Making it Up with Daniel G. Miller, author of The Orphanage By The Lake

“Almost anytime somebody gives you a generalization, there's about 17 other examples that break that rule. Some of the greatest books of all time break those rules.” — Dan Miller 

Daniel G. Miller is the USA Today bestselling author of the Orphanage By The Lake mystery-thriller series and the Tree of Knowledge adventure series. His books have been described as "irresistible" by thriller master James Patterson and as "a thrill ride with no seatbelt but what an incredible view," by Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz. His novel, The Orphanage By The Lake, was selected as an Amazon Editor's Pick. His newest novel, Buried in the Woods Below, will be released in September 2026. 

Among other things, Dan and Carter discuss the business of self-publishing, writing effective violence, and giving readers credit for their imagination. At the end of their conversation, they make up a suspenseful story using a line from Lisa Matlin’s The Only One Who Knows. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:05

Writers, hello. This is Carter. Welcome to this episode of Making It Up, the conversation series where I just sit down with people I know, people I don't know, other writers, and we just pick each other's brains for about 45 minutes. Um, it's very fun. Um, I do it once a week and I'm always looking forward to it. Um, but I will tell you it's a lot of work. So I thank you for watching or listening to this because um we we here at Unbound Rider, we pour our hearts and souls into this podcast. Speaking of Unbound Rider, a couple of announcements. Um, so we have redesigned our website, it looks great. I love it. Unbound Ride is a place where you can reach out to me for um one-on-one writing coaching, and we also offer seminars, workshops, and retreats. Go to the website and you'll see under retreats that um by the time this episode comes out, we should have some firm data on there. But a writing retreat in Paris, France, not Paris, Texas, Paris, France, spring 2027. I'm gonna be teaching mystery thriller suspense writing alongside best-selling authors Alex Finlay and Clemence Michelin with some surprise, amazing special guests. Um, man, it's gonna be awesome. Um, if if the registration's not for it is not open yet, there is an interest form that you can sign up for. And make sure you sign up for that and you'll be given all the information before anyone else because we are going to be limiting this group to about 20 people or so. Also, if you go over to um Unbound writer, you will also see that we have a workshop on May 30th called The Visible Writer. Now, this is a class that I'm actually teaching at Thriller Fest a couple weeks before um our May 30th seminar. And it's just how to be visible as an author. You can't be invisible. Very few authors can be invisible. Um, what does that mean? What do you have to do? Does that mean you have to master social media? It's really just about how do you show up so people associate a real human person behind your writing. And in this world of AI, uh, that's more and more uh uh important to make sure people get to know who you are as a writer and not just your work. And I'll teach you some ways that you can do that that I've learned over time. Um, all right, on to the show. So, what a fun one, man. I've I've had some great ones in a row here. Uh today I talked to Daniel um G. Miller. So, Dan, um, Dan and I met, and we kind of talked about a little bit in the podcast at an event um last fall that we were at together because we're both with Poison Pen Press. This is the same event that my previous guest, Marley Bush, was at as well. And just like Marley, I got to know Dan. I'm like, Dan's a really interesting guy. I want to get to know him more. So I invited him on to the podcast. Um, we had a great conversation about going um in his career from self-published to traditionally published. And then, you know, he had um just a highly successful book come out, uh, The Orphanage by the Lake, followed up with his most recent book, The Red Letter. Um, just and and then we got into talking about his new book, which which I'll let you listen to in the podcast, but it's coming out late summer, early fall of this year. Um, and we had a prolonged conversation about writing violence and how to do it, what does that mean, and how it has to feel um inevitable and earned. And how do you figure that out? Um, I I feel like we went heavy into craft on this one, which is my favorite kind of conversation to have. And he was a great partner to talk to about craft because you know, we just spend so much of our time in isolation writing that to have a conversation about craft and see it from somebody else's perspective, whether you do it the same way or not, to me is fascinating. So uh, this was a tremendous episode, might have even gone a little long, I'm not sure. Um, but we just we were just gabbing away. Um, you're gonna love this one, friends. This is my conversation with Daniel G. Miller. Um, but yeah, you've been good.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Yeah, really good. Uh very busy. Um, you know, cranking out the books just like you.

SPEAKER_03 4:44

So it's it doesn't get any easier, does it?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

No, it does not.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

Somehow it gets harder. Somehow I I feel like it's funny. I I spend so much time talking about writer psychology and self-doubt and imposter syndrome. And I feel like you go through this cycle where it gets better because you start to see results, and then for me, it just gets worse. Like there's a tipping point where you're just like it comes back all of a sudden. It's like, is this book total shit? Because I have no context for it at this point, and I feel like my fourth and fifth six books, which probably were shit, I feel more confident about. And now I'm just like, I don't know. Like the last one sold pretty well, and I want to sell like that again, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Well, I for me, it's um a little bit of a problem of you know, ignorance was bliss in the sense that you know, yeah, as I'm going along, I'm learning more about the craft of writing and sort of realizing all the things I'm doing poorly, which makes it that much harder. Yeah, when you don't know about your mistakes, it's something sort of easier.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

Which there is something to be said about staying in a bit of a place of ignorance or at least limiting your writerly worldview to a few people that you trust. And that's kind of what I do because I remember even starting out writing. Of course, I literally had zero idea of what I was doing. I kind of fell into it in a weird way, yeah. And so it's just like I was plucked up and said they said, This is what you're doing now. And I'm like, I don't know how any of this works, and so that did make it easier, but of course, there was a lot to learn. Um, but when I when I so I never took any classes, I never really read any books except for Stephen King's on writing and a couple kind of almost anecdotal ones. Yeah, but if I start thinking about like, okay, here's the hero's journey, here's the three-act structure, by this, by 66%, and you should have this, and you should have the inciting incident by page, like I it would stop me in my tracks because I would get confused.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Totally agree. I and and that's and I actually have I've actually avoided all of that, you know, partly just because of the exact same reason you said about it sort of stops you in your tracks. But I think the other thing that always has struck me about all those sort of generalizations is almost any time somebody gives you a generalization, there's about 17 other examples that break that rule.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

100%.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Yeah, right, totally. And it's and some of the greatest books of all time break those rules.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

So right, yeah. I I, you know, one of my favorite authors is Cormac McCarthy, and you read him, and I'm like, all right, I'm sitting here with a dictionary next to me because I don't understand half of what he's saying, but there's something that's there's something musical about he how he writes, um, and he breaks every rule. I know it's very, it's very frustrating, but it's and the irony of it is I coach writing now. So, for example, I had this exchange with a student the other day, and she's asking me for specific examples of how to kind of trim uh maybe a little bit too much description or backstory or whatever. Sure. So I gave so I rewrote a paragraph for her and I said, This is how I do it, but I don't want to usurp your voice. Like your voice has to be your voice, it still has to be the way that feels right to you. Um, but if I were writing it, if this helps you at all, this is how I would do it. Um, because there's a million ways, right, to write a book.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Absolutely, absolutely. And I and I mean that and that's the other piece that you know, one of the biggest things that was I would say maybe my biggest learning of all just starting out was I don't know about you, but I when I started writing thought, there was such a thing as an undisputably good book. Yeah, like this is a good book and it can't be argued, right? Yeah, yeah, and obviously, as I dove into it, what you realize is it's so reader dependent, right? 100% that yeah, you know, some people love Dan Brown, some people loathe Dan Brown, right?

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Right, right, right, but but it's undeniable that he has popular appeal, right? Goes on sales volume alone, and hell, I'll tell I'll take popular appeal over literary praise anytime.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Exactly. But but that was the lesson for me was when I wrote my first book, I didn't understand, like you kind of have to understand who who's reading it, right? Right. And because how if you understand who's reading it, that impacts how you frame things, right, right. And so if you know, if if your audience is Dan Brown readers and you write a Cormac McCarthy book, right, that's not gonna turn out well for you.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Right, right. And and when you're just starting out, you're writing for potential agents, that's all you're writing for. And that's really scary because you know, you're talking to, yeah, I mean, if if your the agent even looks at your query letter and doesn't just go to a uh an intern going through the slush pile, yeah, they're seeing they're not even seeing your pages yet, they're just seeing like the vibe of the book, and and then you start expanding and you get published, and now you're hearing from readers, and it's just it's weird because you're like, Oh, I went through all these struggles with getting an agent and getting a publisher, and now it's selling okay. Why was this so hard? But but you realize like it's really hard to get published.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Absolutely. I well, for me, I mean, I I started up self-publishing because I just wrote my first book, I just wrote for me. I I mean, literally, how did that come about?

SPEAKER_03 10:38

What was the desire? Like, I want to write this book.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Yeah, so I had sort of always sort of had in the back of my head that I wanted to write a book, and I'd always had an idea in the back of my head of what that book would look like. Um, and had never done it just because you know, job life gets in the way. Right. And then when COVID hit, that was my moment. I was like locked inside, you know, and thinking, if I am ever gonna write a book, that's a very typical story, too.

SPEAKER_03 11:01

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Yeah, and so so then I just wrote the book. It was called The Tree of Knowledge, and coincidentally, I'm actually uh sort of rewriting it. I'm I'm writing a second edition right now. Um, but I wrote that just for me, just for fun, and then said, Well, now I actually did it, I might as well try to publish this. Yeah, um, and and went straight to self-publishing, didn't even try. Yeah, uh, because like I said, I I had no idea whether it was even worth doing. Right. And it right, it's it, you know, kind of was a modest success. And so that gave me the confidence, for lack of a better word, of to that, oh, I can actually do this, and then the rest is history.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

But why wouldn't you? And I find it fascinating. I had Cynthia Swanson on uh not too long ago, and she's a New York Times bestselling author who then decided I'm just gonna try self-publishing and see what that's like. She's like, it's really hard. It's like it's it's I mean, it's fulfilling, and it's obviously uh, you know, can make you decent more money. Obviously, you keep a lot more of the lion's share of it. Um but it's I find it fascinating. So in your case, so in my case, because I was so ignorant and because I didn't know anything, I needed some kind of third-party validation, right? Because I would always have in my mind, like, yeah, but you suck, right? You know, and I still kind of have that, but like at least like I have an editor who bought my book, who tells you don't right, right? Yeah, you only moderately suck. Um, but you you so you self-publish Tree of Knowledge, and to your, you know, to your credit, it does modestly well. And to have anyone pay attention to it, even a traditionally published book, is very hard. Why would you not then be like, I can really monetize this by keeping self-publishing?

SPEAKER_00 12:57

Yeah, so I think the there were there were really two things. The first was sort of a lifestyle uh piece in that if you self-publish, obviously it's great. You have the keys of the car, but you are also the marketer, the publicist. You're you're wearing five different hats. And for me, it was like, I just want to write books. Like, I don't want to so that was that was one thing. And then the second was was more of a kind of a tactical concern that I think is relevant to any self-published author, which is you really don't have any distribution or retail access as a self-published author. I mean, you you sell on Amazon effectively. And but if you want to get into Target or Barnes and Noble or Walmart or whatever, that's just not happening. Yeah, and so you're kind of shutting off this still massive market, right? Yeah, um, which which I felt like was you know unnecessarily handcuffing myself.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

But so I I and I'm curious because I I know it can go a couple different ways, but I'm curious about your experience because you and I are obviously with the same publisher, Poison Pen Press. Um, you know, I if if students kind of ask me about self-publishing, uh, you know, because I don't have any experience self-publishing, I don't feel equipped to really tell them. Well, the only thing I caution them is that, you know, if you self-publish once it's out there, it's out there, right? And if you decide to keep self-publishing or try to go traditional route, you have history that people can look at there. And so you really got to make sure your book is ready to be out there. Um now, going as you did to the traditional route after that, it sounds like it was helpful that you had a book that was doing that had decent sales figures attached to it. So a publisher could say, plus, he's now a known entity.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Yes. And actually, I think your advice is is very good advice because I think the one advantage I had is before I was a writer, I came from a business and sort of consumer marketing background. So I was comfortable in that world of you know, creating a brand and you know, designing a cover and you know, all that sort of thing, all the all the business aspect of self-publishing. And so that gave me sort of a leg up, I would say, on your traditional writer. And that's and that's the one thing I would say is like if you are going, I totally agree with you. If you're gonna self-publish, you have to make sure that you know it it lands, right? Right, well, and you've paid to get it edited professionally and yeah, and but that's again what I say is like if you're gonna self-publish, you really have to be comfortable saying, I'm going to be a business person. Yeah, and you know, I'm gonna be part writer, but part business person.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

This is my widget, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Yeah, yeah. And and most writers, of course, have no desire to do that.

SPEAKER_03 15:53

Right, right, right. But then in your case, I'm assuming your then desire to go and self-uh to traditionally publish, then is like you're not just going to a publisher, you're now I gotta find an agent, which is a massive hurdle, right? Yep, uh, and again, helpful that you had good sales figures on your self-published book, but was that was that a long process for you?

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Uh no, because and and back to your point about you gotta do well the self-publishing, because I did well self-publishing, an agent actually reached out to me.

SPEAKER_03 16:29

That's that's a rare story.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wouldn't say that's the model, right?

SPEAKER_03 16:35

But no, no, no, but that's great. I mean, yeah, and and I think also probably by self-publishing, not that it's the same thing as traditional publishing in terms of the business model, but it gives you as a as a business person a lot of knowledge around how books work, how books get get out there, how they're reviewed, how they're sold. Um not that you have to be in the trenches on that these days, but right, it's good to have that guy because I I come from a business background myself, so I'm constantly curious. And what's so funny for me is that, and I forget, I forget again who your editor is. Are you with Anna?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Uh no, I'm with Mary. You're with Mary, okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 17:18

Like it's such to me, it's so coming from a business background, going into publishing, it's so opaque. Like, I'm and like, and I never talk to these. I mean, we we talk, of course, but it's not like a corporate world where you're you have updates every week, and I'm like, I have no idea what these people think about me. Like, like I I don't know how they talk about my book internally, like I don't know what their expectations are for me. Yeah, there's just no feedback, and it's so it's not necessarily bad, but it's just so weird because in the corporate world, you're you in fact maybe I told you the story. I asked Anna a few years ago for an employee review because I said I I emailed, I'm like, if we were in the corporate structure, I would at least once a year oh that's hilarious, share your thoughts on me because I yeah, you know, otherwise, it's like I'm hopefully I'm she's acquiring my book and then the editorial process, yeah. Not like, yeah, we see you as a perennial mid lister or whatever, whatever it is, you know. Yeah, like do you see me in line for a promotion? Like, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

I'm like, but that's a great idea.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

But and it's funny, in the corporate world, I would never want feedback. I'd be like, I'm I'm fucking nailing this, I'm doing great. Yeah, but here I'm so insecure, I'm just like, can you just what do you like? What do you think about me?

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Yeah, no, but I think that's a that's a really good point. And and I actually think that's that's sort of a nice thing about self-publishing, right? Is the it it is just you and the audience, right? Like how you are doing is entirely controlled by you, yeah. And so and of course the readers give you very you know candid feedback on how you do, especially yeah, and then and there's also sort of in my mind, no excuses. Whereas one of the things that's been interesting being with um you know poison pen is you know, if a book does well or doesn't do well, there's sort of that mystery behind it, right? Of right, how much of this was me, how much of this was the the publishing operation, you know. And and and that's an odd spot to be in as an author, I think.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

Totally. And yeah, and there's something there's something horrible about that and something massively comforting about that. Um, because I love one of the things I love about being a writer is that the best can always be yet to come. There's no like I hit my peak when I was 40, now my body's degrading or my mental faculties degree. You never know, you know. And for me, it was tell me what you did, my tenth book, 20 years in, that kind of became my breakout book. I couldn't you see that coming? No. Well, I knew I knew before it was released that Barnes and Noble had picked it for a monthly pick, which I knew, which I didn't know even know what that meant when it first called me, and then it turned out to be a big deal. And so that definitely helped it. But I think it I think it blew up beyond that. And what the one thing I know for sure uh for all books is nothing sells more than word of mouth. Um it has to there, but that then becomes that intangible, like, well, what was it about this book? Um I think that I think with that book, I think the cover was exceptional. Um, and I think that got people it still has to be a good book, right? But that you they pick it up. Um but I don't know because when I wrote that book, I wrote it from a very angry and frustrated place out of my experience with my previous book. And so I'm like, I'm just gonna write this straightforward in your face. You know, I'm not gonna try to be clever, it's just like and it hit, you know. And but then I wouldn't try to replicate that because I know that's a fool's errand as well. I see that time and time again. So you just don't, and I think you know, you think about the orphanage at the lake, same thing, right? Like what it's it's funny because I see people will send me pictures of my book at Target, which I never know when my book is gonna be at Target. That's always surprised to me, and it's always right next to your book, yeah. Yes, yes, and I'm like, awesome, man. Yeah, um, good for poison pen. You know, of course, free is all over the place there, too. Yeah, of course. Also with poison pen. Um, but but did you know that that book was going to just somehow hit?

SPEAKER_00 21:49

I wouldn't say no, that's too strong. I had a good feeling about it, and and the the two things that really resonated with me when I was writing it were as stupid as it sounded. Sounds the title, you know, the orphanage by the lake. To me, it's like, I don't know about you, but I feel like you say that phrase and you're like, okay, I gotta know what's going on in that orphanage.

SPEAKER_03 22:09

Right, right. Right. Right. Right. How many kids have drowned in that lake? That's what I want to say.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Yeah. And then and then the other thing that was big for me, and I'd I'd actually be curious like what your thoughts are on this, but it was actually the first book I wrote where I felt like the character was like my friend. Yeah. You know, I mean, the other books I'd written, the characters were there, right? But they felt more just you know, almost like a movie screen character, you know, a character in a movie or something. Right. They're fleshed out, but they're not intimate. Whereas this was the first character where I was like, I know this person.

SPEAKER_03 22:51

Yeah. Yeah, totally. And it depends on for orphanage, what was your point of view?

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Was it is first person present.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

Right. So we have that in in common. And I know you also write from a female perspective as well, first person present. Um, the first time I did female first person present was my fifth book, my which was my first book with with source books. And that book fell out of me. And I've said it on this podcast time and time again. I think that's when I really found my voice in writing. And it and a lot of it has to do with I just found out that first person present is what I'm best at. And because I think I'm a pretty empathetic person and I can be in that. And to your point, that character's name was Alice. I'm like, I just I feel her. Yes. And and I I've written first person present where you know the one I'm working on now. I love the book, and it's from a male perspective. I don't feel as close. I don't I don't see her the way that I could see her. Like her, I'm just like, I see how you look when you're just sitting there breathing.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

Yeah, yeah. Him.

SPEAKER_03 23:58

I'm like, yeah, I've got a kind of an idea of him. And but I think the problem is my voice seeps into my male characters. So I tend not to write from that perspective so much. Um, but it becomes hard with the expectation of being like, oh, this guy only writes first person present female. They want, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

So it's weird. They mix it up a little, right? Yeah. I think so.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

Do you mix it up?

SPEAKER_00 24:20

That so well that you know I was telling you, I'm rewriting the tree of knowledge, so I had to go back to that book. And and when I say rewriting, I mean, this is like a very big rewrite. Yeah, yeah, that's written third person, uh past. Yeah, yeah. And man, I have such a hard time getting getting in close.

SPEAKER_03 24:42

Right, right, because you're not close, and you you can even be a close third, you can be just a single point of view, third person. Because I start that's how I started writing because I thought that's how books work because I was stupid, and and yeah, you're never you don't get those those fragments, you know. Most of my writing now is just fragments because that's how we think. Um, and there's something very propulsive about that, as a pos as opposed to having kind of longer flowing sentences that are observational rather than visceral and emotional.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Exactly. And and I actually think, and now we're really getting to the weeds of writing, but that's what we're supposed to do on this podcast, right? Is um I think I I have a very hard time. You know how when you when you're writing first person present, you can essentially slip in a thought, right? Right. So so you know, maybe the the person's walking into the room. I mean, some stray thought that hits their head, you can you can put in there almost seamlessly, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:46

It's not disrupting the action, it's just even just a a single paragraph, single sentence paragraph, just with the quick observation.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Yep, and in third person, you can do that, obviously, but it's much more jarring, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:59

Because usually you italicize it, comma, he thought, you know.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Exactly, exactly. And and I was talking to uh Jennifer Hillier about this. She writes in third person, and she said sometimes she uh actually writes it in first person and then switches it back. The whole thing, you know, yeah. No, not the whole thing, but like a if she's like a scene. If she's struggling with a scene, right? It's feeling too distant, she'll write it in first and then switch it back, which I thought was a really interesting trick.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

Yeah. Um, because I've actually converted it. My the the book that I had frustration with, I had doubts that I could get close enough to this character because she was so different than who I am. So I wrote the entire thing third person past, and it did not resonate with my editor, and so I rewrote it first person present, and that took me four months to do. And I remember sitting there thinking with page one, I'm like, do I start with a blank page and just look, or do I rewrite, overwrite? And I decided to overwrite, but it's every I mean, and it's way more than subject verb, right? It's it's the voice totally changes because now all of a sudden you have that structured sentence become this fragment, um, and this paranoia that can't be expressed well. I don't think third person passed. So yeah, it was it was a good it was a great experience to go through. I don't ever want to do it again.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I actually I said this to somebody, I don't know if you'd agree with it, but I would argue that if it's feasible for your story, like if it's literally not impossible, first person present is just objectively better.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

I know that's like a hot take, but I I I I know that's what I gravitate to, but I would I would specifically say that for mystery thriller suspense. Um especially maybe not mystery as much if it's if it's you know if it's uh a perceived like a cozy or a cozy. Yeah, um, I totally agree. And I but I think the over the overarching element of all of this is like you've got to try everything, and you've and you have to write hundreds of thousands of words, and you gotta see what just feels organic to you. Uh you know, again, it took me five published books, eight total books to find, oh, this I think is me. Um, but it I wouldn't have gotten there had I not tried different things, like like five points of view in a book. I'll never do that because that's just not who I am, and that's way too much work. Uh yeah, like I want to be inside one person's head who's freaking the fuck out for the entire book, um trying to just get control of their life however they can. That's what's interesting to me, you know. But I've tried other stuff and you know, it just didn't work as well.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

Yep, absolutely. That's you're right. That's the key is trying.

SPEAKER_03 29:02

I want to so we you know, we met. Uh it's funny. I had Marley on the podcast last week. Uh hilarious. So yeah, I came back from that trip and I immediately just like, oh, I want to talk to you more to to all of you. Um, so we met, and whenever that was last fall or something like that, in Georgia, uh, for uh um Darcy Coates event um at the Books a Million, and it was a poison pen price thing, and it was great, and it was fantastic. It was a blast, and it was really fun. I love I love doing stuff like that. And it clearly, you know, the preponderance of the people coming out were there to see Darcy. But I think, and I don't want to speak for you, but it's just like who cares? Like, this is this is great, you know. Exactly we're not in competition with one another, we're all supporting one another, and that was great. Um, and then I had the I had the privilege to get an early peek at your upcoming book, and so this is uh very rarely do I and I don't want to talk about your book a whole lot, um because I know it's coming out, um, but maybe you could plug it a little bit, and you know, certainly the name when it's coming out, I think it's coming out August or September, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

September, yep, buried in the woods below.

SPEAKER_03 30:16

Buried in the woods below.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 30:18

Man, you did not hold back. Like I'm reading this book, and then there are scenes where I'm like, this guy just went for it. Yeah, this guy's just you know, and and I I I I met Dan, he's a very nice guy. Um, he doesn't seem unhinged. Um, and and I'm one to talk, you know, the one person who's got questions about where do all your where does all your darkness come from? But there's some on-screen brutality that I I I don't know if have having respect for it is the right way to say it because I don't want to be insensitive, but from a writerly perspective, I'm like, this guy just just like this is what happened, and I'm gonna make you watch it because it's not because of for the gratuitous nature of it, but because it's important you understand how severe this is because it has consequences later. Um, but that's a really hard decision to make as a writer. An example being like, I once killed a dog off screen, an unknown dog, and got a shit storm for it. You're just like, no one's safe here. So what and I and I love that because then I think I mentioned to you that there's a lot of king, especially shining-esque elements to the story, and being such a fan, like you know, I gravitated towards that. But as you're writing, are you sitting there thinking how much this has to happen? How much am I going to go into it?

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Yeah, absolutely. And and honestly, I'm sort of terrified at what reaction I'm gonna get.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

Um, but it's gone through your agent, it's gone through the publisher who bought the book.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 32:16

And and I don't want to freak out readers, it's not you know, splatter punk or anything like that. It's just heavy, you know, it's just real violence in a thriller.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Yep. Yeah, so I mean, what it came down to for me, and and this goes back to a piece of advice that I got, I don't even remember who told me, but it's the truth is when I write, I start with the characters before the plot. Yeah, and totally because because then my feeling is if you really understand your characters, the plot and their motivations, the plot almost like kind of unfolds naturally, right?

SPEAKER_03 32:53

And and from first person present, if if your character's not nailed, the plot doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Yes, exactly. Well said, and so you know, again, not to go too deep into the story, but the the main character in this story is a woman who um is is returning home, uh, and home is a place of trauma for her. And the book is really about, you know, how do you deal with returning to trauma when it's everything you've tried to forget, right?

SPEAKER_03 33:31

And not only for trying to forget, but haven't really addressed. Correct. And that's correct, and that's how I write, and I think that's so powerful because you have somebody who's a ticking time bomb because of something that happened in their past, and now they're facing it again, and they never got therapy, they never, they never really went to great strides to work through that.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Exactly. And so for me, it was it was everything that happens in the book that you know is is violent for lack of a better word, is her confronting those demons, right? Those demons or those demons confronting her, however you want to put it. And so to me, it was like this has to happen because this is you know, this is what she's up against, right? Or what she's dealing with. Obviously, I'm trying not to give too much away here, but like, you know, and so it's it's one of those things to me where it almost wasn't a choice, right? It was this is what this character has to do in this situation, in the same way that in a you know, in an action movie, right? Like, as you know, some of those action movies, they're just plowing people down, right?

SPEAKER_03 34:40

Right, right, right, there's no consequence, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

And so, um, so that's why I decided to kind of go for it as you put it, because to me it wasn't a choice, right? Like this, if if she doesn't and and the characters in it don't, then I'm not really being honest about what is going on, right? Right, then I'm basically soft pedaling it, and that's what I didn't want to do.

SPEAKER_03 35:05

And and that becomes a an intuitive thing, again, after having written a lot, you get that intuition of like, because I think violence is particularly violence, I think, and sex to a lesser extent, has to feel inevitable and has to feel earned. Um and and it and it absolutely did in your story, because there's not violence on every page by any means, but there's the there's the threat of it pervasively, right? So so you're like there there's no there's no getting away from the tsunami. We see it coming, we've got some time, uh, but when it comes, you're like, yep, and that was every bit as as brutal as it should have been because it's a fucking tsunami.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I I love what you said about it being earned because that honestly, uh, when I read other books, one of my pet peeves, whether it's related to sex or gore or violence, is when it's cheap, right? When when you feel like the author's literally just doing it to get a reaction out of the reader, right? That drives me crazy because then I feel like I just I just feel like it, you know, it's like you're trying to manipulate a puppet on the strings, and I don't don't like that.

SPEAKER_03 36:25

But yeah, and I'm like that with sex scenes because I very I don't think I'm good at them. I I don't think I'm good at establishing how it's earned. Um, you know, I think when I first tried out writing, I'd have a sex scene here or there, it felt very like, oh yeah, these two people who are in the middle of the shit just have to have a passionate moment. And now I'm like, that's stupid. Like you would you would the last thing you would want right now is intimacy with a stranger. You know, you're literally bleeding from the kneecap or whatever it is. Um you know, so but the same thing with violence, it just has to feel and then once you write that, then it has to be consequential, like nobody gets shot in the kneecap and runs away. They're traumatized, they're potentially bleeding to death. What what are the what are the stakes now and how have they changed?

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Yep, exactly. And that and that's so that's what I was going for was you know the every act of violence is in it's it's almost this is a weird way of framing it, it's almost entirely logical given the circumstances of what what is happening on this island, right? Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

And it yeah, totally, totally. And it's and it there is something very satisfying when you feel that all come together. And there, I mean, there are times that I miss it where I give my draft to my agent who's very much an editorial agent. She's like, Oh, but this thing has to happen, and you didn't happen. I'm like, Oh, you're totally right. I didn't, and I couldn't see that for myself, and that's where kind of those third-party readers really are really helpful because you know, the the inevitable, it's easy to see the inevitable in a lot of stories, and then you have the the temptation sometimes, like, well, I'm gonna be I don't want to do the inevitable. I want to, you know, I want to surprise them by avoid and sometimes that works too, because sometimes just giving in to what feels like should be maybe even tropey becomes too easy. So it's that's a constant juggling act.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Absolutely. Well, let me ask you this question. One thing that I had a ton of trouble with on this particular book um is my two most recent books before are sort of for procedural private detective novels. You know, there's there's a crime, she's investigating, things are things are plodding along almost on their own.

SPEAKER_03 38:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

Whereas this book, as you know, is is more of a psychological thriller, right? It's it's inside her head.

SPEAKER_03 39:00

Right, right. She's her own investigative unit.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Yeah, yeah. And and I had a lot more trouble writing this because there's you know, the the action itself isn't propelling the plot. It's it's the perception that's propelling the plot, right? Right, right. And I found that so much harder because like in a police novel, you know, there's a crime, they have to, they have to take certain steps to investigate. Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 39:25

And those steps are interesting and they're accurate, and you can document them.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

Yes. Whereas when you're writing a psychological thriller, there isn't that playbook, for lack of a better word. I don't I don't know if you had the you have the same issues, but I do totally.

SPEAKER_03 39:39

And I think that was one of the issues with my previous book before telling me what you did, because you you and you're you're in their head, right? The whole time you're in their head, you're only in their head. And the the the fear is they just sit around thinking. Um, yes, yes, and they're scared. And what the beauty of it is, is it makes them relatable instantly because it makes the reader say, What would I do in this situation? And that's what I love about writing, is like that's what I'm constantly doing. What would I do? And then add a lot more interesting elements than what I would actually do. Um, but then so what happens to me is, and because I don't outline, I'll get X number of pages in, and I'm like, she hasn't gone anywhere, she's got to go do something. Does she have a friend? Does she have someone to talk to? You know, inevitably somebody is my characters going to a coffee shop, but I'm like, I it's very important to me to have physical movement. So, for example, tell me what you did. I got to a point where I realized like it doesn't feel like they would just stay in the same house if they felt they were being watched. Why not rent an Airbnb? And that'll make them physically move, and that alone can be more interesting. But my editor will call out things where there's like if a situation goes on too long where there's like you said, there's that threat, but then nothing happens, she'll have me condense that, and so then I always think of like, you know, what if she got into a confrontation with anybody? It could be anybody, it could be somebody she perceives as a threat who's just not a threat at all, but that would show her kind of unhinged a little bit, and it would give me a chance for her to like maybe do something that's like a little crazy. That's interesting. So I'm always thinking about like movement in a way, you know, so they're just not sitting all the time.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

Well, and like and tell me what you did, you know, you've got to you have to reveal sort of that that pent-up rage inside her.

SPEAKER_03 41:44

I know, I know, and then I feel like I get way too like tropey with it, where I was like, Yeah, she goes and she goes for a 10-mile run, she's she goes to the gym and hits hits the heavy bag. And I'm like, Do all of your people have to be in fucking shape all the time?

SPEAKER_00 42:01

Like, yeah, yeah, can't they just crack, can't they just kind of rage eat?

SPEAKER_03 42:07

You know, well, mine swing from being like surprisingly incredibly fit to being you know borderline alcoholics by night, and I'm like, these people would be like, Well, I what do they look like? How is their body functioning?

SPEAKER_00 42:23

Why haven't they collapsed by now?

SPEAKER_03 42:25

I know, I know. I'm always like second guessing myself, but it's always the stuff that you second guess, it never seems to get picked up on. And so then people will pick up on something like, Oh, I didn't think about that.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Absolutely. Uh that's normally what happens.

SPEAKER_03 42:39

That's why you can't overthink this stuff. You just have to like I'm a firm believer in just sit down, see what comes to your head. I mean, for me at least, and write it. And you know, so I just finished my draft of something yesterday. Oh, congratulations. And so now I'm like going through the edits, and I it's exciting because I'm like, I know there's a lot of stuff that has to change, but I'm excited to see like how I can make it better, even though I know it's going to be a ton of work.

SPEAKER_00 43:11

How often do you run up against time constraints?

SPEAKER_03 43:16

I mean, how almost never. Okay. Um, because you know, a lot of my career has been selling one book at a time. So most of my career has been my agent doesn't know what I'm writing, my editor doesn't know what I'm writing, I'm on not under contract for another book, you know, I'm just just under option. Um, and then I'll just be like, here it is. And so it's just my self imposed time constraints. Um, and which is usually, you know, hopefully get a draft done in eight months and then spend a couple months editing it, um, give it to my agent kind of a thing. Um, so when I do have deadlines, so this deadline I have is August, and I just finished the first draft.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Right.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

I got plenty of time. Um, but I also expect heavy edits from like I always get like deservedly so. Like, hey, hey, I need a subplot. Like, okay, I'll see you in a few months.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

Yeah, let me work on that.

SPEAKER_03 44:17

I've had a couple of books where they've been pretty light, like you know, two or three weeks worth of edits with that first letter. Uh, but that's for me, that's the exception. Do you run against time constraints?

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Yeah, I mean, that's probably my own fault. Um, I try to write two books a year. That's a lot, and that's yeah, it gets tight. And I think um one of the things that I always run up against is um, and this this tree of knowledge book I'm telling you about is a perfect example. Is so this is more of a you know, fast-paced kind of whatever DaVinci Code style thriller, you know. You're you're on the go all the time. Got it. And what's difficult about that is you know, trying to develop characters while holding the pace, right? Right, because you know, they're in a frantic chase, so you can't you don't have time for a long uh long conversations.

SPEAKER_03 45:18

But what a great teaching opportunity because I see this all the time where people think the spy writers think it has to be this massive exposition to really get inside this character. It could be one sentence, they do one thing, and you're like, I get that person. At least for this chapter, I I the way that they look at somebody, the way that they doubt something, that's all it takes. And you're like, and it's it's amazing how little it takes, and how little we tend to give readers credit for their own imagination to absorb that character and make it into who they want them to be.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

I love that point, and you're exactly right, but I think that's one of the hardest things to do.

SPEAKER_03 45:56

Totally, and it's always you're always overwriting, is is is the end result of that. Um, and so there's there's a great, so I was having this discussion with a student the other day on a particular paragraph. It's a she's a beautiful writer, right? But she's writing a thriller, and and she's the this character is an expat living in South America, and they walk into a bar at noon and it's totally full, and she's thinking, Oh, it's the 15th of the month, it's payday, and then three sentences more about how they all come out and blow all their paychecks on payday. And I'm like, these three sentences are killing this paragraph. All you say, it's payday, and the reader's like, I totally get it, I see it all, and it's more powerful, right? And it's more propulsive. But I totally see myself in that style of writing when I was starting out. It's like everything was like, Oh, I'm so great with the language, and let me really paint the picture for you. It's like we all have the picture, you just have to have those keywords that trigger us, exactly. But but you're right, it's it takes a lot of time to to, and you don't it it becomes instinctual more than anything, and that instinct is only developed with writing a ton of books.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 47:13

There's no there's no easy way around it.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

Yep, it's it and I've that what's the Thomas Jefferson's phrase about you know it's one of the rarest skills to not write uh two words when one will do.

SPEAKER_03 47:25

Totally. Oh, I'm I'm such a big believer in just deleting. Uh, you know, if my my typical manuscript will first draft around 85 to 90,000 words, and then I try to get it into around 80 to 82 final, but I've probably cut 15,000 words and added the balance. But I'm looking at every sentence, I'm like, it just feels a little clunky, feels a little bit too long. What if I just said this? What if I take the sentence and it's just one word? And when you're doing first person presence, present that one word is all you need because they think, oh, bingo, and this they get it.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Yes. So when you finish a draft, or when you say you finish a draft, I know you don't outline it. Do you have to like go back and make when I guess since you're not outlining, when occasionally I gotta imagine you you take yourself down a path you don't want to go down, you realize you don't want to go down, you have to backpedal.

SPEAKER_03 48:26

Yeah, when do you do that? Pretty rarely that does that happen, which is what scares me because I'm like, oh, not only am I wrong, but I'm keeping being wrong for the entirety of this book.

SPEAKER_02 48:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:38

Um, yes, sometimes I do that. But what I what I typically do, or like what I did with this last book, is at 60,000 words, I went back and read it because I just had forgotten a lot of it. Um, and just to make sure I'm grounded in everything, and then I always keep a working document of just notes of like, oh, the windows were blown out of this house, and then three weeks later they still haven't been replaced. That doesn't make any sense. Make sure the windows get replaced, but I won't write that scene yet. I'll just make a note. So I'm constantly making notes, and sometimes I go back and I realize like, I don't need half these notes because of how I but yeah, it can be a shit show too. It's do you outline? I forget.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

Oh, yeah, I'm like a fanatical outline. Oh, yeah, okay. No, every chap.

SPEAKER_03 49:29

I have so much respect for that. I just I just don't know, like our brains just work differently, and yeah, and there's no right or wrong to either of it, whatever works, yeah. Yeah, right. But that's how you see it. So when you are you like, oh, it's a 10,000-word outline kind of a guy.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

No, no, it's less like that, and more like eat the way I write is each chapter is essentially a scene, like a movie scene. Yeah, and so I just write the scene like this is what happens in this scene, this is what happens in this scene, this is what happens in this scene.

SPEAKER_03 49:59

So you're seeing everything very cinematically, very much so, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because I I feel like I'm the same way, and it's but I don't know what's happening, and that's the beauty of it is I'm you know, like you were just looking through this person's viewpoint as they walk through life, and then I'm like, go see what's around the corner. I don't know what's around maybe nothing's around the corner, but you should go see. Would you go see? I don't know if you would go see, you know, that's yeah to me. That's the thrill of writing, is like that that act of discovery. What you go through that act of discovery with your outline?

SPEAKER_00 50:31

Exactly. So that's the only difference between us. We're basically doing the same thing, I'm just doing it at the outline stage, right?

SPEAKER_03 50:36

You're doing a smarter level where you can identify mistakes faster, and you're like, oh well, I just wrote 60,000 words that went nowhere. Right. Well, then we're gonna wrap up before we do. We're gonna do our own little storytelling. So we're gonna pick a book at random. I normally have three books right here, but I don't. So um, give me a color of a book.

SPEAKER_00 51:02

Uh purple.

SPEAKER_03 51:03

Oh, Jesus Christ. Um, all right. Purple-ish. Yes, I have purple-ish. How about this? Perfect. The only one who knows by me, Lisa Matlin, um, which I blurbed. It's a great book. Um, so I'm gonna pick a random sentence from a random page. I'm gonna read that sentence. That'll be the first sentence in like a two-minute long short story where we alternate back and forth. Um, sounds like you've heard the show, you know how this goes. It'll be a mess. And when it goes totally off the rails, I'll call it. Um, so give me, give me a number between one and two fifty.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

50.

SPEAKER_03 51:46

All right, I'm gonna quickly scan page 50. It's the beginning of I'm gonna read the first sentence of this chapter. Uh and and you do whatever you want with it. So this is first person present tense, so it's our specialty. Found you, you bastard.

SPEAKER_01 52:06

Oh wow, what a great start.

SPEAKER_03 52:08

It's a great start.

SPEAKER_00 52:17

You never thought you'd see me again. Did you?

SPEAKER_03 52:22

The look of surprise faded from his face after I expected. And turned into a steely resolve. His hand twitched.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

And I didn't know if he had anything behind his back. I leaned to the right. And all I saw was the glint of light against steel.

SPEAKER_03 53:04

It's funny to think about all the times that I had been in danger before, spanning decades of my life. Being part of violence was something I was most comfortable with, but there was always that moment, and that moment is happening right now, when it hits you that there might not be any moments left after this one.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

He looked at me and nodded as if he could read my mind. A laugh he said.

SPEAKER_03 53:50

If he thought I was gonna go downstairs and look, he was out of his mind. But I also knew he could take me. I also knew maybe I I had gotten to a situation I couldn't get myself out of. Perhaps my only chance was that I could find a proper weapon in that basement.

SPEAKER_00 54:13

And then I heard the babies cry.

SPEAKER_03 54:16

Oh, we call it there. I love when a baby gets involved in the book. That was great.

SPEAKER_01 54:25

That was fun.

SPEAKER_03 54:26

It's funny, I was just watching something that none, I'm not gonna remember what it was, but it was a violent scene in a house, kind of drug deal gone wrong, kind of a thing. And then all of a sudden, like they're leaving, the people who kill the other people are leaving the house, and all of a sudden, this like toddler walks in into frame. Oh, and and and I always have such respect for all the stakes that that introduces, but it also kind of annoys me. I'm like, oh, can't they just get away with it? Like, now what do we we can do we just leave this toddler with presumably this toddler's dead parents to find, you know, to create another dexter in the world?

SPEAKER_00 55:12

Like what do we so I uh yeah, it's like a side story almost, totally.

SPEAKER_03 55:18

And or if you introduce an animal into a story, like you have to have like they can't be a byproduct, they can't be a bit player. That there's like you things have to be taken care of, and it has to affect the flow of the story, and it it becomes really difficult to me, I think. It becomes really difficult.

SPEAKER_00 55:36

I agree. But but that comes back to what we were talking about earlier about sort of using things as like emotional triggers versus them being grounded and organic, right?

SPEAKER_03 55:46

Right, right. Yeah, you don't want to be emotionally manipulative about it, like oh, I'm gonna have this just to pull on the heartstrings. So yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, Dan, great catching up with you, man. It was it was this was fantastic. Are you headed to Thriller Fest this year?

SPEAKER_00 56:00

I will. I'll be there.

SPEAKER_03 56:01

I will see you there. I'll be there Tuesday to Sunday. So uh oh, fantastic. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:07

It'll be it'll be we'll definitely meet up for sure.

SPEAKER_03 56:09

All right, buddy. Thanks for doing this, and when we'll talk about thank you.

SPEAKER_00 56:12

Love it, take care. Bye.

SPEAKER_03 56:16

All right, that is it. That is my conversation with Daniel G. Miller. Um, that was great, and I I loved our little storytelling at the end, and I just love how deeply into craft that our conversation went. Um, I highly recommend that you check out his books, um, namely The Orphanage by the Lake and his most recent book, The Red Letter. His next book will be out later this fall, so you can check that out as well. I know we talked about some of his violent scenes in that book. I don't want to scare you away. It's a tremendous book. I was happy and honored to have gotten an early look at it and to be able to provide some um some words about it. So check that out. Um, and you can always hop on over to my website, CarterWilson.com, if you want to know more about my books or sign up for my newsletter or watch episodes of the show. And of course, you can head on over to Unbound Writer if you are interested in any kind of one-on-one coaching with me or any of the seminars, workshops, or retreats that we offer over there. Um, all right, I'm wrapping up. That is it for this week. I'm done. This is my only episode this week, so now I can go do other things. Another episode will be out next week, of course. In the meantime, thank you as always for watching and listening. Take care of the thing.