Dave Zeltserman

Dave Zeltserman's story, “More Than a Scam” published here in Mysterical-E received honorable mention in the 2003 Best American Mystery Stories anthology published by Otto Penzler. His first novel, Fast Lane, debuted in 2004 and was named by Poiosned Pen Bookstore as one of the top hardboiled books of the year. His second novel, Bad Thoughts, is out now and has been called a “compellingly clever wheels-within-wheels thriller” by Booklist. His next three crime novels, Small Crimes, Pariah and Killer will be published by Serpent's Tail as part of a noir trilogy based on a “badass just out of prison” theme. Dave lives in the Boston area with his wife Judy , and when he's not writing crime fiction, he spends his time working towards his black belt in Kung fu and running his noir fiction web-site, Hardluck Stories .

What is your approach to writing a novel: that is, do you outline or not? Do you keep files and piles of notes?

I'll write a detailed outline before starting. Usually 6 pages single-spaced will translate to about 70,000 words, so I have a pretty good idea before I start how many pages and words the novel is going to be. Once I start writing and the book becomes something organic; new characters and plot detours might pop up, sometimes major ones. In Fast Lane , Margo was originally not planned, but she grew into one of the central characters of the book. So far, no matter what detours I've taken, I've always ended up back to my original plot.

What are some of the tricks, pitfalls, etc. that you need to keep in mind when writing a mystery novel/story?

The big one is to always keep raising the level of conflict. Just when the reader thinks things can't get any worse for your protagonist, find a way to make it worse, and just when he might've found a way out of the mess he's in, pull the rug out from under his feet. My upcoming book, Small Crimes , is a good example of this.

What is it that kick starts a project for you: a character, a situation, or…?

An idea. With Fast Lane it was hearing a real life detective talking about a case he had where a young woman who had been adopted hired him to find her biological parents, and then things turning out badly once he does. That gave me an idea for something far more sinister, and I ended up writing Fast Lane as part psycho noir and part deconstruction of the PI novel. With an upcoming novel, Pariah , I wanted to write something about the South Boston Irish Mob. Like a lot of people in the Boston area I've been fascinated by the story of Whitey and Billy Bulger—Whitey being both an FBI informant and the most powerful mobster in Boston , and Billy being State Senate President. There were a lot of stories over the years of Whitey using intimidation to force other Senate members to vote along with Billy, and Billy using his power to squash state police investigations into Whitey's operations. Then you had Whitey's FBI pal, John Connelly, tipping him off to informants wanting to testify against him so Whitey could get rid of them first. The story just seemed so rich with material for a crime novel, and last year when the mob tell-all books “Rat Bastard” and “Brutal” came out, as well as the plagiarism scandel from Little Brown, I was struck with an idea of how I could use this source material for something unique, and probably very controversial. It has since been picked up by Serpent's Tail for a 1/09 publishing date.

What started you in writing? What kept you going?

As a kid I read a lot—sci-fi, fantasy, the classics, and then moving onto crime fiction—Hammett, Chandler , Stout, Spillane, Ross Macdonald. Over the years I'd be drawn to trying to write, usually sci-fi, horror or crime, but I was a math and computer science major in college, and always considered these excursions larks, something I really had no right trying. Reading Jim Thompson's “Hell of a Woman” opened my eyes to how a crime novel could be written—or more specifically that there are really no rules if you can make it work. Up to that point I'd been toying with a short story that was a precursor to what would become Fast Lane , and what I wrote was really pretty bad Ross Macdonald. After discovering Thompson, I had a new idea of what I wanted to do with this Fast Lane idea, and started writing more seriously.

What's kept me going? Well that's a tough one to answer since I wrote Fast Lane in '92, then quit for a few years before writing Bad Thoughts in '97, and then quitting again until 2003. I quit those times out of frustration, convincing myself to instead focus on my real job as a software developer. What drew me back was believing in these books, and to a larger degree, only really being happy when I am writing. Since coming back to it, I've broken through with short stories in both Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazines, sold Fast Lane to an Italian publisher, then finding a home for it with Point Blank Press. Bad Thoughts has also just been published by Five Star and has been getting strong reviews. What has gotten me in the game for good was recently selling a trilogy of noir novels to Serpent's Tail.

Can you tell us a bit about the first story you had published -- how did that come about? And how do you feel about it now?

When I was working on Fast Lane I was talking frequently with the owner of Spenser's Mystery Bookstore in Boston , and he showed me a flyer from a new crime magazine starting up called New Mystery Magazine making a call for stories. They were pretty specific in what they wanted—tough stories, a slug of bourbon instead of a splash of Maalox, that type of stuff. Anyway, I went home, typed away like crazy for a few hours and wrote exactly the type of story they were asking for, with the title “A Long Time to Die”. This was the first story I wrote that I tried to sell, and after sending it in I received a call a month later from the editor, Charles Raisch, that he wanted to publish it. How do I feel about it now? I think it's strongly plotted and holds up well, with the writing only making me cringe a little bit. I still get emails from people about it.

How have you grown as a writer? What has gotten better? What things have you dropped along the way?

Well, it's like anything else, the more you do something and the more serious you study it, the better you get. When I wrote my first novel it seemed like such a massive undertaking, I didn't think I could ever write a second one. I did, plus others, and with each one the process has gotten easier. Before starting a novel now, I know the length of it and how long it's going to take me to write it. Over the years I've studied writing, reading a number of books on the subject, sometimes the same books over and over again, and have participated in several workshops.This has helped me be on the lookout for certain common mistakes of mine. I have taken the craft seriously over the last five or so years, and my writing has gotten stronger. I understand more what I'm trying to do than writing purely at an instinctive level as I did initially. Also after my first novel I pretty much found my own voice. Finally, I was very naïve when I started, and now understand the business side pretty well.

What are the three most important pieces of advice you'd give to writers?

Three pieces of advice? That's all? ‘Cause I could write a book on the subject…

First, study your craft. This means reading the classics in the field you want to write in. If you're writing crime fiction, than study the works Hammett, Jim Thompson, Charles Willeford, etc. Study books on writing fiction, such as John Gardner's “Art of Fiction” and “Writing Fiction” by Janet Burroway.

Second, understand your market. If you want to write mass paperback thrillers, then you're going to be beating your head against a brick wall unless you write commerical, conventional books since that's all that the larger houses are willing to buy. If you want to sell a story to Alfred Hitchcock or Ellery Queen, read these magazines and understand the types of stories that they're buying. Have a game plan going in—know who you want to sell to before writing, and know what they want to buy.

Third, you need persistence. Well, not everyone, but most of us. Some people get lucky and sell their first novels right away for tons of cash, most of us build a nice thick collection of rejection slips before we get that first sale. Jeremiah Healy once told me the three rules of being a published writer are 1) Never give up 2) Never give up 3) Never give up, and there's a lot of truth to that.

How long does it generally take you to complete a novel – from conception to completion?

It depends on how much I want to write the novel I'm working on. Pariah took 6 weeks and it's by far the best thing I've written. The book I wrote before that I was less excited about and it took 5 months.

How many revisions do you normally go through when writing a novel?

I'll edit the book several times—usually a few chapters at a time as I'm writing it, and then a couple of edit passes when I'm done, but these edits are mostly to clean up the language and polish the writing. Not much gets thrown away, and outside of my first two books, nothing really major ends up being added.

What's the most difficult stage in the writing for you?

Selling the book when I'm done… Seriously. Fast Lane took 12 years to sell—and first sold to an Italian publisher before finding a home with Point Blank Press, Bad Thoughts took 9 years, Small Crimes three years. But I'm getting better now, Pariah and Killer both sold quickly to Serpent's Tail, my publisher for Small Crimes . This is a matter of not following my second piece of advice above. None of my books are conventional, and as I've been learning, most of the editors at large NY houses only buy conventional mysteries—not that some of these editors haven't tried buying my books, but none of them have yet been able to get them through their boards. I'm extremely grateful that there are publishers like Serpent's Tail that care more about the quality of the books they're publishing than the “apparent” commerical viability of the books.

Who are the authors that you admire most, who inspire you, whose writing you think is most beautiful, moving, exciting?

The crime fiction authors who inspired me early on and who I am in awe of include Dashiell Hammett, Jim Thompson, Rex Stout, Charles Willeford, James M. Cain, Dan Marlowe and Mickey Spillane. These are all great writers and anyone wanting to write crime fiction should study their works.

Of todays current crime writers I don't think anyone's better than Lawrence Block. His writing is just so smooth and flows so naturally. He is a true master at the craft, and I enjoy his books immensely. Ed Gorman is another brilliant writer—it doesn't matter what genre—crime, horror, western, he excels at all of them, and his writing is really something beautiful to behold, plus he's got a nice nasty streak which makes his stuff a lot of fun. Bruce Jay Friedman is also someone whose works I greatly admire. There's a humor and absurdist streak in his works that I love. A recent book that I read which I greatly admired the writing was Scott Smith's The Ruins . I don't know if I can recommend this book since it's such a painful book to read—you're basically reading about a group of young people who due to bad luck are going to die slow tortuous deaths, but the writing is a real tour de force.

Are there authors who you think are much better at spinning a plot as opposed to writing beautiful prose?

I'm more of a fan of strong writing than beautiful prose. Give me lean prose like Hammett's or Elmore Leonard's anyday. To me, plot is critical. Nothing is more disappointing than a well-written book that ultimately goes nowhere and has no point.

What do you find most satisfying in another author's book: a great plot, beautiful writing, fully realized characters?

A great plot requires fully realized characters—that's all part of it. I really need all of it—strong writing and an involving story for me to keep from tossing a book after the first chapter or so.

In your own work, what do you think you are strongest at: plot, beautiful prose, character? Or something else?

I don't think you're ever going to hear anyone call my prose “beautiful”. I aim for lean, muscular writing, and what I hear from readers is that they find my writing very direct and easy to get into. What I think I excel at is both plot and character (again, for fiction to work, they need to go hand in hand). The most satisfying compliment I hear from readers is when they tell me they needed to read one my novels in one sitting—that they couldn't put it down. And I've heard that a few times.

How do you plot a mystery or a thriller – what stymies you most, what do you find easiest?

To me plotting is easy. If I force myself to, I can usually work out a short story plot in a few minutes, and a full novel plot in several hours. I think it comes from all my wasted hours from my youth reading thousands of comic books, pulp and sci-fi novels, as well as countless hours of watching old movies, Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock episodes. All of that has somehow distilled in my brain and comes out now as dark, twisted story plots when I let it.

What advice can you give on plotting a mystery?

Again, to me plotting comes naturally, and am not sure how to describe the process that I use. I guess maybe to read well-plotted novels and try to learn from them.

Does the world you create in your non-series novels continue to live in your mind long after you've completed the novel? What implications does that have in terms of wanting to do a series in the same setting?

My fictional worlds do linger. Characters from short stories and novels have ended up popping up in other places. While Bad Thoughts was written to be a standalone, I'm now hoping to evolve it into a series—at least I've already written the sequel, Bad Karma, although the setting has moved from Boston to Boulder , Colorado . As bizarre as this might sound to anyone who has read Fast Lane , I am toying around with the idea of bringing Johnny Lane back, but that would be more as another standalone.

If you have a series: When doing a series, how “into” the world of that series do you get? Do you constantly think about that world and compare it to reality, changing it or fixing it as you go along?

Again, most of my works have been standalones, but if Bad Karma gets picked up then I'll have a series. Whether it's my standalones or this potentially new series, I do get pretty deep into my fictional worlds, and when I'm writing they're reality—both the situations and the characters become very real to me. There's a scene in Fast Lane where a character is going to get killed and I kept stretching out the scene because I didn't want to kill her off—and that ended up being one of the more powerful and tense scenes I've written.

I've been focusing more on standalones because those are the types of books I want to write—more noir and crime fiction than the investigative books that a series might be a better fit for. When writing Bad Karma I really didn't notice much difference in my approach other than there was more of a history of these characters that I needed to be aware of, but even when I right standalones, I build histories and backgrounds for my characters.

What other kinds of writing do you do?

All of my books tend to have a dark streak in them, and my writing at times tends more towards horror than crime. Of the novels I've written so far, four of them are pure crime, two are a mix of horror and crime, and two are horror. Every once in a while I write a sci-fi story and have had a couple of those published.

What about readers – how have they received your books – do you hear from them, have any problems arisen, or any good/funny/touching experiences happened with regard to readers? What kind of fan mail do you get? Have you developed any friendships with fans over the years? What do your fans most like about your books?

So far the reaction towards my books has been a pleasant surprise. My first book, Fast Lane, is a very violent and dark book, something that at first looks like a clichéd hardboiled PI novel except my PI is borderline psychotic and the book quickly devolves into the darkest recesses of noir. This was something that I thought would appeal only to hardcore noir fans, and especially since my main character is also among other things so damn misogynistic, I was afraid that women would hate this one. To the contrary, the appeal seems to be pretty widespread, and I've heard from a number of women who've loved it—including a handwritten card from an 80 year-old grandmother pleading with me to write more books like this. The few negative comments I've gotten from it came from hardcore hardboiled PI fans who felt betrayed by the book since the book is as much deconstruction of the PI genre as it is noir, but other than that the response has been good. For Bad Thoughts it's been even better. I've already gotten a number of private notes from people who've enjoyed it. the reviews have been great, and one thing that was kind of cool was seeing the Dover NH Public Library single the book out on their blog.

I think the reason for this reaction (and what fans like most about my work) is that my writing is very different than what's typically being published. The feedback I'm getting from readers is that they're finding my books strongly plotted, fast-moving, and easy to read. I think that's because my writing style tends towards direct, I don't pull punches and I don't make any concessions for what the larger houses demand for their more “commercial” books. I'm also happy to see that as violent as my books are, reviewers have so far commented that's there's nothing gratuitous in the violence. I also think there's an intelligence in my books—there's a logic behind everything my characters do, even in their bad decisions. I never have my characters do something dumb to advance the plot, and I think my readers appreciate that.

Is the publication of each book as thrilling as that first one?

While it was kind of interesting selling my first book first to an Italian publisher, it just made me more frustrated that no NY house would touch it. Later when I placed it with Point Blank Press, I was more relieved than anything else. Being realistic about it, I knew Point Blank was a small press with no marketing budget and wouldn't be able to give it much visibility so it was hard to get too thrilled about it. It wasn't until I sold my 3 rd book, Small Crimes, to Serpent's Tail that I felt excited about selling a book. With Serpent's Tail publishing my next three books it means they'll be taken seriously by reviewers, they'll get into bookstores and I'll have readers discover my writing. In some ways it's kind of ironic—Serpent's Tail is one of the more prestigious publishers out there for crime fiction, and probably one of the pickiest, yet they want to publish these books that no major NY house is willing to. The reason for this is that Serpent's Tail focus is on quality, while the large US houses is on presumed “commercial” viability. You can probably sense some anger in this answer, well, wait until Serpent's Tail publishes Pariah . There's a lot of anger in that book. I read in an interview that “Fight Club” was Chuck Palahniuck's “fuck you” to the publishing industry for passing on his first book. Pariah's mine.

What are your goals as a writer?

My goals have changed over the years. At first it was to get the books and stories written, then it was to get them published, now it's to be able to make a living at it so I can spend my days doing the one thing I truly love doing—writing fiction. The only thing that has stayed constant throughout all this is that I want readers to enjoy what I write—I want my stories and novels to be something that makes an impact with them, something they'll remember, something they'll be glad they spent time with.

Why do you think mystery is so popular?

Part of it is over the years it has attracted so many great writers. Another part is that it tends towards tense and fast-paced, and can delve into very interesting psychological issues and well as the deepest recesses of the human condition.

Why has mystery spawned so many sub-genres?

I look at it as basically two sub-genres—mysteries and crime fiction. Mysteries can have different ranges stylistically, but it's basically solving a puzzle. Crime fiction tends to be tougher, more hardboiled, and often can be seen from the criminal's point of view. Of course sometimes you can have a mixture of the two, such as Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe which mixed the classic English mystery with the American hardboiled PI.

Talk about your most recent book and what it means to you.

Bad Thoughts just got published. I was dealing with an agent who had been trying to sell Fast Lane without much luck, and he wanted me to write a more commercial book, and ended up giving me a plot somewhat similar to Silence of the Lambs. I wasn't too excited about writing that kind of book the most basic element of his plot—someone being terrorized as a child by a serial killer, and twisting that into what eventually became Bad Thoughts . And the time I was working on it, I was reading up on metaphysics, trying to do some out of body stuff, and had a big influence on the book. I was also going through some pretty bad stuff, and that also had its influence.

I wrote a detailed outline before starting the book, and it probably took me six months to write the first draft. When I wrote Fast Lane five years earlier, I was able to get some of NY houses to take a look at, but by the time Bad Thoughts was done the publishing world had changed. One editor at Warner Books responded to my query letter, and he ended up reading it. He liked the book, but needed some changes made—specifically he felt I started the book to early, that I needed to show Bill Shannon in a more healthy state so the reader could more easily identify and root for him. It was good advice, and I added 50 pages to the front, as well as making other changes he suggested. We ended up going through 3 rounds of editing before he tried taking the book to his editorial board. He couldn't get it through his board, and I ended up putting Bad Thoughts in a drawer and didn't take it out again until I showed it to Five Star last year.

My favorite character is the one I can't talk about for obvious reasons, but he was a blast to write. A close second is my PI, “Pig” Dornich. Years ago I took a one day course in becoming a PI taught by a retired Boston Police Officer, now PI, and “Pig” was modeled after this guy. I'll always have a lot of affection for “Pig”. He's one of my favorite characters period. My favorite part of the book are the dreams and the last 50 pages—the pacing of that is at breakneck speed, and I think it works well.