Interview with CJ Booth

“He could see the eagles from where he sat and he watched them hover even as the caskets were lowered into the ground. Eagles had been an endangered species he had heard, but not anymore. Now, they were like crows; pedestrian and common. Still, it was difficult not to admire their ability to stay aloft and get a big picture view of all the shit that was going on below. Seeing what they were seeing, they must regret having to land sometimes. M looked from the good Reverend Pleshett to his aunt and back to the graves. This must finally be the time to throw dirt on the caskets. They were fully lowered. The little motors that unwound the straps holding the caskets had stopped at exactly the same time. That was odd. He would have thought his father’s would have kept going down further, to fucking Hell.” – Olive Park

So begins the first entry in the Park mystery series by March’s Author of the Month, Charles (CJ) Booth.

15) Charles, you and your wife live on Mercer Island off the coast of Washington state, yet the Park series is set in California’s capital. Why Sacramento?

(First quick correction. Did live on Mercer Island for 20 years but moved to Whidbey Island north of Seattle 14 years ago.)

One question I get all the time, why Sacramento. That decision is so far in the past I’m not sure I can answer. I love California. I love the size, the weather, the hills, the water, the history and the fact that so many of today’s creative minds have settled there.

Michael Connelly, one of my mystery gurus, had the west coast of California sewn up so to speak with Harry Bosch and his stories so I guess I settled on Sacramento because Connelly wasn’t there!

While I was mostly finished with Olive Park, my wife said, look why don’t you actually go there and give the story some verisimilitude. I did. Researched the area, physically, layout, the feeling of it and was fortunate to interview the head of the Sac PD cold case division in the bargain. And no offense Sacramento, but I really wanted any subsequent story I write to not be there.

14) In your Amazon author bio, you mention having studied with literary luminaries such as Judith Guest, Rebecca Hill, Gary Braver and David S. Freeman. What was the exact nature of that regimen of study?

Those I mention in the bio are just a few I’ve had the fortune to work/study with.

Judith and Rebecca had, maybe still do, a series of Intensives where they would work with a select group of authors for a weekend. You had to submit work and be accepted but you had these literary luminaries review, critique and work with your work-in-progress to get it on the correct track. Authors often find themselves too wrapped up in the story they are trying to tell to know if it is a good story, well told. You had to leave your thin skin at the door and listen to what they were saying. Three days of these two and by the end of each day you were drained. I also had the honor of driving them to a Judith Guest book signing and hanging out with them one night.

It pains me to speak of Gary Braver and Dorothy Alison (Bastard out of Carolina) and many others who were part of the now defunct Maui Writer’s Conference because they, along with the entire Maui experience, were SO influential in me continuing to write but sadly it no longer exists. The Maui Conference and Retreat was magical, like Brigadoon. It came out of the mist for a number of years and then disappeared. But oh my, when it was, it was magnificent. Elmore Leonard as keynote speak and on and on. A week of Conference and a week of Retreat working with a specific author in a group of twelve or so on your own work. Readings, comments, suggestions, rewriting and re-readings. I pay credit to my Maui group of writer friends, many still friends, in Olive Park who literally shaped my writing and encouraged me to continue.

My background before noveling, was in broadcasting and film and video production so writing film scripts was always of paramount interest. When I wanted to write the script for Olive Park I journeyed to L.A. and went to a weekend seminar with David Freeman, script genius. He along with John Truby’s course taught me the fundamentals of story and script structure. 

For young writers (and Oh God I wish I knew then…etc) mentoring cannot be overstated. Toughen up that writer skin and learn how to be an author by listening to thems that done it.

13) Aside from your protagonists Dimante and Steiner being cold case cops in the Park series then turning to private investigation in the new Diamond and Stone series (which launched with Girl Number Four last month), are there any other differences between the two series and what made you begin a new series rather than continuing the original?

(Major Spoilers) I had ratcheted up some sexual tension between Dimante and Steiner in the trilogy and I looked forward to exploring that in another series. I knew Stan, their other partner was going to be killed so I could concentrate on the two of them. I wanted them out of Sacramento to a place I knew well, Seattle. And I thought by having them as private investigators instead of Sacramento cops I could do more with their adventures.

Besides I had concluded the plot in the trilogy and it was time to move on. You have to know when a story is over and it was in Angel Park, the third book. In fact, the funeral scene in Angel was written or outlined when I was writing Olive but there was too much story to shove in between. BTW, very proud of the funeral chapter in Angel. Some of my best I believe. Even the narrator who did the audiobook choked up reading it. Score!

12) In your first series, why does “Park” figure in three of the titles?

Olive Park was first and was planned as a standalone. After its success I decided on a trilogy and naming the rest with ‘Park’ in the name was a no brainer.

11) While writing the Park series, did you consult any real life cold case detectives? And what’s the most interesting thing you’d learned about cold case detection?

Interviewed by email and then in person the head of the cold case division in Sacramento PD. Gleaned much insight in the workings of a cold case division but the biggest surprise and what occupied much time for them was working with their limited budget and trying to increase it.

10) Describe your typical writing day (if you have one): Do you write exclusively in a notebook, laptop, a combination of both and do you set word goals?

No goals. I am often working on more than one story at a time. So, while I would love to be able to use Scrivener or other similar software for story writing and construction, I still write in Word and use the Navigation pane for chapter arrangement and re-arrangement. I make copious notes in notebooks which are then usually transferred as chapter headings or mini-outlines in a chapter. Basically, I go back and forth, notebook to computer. Some days I crank out 3000 words, good ones, other days I just work on outlines in a notebook. Long ago I stopped beating myself up if I didn’t meet an imaginary word goal. Creativity was more important.

9) Which mystery novelists have been most influential in your work?

Start with Michael Connelly. Harlan Coben, John Sandford, Lee Child (a little bit – think Jack Reacher is way too good to be true), Tana French. But I think a good mystery mixes in things from other non-mystery writers too. I love Dickens. He was a genius with economy of characters and plot twists as well as character development and description, of which I have tried to emulate.

8) For those of us who haven’t read the series, what are the differences between Dimante and Steiner and how do make for an effective detective team?

First, (lots of spoilers) Dimante lied her way into the cold case division which consisted of two seasoned detectives. She was only experienced in I.T. but she and they realized she had ‘sense’ or hunches that often proved correct. It took until the third book in the trilogy for them to accept her. In Girl Number Four, she and Steiner who have become romantically involved, leave Sacramento and head to Seattle. The difference between the two is 10 years in age (which I exploit) and the fact that we have two people working as private investigators, one who is relatively inexperienced but has remarkable hunches and the other who is an older investigator who, while he is relentless is also old school. They make a complementary pair.

7) Plotter or pantser?

Oh God. I’m going to say looking back from the high perspective of written 4+ books and many short stories that especially in mystery thrillers you have to have a plan, which means an outline. I work very hard to 1) have an outline and 2) not let my characters take over and throw the whole story off the rails. Reality is this. My order of operations is... a) come up with a title, b) come up with a theme (ish) of the story, c) know how it will begin, d) write the first few chapters, e) write the end. Then go back and finish the damn thing. You MUST know where you are going imo. And by doing so it is cool to then go back and foreshadow and pepper in those little gems that will make the end work. Writing is hard. Good writing is really hard. Anybody can write shit. But if you insist on writing something that is worth a read and is financially viable you must have a structure.

Quick story. Published OLIVE PARK in late 2011. Received 3 awards and thousands of sales and many 5 star reviews. Jeez, I think. This is easy. If they like this first book so much, I’ll make it a trilogy. Dumb. Dumb without planning. (A trilogy is where not only the characters but also the story continues as if it was one story. A series is where the characters continue but the story may or may not continue). To make it a trilogy, without planning, to do so, I had to go back and pull out little plot points and other minutiae to knit the story together.

These days I plot as much as I can stand, then let some character serendipity charm me.

6) Does the Sacramento PD really have a cold case division or it purely fictional?

Was fortunate to meet with the actual head of cold case investigations in Sacramento. He was able to give me insights and served as one of my professional vetters for accuracy. We remained in touch for all these years and he is now retired. I acknowledged his help in the first book. If you have read the first book, one of the most discussed item I put in the book was the all glass office of the On-Going Investigation Division. My wife hated the idea, but it had come to me in a dream and I thought it was different and cool so I kept it in. Ironically, when we met the cold-case investigator in Sacramento PD, we had our meeting in the atrium, which was glassed in.

5) What advice would you give any aspiring new mystery authors of any age group?

Same one everyone gets and I always give. READ and absorb your genre before you attempt to write in that genre. What does that mean? I’ll take mysteries. You have to write your story but you must write it within the expectations of your readers. Writing to market is a crass way of putting it, but it is true. You have to know a genre’s structure, it’s pacing, it’s cliffhangers, how characters are developed (especially in a series) - all of this before you hit the keyboard. One of the things I did was take a few of my favorite author’s books and retype a few of their chapters, just to get the feel of it. Especially, the important chapters (beginning, major cliffhangers, fight scenes, wrap up). But most of all read dammit. Absorb and analyze. One more thing, in a book or film, when something affects you find out why. Find out how the author or screenwriter did it. I have spent a whole day just analyzing one thing that made me cry. (The funeral scene in Perfect Storm comes to mind). How the hell did the author do that? You will need to use that same technique if you want to write a good story well told.

4) What do you see regarding the future of detective/mystery fiction?

This genre is #2 or 3 in popularity (behind romance and sc-fi) and will solidly remain so. Readers like to be uncertain or fooled or hoodwinked by a specific plot and especially cliffhangers as they follow their favorite detective. Character is key and in so many ways determines the plot, or at least puts the ‘Ahh-ha’ moments in the unfolding of the story. I do believe, and have started to incorporate in my stories, that genre mixing, creating sub-genres, will be a linchpin to an author’s success. There are a boatload of books out and finding a successful niche and being successful in it will be critical.

3) What tropes do you most like in your preferred genre and which ones do you like the least?

My personal, as I indicated in #2 is ‘good story well told’. It is not necessarily genre specific as I write in different genres but it is a goal for any writer.

2) If you were offered a decent Big Five publishing contract, what would you say?

Would say No, based on what I know unless it is an offer I couldn’t refuse (to be defined by circumstances). Feedback from traditionally published authors seems to indicate that after about 6 months the author is on their own from a marketing standpoint. Hell, I’m doing that already with everything I have published, so a Big 5 offer would have to be golden for me to abandon self-pub. One other consideration is the $$. I had a revenue stream from Day 1 by self-pub. I don’t believe (besides waiting to a year to ready the book to go to press) any significant amount of dough would be forthcoming. And yet, another consideration is support. I have 5-6 beta readers who are ruthless for everything from story lines to line edits, as they should be. I also call on specific professionals to vet specifics (guns, medical procedures etc). I feel with all that I hope I am meeting my goal – writing a good story, well told.

1) What’s next for CJ Booth?

I have personally committed to complete at least 5 books in the new mystery series (Diamond & Stone Mysteries) this year. In addition, I have a 3 book YA series (the theme of which is to encourage young girls to go into science) I expect to have out by August. Finally, besides groping my way through marketing all of the above, I expect to begin to co-author a romance series. Whew.

If you’re interested in CJ’s work, please avail yourselves of the handy links below.

Facebook author page

Author website

Amazon Book links:

Olive Park (1st book in Trilogy) 

Crimson Park

Angel Park