A Conversation with Novelist Richard Brawer

with Richard Brawer

We are delighted to welcome novelist Richard Brawer to Omnimystery News today.

Richard is the author of several series and non-series novels, one of the latter being The Nano Experiment, which was originally published in trade paperback as Beyond Guilty in 2010 and is now available as an ebook.

We recently caught up with Richard and had a chance to talk about his work.

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Omnimystery News: Your first published books were part of a series featuring a recurring character. Tell us a little more about them.

Photo provided courtesy of
Richard Brawer

Richard Brawer: I started out writing a crime series. Between 1994 and 2003 I wrote three mysteries featuring detective David Nance.

Though I was an avid reader of mysteries, suspense and historical fiction novels, the last thing I ever thought I would do, would be to write a book. Then I read a horrendous newspaper article about a father in whose child was born with brain damage and he refused to take him home from the hospital. He thought he could return the child like a damaged piece of merchandise he bought in a store. The nurses were outraged and their disgust was quoted in the article.

I began making notes. The notes turned into paragraphs and the paragraphs into chapters. Thus my first mystery, Secrets Can be Deadly was born featuring detective, David Nance.

David was struggling to start his own home security business and did a little detective work on the side. His cases were mostly to expose cheating spouses and investigating insurance scams — were the jewels and car really stolen. But when his mother, a nurse, was murdered he vowed to find her killer.

After querying agents and receiving enough rejection letters to paper my office walls, a friend told me about a small publisher in of all places the town next to mine. I dropped in cold and gave them the book. Two weeks later they agreed to publish it. They liked it because I set it in the real Monmouth County, NJ and had historical vignettes about the county. After the book came out they asked me for another which I wrote about a murdered jeweler and then a third where a stock scammer was a murdered. These were all inspired by stories in the local newspaper.

OMN: How did David Nance change over the course of three books?

RB: Of course my detective had a girlfriend. All detectives have girlfriends. And of course they have their problems. This is where the growth comes in. The detective and his girlfriend have to resolve a few personal issues and those issues continue to grow throughout the three books.

When the publisher retired in 2010 she returned the rights to me. I re-wrote the books, bringing them up to date using computers and cell phones and put them in one volume titled Murder at the Jersey Shore and published the three book volume on Kindle KDP.

OMN: What came next?

RB: My fourth mystery was a stand-alone. Again it was based on real events. A resort town south of mine had fallen on hard times. When I was in high school and college this town was one of the hottest places on the Jersey Shore. Fifty-thousand people would flock there on summer weekends for the wide beaches and the boardwalk amusements.

However there was a race riot in 1970. Tourists abandoned the town and it quickly spiraled downhill. With the demise of the town, the owners of the amusements were going broke. One of those businessmen owned a million dollar, hand carved, antique carousel. When he put it up for sale there was a lot of controversy. It had been in the town since the late 1890s and many people wanted the town to buy it. I came up with a plot to use the carousel as the motive for a murder. I titled the book, Murder Goes Round and Round.

I tried to fit my detective into this novel but it wouldn't work. I had built him up as a local historical aficionado. In this book I was not going to use the real city's name, characters names, streets, etc., because I was adding a corrupt government and things that didn't exist as well as making the town far more decrepit than it really was. The plot had the carousel owner accused of the murder and I ended up using his widowed brother-in-law as the detective.

I couldn't find a publisher so I self published it. It still sells a few copies every month mainly because of reviews like these said: I couldn't put this wonderful mystery down … I learned a lot about antique carousels, not too much, just enough to keep me from getting bored. Lots of fascinating info on carousel history and making carousels and the rather sweet romance that develops.

People love carousels. I don't know anyone who hasn't ridden one either at a country fair or an amusement park.

OMN: Why did you switch from series mysteries to stand-alone thriller?

RB: I was looking for another project. My daughter is a lawyer in the entertainment business and writes scripts on the side. She had written a script where the protagonist, an African-American male, was wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Despite the screen play winning a number of awards including $1000.00 from a "Writer's Digest" contest she was not able to generate interest from her associates in Hollywood.

I said to her, "Let me write it as a book with an African-American female protagonist as there are many African-American actresses looking for a strong, leading role."

However, in the process the book took on a life of its own and dramatically deviated from the screen play. The only parts that remained the same were that the lead character was wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death, and she escapes death row and fights to prove her innocence. All the fighting, chases, and the ending are entirely different from the screenplay. This effort became The Nano Experiment.

OMN: How do you go about researching the plot points or the settings for your books?

RB: In my mysteries I had no problems with the settings. I lived in the area. That was not the same for The Nano Experiment.

For that book, I used internet research and experts. I picked Texas for the setting because they execute more people than any other state. I easily researched where the Texas execution prison is and the execution process. As for Houston I used a map of the city. Then I asked a friend who lives in Houston and to check my character's travels around that city for accuracy.

In my daughter's book she had her character using DNA to prove his innocence. I thought, how droll and how ordinary, how overused. I wanted something else to involve my character that will eventually result in her being innocent of the crime. When I read an article on nanomedicine I thought, that could be interesting.

However the research was far from interesting. I am not a scientist nor a doctor. The articles I read on the internet were "Greek" to me. Then I found an article by Robert A. Freitas Jr., J.D. Senior Research Fellow for the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing who put side notes explaining nanomedicine in layperson's terms. It was just what I needed and I was able to fit it perfectly into the story.

After I had finished the book I contacted Mr. Freitas to see if he would edit my understanding of nanomedicine. He was extremely gracious and fixed a couple of minor things I got wrong.

OMN: What is nanomedicine?

RB: Nanomedicine is the creation of microscopic, carbon-based, bacterium-sized computer controlled robots that are infused into the blood stream. The computer inside the robot is programmed to detect a virus-infected cell through the cell's specific antigen. Once the nanorobots's sensors find the virus-infected cells the nanorobots home in on those deformed cells and digest them into harmless, simple chemicals like sugar and amino acids.

Nanomedicine has the potential to cure the common cold, HIV, diabetes, cancer, alzheimers, muscular dystrophy, broken bones, damaged organs and spinal injuries. It can also diagnose problems without X-rays, invasive surgery, biopsies or blood tests.

Since I wrote the book I have been following the research about it in newspaper articles. It is getting there, but not quite yet. If it does come to pass we will all be like "ET" in the Spielberg movie, 250 years old and still in complete control of our faculties.

OMN: Tell us something about The Nano Experiment that isn't mentioned in the synopsis.

RB: The doctor that performs the execution puts Eileen into a coma with a controlled dosage of medication and corrupts the EKG monitor to make it look like she is dead and she is rushed to an island prison where she is used as a guinea pig in a nanomedicine drug experiment.

How Eileen escapes from the island prison, evades a private security force chasing her, finds the evidence that will prove she is innocent and reunites with her children make The Nano Experiment an emotionally charged, page turning thriller.

(NOTE: If Eileen was not selected for the experiment she would have been executed.)

OMN: Describe your general writing process for us.

RB: First: I form a major premise along with the ending of the story. I need a target to write toward. I make my endings satisfying for the reader, but they are not Cinderella endings.

Second: I create my protagonist and antagonist — their looks, quirks, and their experiences in life that affect their personalities and the way they react to events.

Third: I create a very rough outline as to how the story will progress from beginning to end.

To me, characters and scenes are two parts of the same thought process. The first thing I think about when creating characters and scenes is conflict. Characters in conflict and how they will resolve their conflicts keep the readers turning the pages. So when creating a scene I ask, what will be the conflict of the scene's feature character?

The more the conflicts a character has and how the character gets out of those conflicts, the more depth the character will have.

In The Nano Experiment the outward conflict is obvious. Eileen must prove her innocence. However, it her inner conflict, being the cause of her sisters' deaths led me to creating a dynamic opening chapter.
Conflicts can be anything from mild all the way up to knock-down drag-out fights. They can be scolding, bickering, differences of opinion, veiled threats, hurt feelings, sarcasm, warnings, silently questioning a person's veracity, loyalty and truthfulness. Conversations can start congenially and end up in confrontations. Once you expand your plot your imagination will automatically create conflicts.

Finally: I write from my opening chapter to the conclusion of the story. I strive to take the reader on a journey that is never a straight line, but more like the line of a gyrating stock market. I place red herrings in my mysteries and adventure and jeopardy in my suspense novels and many setbacks in all my stories.

I am a draft writer. I try to get the story on paper as fast as possible because the story is running around in my head and I want to get it out quickly. I say paper because I write long hand then type into my computer. Transposing from paper to print is my first edit. Then I print out the book and continue my rewrites.

OMN: What advice might you offer to aspiring writers?

RB: I read a lot of books before I contemplated writing one. So my first advice is to read, read, read then write your first book based on your favorite genre. Once you get practice writing you can branch out into other genres. One of my branches is an historical fiction titled, Silk Legacy. It is set in the hey-day of Paterson, NJ's silk industry in the early twentieth century. Since this is a piece about writing mysteries and thrillers I won't go into that story here. You can read about it on my website listed below. But believe me, there is a lot of conflict. One reviewer said: The family is made up of flesh-and-blood characters. They laugh, love, argue, fight, and have adulterous affairs.

My second piece of advice is once you begin your writing try to find a critique group that will give you honest feedback on character development, dialogue, voice, plot, conflict and setting. But don't automatically take anyone's critique as gospel. Remember, it's your story. Analyze the critiques to see if they have merit. Say you have a six person group. If one person criticizes something then it may or may not be valid. But if three or four in the group say the same thing about a segment then you should take it under serious consideration.

OMN: If The Nano Experiment were to be adapted for television or film, what do you think your involvement would be in its production?

RB: Funny you should ask this question. I would not have any interaction. As I mentioned my daughter writes scripts. She liked The Nano Experiment so much she wrote and is working with someone to make it into a movie for the big screen or TV. I think it would be perfect for Lifetime because they like strong female characters.

However, she told me don't get all excited. Everybody walks around Hollywood with a script in their back pocket. The odds of this book every reaching the big or small screen are almost as small as winning the lottery. She should know. She's in the business. But as the lottery ads say, "Hey, you never know."

OMN: The Nano Experiment's cover mentions it was previously published as Beyond Guilty. What is the backstory here?

RB: This was my most disappointing experience. The Nano Experiment was originally published under a different title by L & L Dreamspell, a wonderful mid-size independent press with 100 authors. Sadly one of the partners passed away and the other could not continue without her life-long friend. She closed the publisher returning the rights to the authors. This was sorrowful news because the ladies who ran the publisher were wonderful people and highly professional. Thus the original title was no longer available in any format so I re-titled it, had a new cover made and published it on Amazon KDP.

OMN: What's next for you?

RB: My next book is coming out in September 2014 and is a romantic suspense novel titled Love's Sweet Sorrow being published by Vinspire Publishing.

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Becoming an author was the last thing Richard Brawer thought he would do. After graduating the University of Florida and a six months basic training tour in the National Guard, Richard worked in the curtain and linen area of the textile industry in New York City. The company he worked for went out of business in 1973 so he and his wife took a gamble and opened a home decorator store which they ran successfully until they retired in 1999.

Richard's career as a novelist began after reading a newspaper article. Asking "What if …", he began making notes. The notes turned into paragraphs and the paragraphs into chapters. Thus his first mystery, The Nurse Wore Black, was born. From there Richard went on to write three more mysteries, an historical fiction novel, two thrillers and is working on his eighth novel.

For more information about the author, please visit his website at SilkLegacy.com.

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The Nano Experiment
Richard Brawer
A Novel of Suspense

At fifteen, Eileen Robinson lives in an ideal, middle class African-American family in Houston, Texas. When her father is murdered, an innocent victim in a drive by shooting, her sheltered life spirals downward into gloom. Her once stay-at-home mother is forced to go to work cleaning offices at night. Instead of enjoying her carefree teenage years hanging with her friends, Eileen is relegated to babysitting her two younger sisters. One night she sneaks out on them. Trying to cook something, they die in a fire.

Tormented and wanting to kill herself, Eileen runs away from home. Befriended by a drug dealer, she moves in with him. At twenty-one she is a single mother of two, falsely convicted of killing a state senator's son. At thirty-two she is executed. Or is she?