A Word on Words; 3719; Jt Ellison

fb liz from nashville studio way celebrating offers literature and ideas for more than three decades this is word on words johnson and johnson in the once again welcome to learn words they would have with us at a lesson she's the best selling author of the critically acclaimed david jackson series include all the pretty girl fourteen there's a black she was recently named best mysteries are under two thousand

eight minus four saints she's here today don't share a mobile phone judas kiss getting by from an injured as justice of the thanks for having me back and long taylor has become a character in american fiction and you later prepared them at some people across the screen who don't realize that your novels are set in nashville tennessee are old hometown and dumb it's amazing to me of how accurately you describe sayings henn there's an occasional there was an occasional poetic license taking blood basically and we begin this year with this mystery of a resale driving on to just a lot to recover a sister to go play tennis for long and just

as you have to begin with the most writers look for it new york la chicago las vegas not realizing that there isn't as much action in nashville and as much stuart potential initially there is anywhere in the country or the world you wouldn't take some pleasure to know about your writing about a city you know i absolutely want to decide and i think partially on the contrary and i don't want to do what everybody else is doing but the other part of it nashville is such an amazing city i i fell in love i have a transplant moved here in ninety eight and i absolutely fell in love with it and i wanted to start telling nashville stories and he also just i found that everybody else is going off in this

direction and i wanted to go more in the laura lippman direction that the smaller towns that people are familiar with and give them a chance to get to know a part of a country that they aren't so intimately familiar with that's like well that's a very good reason why it makes it real it makes it fun for me as an earth in to read along listener is going to enter so alone bump into a place i know so well and they're wrong way that day to play tennis and their sisters and their lawyers and they're quite good but not apply that moment your book on the show this to nurses is home and bloody tragedy of our lives gibraltar can afford gas now we have to say we talked before about how you write in

and we'll learn how one makes sense and and i know it's in the past about a job on this book did you know where was gone before you got there this is the first book i actually it wasn't an outline so much as a synopsis it's a thirteen page synopsis usually in my seventies or two pages three tops this warren was so complicated and i wanted to do some things differently so i went ahead and and wrote it all out it was also a coalition tell the story of it was supposed to the book in the series which would have been the first book of the next contract because i wanted to have something really delicious contract which means the next schechter lose your and i wanted something really medium that the publisher would sit up and say oh yeah we would assign her to three more but my editor took one look at it and said i know what you're trying to do we're going to do or about that we want this one for the next book is it's just so much bigger it's it's a better book i think and the first to become a better stronger writer as i go the whys that you could say practice

makes me really it's it's far from perfect i hope i get better and better and better but this this was the and the book i felt more of her breakthrough as a writer writing but of course i hated it when i turned it and it was positive that they were going to say no it's terrible but i we don't want to do it particularly the band and the way things are set up i was worried they were going to let me do that through johnny cash flow great song born and so you've got a girl and taylor taylor jackson is a cop the ranking police also homicide detective and inevitably when the show finds her sister sort of not surprisingly taylor shows up on the seine when you talk about terror in in this world this time it seems to me that

as always she's right in the heart of it he's got a control just gonna take charge amazingly she has the great respect of their peers for the most part and if you look at the national police department you will find among the very top right off of a number of really competent wanted us to get it how much talking to women who caught about formulating this character taylor jackson i didn't i really didn't want to be clouded by any of their background and because so many in taylor does not experience the sexual harassment that a lot of these female cops have had to deal with one and i did that your arm she would break your security you wouldn't dr say something

off color to her in that way but that does happen and it happens a lot and i wanted to stay as far away from that is possible to make her taylor as a character more iconic and make her more you know that the hero and because nobody would ever mess with the hero and that something was a literary crime fiction these days there's a lot of female a protagonist that aren't as strong that show weakness and that was the joy of reading to discuss because i did get to show a little bit of taylor's weakness and end that was a whole new avenue for me where you decided you're going down the road oh let's talk about that weakness found that goes because you know she's not perfect human being as she does have a lover john baldwin hulu an fbi agents stationed right in her hometown nashville tennessee he's not outside detective

bart somehow you managed to create a crime that goes beyond a local state offense store solar thermal also can legitimately not just help is laying low because it's it's it's it's a larger crime by a killer who defeated talk about and talk about their interaction and you talk about respect other offices have for her and nobody has more respect for her and john thought at times the relationship <unk> sure sure and it has to be i mean it's like you know my husband and i get along famously ninety nine percent of the time there is that one percent that we get ourselves a little spat and everything and that's what that's what has to happen for these books to be realistic and it's something that's

what i'm trying to pray is how real people interact how real cops interact and what they're faced with you know it's a difficult life that they leave and they're sitting here at all of these murders on their mind and the kinds of things that they see the kinds of things that they deal with and they would tailor involvement have each other to it and that's why they're so attracted to each other because they both understand they both want to find out why these things are happening and they both respect the other is going through the exact same thing but to the extent that we know about this though nominee at so as rotten and sixty four much of the story we normally go along the years ago and so but you know and it was a lot about that shriver created for the region judy says much

more a mystery than a thriller and in that i was trying to very hard to obscure the killer i didn't want all my other books have been point of view from the killer debut you'd seen what they're thinking seeing what they're doing and in this case it was a strain the streets it's a single mortar instead of but instead of a serial killer coming through town and it's trying to i was trying to sell them are there are there other things that happened in the background of course the sun on the deer but it was it was a really big departure for me on on many levels to write a mystery when you when you talk about where they come from that's why does your life sure i mean we had the phrase the thing is we put a little bit of ourselves and every character so there's a recent years a little bit of meat maybe i mean maybe i want to go off and be an international assassin mediating is he's he's this black

ops kind of person that's you know off the radar he's hired by governments to go murder people that live here in case to use the web work and i'm i'm fascinated by that whole aspect of the political spectrum so it was my chance to pull in a little bit of intrigue international intrigue into a national book pretend the snow white killer they're all right here in iowa and you do that the echo past it's one of the things for writing a series on the top very very tricky you have to give enough of a backstory to italy you know explain what's happening so the reader who's picking up the book for the first time and reading it as a stand alone doesn't get lost but you can't give it all away so i have a tendency to almost to give a little bit away because i am pulling some of these characters through the

series and the pretenders that is a perfect example of one that is used to have its own book is he is actually you know working his way into her life and not so good way the starving and we haven't first with some people go to church on sunday and the watch me every sunday and toppled about jp olsen we discuss the form of tar it is about this it was that did your initials and an unwelcome announce when employees but it's going well now i've been here that you know you're sworn to secrecy it's one of the easier ways to break into when you're a female writer reading psychological thrillers to have a name that someone androgynous eulogy at allison i get the i get fan mail to mr allison which is great men sometimes don't take a chance on a female author and if they got initials that maybe they'll think it's

a man and i'll take a chance on them and it's also a safety factor i mean i'm i'm writing about creepy creeps and i'd rather not have my name on the public domain attempts to figure out some very dangerous creature shore and some of the research i do is is a little bit dangerous and i'm i've gotten off the beaten path before him i'd just rather not have me and it also and this may sound completely crazy but it got reviews bad reviews you know wonderful things happen bad things that happen will happen to jt allison and i can separate myself from those things then and it's a really interesting odd device to keep me sane or maybe it makes me and to some of you just very unpopular j diaz and that's not very lean about current noble judas kiss one of the projects and theories i when i when i opened the book oh i thought my god i'm suitably and she

brings the story of player to an end and so we will begin with a new character and her next book and i was tempted to look to the end and find out where that wouldn't be the case but that's on a sports the story whether it goes on or whether it ends well it has an o henry twist of them at the at the finish but it was on my mind as i wouldn't because i won't fall are we gonna find out and catch on will look pursued the war i had that feeling as a reader as a renewal of your books as a writer how you approach that is it's it's cleaned out well in advance i know of each book is about i know where the stores are going on there their ellington titled what you know the

contractually they're already tired old anne and i have everything laid out contractually we would publish wright's the others are that the titles are something that you know the book's canceled with those particular title tune sure but i am always thinking about where would take her and how far i can take her in and the limitations of economics of a massive constraint witches tale has a job and her job is in nashville and i begin to strain credulity when i'd bring in you know certain color after serial killer after serial killer which is why the book is a single murder instead of a serial killer so i wanted to keep things as realistic possible but also have them be thrilling and there's a formula to the thriller so i am thinking a long term what's going to happen if hillary where she's going to go how she's going to adapt to having to work in this environment obviously the end of judas and you talk about the comfort zone you have when you write about the place where you live but you also get out comfort zone

in this book i noted that some way and i worked in washington long long time ago george washington parkway had not been built long and parts of it were still being completed but that overlook that's where his body was found the gold turns up the juice gives them about i used to live in the city and its its very easy to fall back on the places that you know and you know well that's part of why baldwin is an fbi agent at quantico because i can take him as my way out of nashville he is the he's the he's the traveling and he can go anywhere because he is federal and he can go to dc oh sure short that's what his job or so the he's my way out of nashville in and it works and so far it's worked very well

but the next block the whole last third takes place in italy so he does have a tendency to have to take taylor and dragged her out of her comfort zone as well but it's fun for me to go into different places new york for fourteen new york since i was little i was in high school so we took a research trip i always i go to the places that i write about especially when it's something that i haven't done in a long time and i'll go up there and i'll get the sense of things and how it smells and feels and what the people look like and take a phone but from that area to get the names right and in their dishes different indigenous people and all the different cities and have that as close as i can you know as we go along and was following taylor ever been through a killer you say it seems to me usually those barriers down a couple of false plants in hugo's

hints and you think you know and then you get another hint and only woman em wrong hand and then i must own the land and it's wrong it's inevitable really has been i think on our issues but we never get their clothes you have you have another beyond the subplots there is a plot that ultimately leads somewhere else as it did talk about how much as a writer goes into creating those false narratives for us that's another one of the tricky things because you want red herrings you want to you want the reader to feel like it's been worth their time you want them to feel like you know they've put a little bit of effort and they put some work and they've done some

of the investigation themselves in addition to what taylor does so the trick is to give them the red herrings but not trick and that's it's a very delicate balance because you never want a reader to feel like they've got an end that's very easy to deal with experian you'll write a story up to a certain point and then stop and say oh but that's not how it worked and then i never want to do that anyone a trick my readers how honestly thought that's my job but i don't want to try do you think that there are moments when you're when you're involved in in the plot on that occur to you that it's a long stretch from nashville tennessee and a murder in was me long long way from live to exploring the world of the initial pillar

songwriters might find lead to far the risk taking you took it and made it work like a the publisher wrote and like the loan was acceptable to talk about the challenge of doing that because it is so it is a writer's bleep taylor is a local personality issues known locally she knows the locale the reader knows the locale after a it take a reader from your hometown in the diary is all a country now learning about natural because of and david jackson but it but it does take some courage i would say to me as a writer to say i'm going to do and i'm gonna i'm gonna knowledge that liam passmore is possible

everywhere and it's as possible in nashville for live in and therefore killer as their will it was for the congo are tuned to really are i mean it's it's exactly where you saying anything's possible this is fiction so we can make up any scenario that we want to be the way you have to do it is to make sure that you've done it without being so outrageously crazy that people are going to throw at a grassroots level and has begun in such a way that you know that this is possible and that's it that's hard to do i mean that's one of the reasons it takes a lot to write about what you've had success now with these books and what's the restraint what pulled you back from going to something for re creation because it when i first started out i made about what i was going to keep these as real as possible that i was going to you know show what law enforcement is really like an in law enforcement doesn't have these massive

leaps of faith where people ride off into the sunset in or chasing after killers think they do and some books but but not in mind that constrain myself to to keeping it is real as possible but it hits its that's the balance that's what you're trying to do you know as you're writing regimen change with success sure would i have less time to write i have less time to write which is the scariest thing because my deadlines haven't changed i still do two books here i still have a book to every march first every september first and fourteen came out in september i been on the road for that the minute that was done we had christmas and then judas kiss came out and went on the road for that have just gotten back and i'll put to march first serve them or don't give them war ii that's expected of you as an unfair because we're expected to do so much and are expected to do promotions were expected to go to conferences to timmy readers which

i love to get up and i don't wanna for sake that part of it but you still have to get the perks die i actually tried to change it which was a disaster which i do get up in the morning and work first and then did business in the afternoon and that just didn't work so i'm back to writing from twelve to four in the afternoon two thousand words a day and just plugging away you know what's amazing to me i sit here we get we cannot drop all those and the regimens are so different their son i find i noticed a result of this as i get up at midnight i go to bed early i got a big night on organ on weekends i worked five days a week mr bauer power is from midnight to six am there are all those incidents and i got up my mind's clearance for others they arrived at the kids off to school like a rider in the day on telephones constantly ranking is the donor us about a three hour or so but you tried to change what you know what

you might expect that but i'm stubborn insects my ways that might mr cave my natural circadian rhythms i start waking up at three four in the afternoon and i'm not a morning person i'm a night owl you know i feel like it so wasted day if i've gone to bed on the same day i got up so you like to i like to work in that afternoon evening time period it's amazing that so many different ways of the mountain and new writers they ask us all the time you know what you do and then they go and try to emulate that which is great that you have to find the thing that works for you and everybody is different everybody's some people can get up at five in the morning and write a concentrated power some like me you know the span of the day i couldn't work at a job that and do that some in this that just takes a text my whole day to get to do the writing process just have a minute left foot likes what's next as a black

which will be out in september it's another taylor bucket said that a continuation of the series and its sound this on the world so there we were we in here or we don't like we'll pick up exactly where we left off well and are you looking it is an already in the can or they're in the camp and i'm working on the fifth book which is called the immortals to be out in march of two thousand men and that a ball that one's a little bit of supernatural a glass in the morning you take a woman like me on those were emptied taylor into the world of work and temper as well only that you buy twice that assuming that i'm still here i live forty are being left to run well over eighty now and and i'm not sure how long we're not sure how long number every morning and read about taylor over exciting people but thanks so much for coming in to for having me and thanks all of you for watching and johnson the lawyer for word on words he

predicts better here