Chapter Sixty-Nine
Brad Meltzer
Walking the Line
If you’re a history buff, you might know Brad Meltzer from the two History channel shows he’s hosted: Decoded (an investigation of unsolved mysteries and conspiracy theories) and Lost History (a search for missing artifacts). If you read suspense, perhaps you know him for his legal thrillers (Meltzer has a law degree and was once an intern on Capitol Hill), or for his Culper Ring Series of secrets and symbols in Washington, D.C. (the latest, The President’s Shadow, was released in June 2015). If you’re a parent, it may be the Ordinary People Change the World picture book series that comes to mind (he released four in 2014, including number one bestseller I Am Amelia Earhart), or his inspirational collections Heroes for My Son and Heroes for My Daughter. Or perhaps you’re a fan of his comics, inspiring TED Talks, the old WB teen drama Jack & Bobby he co-created, or even just his popular Twitter feed.
But no matter what you know Brad Meltzer from, if you’ve seen any of his work, you know Brad Meltzer. It’s his passion that’s the calling card of everything he writes, and he pours himself into his work with geek-level enthusiasm, an unassuming likability, and good humor. Here, he talks with Writer’s Digest about jumping fences to greener pastures, keeping yourself hungry, and never letting anyone tell you no.
How do your novels and your History channel shows feed off of one another?
No question, they are just both part of me, and so they can’t help but feed each other. Anything that you work on, if you’re being honest, shows your personality in it. …
There are things like the Knights of the Golden Circle that as I started researching them we started seeing them on Decoded, and they became characters in The Fifth Assassin. You can’t help but look at history and find good stories.
In the bigger picture, whether it’s my novels, the nonfiction, the kids’ books, the comic books, Decoded, or Lost History, all of them have one thing in common: It’s my core belief. I believe ordinary people change the world. And I don’t care where you went to school or how much money you make—that is utter nonsense to me. I believe in regular people and their ability to affect change on this planet. And so each of those things always reflects that. In that way, they feed each other in the most basic, primal way.
I think that core belief is important for other writers, too, because so many of us work on manuscripts wondering if anyone will ever even see them.
Listen, my first novel still sits on my shelf, published by Kinko’s. It got twenty-four rejection letters. There were only twenty publishers at the time—that means some people wrote me twice to make sure I got the point. But I don’t look back on that and say, “I was right and they were wrong, ha-ha.” Whatever it is you do, my advice is simple: Don’t let anyone tell you no.
Was there anyone back then who gave you bad advice?
The only bad advice I got was advice that really I gave myself. And that was [for] my second novel. I had this high-concept idea about Cain and Abel in the modern day, and my editor said, “Are you crazy?” I had just gotten on the bestseller list for a legal thriller, and it was the time of legal thrillers, and they said, “Why would you want to jump into historical?”
Between college and law school, I was accruing debt by the moment, and I was terrified that any success was going to go away. So rather than sticking to my guns, I said, “I’ll write the kind of book you want me to write.” And although I’m proud of the way it came out, I still think it’s the one book I’m the most critical of, because I didn’t follow my gut. After that, I said, I’m never doing that again. And the book after that, when I went back to doing what I wanted to do, wound up being, at that point in time, the best-selling book we ever did.
Writers these days are often advised to create a brand. But you do so many different things. … Do you feel that’s a better course for other writers to pursue?
I wish I knew. None of this is a calculated endeavor. I think if I was smart, I should just write thrillers. Even my publisher will say they just want more thrillers. That’s what feeds my family. But I feel like if I did that, I wouldn’t be being true to myself. …
A very famous writer said to me at one point—about his recurring character that was so terrific—he said he wanted to put a gun in his mouth if he had to write him again. I never want to be that writer. We all know the grass is always greener, right? Whatever you’re doing, anything someone else is doing automatically seems more interesting. So I use the different mediums and I treat it as my own fence, and I get to jump over to the other grass.
Jumping into different genres is what charges me up to do each one. Plus, just the challenge that everyone says you can’t. When I did comic books for the first time, people told me, “You’re going to wreck your career. You’re a novelist, why are you lowering yourself?” And I thought, What are you talking about? There’s no pyramid with literary fiction at the top and everything else at the bottom. It’s a flat line. It’s just a matter of how you want to tell your story. And I just like being able to walk across that line.
So how did you end up on the History channel?
I ask myself that question all the time. Here’s what happened. One of the heads of the History channel read my novel The Book of Fate and said, “We want to do a show like that.” They liked the name Decoded, and they wanted it to be something about the Freemasons. And I said, “That’s fine, but that’s not a show. That’s a setting, I guess. You need stories.” And they were like, “Well, do you have stories?” And I’m like, “Yeah, that’s all I have!”…
The truth was they wanted me just for my name. I was supposed to just be the guy who introduces the story at the beginning and then at the end said goodbye. And they were doing some kind of promo for the show, and the network kept saying, “We don’t like this or this or this, but we want more Brad.” My wife kept laughing—she said, “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.” Over time they were like, “You’re going to host this thing,” and I couldn’t help but laugh, either.
Off camera, how much do you drive the content?
I came up with the idea for Lost History. I was researching in the National Archives for my novel The Inner Circle, and they told me they have a department that tracks down lost and stolen artifacts. And I was like, “What do you mean? What’s gone?” The idea wasn’t even really about doing the show, it was about, How do we get the items back?
We have a team now that, once the show got greenlit, is helping with the research. (I do all my own research for the novels, but for the TV show I just physically don’t have the time.) I’m very particular about the writing, so they send me every episode, and then I put it into my voice.
You’re known for doing extensive on-scene research for your novels. How do you soak in those experiences?
I think I’m very good at the full-on experience of how it feels there. I just have a really good memory for what I see. Most of the time I don’t even know what I’m looking for. If I knew what I was looking for, I’d know before I got there. You go for a world that interests you, and then you find something else that makes you go, Oh, that’s interesting. I think the better use of research is talking to people where they develop a trust and tell you their greatest story. If you go in there and you know what you want to write and you just want to write it, then why bother them? But you’re there and taking their time because they have something amazing to share, and as a writer, all you’re doing is trying to look through someone else’s eyes.
You answer a lot of FAQs on your website. Do you tend to get bombarded by questions from readers?
We used to, and then we started putting an author’s note [in] each book. People just wanted to know what was real.
I think of how after The Da Vinci Code, it seemed as if Dan Brown spent years reminding people it was fiction.
Yeah, and in a strange way he opened that door for all of us. When Dan Brown came out, if I had asked to do Cain and Abel then, they would have said, “Oh, go ahead, everyone loves history!” I think his sales were a huge help for me in terms of convincing editors that you can do real historical research and make it fun. I owe him for that.
Your novel The President’s Shadow is the third The Culper Ring book. Will the series continue?
This one concludes where we are. The next book will not be a Culper Ring book. I definitely want to do it again, so this certainly is not the last, but after doing three books in a row on the same subject, I feel like trying something new.
What were the biggest challenges and rewards in continuing with Beecher White’s character?
I remember saying I never wanted to do a series. I always thought series were for someone who ran out of ideas and just wanted to milk one forever. And then I had done seven or eight books and just wanted to know, Can I pull it off? What I’ve learned is that the hardest part is, you can’t start a book unless that character is going to change in some way. Character is the best plot. What I couldn’t figure out for so long is, How do you keep giving a character an arc and always make it something different, and always make them evolve?
We meet James Bond and Jason Bourne as superheroes. But what if you meet them when they’re novices and the journey is that you get to watch them become that great person? I have no interest in the great person. I have interest in the regular person who finds it within them to have that great moment. So that’s what Beecher was for me. But six years in, I think of that character in such a different way, a more complex way. And that’s been the best reward.
Are there any other genres you have your eye on?
I definitely want to do young adult. And we did do nonfiction historical writing in History Decoded, but I’d love to try a longer form, really tackle one subject.
It seems as if you’ve built a career on your passions.
Someone years ago sent me a question that said, “I have two ideas for a book. One I think I can sell for a lot of money, and it’s fine, but it’s pretty by-the-numbers, and the other book is my obsession, which is the druids, but nobody cares about the druids. Which one should I write?” And I said, “You’ve got to write about the druids.” The X factor on every page is, does the writer love what they’re writing about? Anything you love that you’ve read in your life, from page 1, you feel the writer’s passion. That’s the thing that you can’t put your finger on. And when you read Book Ten of a series, and you go, “Man, it’s just not as good,” it’s because the writer just doesn’t care anymore. If you want to find your answer as a writer, follow whatever you’re passionate about.
You’ve written about real-life heroes. What sorts of heroes do you think writers in particular should look to?
I think these days, what I admire most in a writer is honesty. When I first became a writer, every interview [with me] was like reading an interview with a rookie sports player: one game at a time, just happy to be here… . I was the first in my family to attend a four-year college, so the idea that someone was going to buy a book that I wrote was a miracle to me. My dad read seven books in his life—my seven. My mom, the same. I was so thrilled to be able to be a writer that I was terrified to say that life wasn’t perfect because it would make me look thankless. And I think if I’m anything over the years, I’m just more honest, and it’s okay to say, “This was a hard year—my parents died, and I struggled with this book.” I can’t say I’m a better writer over time, but I’m certainly a more honest one. I think that’s what I admire more these days.
But those aren’t real “heroes” to me. If you made the bestseller list, who cares? That doesn’t make you a better person. It means nothing. It means people buy your books. The question is, what do you do beyond your God-given gift? Any first-time writer that will e-mail me and say, “Will you help me plug my book?” I’ll plug it every time, all the time. Use your power for good. Help other people. To me, that’s a hero.
That’s so great. If we print that, you’ll probably get bombarded, though …
[Laughs.] That’s okay. You know what, I don’t care. I’d be happy to. When I was starting out, you know how many blurbs I had on my first book? Zero. So if I can help someone and make them feel good to put their book out there, great, that to me is the best use of my Twitter account.
Do you still have doubts about your own work?
Oh, every time. Every day when I sit down to write, the one thing I do is I remember when my true first novel was out there trying to be sold. I went to New York to have these meetings with two editors who were like, “We really like it, we think we’re going to buy it,” and my agent said, “I’m going to call you tomorrow and tell you how much they’re going to pay for it.” And I was like, “Oh my gosh, the offers are coming in!” And I picked up the phone and she said to me, “Sorry, kiddo.” They both bailed, and the book never sold.
Every day that I sit down to write, in my head I paint that scene again, and I picture that crappy Formica desk, I picture that lint that was floating through the air, I picture the corded phone that was in my hand, I picture every detail of that moment, and then I picture my agent saying to me, “Sorry, kiddo.” Because the moment you think you’re done, and the moment you think you’ve made it, you’re finished. The best motivator is to remember what it’s like to have nothing at all—to keep yourself hungry.