What I Learned Writing STREETS OF BLOOD

From Barry Napier's blog...

Most of you know that I won Amazon’s You Can Write a Dead Man Novel contest last year. The months between October – January were spent writing and editing it. If I’m being honest, I learned a lot from writing it, some of which I think most writers can either relate to or need to know.

First, Lee Goldberg and co. were very kind about pointing out a few of my flaws…flaws that have plagued me since writing my first short story at the age of 14. Among them…I’m too wordy. I tend to wax poetic when it’s not called for. I try to create back story that serves as a story in and of itself (this one, I will argue to my last breath, is often necessary and pivotal for longer works). When I try to write about someone collecting information or being smacked by insight, I tend to come off as too passive.

The great thing is that I have had these things pointed out by editors in the past. But with The Dead Man #18: Streets of Blood, these things were not only pointed out, but highlighted with blood and gore. Writing this book was perhaps my biggest lesson in reigning myself in when I wanted to get too wordy or experimental when it wasn’t called for. This book was equally odd to write because of its content. It’s one of the bloodier things I have written in a while. When you consider the fact that I was writing a faith-based suspense novel at the same time, it was a very challenging and eye-opening few months.

So, while researching parts of scripture for the faith-based novel, I was also having to research old morbid nursery rhymes for my Dead Man book.

I’m not going to lie…it was sort of fun.

So again, a big thanks to Lee Goldberg for helping me through the process. It was an intensive course in writing short novels while helping me to further cripple some of the mistakes that I still wrestle with in my writing.

The Dead Man #18: Streets of Blood will be released sometime in May.

Plotting Death and Destruction

A half-dozen authors spent the day together plotting a DEAD MAN novel...not just any book, but our biggest tale yet, both in page count and ambition. The story will be published next fall as a Kindle Serial (six to eight, 10,000 word "episodes" that will add up to one, cohesive novel). The project is being written by Phoef Sutton, Lisa Klink and Kate Danley from a shared outline. So series co-creator William Rabkin and I (Lee Goldberg), along with DEAD MAN author David Tully (THE KILLING FLOOR), got together with them and we all spent the day cracking the story in a "writer's room" setting.

Bill, Phoef, Lisa andI are experienced TV writer/producers so we are very comfortable with the "writer's room" process of hashing out the story as a group, analyzing every character motivation and story beat until we come up with all the moves of the story, which we layout on a white, dry erase board. It was a new experience for Kate and, to a lesser extent, for David, who has been part of a writer's room on some television projects in Germany (where his wife was a network executive).

The writer's room process is wonderful because not only do you benefit from the creativity of everybody in the room, but it also forces you to really explore, analyze and figure out all the angles of your plot and the motivations of your characters.

The group experience also forces you not to give in to the easy, lazy or cliche way of resolving plot and character issues...to go further and dig deeper. It means there are some inevitable frustration or disagreements, but it's all positive...because you end up with a much stronger, more-thought-out story.
It's my favorite part of the TV writing experience...spending hours, days and weeks in a room full of smart, clever, outrageously creative writers...all working to together to tell the best possible story.

Our writers room session for THE DEAD MAN went great. We first discussed character and our over-arching, creative goals for the book. Then we started talking broad plot points. Then we drilled down to the novel equivalent of the eternal TV question: "what do we want our act breaks to be?" (Or, in this case, the "cliff hanger" moment at the end of our six "episodes") And once we had that, we got into the nitty-gritty of the specific beats of each "act."

That's where the real work was. We hashed it out in spirited debates while eating lots of food (and, occasionally, diverging into discussions of lame plot points in SKYFALL and the last BATMAN movie. Do you realize Bond failed at *everything* he did in SKYFALL? He didn't do anything right. Still a great movie, though).

We got started at 10:30 am and by the time we finished around 5:30 pm, we'd plotted out the novel and felt great about what we'd come up with.  Or, as one person in the room put it, we accomplished in one day what it would take an author by himself a month or two to figure out. It's going to be a kick-ass, standalone DEAD MAN novel that requires no previous knowledge of the series to enjoy...but that will also satisfy our loyal fans with a game-changing story that acknowledges past events, answers some long-standing questions, sends Matt Cahill in an exciting, new direction.

Now everybody is writing up their portion of the outline, which Bill and I will cobble together into one document and submit to our editors at Amazon Publishing's 47North imprint for their notes. Once we have their input, the authors will start writing.

I wish I had a writers room for my novels...

Related articles

Slaves to Evil

The Midnight Special

Streets of Blood Cover

We're excited to share the cover for THE DEAD MAN: STREETS OF BLOOD (formerly known as DREAMLAND), Barry Napier's award-winning entry in our "You Can Write a Dead Man Novel" contest last year. The book will be out this spring.

How COLDER THAN HELL Made Me a Better Writer

Anthony Neil Smith on writing COLDER THAN HELL, out this week on Amazon...

Look, I don’t do supernatural. I just flat out thought that was beyond me. I write crime novels about people doing awful things to each other, no ghosts or monsters or demons in sight. But this Dead Man thing, I was watching it grow with awe. Several friends of mine, also crime writers, got caught up in the fervor and churned out some great horror pulp. And I was jealous. Really jealous. But…I couldn’t do that sort of thing, could I? And not that they would ever ask me, anyway.

But then I got an email from Bill Rabkin—co-creator of The Dead Man series along with Lee Goldberg—who I had met via Tod Goldberg and who was writing a screenplay adaptation of my novel Yellow Medicine. That magical, unlikely email asked me to write a Dead Man novella. Yep, one o’ them spooky, supernatural, knock-em-out, fists and axes and evil spirits sort of books.

I was thinking, There is no fucking way I can do this.

But what I said was, “Yes. Yes. Yes. Fucking yes.”

And then I told them I’d get to work in May, probably have it in a couple of months.

At which point I fell off a writing cliff and had to drag my ass back up the sheer rock face inch by inch.

No idea what happened. I had recently finished a short, punchy third entry in my Billy Lafitte series. I was riding high off some nice reviews and decent sales of All the Young Warriors. But then it was as if words and me stopped getting along. In fact, those goddamn words were bullying me. Taunting me. And I didn’t know what to write.

But I was under contract for Dead Man. I had to write it. I wanted to. It ended up helping me break the drought and get back to the normal flow of things. But it didn’t take two months. It took nearly five, and I even went over the deadline by a week.

The story came to me more easily than I had expected.  At least some of it. If I had to pitch it, it would come across as “The Shining, but on a frozen interstate.” One of the most frightening things I’ve come across while living up north is the idea of being trapped in your car on an interstate or highway due to snow and ice. You’re surrounded by hundreds of others in the same boat, but you’re all little islands of loneliness, seems to me. So what if some horrible virus or spirit or [INSERT SUPERNATURAL THING HERE] was loosed on top of that?

Fine, fine, the guys in charge liked the idea. They just didn’t get the cause of it all. Something wasn’t clicking. Two reasons for that: 1) I was trying to be a bit too ambitious by tying some ancient evil from a previous Dead Man into this one, hoping to cement a place in the “mythology”, and 2) Again, I don’t do supernatural.

Anthony Neil Smith

But I wrote it, including an old 18^th Century diary, some Scandinavian settles in North Dakota who met up with evil Native Americans from The Dead Man #5: The Blood Mesa who had some more ancient evil that was older than Mr. Dark’s evil, and so there was a killer on the loose and an Indian golum, and and and…

What the hell was I thinking?

I finally finished it, turned it in, and waited to be told how bad it was.

Now, the thing I discovered about Lee during the outline process is that he is one tough son of a bitch when it comes to ideas. He was shooting them down all night long. I could imagine his Grinch-like sneer as my emails came in, rubbing his hands in glee as he printed them out for the sole purpose of watching them burn.

But after I turned in the draft, something remarkable happened. His heart grew three sizes…for the first half of the novella, anyway. All the other historical/mythology stuff? I had truly wasted my (and his) time. As bad as I thought it was. That doesn’t mean I didn’t try to save it. Of course I did. That was a month’s work! But it came down to Lee telling me, “Rewrite the second half. You’ve got a month.”

And I was all like, “But how do I…what should I…Can’t you tell me…?”

And the guru said, “Well, how about [INSERT SUPERNATURAL THING THAT PUT MY SUPERNATURAL THING TO SHAME, AS IT WAS MUCH MUCH BETTER HERE]?”

Why come I hadn’t thought of that? So I was learning a lot about how this sort of story works, what’s expected, how to subvert what’s expected and still deliver a good fright. And best of all, I had to write about fifty pages in a month.

In a good week, I can maybe get fifteen pages done. I hadn’t been having good weeks. But still, fifty pages was within my window of doable.

Five weeks later, I turned it in again. And this time the damn thing worked.  We went through a few edits, not so hard at all, and then Jeroen ten Berge put together a killer cover for it. This was actually happening! I was a Dead Man author! Not only that, but the turnaround on this book was a few months—it would be out by the end of January. That, of course, continued to shore up my already good impression of Amazon Publishing. They knew exactly what they were doing.

Once Dead Man #16: Colder Than Hell was out of my hands, my head was spinning with new ideas—how to fix the stalled novel, how to get a couple of other ideas I had into bed together for yet another novel. I was thinking much more like a pulp writer—write the damned story. Faster. Think through the first two drafts in your head, put the third one down as the first. Hey, I did it once, I could do it again.

All in all, this was a tremendous experience. I’m glad Lee and Bill let me play in the Dead Man toy box, and I look forward to trying it again one day, maybe. In the meantime, there’s not an hour I sit at the typewriter when I don’t think about how my writing process has changed for the better after Dead Man.

Hope you’ll check it out. And if you do happen to have travel plans through North Dakota in the winter, make sure to bring extra layers, some gloves, a thick blanket, and a last will and testament. Just in case.

Celebrate Halloween with Black Death

The fourteenth terrifying DEAD MAN tale, THE BLACK DEATH by Aric Davis, is now available, just in time for Halloween. Davis is the author of the innovative, widely-acclaimed horror novel, A GOOD AND USEFUL HURT. 

In THE BLACK DEATH, Matt Cahill is stranded in small, Indiana town in the grip of a horrible plague…not a disease, but a deadly new form of crystal meth that is turning its users into black-eyed, blood-crazed monsters and that could be even more virulently evil than the touch of Mr. Dark. So Matt embarks on a harrowing quest, a journey into darkness and depravity, to find the source of the black death and destroy its makers before the drug, and the homicidal madness it creates, can spread to the entire nation.

The Dark Side of Love and Loyalty

Author Christa Faust shares her experience writing THE DEATH MATCH in a blog post on Amazon's Kindle Daily Post. She says, in part:


One of the things that appealed to me about the Dead Man series was that it wasn't just empty meaningless gore. Sure it's violent, but it also explores the psychological repercussions of that violence, delving into the darker side of love, loyalty, and friendship. With that in mind, I wanted to use my own uniquely female perspective to highlight the complex emotional depth in the character of Matt Cahill without sacrificing the kind of gripping action that the series is also known for. And combining emotion with action has always been at the heart of my own hardboiled crime fiction. It was a perfect fit.

News from the DEAD

Lots of exciting things are happening in the world of THE DEAD MAN...

Our 13th tale, THE DEATH MATCH, by Christa Faust was published on Sept. 18th and is one of our fastest selling books yet. Readers are gobbling this one up, and for good r

eason...not only does it reveal new levels to our mythology, tying together events from several previous DEAD MAN novels, it's also full of Christa's trademark brand of dark noir that made her novels CHOKE HOLD and MONEY SHOT such widely acclaimed successes.

In October, just in time for Halloween, comes Aric Davis' exciting DEAD MAN tale THE BLACK DEATH, which pits Matt against Mr. Dark, the Hillbilly mafia, and a new evil that could sweep the nation. It's a bloody thrill-ride. But you can get a taste of Aric's unique brand of horror now in his bestseller A GOOD AND USEFUL HURT.

In November, we're releasing our fourth compilation, which contains FREAKS MUST DIE, THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL and SLAVES TO EVIL (the audiobook will follow soon).

And in December, screenwriter David Tully makes his literary debut with his DEAD MAN tale THE KILLING FLOOR, which features Mr. Dark big time...and in a way we've never seen before...in one of the most thrilling, and darkly humorous, books in the series.

The new year will bring exciting new DEAD MAN novels from Lisa Klink, Anthony Neil Smith, Barry Napier, Chris La Tray, and Stant Litore, among others, that will deepen the DEAD MAN mythology, solve some of the mysteries, and reveal startling new aspects to Matt, Mr. Dark, and their strange relationship. 

Runner Up Wins, Too

The judges in the "You Can Write a DEAD MAN Novel" contest liked the runner-up's entry so much that we've decided to award him a publishing contract, too. So look for THE DEAD MAN: COYOTE BLOOD by Chris La Tray in early 2013. But in the mean time, you can catch La Tray's work in the latest issue of BLOOD & TACOS., which is edited by author Johnny Shaw, who will also be writing a DEAD MAN novel in the coming year.

Playing Santa Claus

DEAD MAN co-creator Lee Goldberg had the pleasure of calling writer Barry Napier to let him know that he'd won the "You Can Write a DEAD MAN Novel" contest. Today, he writes on the Kindle Daily Post about the call and his reaction to the news. Here's an excerpt:

I was stopped at a red light on a Thursday afternoon at a busy intersection with my family. As a mini-meltdown from my son in the back seat rose to a thundering level, my phone rings.

“Hello?”

 “Hi,” comes an unfamiliar voice on the other end. “This is Lee Goldberg and I’m calling to let you know that you’ve won the Write a Dead Man contest!”

I paused for a minute. My son kept screaming. With the look of shock on my face, I think my wife must have thought there was bad news on the other end.

“Oh, hi,” I said rather stupidly.

For the next thirty seconds, Lee went through some details, most of which I only caught fragments of.  Feeling like an idiot, I could hardly speak when he was done. The light turned green. A good thing, too; it’s likely the only thing that unfroze me from the amazing news that I had yet to digest.

We're looking forward to working with him on his DEAD MAN tale, which will be published in early 2013.

Winner of the You Can Write a DEAD MAN Novel Contest

We are pleased to announce that BARRY NAPIER has won the "You Can Write a DEAD MAN Novel" Contest, snagging a publishing contract for his DEAD MAN tale DREAMLAND, a $500 advance, and a $500 gift card.

Barry has published more than 40 short stories and poems in print and online. He is the author of the Everything Theory series, The Hollows, The Masks of Our Fathers, and Broken Nightlights, a short story collection. He has also had work published thought various small presses, including his novel The Bleeding Room, and two poetry collections. He has served as guest poetry editor of Inkspill Magazine and has recently completed compiling and editing the poetry anthology I Know What I Saw: poems of the unexplained.

You'll be seeing his book in the DEAD MAN series in early 2013. But you can get a sneak peek right now. His winning chapter is below.

Thanks again to everyone who entered the contest.

DREAMLAND

            She’d been in bed for so long that it seemed unnatural to be standing again.  Her old aching knees seemed fifty years younger and the lungs that had hindered her lifestyle for the last five years seemed reinvigorated, breathing in the crisp air of the afternoon.  When she breathed the clean air in it made her body feel plump, a far cry from the frail state she had last seen herself in.

            She was standing in the middle of an ancient dirt road, the ditches to each side so worn and faded that she could imagine the finger of God etching them shortly after Eden.  The dirt track wound away to both sides, bending to the right ahead of her where it eventually merged into the distant forest.  In the other direction, the path sketched itself through an impossibly green field where it then narrowed to a pencil point on the horizon of greens and blues.

            A butterfly passed by her, circled back around her head and perched on her shoulder.  It seemed to be directing her eyes slightly to the left where a long forgotten white house stood untouched by human hands for countless years.  A once-white porch sat crumbling and gray.  A porch swing hung from a single chain with its fallen twin curled up in a rusted loop on the porch boards.

            She knew this all; she had been here before and she knew that something was missing.  She looked beyond the house and saw a fence, the majority of it cracked and fallen.  She waited for a human shadow to fall across its weak posts but there was nothing.  The sun blazed down fat and bright but there was nothing behind the fence to cast a shadow, not a man, not an animal, not so much as a tree.

            She frowned and waited.  She knew that she wouldn’t be here long; she could already feel the weight of reality tugging at her, pulling her towards a world where her knees still flared with pain, where her now delicate fingers were callused and weathered.

            She looked back to the wooden fence, its rails splintered and cracked, waiting for that figure to appear.  But the blue country sky on the other side of the fence and the golden fields that rolled out beyond them were all there was to see.

And as beautiful as this all seemed, she was still slightly disappointed; the man that should be standing there by the fence post was not coming.

            In this to-good-to-be-true place, she felt a tear forming in the corner of her eye.  It was the sweetest relief imaginable, the most normal thing her body had done in weeks.  And with that sign of human frailty, that other place stopped tugging at her and simply claimed her.

            She let out a gasp and tried desperately to feel the warmth of the tear on her cheek before she was taken.

            She opened her weary eyes to a white ceiling, dreary walls and poor light.  She felt something on her shoulder, wondering if she had somehow brought the butterfly back from that country road.  But when she lolled her head to the side, she saw what perched there and it was not a butterfly.

A plastic tube brushed against her shoulder where a small patch of her dry skin was exposed by the yellow hospital gown that she wore.  The tube traveled upwards, into her nose and then, in the opposite direction, over the side of the bed and into some machine that hummed patiently.

            “Momma, you’re awake…”

            She looked over and saw Chester.  His graying hair was frazzled and the poor boy looked as if he hadn’t slept in ages.  Calling him a boy seemed foolish; the amount of life lived and the knowledge acquired from it was evident in his eyes.  But she had held him inside of her for nine months, had breastfed him, had clothed him and sent him to college, had nurtured him through his first broken heart, his first experience with death…fifty-five years old or not, Chester would always be her little boy.

            “Yeah,” she said in a shaky hoarse voice.  “Haven’t gone anywhere yet.”  

            She looked into his eyes, made tiny behind the lenses of his glasses, and was reminded of the man she had not seen by the fence.

            “You were smiling in your sleep,” Chester said.  He grinned at her when he said it, not voicing the fact that it pleased him to know that whatever dream she had been having could very well be her last, and that he was glad it had made her happy.

            The machine that she was plugged into made a persistent beep-beep sound, like a metronome for the life she had left to live.  But she did not hear it.  These days, it was hard to hear anything past the rattle in her chest when she breathed.

            There was a fleeting moment when she knew that she needed to tell Chester something, but she couldn’t remember what.  She knew that he would like to know about the house she had seen, the failing fence and the winding country road.  But that wasn’t it…there was something more.

            Her eyes were growing heavy and she felt the ghost traces of pain begin to tickle her at the knees.  She felt her eyelids fluttering and was vaguely aware that her boy was reaching out, grasping her hand lovingly.

            “Chester,” she said, so softly that she didn’t know if he had heard her.  “The man at the fence…so handsome…please stay away from the man at the fence…”

            But before her son could respond, she was gone again.

            She wore a sundress and smelled of jasmine.  The smell was pushed out ahead of her by the country breeze at her back, making it so that she walked into her own scent as she made her way over the gentle rise of an impossibly green hill.  There was a man walking with her, his eyes glued to her.  He usually wore a hat but, in those times when chivalry wasn’t quite dead just yet, he held it in his hands.  His dark brown hair stood up in several directions as a result.

            “Do you not love me?” he asked.  “Is that it?”

            “Of course it’s not,” she said.  “Nothing is ever so simple that it can be blamed on love.  Do all men think women are that stupid?”

            He grinned and looked down to his feet.  “No, I suppose not,” he said.

            She looked to him quickly, out of the corner of her eye, and repressed a smile.  There was the slightest trace of grass stains along the elbows of his shirt sleeve from where they had been rolling in the grass, kissing. Yet when his hands had found the waistband of her skirt, she had pushed him playfully away, stood up and began walking.  It was not the first time she had done this.

            “Are you waiting on marriage, then?” he asked.  “If that’s the case, I think you know I would marry you.”

            She smiled at him and stopped for a moment.  “Not all women are that stupid, either,” she said and then started walking again.

            She glanced down the hill and saw the dirt track that would lead her home.  The sunset cast out shades of subtle gold that seemed to be sewn into the ditches along the track.  God, it was such a beautiful day.  Had she had a few more glasses of wine with her lunch earlier, perhaps she would have given him what he had been seeking from her for nearly a year.  The thought made her tremble inside and she felt an anxiousness in that place that her mother told her was supposed to only be for the man she married.

            As they neared the dirt road, her male companion tensed up a bit because he knew this is where they parted ways.  “Do you want me to walk you home?” he asked.

            “I’m a big girl,” she said.  “I think I’ll be okay.”

            He nodded, leaned in and kissed her on the mouth.  He tasted like salt and she knew that the taste of wine was still lingering on her own lips.  When their tongues touched, she felt that creeping need once again.  She broke the kiss and smiled at him.

            “Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked.

            She nodded and gave him another kiss, this one on the cheek, and turned away from him.

            A few steps down the road, she paused.  Up ahead she could see the framing of a fence, like a giant crooked spine springing from the ground.  She felt the slightest bit of uncertainty and the fear caused her to turn back towards her boyfriend.

            He was headed down the road, his shoulder hunched like a defeated man and his hat once again on his head.  She smiled briefly at him, considered going to him and then thought better of it.  She watched him go until he was nothing more than a silhouette and then she started walking again.

In a blur of motion that only exists in dreams, she found herself standing by the fence. The man she has been expecting is standing there as if he had been there all along.  He wore torn blue overalls and a straw hat on his head, but she somehow knows that this is not what he wears most of the time.

“How do?” she said.  

            The man grinned and adjusted the straw hat.  He looked as if he might be a bit uncomfortable, but he never took his eyes off of her.  He didn’t speak to her, only looked her up and down.

            She stared right back, cocking her head to the side and studying him as best as she could.  She felt her heart pulling in two directions, one wanting to retreat back down the dirt trail, the other wanting to stay here with this man, to venture into that old abandoned white farmhouse with him and learn his secrets.

            Without a word, the man removed his hat in a sign of chivalry.  The gesture made no sense to her, but she instantly felt an irrational fear spreading through her. 

            And then the smell of it hit her.

            Something dead…the smell of a gutted animal left the rot in the woods in the summer.  The smell was overpowering and she thought that it might be coming from the man at the fence—a man that was very familiar to her. 

            “Why are you here?” she asked him.  “I know this is just a dream. I know I am old and dying in the real world. Why are you, of all people, here?”

            When he opened his mouth to speak, she saw his teeth.  They were misshapen, slightly yellowed.  Sharp.

            “The same as before,” he said, his voice like a spring breeze.  “To let you know it is almost time.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We’re coming,” he said to her with a smile.

            Then a scream rose up in her throat (her dreaming throat and her real one) and she opened her eyes to the hospital room.

            She saw Chester again, confused and crying.  She saw the bright lights overhead and a muted television on the wall.  And for just a fleeting moment, she saw his shape there in the room with her.  Seeing this, she screamed again.  She kept screaming until two nurses came into the room and gave her an injection which calmed her almost immediately.

            As she rest her head back onto the pillow, she looked to Chester and shook her head in defeat.

“Don’t let him in,” she told her son.  “Keep him out…he’s coming…”

           

The Dead Man Music Video #3

Here's the third of three DEAD MAN music videos. Please visit the Dead Man facebook page and vote for the video you think should be the "official" one posted on the Dead Man's Amazon series page.

The Dead Man Music Video #2

Here's the second of three original DEAD MAN music videos. The third version will be up soon...then we hope you'll vote on the one that you like the best.

The Dead Man Music Video #1

Here's the first of three original music videos based on Matt Branham's theme song for THE DEAD MAN... the new series of original novels created by yours truly & William Rabkin...and published monthly by Amazon/47North. Once all three of the videos are up, which should be in the next few days, I'll let you know how you can vote on which one you think should be our "official" video posted on our Amazon series page.

The Story Behind "The Midnight Special"

Emmy-award winning writer Phoef Sutton's THE DEAD MAN #12: THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL, his wickedly funny and scary addition to the series, is out today... and it's the perfect way to end our "first season" of short novels. It's also Phoef's first published novel since his acclaimed ALWAYS SIX O'CLOCK back in 1999...and a real departure from his previous work.

So we asked him about the book...and his writing career.


You're a two-time, Emmy award winner for your work writing & producing CHEERS, and you've written for such shows as BOSTON LEGAL, NEWHART and TERRIERS. You're one of the few TV writers who has been able to move between comedy and drama. Why is that so uncommon and how have you been able to pull it off with such apparent ease?

It’s just that I approach them all in the same way.  As stories about characters involved in compelling situations.  When you think of it like that, the specific genre or style doesn’t become paramount.  The character’s journey is what matters.


How did your first novel come about? What did you think about the experience?

Writing is my work and my hobby,  I wrote my first novel in my spare time, just to see if I could do it.


Not only are you a TV writer and novelist, but you've also written several feature films, like THE FAN and MRS. WINTERBOURNE. What kind of writing are you most comfortable doing? Or is it just enough to be writing?

 I like all of it.  Doing different things helps keep me interested; that’s one of the reasons I keep branching out.  But of the three, screenwriting is the least friendly to the writer.  In TV, the writer can be the boss, at least if he’s the showrunner, up to a point.  In the novels, of course, the writer is the boss of everybody.  Because he makes everybody up!


 What attracted you to THE DEAD MAN series?

 I’ve always wanted to write horror.  I’m huge fan of that genre.  Richard Matheson was one of my boyhood idols.  For whatever reason, I’ve never gone in that direction professionally, so when Lee Goldberg mentioned this series to me, I jumped at the chance.  Of course, Lee was himself another attraction – we’ve been trying to work together for years and this is first time we’ve had the chance.


 What did you get out of writing THE MIDNIGHT SPECIAL that you don't get from writing sitcoms, dramas, and movies? 


 There is one obvious thing you get out of writing novels that sets them apart from other forms of writing – no network or studio notes.  You’re writing this mostly the way you want to write it.  The other thing I love about fiction is the way it’s so easy to get inside your characters heads.  You want to let the reader know what he’s thinking?  You just write it.  No need to resort to voice-over or character foils or narrative tricks.  I revel in that!

 What sets your book apart from the others in the series?

 Some say it’s the humor.  I can’t help but find comedy – in even the most dire circumstances.  Not that the book’s laugh riot, but there is humor between the lines.  Let’s say the narrator of the book has a wry sense of macabre humor.  I also liked the narrative trick they used in the first book of flashing forward in time and I tried to use that as well.  I think the narrative voice of this book is closest in the series to the original.

 What were some of the challenges you faced writing the book?

 Action scenes.  I’ve never really done them before.  And writing them is a real bear. Try writing “he threw a punch” in seventeen different ways.   But I’m learning!

 What's next for you?

 I’m finishing a new novel – a bit of hard-boiled action called CRUSH.  And I’m producing a comedy for TVLand, THE SOUL MAN.  That should keep me busy through the summer.

You Can Write A DEAD MAN Novel!

Now's your chance to win a $500 advance, a $500 Amazon gift card, and a publishing contract to write your own tale in the DEAD MAN saga, which will be published in early 2013 by Amazon's 47North imprint.

HOW TO ENTER

All you have to do is write a sample chapter and a brief outline of your story, complete the entry form and sign the release...and email the whole package to us at thedeadmanbookcontest@gmail.com by August 1, 2012...or before we reach 500 entries...whichever comes first. Each entry will be judged by a group of current writers of THE DEAD MAN, led by series co-creators Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin.

WHAT ARE THE RULES?

The contest rules are below. Please read them carefully to make sure that your entry meets all of the eligibility requirements before you submit.

Good luck!

WRITE A “DEAD MAN” NOVEL CONTEST

OFFICIAL RULES

Please read these Official Rules before entering the Write a “Dead Man” Novel Contest (“Contest”). By submitting an entry, entrants (“you” or “your”) acknowledge that you are eligible to enter the Contest and have read and agree to be bound by these Official Rules and our and the judges decisions related to the Contest. We will select one winner who will receive a full, work-for-hire publishing contract to write a 25,000 word novel in “The Dead Man” series of books, commissioned by  Adventures in Television Inc. (the “Sponsors”) and published by Amazon Publishing.

1.                  ELIGIBILITY. You are eligible to enter the Contest if you are at least 18 years old at time of entry and a legal resident of one of the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada (excluding the Province of Québec), China, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States (the 50 states and D.C.), or the United Kingdom. You are not eligible to enter the Contest if you are (a) an Amazon employee or independent contractor or an employee or independent contractor of any of Amazon’s  affiliates; (b) a family member (spouses, domestic partners, parents, grandparents, siblings, children, and grandchildren) of an Amazon employee or independent contractor; (c) a family member (spouses, domestic partners, parents, grandparents, siblings, children, and grandchildren) of an employee or independent contractor of any of Amazon’s affiliates; (d) an individual living in the same household as Amazon’s  employee or independent contractor; (e) an individual living in the same household as an employee or independent contractor of any of Amazon’s  affiliates; or (f) a judge involved in the Contest.

2.                  HOW TO ENTER. We must receive your Contest entry between June 1, 2012 at 12:01 a.m. (U.S. Pacific Standard Time) and August 1, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. (U.S. Pacific Standard Time). We will stop accepting Entries after we have received 500 submissions.   You must download the entry form  and the Release and Non-Disclosure Form from  http://thedeadmanbooks.blogspot.com. You must then follow the instructions on the entry form and email to us, at thedeadmanbookcontest@gmail.com, the following attachments: (1) a sample chapter of your proposed book in the “The Dead Man” series (“Chapter”) of up to 4,000 words, (2) an outline of your proposed book of up to 1000 words (“Outline”); (3) a signed release and non-disclosure form and (4) the personal information required on the entry form. (1-4 collectively, an “Entry”). We will not accept or review any Entry that does not comply with these Official Rules.

3.                  ENTRY REQUIREMENTS. You must be the only author of your Chapter and Outline. Any Chapter and Outline submitted as an Entry written by two or more authors will not be eligible. Your Chapter and Outline must: (a) be your original creation; (b) be fictional; (c) be in the English language; (d) be of interior black and white text without images; (e) not currently or previously have been the subject of a publishing agreement with any publisher. Additionally, you must submit your Chapter and Outline digitally in Microsoft Word .doc, .docx, .rtf, or .txt format. Any entry that we determine, in our sole discretion, to meet these requirements will be considered a “Valid Entry.” You may be represented by an agent on the condition that you - not your agent - agree to comply with these Official Rules. Our servers and clock will be the official clock for all phases of the Contest. You will not receive any notice that your entry has been received. You will only be contacted if you are the Winner. You may only submit one entry.

4.                  CONDITIONS OF ENTRY. By submitting an Entry, you represent and warrant that your Entry: (a) is your original creation; (b) has not been copied in whole or in part from any other work; (c) has not previously been published as described in Section 3(e) above; (d) does not violate or infringe any copyright, trademark, privacy or publicity right, or other proprietary or intellectual property right of any person or entity; (e) is not defamatory, libelous, obscene, or otherwise illegal; and (f) is your sole and exclusive property. You further represent and warrant that you have complete, worldwide distribution rights in and to your Chapter and Outline.

5.                  GRANT OF RIGHTS. By submitting an Entry and if you are selected as the winner, you grant Adventures in Television the exclusive first publication rights to your Entry. By submitting an Entry, you grant us and our respective affiliates and agents permission to use, without charge, portions of your Chapter and Outline, along with your name and stated reason for writing the submitted Entry (if provided) for any purpose in connection with this Contest. You also grant us the right to edit the formatting and display of your Entry, and to create literary or any other types of effects in respect to your Entry without compensation or approval. In addition, to the extent that any moral rights (for example, the right to attribution and the right to integrity) apply, you waive (and to the extent that these rights may not be waived, agree irrevocably not to assert) your moral rights in your Entry for purposes of this Contest, including, without limitation, our use of excerpts from your Entry in connection with this Contest. You represent that you have received the consent of any person (or parent or legal guardian if such person is a minor) whose real and actual name or likeness is used or featured in any Entry that you submit. If you fail to obtain the consent, your Entry will be disqualified. We have the right at any time during the Contest to request proof of consent, and to disqualify your Entry if you cannot provide the requested documents. Excerpts, along with the your name, city, and state of residence, and portions of your Entry which relate to the submitted Chapter, may be posted on any website owned or operated by us or any of their affiliates (“Our Site”), any other website or other online point of presence on any platform through which any products or services available on or through Our Site are described, syndicated, offered, merchandised, or advertised. Our decision to post an Excerpt or any portion of an Entry on any one of Our Sites does not mean that the selected Entry has been selected as a winning Entry. Furthermore, you acknowledge that your Entry is based on copyrighted characters, concepts, and other creative elements belonging wholly to Adventures in Television Inc. and that “The Dead Man” logo is a registered trademark of Adventures in Television Inc. and that you may not publish, or otherwise publicly disseminate or repurpose your Entry in any media or format, regardless of whether or not you win the contest, without the written consent of Adventures in Television Inc.

6.                  COLLECTION/USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION. We are collecting personal information primarily to process Entries, to contact you if necessary, or for marketing and other purposes. By participating in this Contest, non-U.S. resident entrants are authorizing the transfer of personal data to the United States for these purposes. By entering the Contest, you agree that we may share your information, in our sole discretion, with third parties that have a need to know the information, such as the judging panel or third parties that we retain to assist in administering the Contest; however, those third parties may only use the information for purposes related to this Contest.

7.                  GRAND PRIZE. If you are selected as the Winner in a category, you will receive a $500 Amazon gift card and a standard work-for-hire publishing contract with Adventures in Television Inc. to write a novella, of no more than 25,000 words, in “The Dead Man” series and to market and distribute your final manuscript as a published book. Upon the full execution of the publishing contract, Adventures in Television will pay the Winner $500.00 USD. The $500.00 payment is an advance against the royalties to be earned by the Winner under the work-for-hire publishing contract. The approximate retail value (“ARV”) of the publishing contract is $500.00 USD for the advance. You will receive half of the advance on signing the contract, half on delivery of the final manuscript. Adventures in Television will determine the royalty rates to be paid under the work-for-hire publishing contract, which will depend on the format in which the book is published and the projected print run. You may not negotiate the standard work-for-hire publishing contract with Adventures in Television, and you must sign it “as is” upon receipt of the executable contract if you wish to enter into the publishing contract being awarded. The work-for-hire publishing contract will be governed by the laws of the State of California.

8.                  DISQUALIFICATIONS. If your Entry is disqualified for any reason, you will not receive a notice or explanation describing the reason for the disqualification.

9.                  WINNER NOTIFICATION AND REQUIREMENTS. If you are selected as a potential Finalist, we will notify you by phone or e-mail starting on or before Sept 1, 2012. You will be required to sign and return a work-for-hire publishing contract with Adventures in Television, which Adventures in Television will countersign only if you are selected as the Winner. We must receive the signed publishing contract by Oct. 1, 2012. If any documentation is not returned by the specified dates, we may invite an alternate Finalist, chosen by the Adventures in Television judging panel to replace the original Finalist. If notification to the alternate Finalist is returned as undeliverable, we will invite the next eligible alternate Finalist, and so on. Prior to awarding a prize, we may require you to sign additional documents we believe are necessary to confirm your eligibility, to obtain a liability and publicity release, and to award any prize.

10.              ADDITIONAL TERMS. The Contest and all accompanying materials are © 2012 by Adventures in Television, Inc. All rights reserved. The Contest is void outside the eligible entry jurisdictions and where prohibited by law. You agree that our decisions related to the Contest are final and binding in all matters. We reserve the right, to the maximum extent permitted by law, in our sole discretion, to change these rules or cancel the Contest at any time. We may also modify, terminate or suspend the Contest if any viruses, worms, bugs, unauthorized human intervention, or other causes beyond our control corrupt or impair the administration, security, or fairness of the Contest or submission of Entries. If you use the name or likeness of an individual in your Entry, you agree to be solely responsible for that use. Amazon is not a sponsor of or involved in the judging of this Contest.  You agree that we, Amazon and our and their respective parents, affiliates, subsidiaries and advertising and promotion agencies, along with any officers, directors, agents, employees and representatives of any of them (collectively, “Released Parties”), will not be responsible for any action brought by a person whose consent you did not obtain. The Released Parties are not responsible for: (a) any human or other error that may occur in the processing of the Entries; (b) any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, theft or destruction, or unauthorized access to or alteration of Entries; (c) or for technical, network, telephone, computer, hardware or software, malfunctions of any kind, which may occur in connection with this Contest, including, without limitation, any errors or problems related to the administration of the Contest, the processing or judging of Entries, the announcement of the prizes, or the Contest-related materials. Released Parties are also not responsible for: (y) inaccurate transmission of, or failure to receive, any entry information on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any Web site; and (z) injury or damage to you or any other computer resulting from downloading any materials in connection with the Contest. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to disqualify any individual found to be tampering with the entry or voting process, the outcome of the Contest, or the operation of the Contest or Web site; to be acting in violation of these Official Rules; or to be acting in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner or with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any other person (including actions by you INDIVIDUAL TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE ANY WEBSITE OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF THE CONTEST MAY BE A VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAWS, AND IF SUCH AN ATTEMPT IS MADE, WE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO SEEK DAMAGES OR OTHER RELIEF (INCLUDING ATTORNEYS’ FEES) FROM THE PERSON TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.

11.              LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY. THE RELEASED PARTIES ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE UNAUTHORIZED USE OF ANY ENTRY (OR ANY PORTION OF ANY ENTRY) BY ANY THIRD PARTY. YOU AGREE (FOR YOURSELF AND YOUR HEIRS) THAT THE RELEASED PARTIES, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LIABILITY, LOSS, INJURY, OR DAMAGE TO PROPERTY OR TO PERSON. YOU ALSO AGREE THAT WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY REASONABLE ATTORNEY’S FEES AND COURT COSTS DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY RELATED TO YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THE CONTEST, OR BY REASON OF YOUR ACCEPTANCE, POSSESSION, USE OR MISUSE OF THE PRIZES (INCLUDING ANY TRAVEL OR ACTIVITY RELATED TO A PRIZE). NOTHING IN THESE OFFICIAL RULES WILL LIMIT ANY RELEASED PARTY’S LIABILITY FOR DEATH OR PERSONAL INJURY CAUSED BY THAT PARTY'S NEGLIGENCE, A BREACH OF THESE OFFICIAL RULES, OR FRAUDULENT MISREPRESENTATION.

12.              GOVERNING LAW/DISPUTES. This Contest is governed by the laws of the United States and the State of California. As a condition of participating in this Contest, you agree, to the extent permitted by law, that any and all disputes which cannot be resolved between the parties, and causes of action arising out of or in connection with this Contest, will be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action, exclusively before a court located in Los Angeles County, California. FURTHER, IN ANY DISPUTE, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL YOU BE PERMITTED TO OBTAIN AWARDS FOR, AND YOU HEREBY WAIVE ALL RIGHTS TO CLAIM, PUNITIVE, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING ATTORNEYS' FEES, OTHER THAN ENTRANT’S ACTUAL OUT-OF-POCKET EXPENSES (E.G. COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH ENTERING). YOU FURTHER WAIVE ALL RIGHTS TO HAVE DAMAGES MULTIPLIED OR INCREASED.

13.              RIGHTS OF PUBLICITY. By participating in the Contest, you consent to the worldwide use of your name, biographical information, photographs, videos or likenesses in any manner and in any medium now in existence or later invented for any purpose in connection with the Contest without additional compensation, notification or permission, except where prohibited by law.

14.              SPONSORS’ ADDRESS. Adventures in Television, Inc, P.O. Box 8212, Calabasas, CA 91372