Crime thriller writer Matthew Clemens is the author and co-author of a wide variety of crime thrillers and true-life crime stories. He has worked extensively with Max Allan Collins on numerous projects, including the best-selling CSI novels based on the television series.
He is also an integral part of the Midwest Writers Workshop, so much so that Matthew claims status as the conference mascot. New week the Midwest Writers Workshop will hold its 40th annual conference, and Matthew will be one of the featured instructors.
I interviewed Matthew this Spring on my online radio show, Stephen Terrell: Just
Us. Among other topics, Matthew
discussed the genesis of his writing, collaborations with Max Allan Collins,
and his advice to those striving to be professional writers.
Beginning of a writer:
I actually started writing in the third grade because I had
bad penmanship. That was the genesis of the entire career. I was the only a third grader in 1965
with homework. And I had to go home and fill a page of that tablet every night
with cursive. When I copied it out
of a book, it took forever. I
hated it.
One night, I cant tell you why, I just wrote what was in my
head. And I was done in five minutes. And that was the ah-ha moment.
After college I took a long time when I didn't write. It
could be that I just didn't know enough.
You have to have a certain
amount of life experience to have something to write about. Consequently when I was 31, I started
going to writers conferences, and it's all sort of blossomed from there.
That's how I got started was third grade bad penmanship.
Honing the craft of
writing:
I started going to conferences when I believe I was 31. And
I was always smart enough to know that I didn't know what I was doing.
A lot of writers, when they go to conferences, the first
thing they want to know is how to get an agent. The first thing I wanted to know was how to write a book. So consequently over the course of four
or five years, I went to conferences and I kept learning more and more. And my fiction improved as I went.
The first year I was lucky enough to win a couple of awards.
That encouraged me. But even then I knew that I sucked. It was just a matter of trying to get
better and better.
Becoming a
professional writer:
Finally, in 1992, five years after I started studying, I
decided to hang out my shingle as a book doctor because it seems I have an eye
for catching problems in manuscripts.
I've read a lot of books
over the years. . . . You learn to
spot problems. And that was what I first started doing.
First it was a non-fiction book, a true-crime book about a
chiropractor in my hometown who killed his wife and cut her up with a chain
saw. That was the first book that
came out. It was called Dead
Water {NOTE: Dead Water is now again available as an ebook and in print}. Actually the guy wouldn't
have had as much of a problem, but people really took umbrage about the chain
saw.
Collaborating with
Max Collins:
Eventually it dove-tailed into Max Allan Collins calling me.
. . .
Max Allan Collins has
written over 100 books, the most famous of which is the graphic novel
Road to
Perdition, which became the Tom Hanks / Paul Newman movie. He's won Shamus
Awards. He's one of the masters of detective fiction and also one of my first
teachers.
We had been searching for something to do that would allow
us to work together, to collaborate.
I had collaborated on Dead Water with a guy named Pat Gipple. So I
didn't mind collaboration, so when Max came to me right after CSI came on the
air, and said 'I think this is the property we should do together.' It was
under his by-line because it was a job they had approached him to do, but we
did the books together. He knew I
watched the show and I had a true-crime background, and I had access to
forensics people, so it made it a very easy thing to get in to.
We did eight novels based on CSI: Las Vegas, two on CSI: Miami, three graphic novels for
Vegas, one for New York, and eight
jigsaw puzzles. CSI kept us very
busy for about 5 or 6 years.
The CSI books
made the USA Today Best Seller lists (and) sold millions of copies.
Where story ideas
come from:
The whole world is full of them. All you got to do is look around. Every crazy SOB on the planet is And it's just finding
that 'what if' moment in there that allows you to write a different story than
has been written before.
going to do
something, and all I've got to do is watch it, then ask "what
if?"
The work and craft of
writing:
Two thousand words.
Every day, two thousand words.
Six days a week. And if I'm
on deadline, 7 days a week. The idea is to get from the beginning of the story to the
end of the story as fast as I can so I know I have a story. And then you actually go to work. You do all the hard stuff after that
When I got into the business, I was told it was 40 percent
writing and 60 percent re-writing.
I think that's wrong. I think its closer to 30-70.
When characters write
their own story:
There is a moment when you're writing a book where the
character does what he has to do instead of what you want. That is the moment
you're looking for, because then they're real. If they're not real for me, if I can't make a
character real enough that I believe in, I can't make you believe it. It's that simple. It really is.
We can think of a thousand endings for stories. The characters will show us the correct
end by the time it's all said and done.
I know how I want this book to end that I'm working on now. I have no idea if that's how it will
end since I'm not done yet.
Closet writers:
America's closets are just filled with first chapters. But
its being able to write all those other chapters, and then saying "Okay,
now I'm going to show this to someone who doesn't like me -- someone that has
no vested interest in making me feel better." That's the hard
part.
If you can put it in the closet and leave it, do it. If you wake up in the morning and you
have to write, go seek out professionals and learn how to do it. Those who do this professionally, who
are serious about it, we don't really worry about getting paid as much as we do
about we have to get this out. You
have to do it.
How to become a
professional writer:
This isn't the sort of job people pick to do long term
because it's a cool job to have.
It's really hard. You sit
in a room by yourself all day. And in my case I even have the door closed even
though I'm the only one home. It's
not a job for everybody.
But if you have that thing that says you have to do it, there
are writers conferences, there are writers groups, all kinds of ways to learn
how to do this. The Internet makes
life easier. There are
classes. There are books on
writing: Karl Largent, Stephen King, Lawrence Block. There's great books on how to become a writer.
But the bottom line, the very bottom line to all of that, is
to put your ass in a chair and write.
That's how you become a writer.
The value of Midwest Writers Workshop:
They're family.
I've been coming since 1990.
I started as a student there in 1990. Karl Largent, who was on the board
at MWW . . . told me that if I wanted to get better, that the more conference I
went to, the better off I would be.
And go to Midwest Writers.
And I've been there ever since. I have gone from student, to
faculty, to now into sort of campus mascot. But it is a place loaded with really good writers, and more
importantly, really good teachers.
That would be the place I would recommend for everybody. There are all
kinds of resources available. And
Midwest prides itself on the fact that its faculty is available outside the
classroom as well. It's also where
I go to dip my toe back in the water and get my enthusiasm back.
This is a bit off-topic, but it does deal with an important issue of free speech, which is 
