with Laurence Shames
We are delighted to welcome novelist Laurence Shames to Omnimystery News today.
Laurence is the author of numerous works of fiction and non-fiction, but is probably best known for his "Key West" series of novels which, after an absense of a decade or so, he has resumed publishing with Shot on Location (SKLA; August 2013 trade paperback and ebook formats).
We recently had the opportunity to talk with Laurence about the book and his writing in general.
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Omnimystery News: Your bibliography is all over the map and yet you're best known for your series work. Why do you think that is?
Photo provided courtesy of
Laurence Shames
Laurence Shames: So, right from the start, a question I don't quite know how to answer! I never wanted to write a series, for two reasons. I was afraid that writing a series would get to feel like a job — and a job is something I've never wanted. And I was afraid that an ever-present protagonist would make the books feel too much the same. Readers seem to take comfort in the sameness of series books — that's why they sell so well — but I was afraid I'd get bored. On the other hand, I have an ensemble of characters I like staying in touch with — especially an old Mafioso named Bert the Shirt — so I often bring them back in cameo or supporting roles. Aside from that, I love using Key West as a setting and have done so nine times now. So my books are not a series … except in some ways they are.
OMN: We introduced Shot on Location as a "Key West novel" instead of a "Key West mystery" or "Key West thriller" because, quite honestly, we don't know how to categorize it. What do you think of it as?
LS: Another tough question! I never know how to label my books. I guess they're mysteries, though rarely whodunits. I think of them as comedies with caper plots. There's usually a love story and every once in a great while somebody gets punched in the nose or something hard-boiled like that. If I ran a bookstore, I would probably shelve myself under Classics. But I don't run a bookstore.
OMN: Give us a summary of Shot on Location in a tweet.
LS: Ah, the tweet — a variation on the one-line movie pitch. Okay. A ghostwriter is sent to Key West on a project he doesn't want to do and discovers instead the story he was born to write.
OMN: We might have said "elevator pitch" but we take your point. Tell us a little more about your writing process.
LS: I'm not smart enough to know much about a book at the beginning. So I don't outline. I don't sketch. I rarely think about backstory. I have a few characters and a situation, and I sit down one day and start writing. I don't recommend this approach for everyone. It can be quite terrifying — like when you're halfway through the book and find a gaping hole in the story or realize that a character you thought was a bad guy turns out to be a sweetheart. But, hey, that's what revisions are for. On the other hand, when you write a book you're also the first person to read that book — the first to see how it turns out. If you already know that, why bother writing it?
OMN: Have you included any of your own personal or professional experience into the book?
LS: Well, I've been a ghostwriter off and on for almost 25 years — I've written four New York Times bestsellers under four different names; see if you can top that! — so I've had plenty of time to build up the frustrations and resentments that motivate the fictional Jake Benson, my protagonist in Shot on Location. In the book, of course, I exaggerate for comic and dramatic effect, but the essential dynamic is drawn from life. Jake's an underdog whose real challenge is to reclaim his creativity and self-respect. It just so happens that, in order to do that, he's got to get neck-deep involved in a crazy caper and crime story full of Hollywood egomaniacs and the occasional mobster.
OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author?
LS: The best advice I ever got came from one of my early editors at Esquire, and it took exactly two words: Write confidently. The thing is, writing is inherently presumptuous; you have to believe you have something to say that other people will bother to read. So don't presume halfway! Write as if you know you're really good. In keeping with this, I've chosen to regard as compliments some of the harshest criticism I've received. One reviewer said my prose was so hard-boiled that it could be taken on picnics. This was probably meant as a withering indictment. I thought it was a great line.
OMN: What is it about Key West that you chose it as the setting for your series?
LS: Setting is hugely important to me, and a case could be made that Key West itself is my most important recurring character. That said, I really don't care much about picky little details like which bar is on which corner, and I freely mix real and fictional locations. What matters to me is the feel of the town — the smell of the air, the quality of the light, the sense of how Key West itself determines the kinds of stories that will happen there. Also — in my books as in the actual Key West — most of the characters are transplants from somewhere else. How does Key West change them? I love watching characters surprise themselves by developing a Key West self that's quite different from (and generally happier than) the self they had before.
OMN: Shot on Location is a terrific title that could be interpretted in different ways, depending on context. How did you come up with it?
LS: Ah, titles. So important and such a pain! I generally go through about six per book. For most of the time I was working on this one the title was The Big Swim. I still kind of like that, but no one else did. As it turns out, I think Shot on Location is the right title — the book centers on a hit TV show being filmed in the Keys, and, yes, someone does get shot — but getting to it was agony. I'm still not sure how it happened. My wife claims it was her idea and she may very well be right. All I know for sure is that a lot of wine had been drunk by then and many pieces of scrap paper had been filled with rejected contenders.
OMN: What kinds of books did you read when you were young? And have any of these authors influenced how and what you write today?
LS: I hardly read anything when I was a kid. I had a tough time sitting still and I always preferred being out on the streets of Newark, playing stickball, stoopball, football or whatever. When I read at all, it was generally dopey sports biographies — Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays. I dodged a lot of the classics I was supposed to read in high school — which was great, because a tremendously wonderful book like All Quiet on the Western Front is really wasted on the young. I read it when I was around 50 and it made me weep. Also, because I rarely read books when they were assigned, I was able to avoid being brainwashed by the conventional wisdom about them. Case in point: The Great Gatsby. I don't care what anybody says; I think it's a crappy book with no one to like. Gatsby's a pathetic fraud, Nick's a suck-up, Daisy's a drip, and Tom's a drunken lecher. Hello?!
Moving along to my influences, it's funny, because I seldom think in terms of other writers. I think of the people I most admire in other art forms — so it's less about influence than aspiration. Charlie Chaplin, because he could make you laugh and cry at the same time. Mozart, because he did incredibly difficult things and made them look easy. Picasso, because he never stopped changing.
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Laurence Shames has been a New York City taxi driver, lounge singer, furniture mover, lifeguard, dishwasher, gym teacher, and shoe salesman. Having failed to distinguish himself in any of those professions, he turned to writing full-time in 1976 and has not done an honest day's work since.
His basic laziness notwithstanding, Shames has published twenty books and hundreds of magazine articles and essays. He wrote eight Key West novels during the 1990s, before taking a decade-long detour into screenwriting and collaborative work. He has also authored non-fiction and enjoyed considerable though largely secret success as a ghostwriter. Shames has penned four New York Times bestsellers. These have appeared on four different lists, under four different names, none of them his own. This might be a record.
For more information about the author and his work, visit his website at LaurenceShames.com or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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Shot on Location
Laurence Shames
A Key West Novel
Take three speedboats, a disgruntled ghostwriter, and a hit TV show starring a gorgeous but impossible diva and created by a driven genius who may be losing his marbles. Add a fearless and gleefully profane stuntwoman, an ancient Mafioso with a chihuahua, and a revenge-crazed blonde in gladiator sandals. Stir in a thug with a heart of gold and an inveterate slacker who yearns for glory. Whisk a loopy but tender romance into the mix, turn the whole crew loose in the liberating and seductive sunshine of the Florida Keys — and what do you have? The new and long-awaited Key West novel by Laurence Shames.
