it, not the way you want to do it. Yeah. You know, as the writer, I have a vision that I want to have come out in the final product, not something that gets hacked to bits in a way that I'm just not happy with, and it's a very contentious relationship. And so we we did it together, and then right after we did the revisions, we found a publisher. And so I I can I attribute that to Brandon's support in the story. And then we were like, well, hey, we work really well together. What's what else have we got? What other stories have have we kind of mulling around that we wanted to work on? And so then we worked on the second book and the third book and the fourth book together, because we just we just learned to work well, and and it was a really good creative relationship where we brought out the best in each other. We challenged each other as writers because one of the one of the promises we made to each other was that nothing is sacred in your in your chapters. Nothing, everything is up for discussion. No matter how much of a sacred cow it is to you, to them they can do whatever they want to it to if they feel it can be improved. And we did that for each other. That we pushed each other and we challenged each. We, the way that we basically worked it was I would write a chapter, I'd send it to him, and he'd you know work on it. He'd send it back to me, and I'd work on it. We go back and forth until we're both like, okay, we're happy with it. Then he he wrote his chapter, and then he sent it to me, and we just did that the whole time until we got to the end, and then we would go through it again in mass of all the chapters until we were finished, and then off to the publisher, we would you know send it to, and it worked for us. And I and I like I like the idea that there's somebody that I'm working with that wants the best out of the story, which pushed me as a writer. I know that doesn't work for everybody. For some, it's like if you have you know Picasso and Michelangelo working on a painting together, you have two very strong creative personalities, and they just do nothing but clash with each other, and it just doesn't work. But for me, it worked.
Maggie Lynch:Yeah. No. Well, it sounds like the key was, as you said, is that when you did find each other, you kind of thought the same about things, and that really helps. And the other thing you brought up that I think is really important for, particularly people writing together, is is that nothing is sacred. You both agree to that, and so it kind of takes off the counter the, oh my God, you hate my work, you know, discussion. So that's that's really wonderful, and I think it's a fairly rare thing to find someone like that.
Mike Lynch:Well, and for some people, you know, they you know they write a story and they they feel like this is really good stuff. This is this is a great story, great characters, engaging chapters, and when somebody comes along and says,"I think there's some areas here that need some work-they get really hurt by that. They they they take it very badly. There are some people that it's really hard for them to accept. It's not. It can be improved, and that they didn't do the best job that they could. And it's it's. But then, as a writer, every writer faces it. You're faced if if your book's on Amazon, and what do people do on Amazon? They're going to review your book. They're going to let you know what they think. You know, one person can write that was the best book I ever read. I was a page turner. I couldn't put it down. I I I didn't sleep for two days because I had to finish it. And then the very next person said, "Ah, it was boring. I couldn't get past the third chapter. One star. You know, and it's like, how can two people read the same work and see see it very differently? But that's that's just how it is as a writer. Some people are going to love it. Some people, they're not going to like it at all.
Maggie Lynch:Right. Yeah. Well, that has a lot to do with reader expectation. You know, some people see it. Maybe they like the cover. Maybe they like the blurb. And once they read that blurb, they have an expectation already in their mind as to what kind of a story it's going to be, and if you don't deliver on their expectation, which of course you have no idea what that is, and they get they get really upset, and yeah, it's a that's a really difficult thing, and you are so true to say everyone. I mean, I've written 30 books, and I still send it to the editor that I work with, and I like her because, like you describe your friend Brandon, she gets it. You know, she she gets who I am as an author, why my author voice is the way it is, and so I trust her, but every single book she finds things for me to to improve on, even 30 books later. So I think it's really important for people to realize they're not trying to to make you feel bad. They're trying to make you better.
Mike Lynch:Exactly. They want they want to bring out the best, and and sometimes you have to be pushed to to give it just that little extra something to like, and then and when you do, when when they have their they're going to have their notes. You know, editors have notes. Yes, and then you start looking at the pages and the characters and the dialog and the you know the different areas that they're focusing on. And then when you do the polish for that, then you look at it again. It's like wow. It really is better. I this really is just I'm liking this so much more than it was. I didn't realize how it wasn't as good as I I thought it was good. Now I love it, you know, because of their their their critical eye that that says this this needs work.
Maggie Lynch:Yeah. No. Absolutely. So, I've recently been interested in early and recent influences of writers, and you kind of described how you really started telling stories early in your life, even even as a child. And I would say, you know, you said, of course, that story wasn't any good. I would say it was probably wonderful for a seven-year-old or eight-year-old.
Mike Lynch:I-that's that's me looking back on it 50 years later.
Maggie Lynch:Right, exactly. You know, I love going to schools, whether it's elementary schools or middle schools, high schools. It all depends, but the Ideas that young people come up with are things I could never conceive, and so I just I find it so amazing. And yeah, you know, is their grammar perfect? Did they spell everything right? No, but the story idea is usually really interesting to me. So, were there books that you read as a child, or stories that you heard that you think may have had some influence on you wanting to be a storyteller or having that creative urge.
Mike Lynch:So for me, I took a little bit of a different path when I was growing up. Ironically, I was not really a strong reader when I was young. I I learned later on that I was a visual learner. I you know if you tell me how to do something, I'll kind of figure it out eventually. But if you show me how to do something, I'll remember it for the rest of my life. I just I see it. It just it gets stuck in there. And so for me, and so reading was kind of more of a drudgery when I was young. I mean, I've learned to appreciate reading now. Now I enjoy reading, but back when I was young, I didn't have the patience for it. And whereas for me, I liked watching movies. I liked watching TV shows that had interesting stories to tell. So, I growing up, I don't have a favorite book author, but my favorite writer is Rod Serling, because he was, you know, I mean, so amazing in his storytelling. You know, The Twilight Zone is just a just just it. Even though it was in the late 50s, early 60s, he tells timeless stories because it's about people, people in these situations that are very extraordinary, obviously, because that's the whole premise of the show, right? And and just seeing how he can take the mundane and make it magical in in both you know sort of a fantasy way, but also in some scary ways, because he wrote some scary episodes too. Yeah, in the series, he wrote about some some dark things, but he also wrote about there were fun stories and and engaging stories, and it's you know it's the what if. I think that's one of the reasons why I like the sci-fi genre is because it's always about the what if. You can create any world you want in in any situation, and you you make your own rules. You know you don't have to if you're writing romance or or you know, murder mystery, or something. You have to. There are certain prescribed rules you have to follow that the reader expects you to commit to. Otherwise, they're they're going to be like, that's not how you write this story. That's not what this talk is about. But sci-fi, you make your own rules. You can you can set as long as you're. Now, I will say this: whatever world you create, you have to be consistent. You know, you you have to you know there's laws you create in your world, and you have to follow the laws for it to be a good story. If you start breaking the laws, then people start disengaging from the story. So you have to do that. But you can set your story anywhere in about anything you want. And he did that. He did that. He took the ordinary and he just saw it in such a different way, and and they were so engaging. And I thought that excited me as as a writer growing up. That just watching the shows and just like, what's he going to do this week? What's he? What's this episode going to be about? Because it's totally different from the last one, right? So and and so I I like those kinds of those stories. I thought they were very interesting.
Maggie Lynch:Well, that that makes a lot of sense. I and like you, we've we've discussed before, I love science fiction more than any other genre, and um and I watched a lot of Rod Serling as well, The Twilight Zone. Still occasionally my husband and I will go back and find an old one, you know, just to see. And it's amazing how the the meanings of the stories are still really good. You know, sometimes the technology he envisions we have now surpassed that, but but that's not what he's really writing about. You know, right?
Mike Lynch:He's writing about people and interesting situations and how to how they're dealing with these things that make no sense, but they're trying to navigate it.
Maggie Lynch:Right, exactly. Wow. Well, that does explain a lot, and maybe it also explains how you can write screenplays if you started off liking TVs and movies more than actually reading. So I always have to ask this question of every person I interview because my listeners are fascinated by authors in general. I always tell people that people who read books think of authors as royalty in a lot of ways because they're creating this world for them, whether it's science fiction or romance or or even a really good nonfiction book, and so and so they think of us as different, and so they want to understand, you know, well, how do what's your creative process? You know, do you write every day? Do you write in the morning or the evening or just when you feel like. Do you continuously work on one project at a time, or do you have like four series going, and you work on this series one day and this series another day? And so, how? Just kind of describe your process, where you get your ideas from, being as you don't stick with one all of the time.
Mike Lynch:Well, you get inspired for an idea. There's an idea, you know, the big, you know, because every book has the big idea. You know, you can say it in one sentence, whatever whatever it is. And so you first, for me, that's what I have. I have the big idea, and then I start thinking about okay, who's who are the characters going to be? What situations are they going to be? What kind of a story is it going to be? I just start just kind of mulling it over in my head. And actually, I've been doing that recently. There's a short story that I've been kind of thinking about. I want to write, and so as I lay in bed in the morning, so that's some of my best thinking time. You know, it's not quite time to get up yet, but it's kind of quiet, so your mind is not distracted, and you can kind of about this, how about that, and then once I feel like I I have a strong idea of what I want to do, I don't always have all the ideas figured out. I just have sort of like a skeleton because I I like to be in the moment when I write. You know, I like to have like the milestones figured out. You know where's the story going and how is it going to end. You know, kind of the the you know the five or six big moments in the story that I want to get from A to B to C kind of a thing, but the meat in between is not there usually, and so it usually I I put the meat on the bones as I'm writing because then I because you know writing is a is a is an experiential process because we're for me it's like I'm just sort of seeing what's in my head I'm visualizing it and then I'm just putting it on paper and so then it's like well what about if this happens what if this happens or what if this doesn't happen that I thought was going to happen I thought I was going to take them this way, but I'm thinking it's better this way, kind of a thing. And you have to start making, you know, changes along the way. And so, one of the things I've said many times is that you don't really know what your story is about until you get to the last page.
Maggie Lynch:Yeah, that's true. I agree because you change so many things..
Mike Lynch:Like, like I remember I read there's one book that I wrote some years ago, and I remember there was this one character that I created that he was just supposed to be in a scene. He was just sort of the main character is introduced to this other person. He kind of says, "Oh, this is so and so, and then that was the end of their character. But then I thought, well, maybe I can use them here. Maybe I can use them here. Maybe I can use them here to help with the main character in the story, and then all of a sudden he became a major character. He became like one of the big three in the story that I never intended. Whereas there is another character that was going to have a very important role at the end of the story, who was going to really connect with the main character and help her in these certain in this certain situation. And then by the time I got to the end, it's like I don't really need her as much as I thought I did. So her, she was still in the story, but she was greatly diminished. She was she was only in like a chapter or two, and then she was kind of done, because I didn't need her to kind of finish the end of the story with her. So you you just don't know where it's going to go. So for me now, I know other people they have a big board and they have like 1000 cards of every scene and everything they're gonna do and what they're gonna feel and think and and their backs and they just they map everything and it takes them you know six months just to map out a story before they start writing. For me, it's like I like to hit the the main points and then it's like I want to go on the journey too with the story. Where is it gonna go? And I surprised myself, like, wow! I didn't know was going to go here, but this is great. I love it.
Maggie Lynch:Yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah. People try and and put writers basically into two areas: the plotters or the pantsers. And I think you're what we call a plantser. Yeah, I'm in between. You plot a bit, but then you pants a lot of it. So...
Mike Lynch:Absolutely, yeah. I like I like being in the middle for that. I don't want to have it be so loose that I don't know where it's going to go. And I'm not a stream of consciousness writer. I know some people are. They just write and they just. I I often imagine that Stephen King is that way. He's just a stream of consciousness writer. That's like that's how he can write you know three 700 page books a year, because he just sits down and he just starts writing, and his mind just goes. You know, I think he's that kind of guy.
Maggie Lynch:He could be. He could be. Yeah. Wow. II'm an inveterate pantser. I don't plot at all. Somewhat like you, but I think differently because you are so visual. I am not visual at all. I have a really hard time with that. I have an idea, and I go looking for the protagonists who can see that idea. And then that's all I know. So you know, I know the protagonist. I know that this person is in this bit of trouble, and somehow by the end they have to do this. But I know nothing else. I don't know any of the characters who are going to come along, and because I make myself the protagonist as I go through the story, so I'm really saying, okay, you know, the rock just rolled down the hill and hit you. What are you going to do, Maggie? You know, so I literally write from that perspective, and it's always worked for me. And by the time I get to the end, I go back and start seeing, you know, did I hit all those points? You know, did the story get worse and worse and worse until it got better? And how did they make it? And I usually do automatically include those story guidelines. Bbut that's also why I have an editor because she can catch the places that I didn't. So I I just I love that. And the thing I love about the way that you write and the way that I write and others like us is that you know that it's not getting written by AI because AI cannot figure out the way that we're thinking. You know, they can't possibly conceive of the variety of different ways that we might progress to that next scene or that next chapter, because you're taking it from your mind or your own experiences, and I just think those are the very best for sure. So when I wrote on the phone one time, just talking about something, and he had an idea for a book that he's been he'd been kind of mulling over that he wanted to write for a long time, and the name of the the title was it was Mind Writer R I D E R, and he told me I don't remember what the story was about, but I just thought, well, I misheard him. I thought he said mind writer, W I W R I T E R, and I go mind writer. Wow, that that is an interesting title for a book. That is, there's something there that just grabbed me, and and eventually I did write the book, and but it was with another writer I co-authored with her, and it just created this whole story. And it was just it was just something I misheard him say, and I created a whole story, and it's one of my favorite stories. And so it was just sort of this accidental kind of a thing. And then another one was for me, I'm I have a strong church background growing up, and you know one of the things that I've seen is you know in our society you know people see church less and less important in their lives as as a whole. Not to say that it's not important to individuals, but communally not as strong as it used to be, say 30 to 40 years ago, and I think that's to our demise. I think the church has a lot to offer. I think you know about values and honesty and integrity and and and I think some of our societal ills are because we've stepped away from something that says we need to be better versions of ourselves. And I think the church gives us the impetus for that, and and so I wrote a story about that because I'm seeing the decline of our culture, and so I wanted to address that in one of my stories about the importance of church because I think it has something to offer. So you can get inspiration in many different ways, whether it's a misunderstanding of what somebody says to you or something you're seeing. In society that you want to address in a story that you feel is important, or it's just a what if. It's like what if this happens? What would I? How would I? You know, what's a good way to tell that story? Because I I think there's something interesting to say to solve this tremendous problem of we we can't possibly make this happen. So how can we make it happen in a credible way? Wow! No, that's really great, and and I do have to pop in and say because I I'm not haven't finished it I'm about halfway through Mind Writer, and I have to say it grabbed me from the beginning. Really great setup, and so I would highly recommend it to anyone who's listening to this podcast to pick that up because it it has a very unique premise and it it keeps you guessing about what's going on and at least at this point the halfway point I think I know what's going on but I wouldn't be surprised if I don't get it right, it has some twists and turns. It's already twisted a couple of times so yeah, I highly recommend that. And while I'm doing recommendations, I also read your book about Escape from Alcatraz, which I also found fascinating. Even though, you know, I've seen the movie. My husband and I went there to visit and did the tour, but everything we've seen is the story that's been told for a long time, and your story questions some of that.
Mike Lynch:Well, yeah, that was yeah Ken Widener, who just to give a real brief some summation of the story. You know, 1962 there was the famous escape. There were three escapees, John and Clarence Anglin were brothers, and then there was Frank Morris. And so, if you've seen the movie with Clint Eastwood, he plays Frank Morris, who's the central character in the movie, and then John or John and Clarence are sort of side characters. Well, Ken took great exception to that, being the nephew of John and Clarence, and you know he grew up with the stories. He's you know he was intimately acquainted with everything that happened from the family's point of view, and he was looking for an an avenue to tell the family story in a way that he felt was was correct. That there was a lot of misinformation about the escape. I can't go into the details. That's a very long story, but we were able to connect with each other, and with my writing background, I said, you know, let's let's write a book about your your family, and you tell this is your chance to tell your story as as you understood it growing up, and he provided me with a wealth of information that had been only in the family up until that point, and so this was a chance to share pictures and anecdotes and information that he had accumulated over the years to rewrite the Alcatraz story. In that, the the premise that at the end, when most people believe that they drowned the night of the escape, no one disputes they got out and that they made it into the bay, and then that's when all the questions start happening. Well, what happened once they got into the water? Did they make it? Did they not make it? Well, our premise is they made it, and we provide evidence documentation to show why we believe that they did survive. And actually, because of that book, it led to a pod, an Alcatraz podcast that Ken and I have been doing for a couple of years, and the producers of the podcast loved the story so much, and they had connections to television that they were actually able to sell a show to the Discovery Channel that's going to come out later this year. That's continuing the the investigation of the Alcatraz escape with new evidence and new information that we feel kind of answer some questions. know where your writing's going to take you. You never know what opportunities present themselves in ways you never ever. I thought we were just going to write a book about Alcatraz, and it led to other things that we're hoping is just the beginning. Because once the show comes out, then our hope is that other opportunities will open because of it, so you know that's the nice thing about writing doors open in ways you don't think they are.
Unknown:Yes, as long as you're open to them. Yes, not that you say yes
Mike Lynch:to everything, because we said no to one person came to us and said, "Hey, we want to work with you, and it was not a serious offer, so we had to say no.
Unknown:Yeah, that's really good. So many writers, even if they do write across genres, come to the realization that they have one or maybe two or three overwriting themes that always occur, no matter what they're writing, whether it's fiction or nonfiction. Is that the case with you? And if so, what might be some of those themes?
Mike Lynch:So I thought about that question because you you sent me these these these prompts ahead of time, so I have something to think about. So I'm not just like, oh, gee, I don't know. Right. That's why I sent. Right. And and I thought about that. I thought, you know what. Is there a common theme in my stories? Because because the the of the different genres, it might make it a little bit harder to kind of pin down like this sort of this one driving idea that I keep going back to again and again, and and the answer that I came up with is, and I think this goes back to my Rod Serling roots, is you know you have ordinary people that have extraordinary things happen to them. It's like they're sort of confronted by these extraordinary things, and how do they how do they deal with this? How do they navigate this? That they are way above their situation that they would normally be in, and try to figure out a way out of this and come out intact, not be destroyed by it, and and I think that's been my ordinary, my my overarching idea. Like in my first book, it's you have the captain of a of a sort of like a space ship, and this tremendous enemy comes. How does he? How does he defeat them? So he's thrust into this very very difficult situation. Or in in Mind Rider, you know, you have this young young girl who's been raised in this sort of this isolated community of of a life of privilege in many ways, not realizing that the outside world is it's a very dystopian story. The society's falling apart. There's terrible pollution. There's there's the super rich, and then everyone else is poor, essentially. And then she's thrust into this world completely unprepared. And how does she navigate this this life of of deprivation, and still come out in the end intact? She survives it somehow, but in a way that's credible. That you, you as the writer, I mean, you as the reader are rooting for for her to win, to to to be you know to be be victorious in the end. Or with the Alcatraz story, you have these two guys that they were just small time criminals from Florida who decided, hey, let's rob a bank. That's a good idea. And then they get caught, and then eventually that leads them to Alcatraz, and then they they're not they don't want to stay there, and they want to get out, and so they they come up with this idea of of breaking out of the prison, and that everyone thought was escape proof, and meticulously plan their their escape so that they would survive, and again, just ordinary person people in very extraordinary situation, and you know, 60 years later, we're still talking about it of of what they did, what they achieved, and so those that's that's I love stories like that, kind of the underdog story, just like there's no way they can possibly win, but somehow they find a way.
Unknown:Yeah. Oh, I love that! It sounds like that's your brand. You need to come up with a very one-line pitch for that-a log
Mike Lynch:line.
Unknown:Yeah, that covers all your books. So that I think that's that's a good a great way to go. It's kind of similar to mine, although I think that you use people in more extreme circumstances, but my logline has been people making heroic choices one messy moment at a time.
Mike Lynch:Okay.
Unknown:So it's because I I do put people in difficult situations, although maybe not as difficult as yours, even when I write science fiction, I I don't quite go too far out there. But but they're having to make you know they need to get by or be killed or be lonely or be miserable or whatever, and so they have to make these choices, and but it's never easy, and they make mistakes along the way.
Mike Lynch:Yeah, and one of my other stories, it's it's called Arena Planet, and this guy basically gets abducted by an alien, alien civilization. He's taken to a planet, and basically there it's like gladiatorial that, and and this this civilization puts different races together to learn their techniques for fighting, so that they will use them to better their own society. And if you win, then you go on to the next match. And if you lose, your planet gets enslaved. So so there the stakes the stakes are high. So there's a lot of action in the story, and he's just a regular guy thrust into this world that he knows nothing about. But he's also trying. He's also like trying to be the savior of of Earth.
Unknown:Yeah.
Mike Lynch:And and so again, it's like you're in this impossible situation, and how does he navigate that? So, you know, I I guess I like the extremes.
Unknown:No, and that's great. And I know a lot of readers who want to read that. You know, they they want something that is really extreme and beyond what they would normally experience in life. So we and we. That's why we read books
Mike Lynch:and we go on adventures that we can never go on.
Unknown:Right. Oh, at least I hope maybe some of the might. Never go on. Yeah,
Mike Lynch:some of them we don't want to go on.
Unknown:So, what are you working on next? Do you have something you're working on right now?
Mike Lynch:So I mentioned earlier the the short story that I've been tinkering with. I'm hoping to start that soon. I'm kind of I think I've got it kind of figured out, and because I haven't written a short story in years, and I thought I'm kind of. I think I want to go back to that, because with with the screenwriting part of it, so much time and energy is is trying to get that thing in people's hands and trying to get get it produced. You know, there's there's there's so much that's involved in that, and it really takes up a lot of your time of thinking. How can you? What can I do to make it more interesting to people? That it just sort of, at least for me, kind of sapped me of like, oh, I think I'll write a story now, and I just don't feel like I'm, you know, have the capacity for that. But now it's like I think I want to write a story, so I'll just tackle a short story because those aren't too difficult. You know, you can 10 pages, 12 pages, and the story's done. It's not 300 pages of a novel that has multi layers and all the intricacies. You you know, short story is just one idea. How does it get through it? And then you're done, and then and then you know you send it to you know to either magazines or ezines, online magazines, and find one that'll publish it. And then it's like, oh, good, they publish it that's fun,
Unknown:yeah yeah and then people
Mike Lynch:get to read it doesn't take so long right
Unknown:and then if you want depending upon how long you sold those rights for you can collect all your short stories and put them together in a collection and sell the book
Mike Lynch:I have done that a little bit I've done a couple of anthologies for stories, so that's fun too. To you know, everyone gets to see your your collection of of ideas. So yeah,
Unknown:yeah, I I love reading those. So in what formats are your books available? Do you have paperbacks, e-books, audiobooks?
Mike Lynch:Yes, yes to all three. So for so Alcatraz is the only one that's an audio book because when we sold it to the publisher, or I should say, when the our agent sold it to the publisher, she was able to get the attention of a audio book that was that hired the the not the narrator but the
Unknown:actor.
Mike Lynch:Yeah, the the the act, the voice actor for the story. So that was kind of a fun thing that we have, you know, two versions of that. But primarily, it's either paper copy or or e-books.
Unknown:Okay, and you can find
Mike Lynch:them on Amazon. They're there,
Unknown:right? A number of my listeners don't get their books from Amazon. So, am I correct in assuming that you have used other vendors or your publishers have used other Barnes and Noble?
Mike Lynch:They're on Barnes and Noble. And then sometimes I find them in the oddest places. I'll just kind of just do like a little search of where can you find the book, and they're on sites like I don't know how it got onto that site. How do these people even find this thing? And it's in these places I've never even heard of before. But they got the book there, so I don't know how that happens.
Unknown:Well, I mean, most publishers have a source that they use to distribute for them.
Mike Lynch:Yeah,
Unknown:and and most publishers do distribute fairly widely.
Mike Lynch:Of course, you want to spread a wide net and try to get as many people interested as possible.
Unknown:Right. Okay. And so I don't have any more questions for you. So I want to thank you for being my guest today, and I want to thank my listeners for tuning in, and as always, I'll put Mike's information in the show notes as to where you can find his books. I'm going to find a way to try and get one like a universal book link there that'll show you at least a variety of places where you can find his books and contact information in case you want to write him or anything. This has
been Dust Jackets:Conversations with Authors, and our guest today was Mike Lynch.