with Burt Weissbourd
We are delighted to welcome back author Burt Weissbourd to Omnimystery News today.
Burt's third thriller in his Corey Logan trilogy is Teaser (Rare Bird Books; January 2015 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we recently had the opportunity to follow up with him to talk a little more about the series.
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Omnimystery News: Why did you choose a woman for the lead character of this series?
Photo provided courtesy of
Burt Weissbourd
Burt Weissbourd: I'm not sure that I can say exactly why I chose to write a woman, except to say that the starting point for all of these books was to write about a strong self-aware woman who's been framed and who continues to take on formidable adversaries (most recently Teaser).
Finding the right voice for Corey was never a problem. I had a feel for her from from the moment she spit shines her boots before meeting Abe (her psychiatrist for her first psychiatric interview,) I knew who she was and how she'd respond.
I only think it matters to readers if my character is of the opposite gender than I am if I don't write the character well, and if she doesn't stay "true" in the way that a carpenter might use that word. Emotionally "true" that's the touchstone for me.
OMN: Tell us more about the settings for your stories.
BW: My books are set in a real place, the first and third in Seattle and the Inside Passage, and the second in and around Yellowstone Park.
In all three cases I've had to strike a careful balance between staying true to the geography and local environment and creating fictitious places. As I say before the books began, "Seattle is, of course, real, though the author has created an imaginary landscape in and around Capital Hill. That is to say I imagined a coffee shop, where the kids hang out, The Blue City Café that doesn't exist. The Olympic academy, a private school on Capital Hill doesn't exist and is set in an imagined location, etc."
For the second book in the trilogy, Inside Velvet, I created a fictitious town, North Yellowstone, and moved features in the northwest corner of the park. I think this works well for me as I am able to imagine places and characters that don't exist and interweave them into a known landscape/reality (Seattle or Yellowstone Park).
The real settings are vitally important to the characters and the plot. In Teaser, the reality for teenagers in private school (even though the school is imagined) is juxtaposed with the realities for homeless youth.
OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author?
BW: The best advice I ever got as an author was just to keep writing. My experience writing novels has been that as I write more and more, I become a better writer. I feel more confident about my writing; I know when something is working and why, and I know to keep writing until I get there. So my advice to aspiring thriller writers is — even though its often difficult to get a first novel published, even though there are rejections from agents, even though there are days when you hate what you've written — keep writing.
OMN: Have any specific authors influenced how and what you write today?
BW: The authors that have had the greatest influence on me include: Ross Macdonald, Scott Turow, Ross Thomas, Steig Larson, James Crumley etc. What all of these writers do is write great character-driven thrillers. Whether it's Lisbeth in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer, Ross Thomas' Benjamin Dill or James Crumley's C.W. Sughrue, every one of these characters is self-aware. They have intense emotional lives that they experience, observe and reflect on. By making my central characters self aware it allows a reader to understand the complex choices that move the story forward. If you put strong, complex, self-aware characters in a "rich stew" — that is to say a situation with conflict, emotional intensity, and the potential to evolve in unexpected ways — you have the main ingredients for a character-driven thriller.
OMN: Create a Top 5 list for us on any topic.
BW: Top 5 favorite films (in no particular order): Klute, Chinatown, Nobody's Fool, Taxi Driver, and The Godfather.
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Burt Weissbourd began his career producing movies, working closely with screenwriters, then writing his own screenplays.
A newcomer to Hollywood, he approached writers whose movies he loved and worked with those writers and others, including working with Ross Macdonald, a legend in crime fiction, on his only screenplay.
This was the "New Hollywood" (1967 — 1980), and he found writers whose work grabbed viewers viscerally, not with explosions but with multi-dimensional characters who would draw you into a deeply moving story.
Savvy actors wanted to play finely drawn characters in compelling stories, and before long, Burt was developing screenplays, working directly with Robert Redford, Lily Tomlin, Goldie Hawn, Sally Field, and Jill Clayburg, among others.
As a producer developing a screenplay, he looked for stories with strong, complex characters and a "rich stew" — that is to say, a situation with conflict, emotional intensity, and the potential to evolve in unexpected ways. This is exactly what he tries to create for the books he writes.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at BurtWeissbourd.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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Teaser
Burt Weissbourd
A Corey Logan Thriller
