Write with Special Sauce

 

Do you ever get stories “ripped from the headlines”? How much do you rely on current events to fuel your stories?

 

We’ve all heard the familiar chestnuts: ‘Reality is stranger than Fiction’ and ‘Every story has already been told,’ or a permutation on the latter, ‘Every book has been rewritten.’

 

I think the reason why readers see the same stories over and over again, and why agents and publishers are reluctant to take on inventive stories or creative uses of language is twofold: one, formula provides comfort and familiarity; and two, reason one is reliable, predictable, and profitable. The truly inventive works of literature challenge readers and critics.

 

Writers are left with two choices, either recast the ancient tropes or create a twist that I’ll call the Special Sauce.

 

The original movie Star Wars is a collection of tropes of classical (and world) literature. The royal baby is raised in the wild, unaware of his origin. Siblings are separated at birth. There is a Master (Yoda) and a Helper (Han Solo). There is a divine power (the Force), etc. etc. It’s Joseph Campbell’s Power of Myth, the Hero’s Journey 101.

 

The Secret Sauce is it all occurs in a galaxy far, far away.

 

There are books and movies that have gone rogue, become unexpected blockbusters and bestsellers, the ones every agent or publisher said didn’t stand an ice cube’s chance in hell. These are the underdogs or underground classics we have all come to love. The film Rocky is an example. Frank Herbert’s Dune was universally (pun intended) rejected before it became the best-selling science fiction novel of all time.

As for the question of Repetition vs Originality, I can’t help but think of the machine in Orwell’s 1984. It recombines prefabricated stanzas to create “new” stories to entertain the prolets in order to keep them distracted.

My Shane Cleary series, set in Seventies Boston, uses real locations to create ‘atmosphere’ and suggest the mores of the decade. DIRTY OLD TOWN kicked off the series. I drew inspiration from real events in SYMPHONY ROAD, such as the arson-for-profit ring that included corrupt city officials, law enforcement, and insurance adjusters. The Special Sauce is that a mafioso seeks justice. In HUSH HUSH, I revisited the murder of Andrew Puopolo in the Combat Zone in 1976, a case that changed jury selection in America and almost brought Boston to the edge of chaos because of judicial racism—as if the court-ordered desegregation of schools and public housing hadn’t brought Bostonians to blows. The Special Sauce I added to the story was that a father of the accused sought justice, and I provided an alternate fictional motivation for the crime. LIAR’S DICE, which received the Shamus Award for Best PI this year, brings forward elements of a war over narcotics within the Sicilian and Calabrian mafias, in the US and Canada during the 70s. I also hinted about clandestine activities and atrocities in Vietnam (Shane is a Vietnam veteran). The Special Sauce is the FBI’s questionable tactics in trying to dismantle organized crime. In ‘real life,’ the agency would later cite ‘rogue elements.’ In The BIG LIE, I dove deeper into those ‘rogue elements,’ mixing fact and fiction.

Level Best Books is reissuing my Company Files, and I’ll be adding a fourth title by the summer of 2025. The inaugural book, THE GOOD MAN, is set in Vienna, as Operation Paperclip is underway. The nascent CIA is recruiting former Nazis to counter Soviet progress in the arms race. This was real history that most people (cough, agents) didn’t want to hear when I shopped the pitch. One agent called it ‘morally offensive’ and challenged the veracity of the premise. I sent her the declassified file on Paperclip. In THE NAMING GAME, I revisit the Hollywood studio system and its use of blacklisted writers during the Red Scare. There’s no real Special Sauce here. I had fun with the era, and the material wrote itself. In THE DEVIL’s MUSIC, I extended the consequences of McCarthy’s Red Scare. I remind readers of the special relationship between Senator McCarthy and the Kennedy family (he was godfather to Robert Kennedy’s children). If there’s any Special Sauce here, it’s revisiting the relationship of convenience between organized crime and the CIA. In the fourth novel, out this summer, I explore Operation Ajax. You can Google if you haven’t heard of it. It’s History in plain sight.

I have written another series that I am debating whether to bring to the fore, but I don’t know if there is any interest in it. In the Roma series, I present corporations and governments as no different from organized crime (Special Sauce). I explore history that seems unknown to most Americans: the US’s decades-long destabilization of the Italian government, in what became known as the Strategy of Tension and Years of Lead.

All said and done, writers combine and recombine stories. If there is a thing we call Originality, it is our use of language, and what chapter in the familiar forest we’ve chosen to mine for material.

There is no accounting for LUCK, in being in the right place at the right time, and knowing the right people.

Until then, I follow Yoda’s advice: “Do or do not. There is no try.”