We are delighted to welcome author and filmmaker Clay Stafford to Omnimystery News today.
Clay is also the founder of the annual conference Killer Nashville, which last year produced the short story collection Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded (Diversion Books; October 2015 trade paperback and ebook formats). We recently had the opportunity to catch up with Clay to talk more about his work.
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Omnimystery News: Your career spans nearly all elements of media creation and production. Tell us a little more about your background.
Photo provided courtesy of
Clay Stafford
Clay Stafford: Since 2006, I've pretty much focused totally on mystery and thriller projects. But prior to that, I've had an eclectic career as an editor of reference books, books to accompany PBS series (everything from bonsai to sewing), screenwriter (projects in 14 languages for PBS, independent production companies, and options to Sony Pictures, both fiction and nonfiction), playwright (numerous Los Angeles-produced murder mysteries), children's book adaptor/author (over 1.5 million copies sold through Dalmatian Press), actor (around 80 roles, mostly stage, but including a bit on the soap "Days of Our Lives"), film/TV/theater director and producer (series, movies, commercials, documentaries, industrials), and music composer ("Jeffery Deaver's XO"). In addition, I have worked behind the scenes in accounting, publicity & advertising, and personnel at Universal Studios and as a director, producer, writer, and Assistant Director of Program Development for PBS. Currently, I'm CEO and president of American Blackguard, an entertainment company, which also produces the mystery/thriller brand Killer Nashville, of which Killer Nashville Noir: Cold-Blooded is an offspring.
OMN: Mystery, thriller, suspense. What does that mean to you?
CS: I've lived all over, but I'm a Southern boy at heart. Gothic is a part of who I am. But I'm a little liberal in how I view those genres. For me, a mystery is when something happens and I need to figure it out, suspense is the threat that something is going to happen, and thrillers are when what you feared most is happening. Looking at this loosely, those elements cover a number of genres. I guess I'm not a purist at all in my tastes. But I do look for these three conflicts when choosing projects to work on. All three have to be there. My favorite project seems to be the one I'm working on at the time.
OMN: Are there any advantages for assigning books to a specific genre?
CS: For readers, absolutely. I'm eclectic in my reading, so like my writing, I'm all over the place. For me, when I'm considering a book to read, I'm looking at the synopsis on the book jacket. That's more important to me than genre. But most readers tend to read within a specific interest. For them, genres make it easy for them to find the books they love. And, of course, bookstores have to classify them so readers can find them. But for me, a good story is a good story, regardless of the genre. And writers are a bit different in this respect: even if you only write in one genre, it bodes well when you personally sample everything offered on the buffet. When I go into a bookstore, you might find me over in the math section, my eye having caught a book on pi.
OMN: How would you tweet a summary of Cold-Blooded?
CS: Bestselling and first-time Killer Nashville authors write original short stories of mystery, thriller, and suspense, all with surprise endings.
OMN: Tell us something about the book that isn't mentioned in the synopsis.
CS: The main thing is how much fun this book was to put together. Killer Nashville turned 10 years old this year. Because of the sheer number of our alumni authors, I've always felt we needed an annual anthology. This was the year to do it. So I reached out to our hundreds of authors expecting only a small number to reply when — all at once — all these manuscripts started pouring in. The support was incredible. And then to have the privilege to get to work with the caliber of authors in the book was just amazing.
OMN: You also contributed a story to Cold-Blooded. Describe your writing process for us.
CS: Biographies are not my thing. I usually draw from a character what I need from that character from the story itself. In the end, readers care about what is happening now, or about to happen. Biographies are in the past. Not that I'm against layering a character, but I think you can do that mise en scène. I had a director tell me one time that I couldn't portray a character unless I knew what he had in his pocket at that moment. That's crap. I don't even know what's in my pocket right now. If it helps someone as a writer to write full backstories for their characters, I think that's great. For me, it's just an excuse to keep from the hard stuff of writing the story.
As far as outlining, I do. Loosely. You've got to know what a character is going to do, but at the same time you have to be open for something unexpected, which will happen if you aren't rigidly holding to an outline. But in everything, there is a beginning, middle, and an end — be it a story, a chapter, a scene, even a paragraph. And if you look at everything as having a beginning, middle, and an end, then you outline — even loosely in sequences — no matter if you write it down on a piece of paper or you sit down to do your 2,500 words for the day.
OMN: And where do you most often find yourself writing?
CS: I write just about everywhere. If I know I've got an extra 10 minutes somewhere, you'll usually see me pulling out my laptop. On trips, I'm writing while the wheels are moving (I usually try not to drive when that happens). We have a cabin on a lake. I do some writing there. My office, however, is in a basement with no windows. I find there are fewer distractions there. It's pretty cluttered, a pile for one project here, a pile for another project there. My computer sits on a plain eight-foot folding table.
OMN: How do you go about researching the plot points of your stories?
CS: The Internet is okay for getting leads, but I believe very little I read on the Internet, unless it is something like a map, and even then the GPS gets something wrong. What I look for on the Internet is a real expert to whom I can reach out. Nothing beats first-hand experience, which is the backbone of our Killer Nashville Writers' Conference. If I wrote from my own experience, it might be pretty dull. So I look for different people who have had different experiences and I draw from that.
OMN: What was your most challenging topic to research?
CS: Continually, it is the current business state of affairs. Keeping up with what's new in publishing and film/television is a near full-time job.
OMN: And what about your most exciting topic?
CS: That was probably some research I did with the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's office in Florida. From qualifying to participate, to observing the crime scenes and autopsies, to interviewing the doctors and staff, it was an eye-opening experience to the personalities and experiences of real-world forensics.
OMN: How important is setting to a story?
CS: To me, the trinity is this: character, plot, and setting (not only the physical location, but also the environment — hostile, pleasant, duplicitous — in which the characters finds themselves as they reveal the plot). They all work together. Other considerations like theme, symbolism, voice, all that stuff, are great for graduate school conversation and book reviews, but not really practical for real-world writers. Those things are important, but those are the things that bubble up from your subconscious and you usually don't realize them until post-writing and, even then, it is only after some MFA graduate points it out to you. I taught writing in college and young authors would bog themselves down with the theme and voice issues and create such a burden that it was cardboard writing or obviously contrived. If you can make each of the characters believable (creating past as needed for the plot), the plot plausible (which means chocked-full of conflict), and set it in a credible world (even if fictional), then you've got all you need. The rest will come when you loosen up and let it flow.
OMN: So how true are you to the setting?
CS: Most of the time, I try to stay away from real places, but if you create a space, then it does have to become full-dimensional and real. On the documentaries and nonfiction works I've written, I've had a responsibility to stick to the facts and, if you get something wrong, you've failed. If you're writing fiction in a real world and whoever has the rights to the location doesn't give permission, you stand the opportunity of getting sued. So I do whatever I can to stay away from real locations and just build my worlds in reference to real places.
OMN: If we could send you anywhere in the world to research your next project, where would it be?
CS: I tend to live by the principle that "the way is easy for he who has no preferences". I tend to really enjoy wherever I am. My trip to get milk at the grocery store turns into a two-hour excursion because I find myself talking to everyone there. I love a good story, and if you'll just ask, people will be happy to share theirs. I love to be invited to writers' conferences, book events, parties, road trips, anywhere I can chat with other people. I get something from everywhere I go and everyone I meet.
OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author?
CS: From Blaise Pascal's reference in 1657, "Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte" (I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter) is pretty universal, even in this interview. Twain, Shaw, Voltaire, von Goethe, Churchill, have all made reference to this because it is such a universal truth: about half of what you write you should cut if you have more time to do so. When the reader, your agent, your writing group says this section is too long, don't even question it. Readers and viewers will set the book down and change the channel faster than you can say, "Did … "*
(*: They are already gone.)
OMN: And what about your harshest criticism?
CS: "Throw it in the trash," which came from my wife, always my first reader, and the best story critic on the planet.
OMN: What have you learned for either?
CS: Trust the knee-jerk reactions of those around you. If it is too long, if it is unclear, if it is incomplete, your readers will tell you (professional or not). Listen to them. They are your customers. Unless you are just viewing writing as a hobby, they are the reason you are writing.
OMN: What advice might you offer to aspiring writers?
CS: Know your place in the process. The one common interest in everyone involved is to sell books. That's about all you have in common. But that means the writer has to deliver what the agent, publisher, and bookstore can sell, which means delivering what readers want. Concentrate on writing the best stories you can write. It's your wood that feeds the fire.
OMN: In your role as a screenwriter, how do you decide what to leave in and what to omit when adapting a novel?
CS: A book is so much longer. First thing is to decide what part of the story you are going to tell. Then look for the thread of that sub-story throughout the novel. There's your story. Everything else may have to go, simply for the sake of screen time.
OMN: What are some of the differences between writing a novel and writing a screenplay?
CS: A novel, depending upon how it is written, is available to all senses. A screenplay is only available to two (sight and sound — if you eliminate such gimmicks as Smell-A-Vision). Everything in the novel has to somehow be converted to visual or auditory. That's the challenge. And it isn't as easy as some might think.
OMN: What kinds of books did you read when you were young?
CS: I read everything I could find, which is probably why my career trajectory has been so inclusive. Mark Twain, Wilson Rawls, Stephen King, Jean Craighead George, Shakespeare, The Bible, comic books, Lynne Reid Banks, Beverly Cleary, Roald Dahl, World Book and Britannica encyclopedias. But I'd say my greatest influence was probably my grandmother. She could tell some tales. It was from her that I learned the gift of gab, the setup, the misdirection, the joke when things got too heavy, and the payoff. There is probably not a day that goes by that I don't think about her. And she only had a fourth grade education.
OMN: When selecting a book today to read for pleasure, what do you look for?
CS: You know, I think it is who I am that day. Some days I'm looking for nonfiction. Some days fiction. Some days literary. Some days thriller. Maybe mix in a few sci-fi, horror, western, mystery, hardboiled along with some biographies. I've probably got about 50 books around my reading chair with bookmarks in various places.
OMN: What's next for you?
CS: I'm currently writing the screenplay for Pork Pie Hat by Peter Straub. I have a super-long novel I'm cutting down so my agent can have a better shot at selling the foreign rights. I'm working on next year's Killer Nashville Noir Anthology. And then there is always the new project that I don't talk about because it might jinx it. And then — as every writer knows — there are electronic files and legal pads full of great ideas that hopefully will eventually find a home … if we can get enough time to do it.
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Clay Stafford is an author, screenwriter, and filmmaker. He is the founder of Killer Nashville and the Killer Nashville Conference (April 18-21, 2016). Previously associated with Universal Studios and PBS, he is currently CEO of American Blackguard, Inc. near Nashville, Tennessee. If you'd like to meet Clay, he has two upcoming events for the recently release Killer Nashville anthology Cold-Blooded — Jan 22nd he will be at Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN at 6:30 PM and Feb 4th he will be at The Mane Event in Franklin, TN at 5:30 PM!
For more information about the author, please visit his website at ClayStafford.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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Cold-Blooded by Clay Stafford
Killer Nashville Noir
Publisher: Diversion Books
Every year, some of the biggest names in the thriller world converge in Tennessee for the Killer Nashville conference, an event where stars of the genre rub elbows with their most devoted fans, where the bestsellers of tomorrow pick up tricks of the trade, and where some of the best writers of today swap dark tales of good deals gone bad, rights made wrong, and murder in all shades …
This collection of new stories features some of the biggest names in suspense, from bestsellers to ferociously talented newcomers. Grouped around the classic theme of murder, this is a first-class collection and a must-have for fans of the genre.
— Cold-Blooded by Clay Stafford
