Carter Wilson's Making It Up
Making It Up is an unscripted conversation series about the messy reality of being a writer.
Each episode is a deep, unplanned conversation with writers at every stage of the journey. New York Times bestselling authors. Award winners. Debut novelists just getting started. No prepared questions. No talking points. Just two people following the conversation wherever it leads.
We talk about where stories really come from. Childhood influences. Fear. Luck. Loss. Discipline. Doubt. The highs, the lows, and the long stretches in between that rarely get talked about.
At the end of every episode, we put the philosophy into practice. We choose a random sentence from a random book and use it to create an impromptu short story. No prep. No outline. Just making something out of nothing.
Because that is the job.
And that is the point.
Visit Carter at www.carterwilson.com.
Carter Wilson's Making It Up
Making It Up with Chris Pavone, author of The Doorman
“Don’t wait for chapter five to be good. Be good immediately.” —Chris Pavone
Chris Pavone is an international thriller author whose novels include THE EXPATS, winner of both the Edgar and Anthony Awards; the instant bestseller TWO NIGHTS IN LISBON; and THE DOORMAN, a New York Times Notable Book of 2025. His novels have appeared on all the major bestseller lists and have won or been shortlisted for Edgar, Anthony, Strand, Macavity, and ThrillerFest awards, among others. Chris worked in publishing for nearly two decades and ghost-wrote a couple of nonfiction books.
Among other things, Chris and Carter discuss working in publishing in New York City in the early 90s, why the first page of your manuscript is so important, and how a move to Luxembourg inspired Chris’s first novel. At the end of their conversation, they make up an emotional story using a line from Jeffrey Konvitz’s The Circus of Satan.