Story and Horse

Flawed Heroes, Action & Snark with Tom Fowler

June 04, 2022 Season 1 Episode 32
Story and Horse
Flawed Heroes, Action & Snark with Tom Fowler
Show Notes Transcript

Flawed Heroes, Action & Snark with Tom Fowler

How do you get a character out of a plot corner when they've gotten stuck and off-story? Listen to my conversation with Tom Flower, USA Today bestselling mystery and thriller author, to find out!

Along with the story about getting himself and his character out of a literary quandary, Tom shares how his two quite different leading characters came into being and what it is like when they occasionally crossover into each others' stories. He tells us about his favorite city, Baltimore, which is the setting for most of his books, offers suggestions for fitting writing time into a busy life, and gives tips for self-publishing. 

Tom Fowlers' Bio:
Tom Fowler is a USA Today bestselling mystery and thriller writer. He was born and raised in Baltimore and now lives in the DC suburbs of Maryland with his family. He writes the C.T. Ferguson mysteries and the John Tyler thrillers, both set in his home city. Tom’s stories featuring flawed heroes, action, and plenty of snark.

Connect with Tom:
Website: https://tomfowlerwrites.com
Purchase Tom's Books: https://books2read.com/tomfowler

Host Hilary Adams is an award-winning theatre director, intuitive coach, equine-partnered facilitator, and founder of Story and Horse. She is all about supporting creative expression and sharing stories with the world.

Connect with Story and Horse
www.storyandhorse.com
Facebook: @storyandhorse
Instagram: @storyandhorse

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Intro:

Welcome to Story and Horse, a podcast where we hear stories from creative lives. Meet new people, hear about their challenges and triumphs, and get inspired to move forward with your creativity. Now, here's your host, Hilary Adams.

Hilary Adams:

Hello, thanks for joining me on the Story and Horse Podcast. I'm your host, Hilary Adams. I'm a coach, theater director and founder of Story and Horse and an equine partnered facilitator. I work with my clients to help them break through creative blocks and expand their creativity into the world. Here on the podcast, we meet people live in creative lives, hear their stories and gather inspiration for our own creativeness. Today, we are joined by Tom Fowler. Tom is an IT professional, writer and Dad. Tom, thanks so much for joining me here today. It's great to have you.

Tom Fowler:

Thank you for having me.

Hilary Adams:

Yeah. Can you start us off with telling us who you are, introducing yourself and what you're up to?

Tom Fowler:

Well, I'm Tom Fowler. I was born in Baltimore. I've lived in Maryland my whole life. I'm now closer to DC than Baltimore. But that's the city of my heart. I know it's not always in the news for the most positive reasons, unfortunately. But I set all my stories there, I have an ongoing mystery series and an ongoing thriller series. And both of them are centered on Baltimore. stories take place outside the city sometimes, but they're centered there. I think it's important to write about a place you know, and a place you like and center, your your story, your story world there. And it's kind of a shared universe. There's crossovers between the the two series, nothing like the Avengers or anything, but you know, there's a little there's a little crossover action happening there. I like to say that I write flawed heroes and action and humor and snark. And I think you'll you'll find that in the books, the mystery series is a little more snarky, because it's first person and the main character kind of has that sort of personality. But anyone can check out my my books, there's a universal link, it's books to read. That's the numeral two books to read.com/tom Fowler, which is F O W. L, E R

Hilary Adams:

thank you. And those links will be in the show notes. So what do you love about Baltimore,

Tom Fowler:

it's quite hard to put into words, because I grew up there and spent so much time there, but it's a city with a lot of character. And it's got so many different parts to it, you know, some some good, some not so good anymore, unfortunately. But even just driving down the same street for a few miles, you encounter so many different architectural styles and neighborhoods, and each neighborhood has a different vibe to it. Little Italy is different than Hamden is different than, you know, Charles Village and Federal Hill and Fells Point and all those places, and it's just got a lot of character to it. And different areas are so distinct from others, even though they're geographically pretty close together. It's not that big overall. It's just a very, you know, unfortunately there it's not always in the news for the best of reasons, but it's, uh, you know, I tried to focus on Yes, I write murder mystery. So people are dying in the city, which does happen. But I do try to focus on some of the positive aspects of it too

Hilary Adams:

sounds like it's a character in your books, like the city.

Tom Fowler:

It's a slightly fictionalized version. I decided early on that I didn't want the, the mob boss to have a real restaurant. Because in the event that my books ever got popular, I didn't want people to go, oh, I don't want to go to that restaurant because the mob boss is going to, you know, shoot me when I walk in or whatever. So I made up the restaurant in Little Italy. But for the most part, it's an accurate representation of the city as it currently exists.

Hilary Adams:

Hmm. Somebody gets to do like a tour of the of the city based on locations in your books.

Tom Fowler:

You know, one of the guys I used to work with he now has a side business doing little tours of the city. So now that things have opened back up a little bit more maybe that's something I should talk to him about in the future. I'm not sure I'm popular enough to you know, really put one of those on but I'm game you know,

Hilary Adams:

that's really fun. All right. So why murder mysteries.

Tom Fowler:

It's something I've read for a lot of years. The one of the stories I have about one of my early my earliest creative endeavors is I was probably I was either seven or eight. It was either second grade or third grade. I'm not sure which and it's been many more years than I care to admit since either of those grades happened. But I wrote a murder mystery in scare quotes because no one died. And everyone actually recovered quite nicely in the hospital, in fact, and the identity of the will not kill her, but the stabber because that's really all he did was known in like the second sentence. So it was a murder mystery with no murders, and no mystery. I'd like to think I've improved on both of those points over the years. But you know, my grandparents used to watch this was this would have been the early 80s. So, you know, I was spent a lot of time with our house and they watched you know, The Rockford Files and Columbo and, you know, shows and movies in that vein, so I was constantly exposed to save for TV murder mysteries, but still murder mysteries. And, you know, I read I read a lot of things over the years, but I keep coming back to mysteries and thrillers. So when I finally decided, you know, what, I want to make a serious character and do this. That's, that's where I went.

Hilary Adams:

Did you have formal training as a writer?

Tom Fowler:

No. I've read a lot. I've dabbled over the years. I have a lot of stories and novels I've never finished or if I did finish them, it was years ago, and they were dreadful. So I guess the school of hard knocks, I probably learned quite a bit there. But in terms of formal training, other than like, you know, an English class or a few in college? No.

Hilary Adams:

I think that's great for people to hear, you know, or it's, you had you had a desire to write did take you and I know you just said you had you've been writing for a while, sort of when did you start writing as an as an adult? Like, when did you start sort of deciding this could be a getting published could be a thing?

Tom Fowler:

Yeah, I went through a phase probably in my early 20s, which was also longer ago than I'd like to admit in public. But that doesn't really lead to anything. I wasn't really, I didn't. I didn't know what I need to do, then I probably got serious about it again, in my 30s. And I so that's when I really started developing a character and I wrote a bunch of short stories, mysteries to find the main character's voice. Before I tried writing a novel. And even the first two novels I wrote, I didn't think were, were publishable it took until the third one I wrote where I thought, Okay, this is something I can probably, I can probably use. And I think it's pretty common to putter around for a while, you know, not everyone. You know, Stephen King didn't sell the first store he ever wrote, he didn't sell the 20th store he ever wrote. And I think it's important to keep at it, that the first published novel, it's called The Reluctant detective, I published it in October, I think of 2017. I probably started writing it seven years before that. And through many, many rounds of revisions, some of which were probably very nitpicky and pointless. Then I said, You know what I'm going to, I'm going to get serious about it, I'm going to get an editor and have someone tell me what's wrong with it, rather than just having me read the same thing. 20 for the 20th time. And that's, I think that's one of the things that really started me on the road to getting the book up there out into the world.

Hilary Adams:

I'm struck by the fact that you had the place, it sounds like in mind that you would have to write, which to set it in with Baltimore. And then you had a character up here, and you sort of gave your character a lab, if you will, like different stories to sort of play around and to get the voice. Did I understand that correctly? Yes. So can you tell us about your character and sort of where did that character come from? Like, how did how did he or she arrived into this world?

Tom Fowler:

Well, when I decided I wanted to do this, I didn't want to write a lot of the things I was already reading or seeing. I was watching a lot of shows. I don't remember if they were still on or if they were syndicated, but like monk, Psych shows like that. There were a lot of mysteries at the time, like late 2000s, early 2010s, where the main character had he was this, you know, weird, quirky person with a photographic memory. And they were entertaining shows I'm not trying to bash them or anything, but I didn't. That's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to have a detective who was fairly unconventional, you know, I love like the Spencer series from Robert V. Parker. But you know, Spencer is a fairly typical detective. He's a former former military, former police who ends up as a private eye. And I wanted somebody who came from a different background. I've worked in it for years. And IT security for a while. So I came up with a character who is I guess you'd might call him a reformed hacker. He, yeah, he got in trouble overseas, got deported back to the United States and his parents. Parents have money and they finally said, Look, you're going to do something that helps people or we're going to cut you off. And he set himself up as a private investigator. And the way the series starts is, he does not charge his clients. But his parents pay him through their foundation when he completes a case,

Hilary Adams:

so you're when you first started having this person emerge. How did that happen? Like Did did you visualize it? Was it sort of like, like, how did this being come to you?

Tom Fowler:

Yeah, I think a lot of it was, it came from a lot of the things that I didn't want to do. What I didn't want to have the weird guy with a photographic memory. And I didn't want to have the grizzled ex cop with a heart of gold. So it was like, What's the opposite of that? What's the opposite of that? What's the opposite of that? And once that started to take shape, I was like, Okay, well, I've worked in computer security. I can't say I've ever been a hacker by trade, but I, I know enough to fake it, I think. And so I was able to draw on some of the things that I've done and learned over the years. And it so there was that net, I don't want to say I was writing what I know, really, but writing what I at least was adjacent to, I guess you could say. And just, you know, finding the voice over time, and what is the character and I wanted him to be younger, he's 28 As the series begins, because he spent a few years overseas after finishing a graduate degree. And just a very unconventional character. And it was really just, I was I think I came to him by thinking, what do I not want him to be first. And that kind of coalesced into something over time. And then I found his voice over the course of, you know, 15, or 20, I'm sure very bad, short stories, but it allowed me to kind of get because all the stories are first person, it's everything is his point of view his perspective the whole time. So finding that voice was important.

Hilary Adams:

Does he surprise you?

Tom Fowler:

Yeah, he does surprise me sometimes. It's, it's kind of weird to think that he's like a person. But you know, he does some things that surprised me every now and then. You know, I didn't outline my for any of those short stories that I wrote. And even my first few novels I do now I kind of put myself into a corner and one of them one of my earlier books. So I do outline now. Even still, I think I still get surprised by things that happen over the course of the series.

Hilary Adams:

I've heard that from playwrights novelists from many writers that their characters often will do things that surprised and say things that surprised them. Sometimes they'll take them down pathways in the book that they weren't expecting.

Tom Fowler:

Because even even my outlines, like they're not very detailed. Like, I think it was 2017, I went to the Maryland Writers Association Conference, and Jeffrey Deaver best selling thriller author was the keynote speaker. And he said, he wrote outlines that were like 100 to 150 pages. And I'm like, that's like a book for me. Now, I don't have time to write a book before I write a book, you know, he's full time. So if he has that kind of time, and obviously it works for him was he sold, you know, a trillion books. But I take a scene, I have like three sentences of notes about it. And it turns into something that's, you know, 400 to 2000 words, if it depends how long the scene is. So there's still a lot of making it up in discovery writing, as people like to call it now as I go. So that's where I think that where the surprise comes in, yeah, on a very 1000 foot level, I know what's going to happen, but down in the weeds. I'm running it as I go, you know.

Hilary Adams:

So you sit down, or you start typing. And, let it occur.

Tom Fowler:

Yeah. Yeah, I see this kind of like a roadmap, like, you know, I could get in my car and drive to San Francisco. But it's a lot easier to get there. If you have math, you know, and you can take the GPS and you know, maybe you come across a cool restaurant. And so you get off the highway and you detour a little bit, or the roads close and you have to get off at one exit and get back home or something like that. And that accounts for like, you know, I have a plan as an outline as I start and sometimes things will happen oh, I want to move this scene and I want to add a scene here. I want to change a few things and it was not set in stone I can still do that. You know, I can still take that detour.

Hilary Adams:

Does your character have favorite things, my favorite foods and all that that emerged?

Tom Fowler:

Um, I don't know about favorite foods in particular. But he definitely likes cooking. That was kind of my homage to the Spencer series goes in that book Spencer and those books Spencer cook so I on the TV show they made in the 80s and was one of the feedback one of the comments I got from several readers early on is he cooks too much so I had to kind of dial that back.

Hilary Adams:

Asked about the food just because you mentioned diner since I was just imagining your character like going on a road trip and wondering if it if your character it's so we haven't such a character's name. What is your

Tom Fowler:

Oh, that probably would be a good idea. His name is CT Ferguson. And actually the the book I'm currently writing it's certainly a road trip. But he does fly with a friend of his car Ask the country most of the way across the country to Vegas. So it's not a road trip per se, but they are going to have some shenanigans and stuff like that happen because there's one of his longtime friends. So yeah, it's funny, you mentioned that,

Hilary Adams:

is that the first time you've taken him out of Baltimore?

Tom Fowler:

Um, no, he's been out of Baltimore, elsewhere in the state. But I think this is the first time I'm really taking him like significantly far away.

Hilary Adams:

I think as a reader, that's an interesting moment, I've had characters that I've known for a while and books and series. And they're always like in their home town, or they're always somewhere fairly nearby, they suddenly go on a trip. And it's actually almost, it's a little exciting, but it's also a little bit disorienting to me, because I've known that character in that space for so long. What's it like for you, as a writer, taking your character that you know, so well, to this new environment,

Tom Fowler:

it's interesting, because I think it can lead to some some fish out of water type moments. Because it's not a place he's going to know it's not he doesn't know if he gets in trouble. He doesn't know the police or anything like that, or he doesn't have any friends and contacts there. And if things go off the rails, he's potentially really in trouble. And of course, they're gonna go off the rails to some degree. But yeah, it's a chance to certainly get him and to get the readers out of that normal environment, and let some new things happen. And this is the 12th book in the series that I'm writing now coming out in about three months, actually. So I guess I should get back to it after this is over.

Hilary Adams:

And are you familiar with I know you're sort of place oriented with Baltimore? Are you familiar with Vegas?

Tom Fowler:

I've been there. It's been several years since I've been there. So I kind of refreshed myself with with Google Maps when I need to, because it's like, I think I know where this is. But let me be sure. I don't want to describe something and have someone say No, that's wrong. It's one star review. Because you didn't do your research or whatever, you know.

Hilary Adams:

Take a trip and tax about it. As you Yeah.

Tom Fowler:

That's uh, that's something I probably will do at some point, tax deduct, a research trip to Vegas, or anywhere, anywhere. Angeles, Hawaii, Australia,

Hilary Adams:

Ask your character where he would like to go, right. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got how you got your book published?

Tom Fowler:

I did it myself. I looked at the pros and cons of going indie and trying to get an agent and go tread. And you know, if people want to try to go to go the traditional route, that's, that's something they certainly should look into. I wanted to have more control of when my stories came out. And you know, the cover and the editor I worked with and all of that. So I did it myself. I've done bout to be 12 mystery novels for thrillers, no box sets of things. It is more work? Yes. It certainly be a lot easier to just hand that off to somebody else. But a lot more control of the process. And you know, a lot more of the royalties when the when the books sell to

Hilary Adams:

how do you handle the illustrations like if the cop cars and things like that?

Tom Fowler:

I am a dreadful artist. I if you spotted me two endpoints, I might be able to connect them with a straight line, but I wouldn't bet on it. So I found a I found the cover on. So that's 100 covers, it's I think it's 100 covers.com has their website, they do all my covers, they offer a series discount, pass the first book for anyone who writes in a series, they do a lot, I get nothing if people go there and decide to use them. This isn't like, I get a kickback or anything. But you know, that's they do all kinds of fiction genres nonfiction. You know, they've been my cover designer for for quite a while now.

Hilary Adams:

That's a great tip. Thank you. Sure. I know that. When I talk to people, sometimes they say that. Even off the podcast, people say like, oh, I'm kind of daunting. It's daunting thinking about self publishing, just because of all the different elements and which one do you go to? And then there's all these decisions. And so that's kind of tips, I think, help.

Tom Fowler:

It can be a very big topic. But really, the things I think you really need are a cover designer, and an editor because we are blind to our own mistakes and poor phrasings and everything else, especially if you're looking at your book flick the 15th time you're not going to see if you haven't seen the first 14 times you're not going to see it the 15th Almost certainly. And you know like I said, I'm a bad artist. So I had no interest in even trying to make my own covers. I think unless unless you've done something like that before or it's best to farm it out to people who know, you know, it's not just picking the right image. It's like the fonts and the typography and how everything fits together. It's it's a whole thing. And it's not anything I would want to try to take on myself.

Hilary Adams:

Well, thank you. That's very helpful. What do you love about writing? I can hear that you really enjoy it?

Tom Fowler:

I do. I think it's the fact that you know, it's creating this realistic but fictional world and populating it with characters and then having people enjoy it. You know, I get emails from from readers who, not just people who lived in Baltimore, but people who visit Oh, you know, I came, you know, 20 years ago, for two weeks, I remember these places you're talking about the things like that it is very cool and gratifying to get, you know, that someone visited the city like I've been to cities, and like I, if someone sent a book in, you know, New York, I wouldn't necessarily know all the landmarks or whatever. I've been to New York many times. But then I read a lot of books that are set in New York, but I don't always recognize you know, the noodle shop, the character goes into or whatever, because New York's a huge place. But so it's very cool that people maybe it was Baltimore is smaller, and has a lot more like neighborhood feel to it in a lot of ways that people remember those things and are thoughtful enough to write and say, Hey, I remember this, and it's cool to read these details in your books.

Hilary Adams:

Go back to the tour idea we talked about earlier.

Tom Fowler:

Yeah, I might need to look into that.

Hilary Adams:

I think that'd be really fun. Not to mention, like, you know, the murder mystery kind of escape room type stuff. Based on your Do you have a creative themed story you can share with us?

Tom Fowler:

I mentioned I wrote myself into a corner a few years ago, and that was in my, my third mystery novel, which is called the workers of iniquity. I was not working with an outline. And I got about 70 75% of the way through when I was like, Oh, I knew where the endpoint was, I knew where the book was going. But like, I didn't know how to bridge that gap between 75 and 95%. So I follow the advice that is popularly attributed to Raymond Chandler. And that is, if you're ever unsure of what to do have a man walk in with a gun works very well, in crime fiction, maybe not so much. If you're writing like, you know, Regency romance or whatever. In science fiction, it could be like a ray gun or something, you know, I think the main point is, you really need to challenge the protagonist and get him or her out of whatever they're in and get them back into the story. So I literally had a man walk in with a gun, I took the advice very literally. And that spurred me to finish to get the rest of it together in my head and get it on the page. But I decided, you know, I can't do this. Again, I can't at the 75% mark, have a guy walk in with a gun and every book, it'll become self parody at some point, like, he'll read all your Where's the guy with a gun, I know, it's coming up in a few pages. So that's what I decided I needed to, to work off of an outline. And if I can toss a quick recommendation, and there's a great book out there, the writers name is Libby Hawker. H A WKR. And the book is very cleverly called Take off your pants. Because people who don't write within that line are said to be riding by the seat of their pants, and are sometimes called Pantsers. So she very cleverly called her book, take off your pants, I think it's a very good book to get you started on the road from if you if you've run yourself into a wall. And you want to start outlining, I think that's a very good place to start.

Hilary Adams:

Thank you for the recommendation. Absolutely. It was interesting, you said, challenge a character to get out of sort of the corner and you actually said challenge a character to get back into the story, which I thought was really interesting, because it sort of sounded like your character had detoured themselves off the plot in a way, I just imagined the character sort of literally leaving the plot.

Tom Fowler:

I think he was unsure of what to do next, probably because I was unsure of what to do next. And the band walking around with a gun kind of focused him on where he needed to go and what he needed to look into. And that enabled me to finish the story. But I didn't want to go down that well, many times. So I started started outlining

Hilary Adams:

that is absolutely fascinating. I think that you had to create a fictional person to show up with a gun to help your fictional character get out have to figure out what to do next to get the area that they were united to raise the stakes for them. And therefore you then also kind of came along for the ride in New York. to go, right, raising, it's funny. In theater, we call this that's like the three quarter mark that used to be the 11 O'clock Number When theater was three hours long. And that's actually a really critical point in theater construction, be it, you know, a one act or two, act, whatever, there's that three quarter mark. Things really, it really is hard sometimes to get between this that three quarter place and that end position,

Tom Fowler:

especially when you know what you want the end position to be. And if you're not sure how to get that final 20% done.

Hilary Adams:

Yeah, it's a tricky place, because you're shooting the culminating action, you're finishing all that middle stuff, but then you also have to go to wrap up. Right? It's a tough thing to, to bridge for sure. That's a really fun story. do not always have to bring in a person with a gun at the three. When you started doing your outlines, because of this challenge, was it hard at first to sort of start?

Tom Fowler:

Yeah, it felt a little weird, because, like a lot of people, I always felt that writing had to be something just like happened just came out of you. And I know several writers who don't want to outline because they think it ruins the surprise, and they kind of like spoil the story for themselves almost. So I didn't really have that mindset. I'm not one of them. I'm not someone who cares about spoilers on TV or anything like that. So that I wasn't concerned about spoiling it for myself, but it was definitely like a process shift. And I, you know, I sat down, I followed a lot of the advice that was in, take off your pants, I've kind of adjusted and added a few things over the time. And everybody builds things into their own process. Because, you know, if you find something that works, you should keep at it. And now it's just like, it's very easy for me. But that first book or two, I was like, alright, well, okay. I kind of had to stumble through it. And it took me longer than it does now. But yeah, I definitely I've probably streamline the process while adding to it if that makes any sense. Because I definitely added some steps that aren't in that book. But it's what works for me. And I think if people find something that works for them, they should stick with it.

Hilary Adams:

And once you have that framework, was the writing a bit different, like as you fell in and sort of use those mile?

Tom Fowler:

Um, no, not really, even when I wasn't outlining, I would often jot, like a couple of notes down about the things I wanted to have happen coming up, like where the story was headed. So I wasn't, I wouldn't say I was working off of an outline, but I had a couple of ideas for what was coming up. And that's really what it is, like, you know, my scene outlines are a couple of sentences. And then you know, a lot of than the rest of it is turning that two or three, the 30 word summary into, you know, a 750 word scene or whatever. So there's still a lot of making a lot of pantsing it that whole plotter, Panther thing is it's definitely a spectrum. I think there are very few people at the far far ends, you know, Jeffrey Deaver, with his 150 Page outlines, he is, you know, a plotter all the way. Stephen King is famously a discovery writer. And they you know, they're both very successful, and that's what works for them. But I think they're the far ends of the spectrum, and most people are somewhere in between.

Hilary Adams:

Yeah, it strikes me that it's not really a dichotomy. I mean, it's all the same process, it just depends on how much you're leaning on one or using one or the other. Thank you for explaining that.

Tom Fowler:

Sure.

Hilary Adams:

Do you have any troubles sitting down to write? Does it is the discipline of it difficult?

Tom Fowler:

You know, sometimes finding time is a challenge. But no, I think I'm usually able to do that I'm usually able to find time. And when I am in, when I am sitting down to write, I'm usually Well, I think because I know what I want to write I have an outline. So I know the scenes I'm going to try to write, I think I think I'm able to get into it quickly. And

Hilary Adams:

so do you have a inspiration or suggestion for people who are listening who might be stuck, or might feel daunted by the blank screen or the blank page?

Tom Fowler:

You know, just because you think you might need an hour to write something doesn't mean it needs to be a continuous hour. You might be able to find for 15 minute chunks of time. And maybe that's not quite as efficient as a one hour block of time. But you know, not everybody has an hour block of time in their day. Another thing is most you can if you write like in something like Google Docs, you can put Google docs on your phone and you If you're in a long line in the grocery store or something, you can tap out a few words while you're while you're in the grocery store or whatever, you know, or you're, you're waiting somewhere great. If you have Google Docs or whatever mobile friendly thing you're using, you're right with, you use Apple notes or whatever you use and transfer it to your document later, if you want, whatever, you know, it doesn't have to be writing doesn't have to be sitting down at the desk. It can be I'm on my phone, and I have a half an hour here while I'm waiting for the doctor or whatever. And just get in that time. Schedule it if you can, you know, if you have a half an hour block of time you want to mark it off on your on your calendar and stick to it. Absolutely. But you know, don't think that you just because you need an hour, it means it has to be a continuous hour find the time where you can.

Hilary Adams:

Yes, excellent advice.

Tom Fowler:

Yeah, like, if you're a full time writer, you're going to have the time to sit down and do it, because that's your job. But like, you know, like I have a full time job, I have a family. I don't have, you know, four hours out of the day to sit down and do this i i have blocks of time that come up, and I try to maximize them when they're there.

Hilary Adams:

And you have a large number of books to say that this works. Yes, thank you. But it's possible to fit that in around things. Yeah, yes. So after your character goes to Vegas, and has this adventure, what's up next? Can you give us a hand for do you know, what's what's happening. And then in the following book,

Tom Fowler:

in the following book, the city of Baltimore's and as this is something that has happened to some level, also in Baltimore County, is going to be hit by a ransomware attack. And he is going to be because of his background and the fact that he's worked with the police before, he's going to be fairly instrumental in me not necessarily all the all the recovery steps, but in like figuring out who did it and why and getting involved in to that end of it.

Hilary Adams:

You tell us again, the name of a book or books ways to find you ways to connect with you things like that.

Unknown:

Sure. My mystery series, the main characters named CT Ferguson, the first book is called The Reluctant Detective. I have a thriller series, the protagonist is named John Tyler. And the first book is called The Mechanic every title because he's a retired soldier who originally went into the Army as a mechanic. So every every book title relates to cars or driving in some way. So the first one is called the mechanic. And you can see those books there on my website, which is www dot Tom Fowler writes.com. Or that books 2 read link will give you all my books, and they're available anywhere, you shouldn't be able to find ebooks, paperback somewhere in audio. That's, that's a much slower and more expensive process working on it. But the ebooks and paperback should be available pretty much everywhere. That's books 2 read.com/tom Fowler, and that's the numeral two books 2 read.

Hilary Adams:

So we didn't talk about your second character at all. We need to give him a little bit of time here. I don't want to upset your character. You could tell us about your mechanic.

Tom Fowler:

Sure. And this actually ties back to a character I came up with when I was a kid unrelated to that, not murder, not mystery from before. I came up with this adventure character, I guess when you're, you know, eight, or whatever everyone is an adventure and going on adventures and things like that. And he was the basis for the character who became John Tyler in these books. Obviously, I fleshed out a lot of the details in the intervening years when you know, when I was eight, he was just an adventurer. That's what he did. Now, it's like, you know, he's retired from the army. He's trying to get a job as a classic car mechanic. He's a single dad because his ex wife is in jail. He has a teenage daughter who lives with him now and is not always happy that she now lives with him instead of her mom. He lives with PTSD from everything he did in the military. So at the risk of sounding immodest, I think he's a character with a lot of depth. Certainly much more than his his bases when I was eight. But you know, just the things you wrote when you were a kid can sometimes come back and matter when you're an adult, obviously, in a much more, you know, fleshed out form, but the inspiration for for John Tyler and a lot of his adventures is stuff I wrote when I was a kid.

Hilary Adams:

Did CT and John appear in similar ways when they showed up?

Tom Fowler:

The more or less I knew I wanted to write a thriller character thriller series. And I think, for me, I prefer to start with character. I think there's only so many plots out there, right? There's, you're not going to reinvent the wheel with a plot. There's only so many to go around. So I wanted to come up with a character and you know, the the gorilla in the room for A former military action thriller characters is Jack Reacher, right? The long running book series, a couple of movies, a recent series on Amazon. And I love the Jack Reacher books. I read them all when they come out. But he's a character who doesn't really change, and doesn't really seem affected by what happens to him. And it worked within the series, the books are enjoyable. But I wanted someone who did change with what happened to him and bears the scars, if you will, of what he's done. And that's part of how Tyler came to be I read an article about a therapeutic painting program, which was actually for people with traumatic brain injuries. But I kind of adapted it to say that that's for managing his PTSD is he uses watercolors, and he paints things. So in every book, he's sitting down and painting something, and working through everything, not just stuff that's in the past, but even the events that are happening in the story. He's kind of painting it out and kind of processing it all.

Hilary Adams:

Does he? Is he in Baltimore? Also?

Tom Fowler:

He is yes. And there's been one crossover already in the the second Tyler book called white lines, CT makes an appearance. And Tyler is going to appear later in the book. I'm currently writing the 12th mystery, he's going to appear later, for a little crossover.

Hilary Adams:

What's that like for you as a writer, when your two characters are conversing with each other?

Tom Fowler:

It's interesting, because they're very different. And they didn't have a ton of interaction in the in the the title book and white lines, but they're gonna like directly face to face interact in this book, which is called Don't Say Her Name. And they're not always gonna get along, because they're so different in how they approach things and do things. There's gonna be little bit of conflict, there is their voices.

Hilary Adams:

I have to ask you this, but their voices sound different in your head.

Tom Fowler:

Yes, very much. So.

Hilary Adams:

Yeah, I thought they might very, like they're very different characters. When you talk about them, it's like a different energy, a different feeling to them.

Tom Fowler:

Yeah, and each one allows me to do things I can't do with the other one. So it's, it's good for me as a writer to have two different characters like that, because the way they would approach the same problem is going to be very different.

Hilary Adams:

Fascinating. That's so interesting.

Tom Fowler:

One of the big differences between the series is the title of books or third person. Oh, I can actually spend time in other people's head spaces. So his daughter Alexei, has her own plot lines. As the series develops, I can put scenes in her point of view. In the others. It's a little bit harder, because it's all first.

Hilary Adams:

Do you know why you chose? Was that an intentional choice? Yes. Yeah. Specifically, so you couldn't have it? The other characters? Yeah. Hmm. And so you really have a whole lot of different voices in those books.

Tom Fowler:

Yeah, I mean, there's a few that I focus on. But yeah, the potential is there for definitely a lot more than one.

Hilary Adams:

And you hear their voices in your in your head? Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting with Do you have a preference first or third person now that you've played with both?

Tom Fowler:

I think it is easier in a lot of ways. Because you can just write a scene from someone else's perspective. At first is more of a challenge. Because if you want other characters to be involved and do things, you only get them through the lens of the first person narrator. So I appreciate the challenge of that. But third person is certainly easier.

Hilary Adams:

In that respect, I would guess that some characters lend themselves more to one type of book than the other.

Tom Fowler:

Yeah, partially, it's a genre consideration to a lot of mysteries are first person because readers like to experience the story along with the detective or police, you know, whoever it is, and thrillers tend to be more third person?

Hilary Adams:

Yeah, I guess with mysteries if you go to third person that you might end up with information that you're the main person or following doesn't have, which can be a problem.

Tom Fowler:

Yeah, the reader likes to have the same information, the detective or FBI profiler, whoever the main character does, and try to solve the story along with them solve the mystery along with them throughout the story.

Hilary Adams:

Well, thank you. I really appreciate you joining me, it's

Tom Fowler:

been glad to do it. Thanks for having me on. It's been fun.

Hilary Adams:

And for everybody who's listening again, if you want to connect with Tom Tom's website is Tom Fowler writes.com and the link will be in the shownotes. And you also can get to the books 2 read thr numeral two books 2 read.com backslash Tom Fowler to get links to all of his many books. So you can support him there and maybe go on a tour of Baltimore using his books as a guide eventually.

Tom Fowler:

Yes, that might who knows that might happen.

Hilary Adams:

A narrative tour. Thank you, Tom so much. I really appreciate you joining me and for everyone who's listening. If you want to reach me, you can reach me at Story and horse.com at Facebook and Instagram at Story and Horse. Thank you, Tom so much.

Tom Fowler:

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

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