Ask the Author: Olen Steinhauer
Answered Questions (36)
Olen Steinhauer
I don't outline at all, nor do I make character biographies or any of that. The biggest outline I'll do is a couple sentences that can fit on a cocktail napkin. Then I just write. I usually start with the beginning, or what I imagine could be a beginning, though it rarely works out this way. And I edit as I go along, throwing enormous amounts of pages into the trash, reassembling what I've got, overhauling the story many times. What this writing in the dark means is that the stories I end up with are usually a surprise to me, which is nice. It also means that I spend a year or more writing a book. On the up-side, though, my first draft is usually pretty close to my final draft!
Olen Steinhauer
It's my pleasure to answer these questions. Writers live in a bubble, only going out once a year or so when their books are published, and so it's nice to actually speak to readers now and then.
The non-espionage influences are probably more numerous than the espionage influences. As I've mentioned elsewhere it was James Joyce who convinced me that I could, and should, devote my life to writing fiction. For most of my 20s, he was my hero. I was also obsessed with his contemporaries--Ezra Pound, Eliot, Gertrude Stein.
Then I discovered Milan Kundera, and he blew my mind. I've reread "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Immortality" more times than I can count, always coming away with new insights.
Hemingway was a huge influence, showing how much I could tell with very little. Raymond Carver and Robert Coover, too. For a while I was heavy into the French writers Alain Robbe-Grillet and Marguerite Duras--very interesting writing there.
Essentially, I take what I can from whatever interests me, and like with the Song of Lunch I use whatever lessons I've learned to help me tell the story I want to tell. Just happens that for the last decade or so those stories have all been in the spy genre.
Why the spy genre? you might ask. It's because of the influence of writers like le Carre, Len Deighton, and Charles McCarry, who have taught me the infinite flexibility of the espionage genre and have encouraged me to stretch it to fit my own personal obsessions. So far, it's worked out all right...
The non-espionage influences are probably more numerous than the espionage influences. As I've mentioned elsewhere it was James Joyce who convinced me that I could, and should, devote my life to writing fiction. For most of my 20s, he was my hero. I was also obsessed with his contemporaries--Ezra Pound, Eliot, Gertrude Stein.
Then I discovered Milan Kundera, and he blew my mind. I've reread "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Immortality" more times than I can count, always coming away with new insights.
Hemingway was a huge influence, showing how much I could tell with very little. Raymond Carver and Robert Coover, too. For a while I was heavy into the French writers Alain Robbe-Grillet and Marguerite Duras--very interesting writing there.
Essentially, I take what I can from whatever interests me, and like with the Song of Lunch I use whatever lessons I've learned to help me tell the story I want to tell. Just happens that for the last decade or so those stories have all been in the spy genre.
Why the spy genre? you might ask. It's because of the influence of writers like le Carre, Len Deighton, and Charles McCarry, who have taught me the infinite flexibility of the espionage genre and have encouraged me to stretch it to fit my own personal obsessions. So far, it's worked out all right...
Olen Steinhauer
Thank you, Jeff--very kind words. I'm very pleased to hear you enjoyed that section. I was quite pleased with it, though not everyone was. "100 pages full of Chinese names?!" "Where's Milo?!" But hopefully by the end of the book readers understood why I did what I did.
As for writing from a non-US perspective, I actually did that for my first five novels. They cover the length of the Cold War from the other side of the Iron Curtain. "The Tourist," my sixth, was the first novel I wrote an American perspective.
I wrote those books because while I was interested in writing about the Cold War, I was tired of always reading of characters motivated by Western ideals--it had been done to death, and done better than I could do it. I was also interested in the ideology of 20th century communism, and the idea that there were people who had devoted their entire lives to something that, by 1989-90, collapsed completely. I wondered how that kind of disappointment would rattle someone, the idea that your entire life's work had been rendered moot. It piqued my curiosity.
So while I wrote from a non-US perspective, I also wrote from an historical perspective, which made my task significantly easier. With Xin Zhu in "American Spy" it was harder, but at least I was on similar political ground so could begin there.
As for my general thoughts on the practice, to me the central social benefit of fiction is empathy, the ability to make us understand those who are not like us. Maybe that's a CIA agent, or a terrorist, or simply someone who works for the betterment of his own country rather than ours. I think writing from another nation's perspective is not only a worthy project but advances the primary virtue of fiction writing--which sounds quite grandiose, but there it is!
As for writing from a non-US perspective, I actually did that for my first five novels. They cover the length of the Cold War from the other side of the Iron Curtain. "The Tourist," my sixth, was the first novel I wrote an American perspective.
I wrote those books because while I was interested in writing about the Cold War, I was tired of always reading of characters motivated by Western ideals--it had been done to death, and done better than I could do it. I was also interested in the ideology of 20th century communism, and the idea that there were people who had devoted their entire lives to something that, by 1989-90, collapsed completely. I wondered how that kind of disappointment would rattle someone, the idea that your entire life's work had been rendered moot. It piqued my curiosity.
So while I wrote from a non-US perspective, I also wrote from an historical perspective, which made my task significantly easier. With Xin Zhu in "American Spy" it was harder, but at least I was on similar political ground so could begin there.
As for my general thoughts on the practice, to me the central social benefit of fiction is empathy, the ability to make us understand those who are not like us. Maybe that's a CIA agent, or a terrorist, or simply someone who works for the betterment of his own country rather than ours. I think writing from another nation's perspective is not only a worthy project but advances the primary virtue of fiction writing--which sounds quite grandiose, but there it is!
Olen Steinhauer
I don't think there's ever any lack of inspiration. I have a family and I pay attention to the news. The question is whether or not I can find a story or a situation that affects me personally, because all writers (I believe) write to their obsessions.
For example, a story of a kidnapped child may light an imaginative fire in me, but not a desire to retell the same story. I may ask myself how someone could do that, and wonder if I could tell a story where my protagonist commits such an act--a terrible act but for seemingly the right reasons. And therein lies the personal obsession: basically good people doing bad things.
But once you're published, and on a book-a-year schedule, more comes into play. How does anyone get inspired to wake up, dress, and go to the office each day? Part of it's necessity. But the other part is habit. After more than a decade of writing for a living, if I go a few days without writing, I get irritable and sort of terrible to live with. After a while, the act of not writing feels like nicotine withdrawal, and the only way to feel better is to get back to it.
For example, a story of a kidnapped child may light an imaginative fire in me, but not a desire to retell the same story. I may ask myself how someone could do that, and wonder if I could tell a story where my protagonist commits such an act--a terrible act but for seemingly the right reasons. And therein lies the personal obsession: basically good people doing bad things.
But once you're published, and on a book-a-year schedule, more comes into play. How does anyone get inspired to wake up, dress, and go to the office each day? Part of it's necessity. But the other part is habit. After more than a decade of writing for a living, if I go a few days without writing, I get irritable and sort of terrible to live with. After a while, the act of not writing feels like nicotine withdrawal, and the only way to feel better is to get back to it.
Olen Steinhauer
That's a really good question, Whit. I think it has to do with your perspective on what you read and your own writing.
When I started out writing, I went in with the (correct) assumption that I wasn't very good, and that it would take years before I'd write anything worth publishing. I'd made my peace with this assessment because writing well was more important to me than actually being published. I believed that one would lead naturally to the other, so worrying about publishing wasn't even on my radar yet. (And history proved me right--I knew when I had a publishable manuscript, and that was The Bridge of Sighs.)
Also, I kept asking myself why I wanted to write for a living. What did I hope to gain? Money? There are far smarter, and easier, ways of doing that. Publication? Yeah, that would have been nice, but what I wanted--what my ego wanted--was to be _respected_ as a writer. And that would only happen once I'd learned to write well.
So when I read something that was light-years better than my writing, I saw it not as competition but as something to aim for. I saw it as a lesson, and tried to figure out why it was so much better than my stories.
One thing that really helped a lot was an internship I had with Mercury House, a small press in San Francisco. It was an unpaid position where I spent the bulk of my time reading unsolicited manuscripts that came to us in the mail. I learned a few things:
First: Publishers are overwhelmed with manuscripts, 99% of them no good at all--over three months I was only enthusiastic about one manuscript. (And this was in the 90s, before email made submitting so much easier.) I learned that an unpaid intern is looking for reasons to turn down a manuscript because he or she has, say, 5 novels that he's supposed to read through EACH DAY. (So whatever you do, don't misspell a word on page one!)
Second: I was able to gauge the quality of my own writing against the general populace rather than the great writers. At that point, I wasn't convinced I would ever be very good, but through the job I saw that I was better than, say, 80% of what came in. That gave me the confidence to keep going.
Third: So many people write for what seems like the wrong reason: They're writing to show off themselves, how clever or wise or poetic they are. In fiction, there is only one thing that matters: the story. Everything else--the clever phrasing, the erudition, the showing off--is spice. But if the story doesn't grab and hold the reader, no one will be interested in the spice.
Fourth: It's an uphill battle. And it's hard. I was in the midst of my 10-year apprenticeship period when I worked at Mercury House, and I still had years to go. I can't say I was entirely aware of how much work still lay ahead of me, but I was getting an inkling. And I had to decide if I was up for it. Again: Why did I want to write? I asked myself that all the time. Sometimes I lost the thread and wrote for the wrong reasons, forgetting that story is paramount, but seeing all those manuscripts making the same mistakes helped bring me back in line.
So, how to keep positive? Maybe keep in mind that probably misquoted quote from Hemingway about needing to write a million words before you're really an author. I know I did. I wrote innumerable short stories and three novels before the fourth novel took, and looking back I have no regrets about those years. Whatever mistakes I made then became the lessons that helped me get to wherever I am now.
Good luck!
When I started out writing, I went in with the (correct) assumption that I wasn't very good, and that it would take years before I'd write anything worth publishing. I'd made my peace with this assessment because writing well was more important to me than actually being published. I believed that one would lead naturally to the other, so worrying about publishing wasn't even on my radar yet. (And history proved me right--I knew when I had a publishable manuscript, and that was The Bridge of Sighs.)
Also, I kept asking myself why I wanted to write for a living. What did I hope to gain? Money? There are far smarter, and easier, ways of doing that. Publication? Yeah, that would have been nice, but what I wanted--what my ego wanted--was to be _respected_ as a writer. And that would only happen once I'd learned to write well.
So when I read something that was light-years better than my writing, I saw it not as competition but as something to aim for. I saw it as a lesson, and tried to figure out why it was so much better than my stories.
One thing that really helped a lot was an internship I had with Mercury House, a small press in San Francisco. It was an unpaid position where I spent the bulk of my time reading unsolicited manuscripts that came to us in the mail. I learned a few things:
First: Publishers are overwhelmed with manuscripts, 99% of them no good at all--over three months I was only enthusiastic about one manuscript. (And this was in the 90s, before email made submitting so much easier.) I learned that an unpaid intern is looking for reasons to turn down a manuscript because he or she has, say, 5 novels that he's supposed to read through EACH DAY. (So whatever you do, don't misspell a word on page one!)
Second: I was able to gauge the quality of my own writing against the general populace rather than the great writers. At that point, I wasn't convinced I would ever be very good, but through the job I saw that I was better than, say, 80% of what came in. That gave me the confidence to keep going.
Third: So many people write for what seems like the wrong reason: They're writing to show off themselves, how clever or wise or poetic they are. In fiction, there is only one thing that matters: the story. Everything else--the clever phrasing, the erudition, the showing off--is spice. But if the story doesn't grab and hold the reader, no one will be interested in the spice.
Fourth: It's an uphill battle. And it's hard. I was in the midst of my 10-year apprenticeship period when I worked at Mercury House, and I still had years to go. I can't say I was entirely aware of how much work still lay ahead of me, but I was getting an inkling. And I had to decide if I was up for it. Again: Why did I want to write? I asked myself that all the time. Sometimes I lost the thread and wrote for the wrong reasons, forgetting that story is paramount, but seeing all those manuscripts making the same mistakes helped bring me back in line.
So, how to keep positive? Maybe keep in mind that probably misquoted quote from Hemingway about needing to write a million words before you're really an author. I know I did. I wrote innumerable short stories and three novels before the fourth novel took, and looking back I have no regrets about those years. Whatever mistakes I made then became the lessons that helped me get to wherever I am now.
Good luck!
Olen Steinhauer
Deal!
(I'm adding this because GoodReads tells me my answer is too short..."Longer answers are more popular with readers, and even “yes or no” answers are more interesting with more detail." So there you go!)
(I'm adding this because GoodReads tells me my answer is too short..."Longer answers are more popular with readers, and even “yes or no” answers are more interesting with more detail." So there you go!)
Olen Steinhauer
Actually, Max, that's kind of a terrific idea that had never occurred to me. In my mind her story was done, but there's no reason it has to be--and if I could find a way to mix those two universes (because I do, in a way, consider each book or series its own universe), then why not?
Thanks for the idea!
As for the point of the conclusion, there really is no point being made: I just wanted the reader to take over and finish it him- or herself. (The screenplay, by the way, leaves no ambiguity.)
Thanks for the idea!
As for the point of the conclusion, there really is no point being made: I just wanted the reader to take over and finish it him- or herself. (The screenplay, by the way, leaves no ambiguity.)
Olen Steinhauer
I think the historical ones are easier for a couple reasons. First, since I'm inventing the country I have the freedom to lay out the details as I see fit. For example, if my character turns left on a street, I don't have to spend time scouring old maps to find out if that's possible, or if it's a one-way street. Because there's always someone out there who knows this fact, and will call you on it.
More importantly, though, hindsight is 20/20. I can write about Cold War politics with not only historical perspective, but also with the knowledge of things that contemporary writers wouldn't have been aware of. The opening of the Stasi files, for example, has made the writing about the East German secret police immeasurably easier to accomplish.
In fact, it was this perceived ease in writing historical novels that convinced me to move to contemporary novels. Stuck in my fictional Cold War, I would look at the news and find myself at a loss to explain the world around me. I feared that, after five books, I was hiding out in a simpler time in order to avoid contemporary politics. So I cut the tether and got to work as best I could. I stumbled now and then, as we all do, but it seems to be working.
More importantly, though, hindsight is 20/20. I can write about Cold War politics with not only historical perspective, but also with the knowledge of things that contemporary writers wouldn't have been aware of. The opening of the Stasi files, for example, has made the writing about the East German secret police immeasurably easier to accomplish.
In fact, it was this perceived ease in writing historical novels that convinced me to move to contemporary novels. Stuck in my fictional Cold War, I would look at the news and find myself at a loss to explain the world around me. I feared that, after five books, I was hiding out in a simpler time in order to avoid contemporary politics. So I cut the tether and got to work as best I could. I stumbled now and then, as we all do, but it seems to be working.
Olen Steinhauer
Well, le Carre is the reason I write espionage fiction, so it's no insult when I'm compared to him. However, after a few years all writers would prefer to be judged on one's own merits rather than in comparison with one of the masters. So it's a double-edged sword.
My influences are from the same period: Charles McCarry, Len Deighton, and Frederick Forsythe's "Day of the Jackal."
My influences are from the same period: Charles McCarry, Len Deighton, and Frederick Forsythe's "Day of the Jackal."
Olen Steinhauer
Thanks for saying I do both well. The primary difference between them is in how I think of them when writing. To me, a series is less a series than a multi-volume novel, which is why I like to know going into it how many books I'm going to write. The Yalta Boulevard sequence was always going to be five books, so while each novel was self-contained I also thought of them within the sequence, and I was able to build up certain ideas over the years. The Milo Weaver books were always going to be a trilogy, which is why there's a single meta-narrative that connects them (though by the end of it I realized there was more to tell about Milo, so I left it open).
The standalones are, in a way, more demanding because all the storylines need to be wrapped up. And an entire world needs to be recreated each time.
Do I prefer one? I'm not sure. Each, to be sure, is hard work!
The standalones are, in a way, more demanding because all the storylines need to be wrapped up. And an entire world needs to be recreated each time.
Do I prefer one? I'm not sure. Each, to be sure, is hard work!
Olen Steinhauer
A novel about domestic terrorism. It's quite different from my usual, which of course is a little terrifying. It takes place entirely in the US, and the primary narrator is...myself! It's still sort of a mess, but more work, and the help of my editor, will eventually make it work.
Olen Steinhauer
Thanks, Todd! I just came off of a book tour and the number of questions I got about Milo--specifically, "When will we see him again?"--has pretty much convinced me that I need to write about him once I've finished the present book. And no, I won't write it in order to kill him off!
I used to carry around a notebook and pen, but I was never a good note-taker. However, I've found that my iPhone has gradually become my note-taking instrument of choice. It's easier for me to pull it out and type a brief note than it is to open up my book bag and search for the notebook and pen. One interesting point, though, is that usually once I type, or write, an idea down I usually don't look at the note again. The act of recording it makes it stick in my memory.
I used to carry around a notebook and pen, but I was never a good note-taker. However, I've found that my iPhone has gradually become my note-taking instrument of choice. It's easier for me to pull it out and type a brief note than it is to open up my book bag and search for the notebook and pen. One interesting point, though, is that usually once I type, or write, an idea down I usually don't look at the note again. The act of recording it makes it stick in my memory.
Olen Steinhauer
Though the short answer is, "I read John le Carre," I wouldn't have been so open to his influence if I hadn't already been obsessed with traveling in Europe. No, I don't have experience in the subject, but my years of traveling gave me a certain perspective on "exotic" locations and the experience of being a stranger in a strange place. Put that and other personal quirks together, and I suppose it all just comes out in my books.
Olen Steinhauer
The Tourist was optioned, but as yet nothing has been made. More optimistically, All the Old Knives is now steadily on its way to the big screen. I wrote the script, we have a wonderful director and producers, and a studio was attached a couple days ago. Now all we need is the actors and we're good to go!
Olen Steinhauer
I try not to ever talk down to my readers. That is, I present scenes in an order I find most interesting or telling, and know that my readers can draw the lines of connection between them. That attitude gives me an automatic freedom to twist and turn the narrative as I like. Sometimes it's conscious misdirection, sometimes it just feels right. Sometimes the surprises that occur are surprises to me as well, because I often write myself into a corner and don't know where to go next. I'll spend a week struggling with the answer before stumbling on something unexpected.
I don't mind being labeled a master of misdirection, but I don't want people to think that this is a result of sitting down and mapping out a story full of misdirections. It's the organic twists--like I said above, getting myself into trouble and then out of it--that produce the most interesting sleights of hand. The ones I know about beforehand (those are few and far between) never feel quite as surprising to the reader.
I don't mind being labeled a master of misdirection, but I don't want people to think that this is a result of sitting down and mapping out a story full of misdirections. It's the organic twists--like I said above, getting myself into trouble and then out of it--that produce the most interesting sleights of hand. The ones I know about beforehand (those are few and far between) never feel quite as surprising to the reader.
Olen Steinhauer
Writer's block is a serious condition. Some don't believe it exists at all, but I've known a few writers who went through it and attest that it does. I've never suffered from it in a serious way, but sometimes I look at the page and just feel pure despair. This happens often enough, but it doesn't lead to me not writing. It leads to me either trying another way into the story, or throwing it away and starting fresh. There's something liberating about throwing away a manuscript, even if you've spent a year or so on it, and beginning with the blank page. I love the blank page, because anything is possible.
Olen Steinhauer
There are plenty of pros and cons, but perhaps the best thing is not having a commute (I either write in bed or in the living room). The one time I did have a commute was when I first moved to Budapest, and the commute involved walking to a cafe in the center and settling down at a table for hours until, eventually, friends showed up and alcohol was ordered and we moved on to another bar.
Not a bad life.
Not a bad life.
Olen Steinhauer
Read and write every day, until the act of writing feels like that first coffee in the morning--without it, you're not quite yourself; with it, you can get on with your day.
Learn to throw away your words if they don't serve the larger story.
Learn to throw away your words if they don't serve the larger story.
Olen Steinhauer
I became a writer because I read James Joyce's "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" when I was 19, and during my 20s I wanted to be just like him. Then I read Raymond Chandler and started writing crime fiction. Then I read John le Carre and turned to espionage...and have never looked back.
Lately I've been getting quite into David Mitchell.
Lately I've been getting quite into David Mitchell.
Olen Steinhauer
Ha! You'd be surprised by how specific some questions get, but this is a really specific one. I do sometimes add "wink-wink" details to my books, so it would be a fair guess that 12 Trubnaya ulica meant something. But in this case I simply wanted specificity and chose that building. However, you'd also be surprised how often little random details later turn out to either be "true" in some interesting way, or at least surprisingly appropriate. So maybe there were some spy shenanigans going on at 12 Trubnaya ulica...
Thank you!
Thank you!
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