Episode 040 - Storytelling Lessons from Investigative Reporting with Hank Phillippi Ryan
August 18, 2020
"Matty, this was so entertaining. You each listened to each other beautifully and provided a seamless, interesting discussion.
I don't drink coffee much, but I raise my mug to you!" --Podcast listener Lisa Huis
I don't drink coffee much, but I raise my mug to you!" --Podcast listener Lisa Huis
Hank Phillippi Ryan, multi-award-winning and USA Today bestselling author of 12 mystery novels, talks about how her "day job" as an investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV has influenced her work at a crime novelist. She discusses the essence of conflict (a secret someone doesn't want you to know), how the endings of her novels surprise her as well as her readers, and how anything can work if you know how to make it work.
Hank Phillippi Ryan is the USA Today bestselling author of 12 mystery novels, and has also won multiple awards for her crime fiction: five Agathas, three Anthonys, the Daphne, two Macavitys, and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award.
Hank’s novels have been named Best Thrillers of the Year by Library Journal, New York Post, BOOK BUB, PopSugar, Real Simple Magazine and others. Her newest book is THE FIRST TO LIE, which just came out on August 4, 2020.
She is also the on-air investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV. She's won 37 EMMYs, 14 Edward R. Murrow awards, and dozens of other honors for her groundbreaking journalism.
Hank’s novels have been named Best Thrillers of the Year by Library Journal, New York Post, BOOK BUB, PopSugar, Real Simple Magazine and others. Her newest book is THE FIRST TO LIE, which just came out on August 4, 2020.
She is also the on-air investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV. She's won 37 EMMYs, 14 Edward R. Murrow awards, and dozens of other honors for her groundbreaking journalism.
"Just like in investigative reporting, when I don't know what the next puzzle piece will be because I'm going out to find it, it's exactly the same thing as writing crime fiction in my novels. I don't know what's going to happen next. I don't know what all the secrets are and I am digging through my book, forging ahead, I hope, to find what they are." --Hank Phillippi Ryan
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Matty: Hello and welcome to The Indy Author Podcast. Today my guest is Hank Phillippi Ryan. Hey, Hank, how are you doing?
[00:00:06] Hank: Great. How are you?
[00:00:08] Matty: I am doing great. Thank you.
[00:00:09] Hank: It's about 90 degrees here in Boston today. We have a big old house and we are sweltering. We have no air conditioning. For a while during the summer, it is a tough grind, but we persevere and it's great. I'm very thrilled to be here today. Thank you.
[00:00:27] Matty: Yes. I've been staying inside because we do have air conditioning and it's the kind of day that you want it for sure. So to give our listeners a little reminder about your many achievements.
[00:00:37] Hank Phillippi Ryan is the USA Today bestselling author of 12 mystery novels and has also won multiple awards for her crime fiction: five Agathas, three Anthonys, the Daphne, two Macavitys, and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. Hank’s novels have been named Best Thrillers of the Year by Library Journal, New York Post, BOOK BUB, PopSugar, Real Simple Magazine and others. Her newest book is THE FIRST TO LIE, which just came out on August 4, 2020. She is also the on-air investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV. She's won 37 EMMYs, 14 Edward R. Murrow awards, and dozens of other honors for her groundbreaking journalism.
[00:01:23] So I was so excited when Hank agreed to come on The Indy Author Podcast and talk about something that's kind of an evolving theme, which is how does your day job impact your writing? And obviously we're going to be talking about investigative journalism. And so I wanted to start this out, Hank with a quote from The First to Lie, which I thought would be a great entree to this topic. And it is: “Being a reporter wasn’t only about digging up information. It was about balancing it. Hoarding it. Using it. About understanding what to let out and what to keep in.”
[00:01:57] So I would love to hear you talk about how that applies to investigative journalism, but also how does it apply to your career as a crime writer?
[00:02:06] Hank: Well to my fiction, as a crime writer, you can hear how completely perfect that is. I mean, you made me really think about that in a different kind of way. You talked about the Emmys, the newest of which arrived by UPS. I tried to give my speech to the UPS guy and he wouldn't let me do it, which I was very bereft, in my yearly speech, or hopefully yearly speech.
[00:02:27] Anyway, the point is that every one of those Emmys represents a secret that someone didn't want me to tell you. That's the essence of conflict. That's the essence of a story. And that's the essence of investigation, isn't it? That someone has a secret that they want to keep hidden and someone else wants to make it public.
[00:02:49] Now for better or for worse in crime fiction, but the engine of a good story is a secret. That's proven by the Emmy's and that's proven by crime fiction thrillers that I write like The First to Lie as well, because in my books, everyone has a secret, everyone -- the good guys and the bad guys -- and everyone is worried about whether that secret will be made public and what will happen if it does and what will be the result of that and how it will change their life and how important it is to keep that secret.
[00:00:06] Hank: Great. How are you?
[00:00:08] Matty: I am doing great. Thank you.
[00:00:09] Hank: It's about 90 degrees here in Boston today. We have a big old house and we are sweltering. We have no air conditioning. For a while during the summer, it is a tough grind, but we persevere and it's great. I'm very thrilled to be here today. Thank you.
[00:00:27] Matty: Yes. I've been staying inside because we do have air conditioning and it's the kind of day that you want it for sure. So to give our listeners a little reminder about your many achievements.
[00:00:37] Hank Phillippi Ryan is the USA Today bestselling author of 12 mystery novels and has also won multiple awards for her crime fiction: five Agathas, three Anthonys, the Daphne, two Macavitys, and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. Hank’s novels have been named Best Thrillers of the Year by Library Journal, New York Post, BOOK BUB, PopSugar, Real Simple Magazine and others. Her newest book is THE FIRST TO LIE, which just came out on August 4, 2020. She is also the on-air investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV. She's won 37 EMMYs, 14 Edward R. Murrow awards, and dozens of other honors for her groundbreaking journalism.
[00:01:23] So I was so excited when Hank agreed to come on The Indy Author Podcast and talk about something that's kind of an evolving theme, which is how does your day job impact your writing? And obviously we're going to be talking about investigative journalism. And so I wanted to start this out, Hank with a quote from The First to Lie, which I thought would be a great entree to this topic. And it is: “Being a reporter wasn’t only about digging up information. It was about balancing it. Hoarding it. Using it. About understanding what to let out and what to keep in.”
[00:01:57] So I would love to hear you talk about how that applies to investigative journalism, but also how does it apply to your career as a crime writer?
[00:02:06] Hank: Well to my fiction, as a crime writer, you can hear how completely perfect that is. I mean, you made me really think about that in a different kind of way. You talked about the Emmys, the newest of which arrived by UPS. I tried to give my speech to the UPS guy and he wouldn't let me do it, which I was very bereft, in my yearly speech, or hopefully yearly speech.
[00:02:27] Anyway, the point is that every one of those Emmys represents a secret that someone didn't want me to tell you. That's the essence of conflict. That's the essence of a story. And that's the essence of investigation, isn't it? That someone has a secret that they want to keep hidden and someone else wants to make it public.
[00:02:49] Now for better or for worse in crime fiction, but the engine of a good story is a secret. That's proven by the Emmy's and that's proven by crime fiction thrillers that I write like The First to Lie as well, because in my books, everyone has a secret, everyone -- the good guys and the bad guys -- and everyone is worried about whether that secret will be made public and what will happen if it does and what will be the result of that and how it will change their life and how important it is to keep that secret.
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[00:03:24] So as an investigative reporter, and I'm going step by step, interview by interview, research by research, document by document, trying to dig up a story. And I find a little puzzle piece here and a little puzzle piece there, and I'm hoarding those together in my notebook or in my computer, seeing what puzzle picture those pieces will eventually create when I put them together -- disparate, separate pieces. All I know are coming together toward a big story. And that is exactly the same thing as writing crime fiction. I have one character doing this and one character wanting this and one character hoping for this and one character taking an action that does this. All of them, keeping secrets, all of them have a goal.
[00:04:13] As a crime fiction writer, I am hoarding secrets a little bit from the readers, right? I'm letting them out at the point where it helps the pacing and helps the conflict and helps the advancing of the story in my book. And just like, if I could say one more thing about this, and it's such a perfect thing for you to pick and just like in investigative reporting, when I don't know what the next puzzle piece will be because I'm going out to find it. It's exactly the same thing. as writing crime fiction in my novels. I don't know what's going to happen next. I don't know what all the secrets are, and I am digging through my book, forging ahead, I hope, to find what they are.
[00:04:55] So I don't know the end of my investigative stories. Of course, I don't because if I did, they wouldn't be new. And I don't know what's the ending of my crime fiction stories as well, because I'm in the book, I'm writing the book to find out what the ending is. And I always think, in television, if I knew the end of the story, as I said, it wouldn't be new. You would know it too. It wouldn't be a big deal at all, but if I can reveal it, if I can be the one to reveal the secrets and things can change as a result of that, that's what I'm going for. So in crime fiction, when I'm writing my novel, I don't know what the end will be. And so it is a surprise to me as well.
[00:05:37] And that's good because it's a surprise to the reader as well, too. When people say, wow, the end of The First to Lie, you really surprised me. Or even the middle of The First to Lie, you really surprised me with the twists. I say, "Yeah, wasn't that a surprise?" Because I surprised myself. And that's the goal of investigative reporting, and that's the goal of crime fiction.
[00:05:59] And in crime fiction, I always think if I knew the end, I will inevitably be writing toward that. Do you know what I mean? I'd be seeing that and pushing my characters and convincing them, shepherding them to go in that direction. But I don't want to do that. I want to see what they really want and what they really need and how far they will go to get it. And that's what makes the stories, I hope, be genuine and authentic.
[00:06:28] So just the world's longest answer to your wonderful question, just as in investigative reporting, I'm seeing what reality is and how those real puzzle pieces go together into a news story. In crime fiction, I'm seeing what my fictional reality is, if I can say that, and seeing how those pieces eventually work together to come into a story.
[00:06:48] So I think that my years of investigative reporting -- 43 years and still on the air -- have allowed me to, and it's not always easy, Matty. I have to say it. I don't mean it to sound easy because it's often horrifically difficult, like today writing, but, I have this sort of faith, trust in the process of writing that if I just keep going, essentially keep researching, not researching online, but researching my story in my head as I'm writing in real life, that the story, at some point, what I'm trying to write will sort of emerge and bloom. And there's always the moment -- that devoutly hoped for moment -- when I think, Oh, there it is. that's what this is about. but I don't know that in the beginning, just like I don't know in an investigative story what the story will be.
[00:07:41] Matty: It sounds almost like your characters are hoarding some of the information from you and you're having to interrogate them in order to see where the story is going.
[00:07:51] Hank: I think you're so right about that. Sue Grafton used to tell me that Kinsey Millhone, her character, kept secrets from her throughout and Sue said she found out information and background and history about Kinsey every time she wrote a book, Kinsey let her know something else. Sue didn't do big biographical rundowns, or interviews with her characters, or anything like that, and nor do I. it just evolves. And if you're lucky and if you work hard, and if you don't give up, I'm sort of talking to myself as much as I am to you all, it will emerge.
[00:08:30] Matty: Do you find that as the characters are revealing their information to you, and then they're by extension revealing the information to the reader, do you ever feel like you then have to go back and rearrange where those revelations took place? Because I think one of the very difficult things about writing mysteries is you need to spread out those revelations. You don't want them all clumped up at the end so that the reader says, that was cheating, you know? Or you don't want to reveal them too early because then it's a giveaway. Do you have to go back and adjust that or does the information seem to surface for you where it needs to?
[00:09:03] Hank: both answers. I actively avoid that sort of Hercule Poirot ending, where they gather everyone in the drawing room and then say, it's not you because of this. It's not you because of this. It's not you because of this. It's you because of this. And you think, how was I supposed to know that? It's not that it's not interesting and it's not that Agatha Christie wasn't the brilliant genius of the planet. she had her way of making the big reveal at the end. But I write psychological fiction, psychological suspense. And so the key of psychological suspense is to feed out that information along the way, and with a little misdirection and a little sleight of hand, make the reader think one thing is important when really it's the other thing that's important. And in the end, when it all goes together in a way that the reader hadn't predicted, then it's fair. that is my complete goal is at the ending, have the reader say, Oh, I should have seen that. It was all there.
[00:10:04] And I have people have written to me after reading The First to Lie and after reading The Murder List saying that they went back instantly and read the book again to see how I did it. And that is the highest compliment because they were fooled, and they were entertained. And that's my goal completely. I want you to miss your stop on the T -- you remember the T -- I want you to miss your stop on the T because you're reading this book. And then in the end, though, I want you to say, Oh, what a good book. I should've seen that coming.
[00:10:35] So David Mamet has said, and I've read that, he said that if you have a problem in act three, you really have a problem in act one. And one of those problems might be that you revealed something too soon, you gave something away and you made it too easy or you made the story not be interesting. it isn't something that I worry about because, and here's the key, since I don't know, I can't give it away because I don't know it. So I am finding it when it is relevant and reasonable to find it, which often, knock on wood, is the place that it's supposed to be in the story.
[00:11:16] Now, Matty, I'd go back and edit 500 billion times. I change so many things. when I get to the first end of my first draft and I realized now I need to go back and tweak and polish and fix and make the bad guy seem bad or not so bad or whatever is necessary. So the first draft is me sort of finding that story, and then I go back and polish it to make sure the pieces fit together when and where they should. And also to make sure that all the pieces are there and that the right people know them. I write in multiple points of view, so I don't want to ascribe a bit of information to someone who can't know it.
[00:12:01] And that's the other pitfall. in The First to Lie there's Ellie and Meg and Nora, and they only know what they know. And what I had to be really careful about was since I, the author, eventually learn all those things that only the person who knows it can know it, not the other characters, if that makes any sense at all.
[00:12:21] Matty: It absolutely does. When you're going back and doing your many revisions, is it really more polishing, or do you ever find that when you go back to the beginning and start reading again, as you're saying some of your readers do, that you find that early on it was heading toward one resolution that then took another turn at a later point and you have to do more plot reworking, or is it more polishing and checking those kinds of logistical details?
[00:12:47] Hank: All those things, all those things. I mean, I think that when there's a point that the plot seems to be going one direction, then it doesn't, that can be good. that can lead the reader to believe that something is going to happen. And then when it doesn't, they are misdirected from the things that are happening. So what often happens, and one of my fun things that I see, in a revision is when I go back and I see the things that I put in that I didn't know why they were there initially, but later on in the book, They're useful -- like, Oh, that's who that phone call was. That's what that knock on the door was. That's why they left their notebook on the desk. All those little kinds of things that can be useful later as pieces in the story.
[00:13:28] Lee Child used to talk about how the first hundred pages of his book was like one of those cooking shows where they give you a bunch of ingredients and then you have to make something out of that. And he says the first hundred pages of his books, he's just putting ingredients in the refrigerator. the dog and the blue car and the butterfly and the woman from Chicago, and it all goes there, he's just putting that stuff in. And then later, as the book starts taking its turn in the middle, toward the ending, then he starts taking those things out of the refrigerator, those things that he didn't know why he put in, and uses them to weave the tapestry -- now I'm mixing my metaphors horribly -- using them to make that tapestry recipe, let's say, for what he's really cooking up. And so, when I'm in my first a hundred pages of the book, I'm just like typing, "Okay, fine, she has a dog. Okay, there's the sister. All right. She graduated in the fall." I don't know. It just all goes in there. And then later I see if I can use it. And of course, some of that comes out or some of it just becomes interesting but irrelevant for the big picture story.
[00:14:37] I have had readers who say, "You put so many red herrings in your book," and I say, "I don't put any red herrings in my book. There are none. Completely none. It's just what is. It's just what's there. And my readers are so smart and so wise and so savvy and so experienced at reading suspense that they're all thinking that everything means something. Sometimes it's just what it is. In my new book, The First to Lie, someone said, "Ooh, I knew because they used SPF 50, that X, Y, and Z," and I said, "They used SPF 50 sunscreen, so what?" And she said, "Didn't that mean something?" And I'm like, "No," but she was convinced that it did. So that's part of the fun of reading suspense is that we readers try to figure out the story and try to figure out the answer before the author can tell us. And my joy as an author is to say, "Okay, sister, you try to figure it out, but you won't be able to."
[00:15:34] Matty: It's an interesting consideration that the SPF 50 thing in a way did have meaning in the sense that I read it as an indication of the young woman's feeling about how close she was with her boyfriend. She knew exactly what he was talking about.
[00:15:50] Hank: That's exactly what it meant. That's what it meant.
[00:15:53] Matty: But it didn't mean anything larger about the who done it of it.
[00:15:55] Hank: No. And you read it perfectly. It's just that he was speaking shorthand to her and she understood the shorthand. And that was how, when they were 16, or however old, they were 15, they were so connected. This was how she knew. And that's what that was for. You're exactly right. And that was a shorthand for me, indication of a feeling of closeness. But the idea that it was SPF 50, this other reader decided that was like a clue. Maybe I'll use it in another book.
[00:16:25] Matty: It's interesting because the other quote that I pulled out to talk about, I think we've already covered what I planned to ask you about this, but it was, Each event is part of the bigger story, but we don't always know what it is. And that was from The Murder List. And I was going to use that as an entree to talking about pantsing versus plotting. And I think, we've already talked about sort of the pantser or plotter thing.
[00:16:47] Hank: One of the things that when you pull up that line from The Murder List, which I'll show you this, this is The Murder List for people who are watching you, not just listening, The Murder List, which is a USA Today bestseller I'm so proud of. I think I can reveal to you that that line that you read was me, Hank, in the midst of writing, sort of crying for help saying, "I don't have any idea what this story means. And I know I'm going to get there somewhere." And then I remember writing this and I remember thinking, well, that's probably how she feels about it too right now. So that means I'm probably on the right track. I'm trying to be her and be with her, and so we were sort of simpatico on this journey together. So I looked at that as a positive, although I can tell you, cause it's just us, that's just me, the author, going, "Oh my golly. I have no idea."
[00:17:39] Matty: It would be a great T-shirt or bumper sticker, though. The message over the writer's desk, when they're feeling that way, they can look up and see each event is part of a bigger story. That's a good reminder.
[00:17:50] Hank: Exactly exactly. I taught a class at MIT Endicott Estate for several years. And I make T-shirts for some of the students that have gone to them. And my T-shirt says, Anything can work. And I think that's my motto for writing. when people, students ask me about the rules for this or the rules for that, or Can I start with weather? or Can I have multiple points of view? or Can I have somebody have a dream? I said, "Anything can work if you make it work, but there are some things that are riskier than other things. But, sure, go for it." You know, I think when people are writing and people are looking for the secret of the thing, that if only we all knew, we could all be Lee Child or Ruth Ware, and there isn't a thing. There isn't a thing. There's each of us doing it the way we can and what works the best for us.
[00:18:46] And as a reporter for all these years, one of the things that I really learned, knock on wood, is how to structure a story. When you talk about writing a news story, which I've written a news story semi daily, essentially for 43 years, I know they have to have a beginning, middle, and an end -- that story structure is ingrained in my head -- with a character you care about, a problem that needs to be solved. An important problem that needs to be solved. An important problem that you care about that needs to be solved, where the good guys win, and the bad guys get what's coming to them. And in the end, there's some justice and you get to change the world a little bit.
[00:19:26] So that template, that architecture is something that I used and practiced and honed for 30 some years before I ever started writing fiction. So that's storytelling and, exactly as you were saying early on, what comes next and what comes next and what's revealed and the suspense, a good news story has to be just as suspenseful and just as compelling and just as riveting and just as actually entertaining, as crime fiction, because I don't want you to turn the channel when you're watching my stories on TV. And I don't want you to put my books down. So that storytelling Scheherazade ability came from years and years and years of practice and getting used to the rhythm of it and the music of it. When you talk about what do I take from my day job that helps me with writing, one of the key elements is that I had learned how to tell a story. And I practiced telling story.
[00:20:23] And my other thing about that, I know I'm talking too much, the other thing about that is I also learned how to tell it without any extraneous stuff, without any tangents, without any digression, without trying to be funny, without trying to write the heck out of it. Straightforward, crisp, clear, only what's important, straight line story. In my investigative stories, I may know a lot of stuff, but I don't put it all in the story. So that's fairness, that only the straight-line trunk of the tree, no branches. Writing for journalism has also really informed my crime fiction writing.
[00:21:05] Matty: That's a great lead into my third question, which was that one of the other people who talked about his day job was Bruce Coffin. He was on the podcast talking about, what writers get wrong about police procedure and how to avoid those problems. And one of the things he talked about was the fact that as a police officer, he couldn't give in to the temptation to write a completely factually accurate rendition of that because parts of it would be very boring: how much time they spend on paperwork, or how long it takes to get test results back, and things like that. And in The First to Lie, one of your characters is an investigative reporter. So can you just give us insight into where are you're willing to bend the real life of an investigative reporter in order to follow that straight line story that you just talked about?
[00:21:56] Hank: Hmm. What an interesting question. Everything in my books is very realistic, extremely realistic, even including when every reporter probably in every story I've ever written will say something like, "People don't understand how much of this is just sitting at your desk being on the phone, or how much of this is just sitting at your desk being on the computer, or how much of it is waiting for your news director boss to give you the okay." I just put that out there. I make my investigative reporters usually I make them not have to produce a story right away. As an investigative reporter, I'm allowed to work on my stories a little bit longer, a lot longer, than I did when I was a general assignment reporter, when I would go in at nine o'clock in the morning and have to put on the story at six o'clock that night, no questions, no excuses, no the muse hasn't struck me. And so it would be difficult to write a mystery about a general assignment reporter, because they would always have a boss breathing down their neck saying, Where's the story? Where's the story. Where's the story for the six o'clock news?
[00:23:01] And that's why I made my reporters be investigative reporters, who are given time to research and they don't have to have a story on right away and the news director bosses know that it may take more time, some time to do it. And that's why in The First to Lie, for instance, the reporter Ellie is new, and her station isn't even on the air yet.
[00:23:24] And her boss says, we're on the air in three weeks and so you have to come up with this story in three weeks. So that gives me the ticking clock, but it's fair. And that's how I handle that. So I had the reporters admit that a lot of it isn't glamorous, and feel the time pressure of having to put a story on the air because after all, that's why they have the job, but I give them a little bit of leeway of time.
[00:23:53] And you also hear in The First to Lie, there's a scene where they're discussing whether something is fair or legal or what lines they can cross. I got the idea for this story by all my times of going undercover and in disguise as a reporter. And whether you can pretend to be someone else to get a story. And you know, that's an ethical line that you have to discuss and a legal line that you have to discuss.
[00:24:22] And one of the things that I love about The First to Lie is I think that helps reveal that people who call me with tips say, "I have a great story for you, but you can't put it on the air until I say it's okay." I'm like, "I'm not putting it on the air until I say it's okay." And I'm a television reporter, and just because you call me on the phone doesn't mean something's going on TV, but, and that's what people sometimes don't understand too, that it's not like a newspaper where I tucked the phone on my shoulder and type, and then send it to rewrite. In television, it takes a while. It takes a while in newspapers, too, because you have to check the story and research the story and make sure it's true because as every single reporter and every single book I've ever written probably says, the worst thing a reporter can do is to get something wrong. And so everything we do is geared to make sure that the story is right.
[00:25:15] And that's one of the things that there's a battle in The First to Lie between two journalists, one of whom wants to make sure the story is right, and one of whom wants to get it on the air. And what is that battle about how that will work and what will happen if the winner is the wrong person.
[00:25:33] Matty: That's great. Well, Hank, you have provided so much fantastic advice and insight for the writers and authors who are listening to this podcast. I really appreciate you spending the time to chat with us about this.
[00:25:46] Hank: It's my pleasure. I love talking about this. I think each us, whatever we do in our day job, I think each of us has special things that they bring to our crime fiction, that cool stuff. Cool inside info that we don't even know that we know. Whether you're an accountant or run a daycare center or a teacher or the person who puts the groceries in the bag at a grocery store, you have knowledge, you have insight, you see people and you know how they behave in whatever milieu you are. So I think when we write a book that's authentic, we bring that special work knowledge to it. And so I want people to, even if they're writing about a private investigator and they're not a private investigator or whoever they're writing about, bring your own stuff to it, things that you probably don't know you know. And one of the joys of making a book be authentic and genuine, and is that you put that in.
[00:26:45] So Matty, thank you. I'm so pleased to be here today. Find me on Facebook, you all. Find me on Instagram and Twitter. If you come to my website and click on Contact it comes right to me. And my schedule for my book tour for The First to Lie is right now, it's just launched. So no pressure. It's just my career. I hope you will look for The First to Lie.
[00:27:11] Matty: I went to one of those virtual events and it was great fun. I think that the listeners of the podcast will recognize that anytime they have an opportunity to hear you speak, Hank, they should seize that.
[00:27:21] Hank: Oh, that's so nice. Matty. Thank you. And thank you for your wonderful program.
[00:27:25] Matty: My pleasure. Thank you, Hank.
[00:04:13] As a crime fiction writer, I am hoarding secrets a little bit from the readers, right? I'm letting them out at the point where it helps the pacing and helps the conflict and helps the advancing of the story in my book. And just like, if I could say one more thing about this, and it's such a perfect thing for you to pick and just like in investigative reporting, when I don't know what the next puzzle piece will be because I'm going out to find it. It's exactly the same thing. as writing crime fiction in my novels. I don't know what's going to happen next. I don't know what all the secrets are, and I am digging through my book, forging ahead, I hope, to find what they are.
[00:04:55] So I don't know the end of my investigative stories. Of course, I don't because if I did, they wouldn't be new. And I don't know what's the ending of my crime fiction stories as well, because I'm in the book, I'm writing the book to find out what the ending is. And I always think, in television, if I knew the end of the story, as I said, it wouldn't be new. You would know it too. It wouldn't be a big deal at all, but if I can reveal it, if I can be the one to reveal the secrets and things can change as a result of that, that's what I'm going for. So in crime fiction, when I'm writing my novel, I don't know what the end will be. And so it is a surprise to me as well.
[00:05:37] And that's good because it's a surprise to the reader as well, too. When people say, wow, the end of The First to Lie, you really surprised me. Or even the middle of The First to Lie, you really surprised me with the twists. I say, "Yeah, wasn't that a surprise?" Because I surprised myself. And that's the goal of investigative reporting, and that's the goal of crime fiction.
[00:05:59] And in crime fiction, I always think if I knew the end, I will inevitably be writing toward that. Do you know what I mean? I'd be seeing that and pushing my characters and convincing them, shepherding them to go in that direction. But I don't want to do that. I want to see what they really want and what they really need and how far they will go to get it. And that's what makes the stories, I hope, be genuine and authentic.
[00:06:28] So just the world's longest answer to your wonderful question, just as in investigative reporting, I'm seeing what reality is and how those real puzzle pieces go together into a news story. In crime fiction, I'm seeing what my fictional reality is, if I can say that, and seeing how those pieces eventually work together to come into a story.
[00:06:48] So I think that my years of investigative reporting -- 43 years and still on the air -- have allowed me to, and it's not always easy, Matty. I have to say it. I don't mean it to sound easy because it's often horrifically difficult, like today writing, but, I have this sort of faith, trust in the process of writing that if I just keep going, essentially keep researching, not researching online, but researching my story in my head as I'm writing in real life, that the story, at some point, what I'm trying to write will sort of emerge and bloom. And there's always the moment -- that devoutly hoped for moment -- when I think, Oh, there it is. that's what this is about. but I don't know that in the beginning, just like I don't know in an investigative story what the story will be.
[00:07:41] Matty: It sounds almost like your characters are hoarding some of the information from you and you're having to interrogate them in order to see where the story is going.
[00:07:51] Hank: I think you're so right about that. Sue Grafton used to tell me that Kinsey Millhone, her character, kept secrets from her throughout and Sue said she found out information and background and history about Kinsey every time she wrote a book, Kinsey let her know something else. Sue didn't do big biographical rundowns, or interviews with her characters, or anything like that, and nor do I. it just evolves. And if you're lucky and if you work hard, and if you don't give up, I'm sort of talking to myself as much as I am to you all, it will emerge.
[00:08:30] Matty: Do you find that as the characters are revealing their information to you, and then they're by extension revealing the information to the reader, do you ever feel like you then have to go back and rearrange where those revelations took place? Because I think one of the very difficult things about writing mysteries is you need to spread out those revelations. You don't want them all clumped up at the end so that the reader says, that was cheating, you know? Or you don't want to reveal them too early because then it's a giveaway. Do you have to go back and adjust that or does the information seem to surface for you where it needs to?
[00:09:03] Hank: both answers. I actively avoid that sort of Hercule Poirot ending, where they gather everyone in the drawing room and then say, it's not you because of this. It's not you because of this. It's not you because of this. It's you because of this. And you think, how was I supposed to know that? It's not that it's not interesting and it's not that Agatha Christie wasn't the brilliant genius of the planet. she had her way of making the big reveal at the end. But I write psychological fiction, psychological suspense. And so the key of psychological suspense is to feed out that information along the way, and with a little misdirection and a little sleight of hand, make the reader think one thing is important when really it's the other thing that's important. And in the end, when it all goes together in a way that the reader hadn't predicted, then it's fair. that is my complete goal is at the ending, have the reader say, Oh, I should have seen that. It was all there.
[00:10:04] And I have people have written to me after reading The First to Lie and after reading The Murder List saying that they went back instantly and read the book again to see how I did it. And that is the highest compliment because they were fooled, and they were entertained. And that's my goal completely. I want you to miss your stop on the T -- you remember the T -- I want you to miss your stop on the T because you're reading this book. And then in the end, though, I want you to say, Oh, what a good book. I should've seen that coming.
[00:10:35] So David Mamet has said, and I've read that, he said that if you have a problem in act three, you really have a problem in act one. And one of those problems might be that you revealed something too soon, you gave something away and you made it too easy or you made the story not be interesting. it isn't something that I worry about because, and here's the key, since I don't know, I can't give it away because I don't know it. So I am finding it when it is relevant and reasonable to find it, which often, knock on wood, is the place that it's supposed to be in the story.
[00:11:16] Now, Matty, I'd go back and edit 500 billion times. I change so many things. when I get to the first end of my first draft and I realized now I need to go back and tweak and polish and fix and make the bad guy seem bad or not so bad or whatever is necessary. So the first draft is me sort of finding that story, and then I go back and polish it to make sure the pieces fit together when and where they should. And also to make sure that all the pieces are there and that the right people know them. I write in multiple points of view, so I don't want to ascribe a bit of information to someone who can't know it.
[00:12:01] And that's the other pitfall. in The First to Lie there's Ellie and Meg and Nora, and they only know what they know. And what I had to be really careful about was since I, the author, eventually learn all those things that only the person who knows it can know it, not the other characters, if that makes any sense at all.
[00:12:21] Matty: It absolutely does. When you're going back and doing your many revisions, is it really more polishing, or do you ever find that when you go back to the beginning and start reading again, as you're saying some of your readers do, that you find that early on it was heading toward one resolution that then took another turn at a later point and you have to do more plot reworking, or is it more polishing and checking those kinds of logistical details?
[00:12:47] Hank: All those things, all those things. I mean, I think that when there's a point that the plot seems to be going one direction, then it doesn't, that can be good. that can lead the reader to believe that something is going to happen. And then when it doesn't, they are misdirected from the things that are happening. So what often happens, and one of my fun things that I see, in a revision is when I go back and I see the things that I put in that I didn't know why they were there initially, but later on in the book, They're useful -- like, Oh, that's who that phone call was. That's what that knock on the door was. That's why they left their notebook on the desk. All those little kinds of things that can be useful later as pieces in the story.
[00:13:28] Lee Child used to talk about how the first hundred pages of his book was like one of those cooking shows where they give you a bunch of ingredients and then you have to make something out of that. And he says the first hundred pages of his books, he's just putting ingredients in the refrigerator. the dog and the blue car and the butterfly and the woman from Chicago, and it all goes there, he's just putting that stuff in. And then later, as the book starts taking its turn in the middle, toward the ending, then he starts taking those things out of the refrigerator, those things that he didn't know why he put in, and uses them to weave the tapestry -- now I'm mixing my metaphors horribly -- using them to make that tapestry recipe, let's say, for what he's really cooking up. And so, when I'm in my first a hundred pages of the book, I'm just like typing, "Okay, fine, she has a dog. Okay, there's the sister. All right. She graduated in the fall." I don't know. It just all goes in there. And then later I see if I can use it. And of course, some of that comes out or some of it just becomes interesting but irrelevant for the big picture story.
[00:14:37] I have had readers who say, "You put so many red herrings in your book," and I say, "I don't put any red herrings in my book. There are none. Completely none. It's just what is. It's just what's there. And my readers are so smart and so wise and so savvy and so experienced at reading suspense that they're all thinking that everything means something. Sometimes it's just what it is. In my new book, The First to Lie, someone said, "Ooh, I knew because they used SPF 50, that X, Y, and Z," and I said, "They used SPF 50 sunscreen, so what?" And she said, "Didn't that mean something?" And I'm like, "No," but she was convinced that it did. So that's part of the fun of reading suspense is that we readers try to figure out the story and try to figure out the answer before the author can tell us. And my joy as an author is to say, "Okay, sister, you try to figure it out, but you won't be able to."
[00:15:34] Matty: It's an interesting consideration that the SPF 50 thing in a way did have meaning in the sense that I read it as an indication of the young woman's feeling about how close she was with her boyfriend. She knew exactly what he was talking about.
[00:15:50] Hank: That's exactly what it meant. That's what it meant.
[00:15:53] Matty: But it didn't mean anything larger about the who done it of it.
[00:15:55] Hank: No. And you read it perfectly. It's just that he was speaking shorthand to her and she understood the shorthand. And that was how, when they were 16, or however old, they were 15, they were so connected. This was how she knew. And that's what that was for. You're exactly right. And that was a shorthand for me, indication of a feeling of closeness. But the idea that it was SPF 50, this other reader decided that was like a clue. Maybe I'll use it in another book.
[00:16:25] Matty: It's interesting because the other quote that I pulled out to talk about, I think we've already covered what I planned to ask you about this, but it was, Each event is part of the bigger story, but we don't always know what it is. And that was from The Murder List. And I was going to use that as an entree to talking about pantsing versus plotting. And I think, we've already talked about sort of the pantser or plotter thing.
[00:16:47] Hank: One of the things that when you pull up that line from The Murder List, which I'll show you this, this is The Murder List for people who are watching you, not just listening, The Murder List, which is a USA Today bestseller I'm so proud of. I think I can reveal to you that that line that you read was me, Hank, in the midst of writing, sort of crying for help saying, "I don't have any idea what this story means. And I know I'm going to get there somewhere." And then I remember writing this and I remember thinking, well, that's probably how she feels about it too right now. So that means I'm probably on the right track. I'm trying to be her and be with her, and so we were sort of simpatico on this journey together. So I looked at that as a positive, although I can tell you, cause it's just us, that's just me, the author, going, "Oh my golly. I have no idea."
[00:17:39] Matty: It would be a great T-shirt or bumper sticker, though. The message over the writer's desk, when they're feeling that way, they can look up and see each event is part of a bigger story. That's a good reminder.
[00:17:50] Hank: Exactly exactly. I taught a class at MIT Endicott Estate for several years. And I make T-shirts for some of the students that have gone to them. And my T-shirt says, Anything can work. And I think that's my motto for writing. when people, students ask me about the rules for this or the rules for that, or Can I start with weather? or Can I have multiple points of view? or Can I have somebody have a dream? I said, "Anything can work if you make it work, but there are some things that are riskier than other things. But, sure, go for it." You know, I think when people are writing and people are looking for the secret of the thing, that if only we all knew, we could all be Lee Child or Ruth Ware, and there isn't a thing. There isn't a thing. There's each of us doing it the way we can and what works the best for us.
[00:18:46] And as a reporter for all these years, one of the things that I really learned, knock on wood, is how to structure a story. When you talk about writing a news story, which I've written a news story semi daily, essentially for 43 years, I know they have to have a beginning, middle, and an end -- that story structure is ingrained in my head -- with a character you care about, a problem that needs to be solved. An important problem that needs to be solved. An important problem that you care about that needs to be solved, where the good guys win, and the bad guys get what's coming to them. And in the end, there's some justice and you get to change the world a little bit.
[00:19:26] So that template, that architecture is something that I used and practiced and honed for 30 some years before I ever started writing fiction. So that's storytelling and, exactly as you were saying early on, what comes next and what comes next and what's revealed and the suspense, a good news story has to be just as suspenseful and just as compelling and just as riveting and just as actually entertaining, as crime fiction, because I don't want you to turn the channel when you're watching my stories on TV. And I don't want you to put my books down. So that storytelling Scheherazade ability came from years and years and years of practice and getting used to the rhythm of it and the music of it. When you talk about what do I take from my day job that helps me with writing, one of the key elements is that I had learned how to tell a story. And I practiced telling story.
[00:20:23] And my other thing about that, I know I'm talking too much, the other thing about that is I also learned how to tell it without any extraneous stuff, without any tangents, without any digression, without trying to be funny, without trying to write the heck out of it. Straightforward, crisp, clear, only what's important, straight line story. In my investigative stories, I may know a lot of stuff, but I don't put it all in the story. So that's fairness, that only the straight-line trunk of the tree, no branches. Writing for journalism has also really informed my crime fiction writing.
[00:21:05] Matty: That's a great lead into my third question, which was that one of the other people who talked about his day job was Bruce Coffin. He was on the podcast talking about, what writers get wrong about police procedure and how to avoid those problems. And one of the things he talked about was the fact that as a police officer, he couldn't give in to the temptation to write a completely factually accurate rendition of that because parts of it would be very boring: how much time they spend on paperwork, or how long it takes to get test results back, and things like that. And in The First to Lie, one of your characters is an investigative reporter. So can you just give us insight into where are you're willing to bend the real life of an investigative reporter in order to follow that straight line story that you just talked about?
[00:21:56] Hank: Hmm. What an interesting question. Everything in my books is very realistic, extremely realistic, even including when every reporter probably in every story I've ever written will say something like, "People don't understand how much of this is just sitting at your desk being on the phone, or how much of this is just sitting at your desk being on the computer, or how much of it is waiting for your news director boss to give you the okay." I just put that out there. I make my investigative reporters usually I make them not have to produce a story right away. As an investigative reporter, I'm allowed to work on my stories a little bit longer, a lot longer, than I did when I was a general assignment reporter, when I would go in at nine o'clock in the morning and have to put on the story at six o'clock that night, no questions, no excuses, no the muse hasn't struck me. And so it would be difficult to write a mystery about a general assignment reporter, because they would always have a boss breathing down their neck saying, Where's the story? Where's the story. Where's the story for the six o'clock news?
[00:23:01] And that's why I made my reporters be investigative reporters, who are given time to research and they don't have to have a story on right away and the news director bosses know that it may take more time, some time to do it. And that's why in The First to Lie, for instance, the reporter Ellie is new, and her station isn't even on the air yet.
[00:23:24] And her boss says, we're on the air in three weeks and so you have to come up with this story in three weeks. So that gives me the ticking clock, but it's fair. And that's how I handle that. So I had the reporters admit that a lot of it isn't glamorous, and feel the time pressure of having to put a story on the air because after all, that's why they have the job, but I give them a little bit of leeway of time.
[00:23:53] And you also hear in The First to Lie, there's a scene where they're discussing whether something is fair or legal or what lines they can cross. I got the idea for this story by all my times of going undercover and in disguise as a reporter. And whether you can pretend to be someone else to get a story. And you know, that's an ethical line that you have to discuss and a legal line that you have to discuss.
[00:24:22] And one of the things that I love about The First to Lie is I think that helps reveal that people who call me with tips say, "I have a great story for you, but you can't put it on the air until I say it's okay." I'm like, "I'm not putting it on the air until I say it's okay." And I'm a television reporter, and just because you call me on the phone doesn't mean something's going on TV, but, and that's what people sometimes don't understand too, that it's not like a newspaper where I tucked the phone on my shoulder and type, and then send it to rewrite. In television, it takes a while. It takes a while in newspapers, too, because you have to check the story and research the story and make sure it's true because as every single reporter and every single book I've ever written probably says, the worst thing a reporter can do is to get something wrong. And so everything we do is geared to make sure that the story is right.
[00:25:15] And that's one of the things that there's a battle in The First to Lie between two journalists, one of whom wants to make sure the story is right, and one of whom wants to get it on the air. And what is that battle about how that will work and what will happen if the winner is the wrong person.
[00:25:33] Matty: That's great. Well, Hank, you have provided so much fantastic advice and insight for the writers and authors who are listening to this podcast. I really appreciate you spending the time to chat with us about this.
[00:25:46] Hank: It's my pleasure. I love talking about this. I think each us, whatever we do in our day job, I think each of us has special things that they bring to our crime fiction, that cool stuff. Cool inside info that we don't even know that we know. Whether you're an accountant or run a daycare center or a teacher or the person who puts the groceries in the bag at a grocery store, you have knowledge, you have insight, you see people and you know how they behave in whatever milieu you are. So I think when we write a book that's authentic, we bring that special work knowledge to it. And so I want people to, even if they're writing about a private investigator and they're not a private investigator or whoever they're writing about, bring your own stuff to it, things that you probably don't know you know. And one of the joys of making a book be authentic and genuine, and is that you put that in.
[00:26:45] So Matty, thank you. I'm so pleased to be here today. Find me on Facebook, you all. Find me on Instagram and Twitter. If you come to my website and click on Contact it comes right to me. And my schedule for my book tour for The First to Lie is right now, it's just launched. So no pressure. It's just my career. I hope you will look for The First to Lie.
[00:27:11] Matty: I went to one of those virtual events and it was great fun. I think that the listeners of the podcast will recognize that anytime they have an opportunity to hear you speak, Hank, they should seize that.
[00:27:21] Hank: Oh, that's so nice. Matty. Thank you. And thank you for your wonderful program.
[00:27:25] Matty: My pleasure. Thank you, Hank.
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Hank. I’d love to hear whether the endings of your stories come as a surprise to you—as they do for Hank—or whether you need to know where the story will end up when you start, as I do.
Links
https://hankphillippiryan.com/
https://hankphillippiryan.com/books/the-first-to-lie/
https://hankphillippiryan.com/books/the-murder-list/
https://www.facebook.com/HankPhillippiRyanAuthor/
https://twitter.com/hankpryan
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/526376.Hank_Phillippi_Ryan
https://www.pinterest.com/hankphillippiry/
https://www.instagram.com/hankpryan/
https://hankphillippiryan.com/books/the-first-to-lie/
https://hankphillippiryan.com/books/the-murder-list/
https://www.facebook.com/HankPhillippiRyanAuthor/
https://twitter.com/hankpryan
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/526376.Hank_Phillippi_Ryan
https://www.pinterest.com/hankphillippiry/
https://www.instagram.com/hankpryan/
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