Written Words continues the series where we ask your favourite authors what they like best and least about writing. Today, a good friend, Robert Guthrie generously takes his time to answer my questions.

Which element of fiction is most important to you as a writer?

Well, clearly plot and a good story are important, but I am, by far, a character-oriented writer. If you don’t create a living, breathing, feeling, flawed, character in whom the reader can invest their feelings and CARE, what have you got? Two-dimensional characters will trump good writing (and even story) any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

I am also meticulous about researching specific elements of anything (like a weapon) that I don’t already know (or think I know). It’s that last part that gets me in trouble. :

What part of writing do you spend the most time on: research, writing, editing, making coffee or cleaning your work space?

HA! Watching movies. That’s my trusted distraction. I can claim partial assistance as there are plots, and characterization, and drama, and conflict, and it helps me break any creative challenges I might be having.

But it doesn’t. I just love movies. I think all independent writers (and many traditionally-published ones, because it’s a myth that they don’t also have to beat most of the bushes themselves) would have to say marketing and branding takes up so much time. It’s the business end that is most crucial and the worst time black hole ever. You have to do it, most of us are nowhere near experts (or even all that good) at it, but it is the key to the Indy’s success.

As far as the writing process itself, obviously writing takes up the largest share, but I spend quite a bit of time (much of it while writing) doing research. It’s the “one here, one there” type questions that keep me from getting into the writing flow. It’s always easier to write about what you know or have experienced.

Which of these do you enjoy most?

If I’m being forthright, I am a MOVIE HOUND. I watch them multiple times (dozens), I quote them. I joke with my wife that when I go senile, I will speak only in movie quotes, like a code. It’s already happening, so she’s getting to be pretty decent at it herself to keep up later.

And, hey, man, do I ever love to WRITE.

What do you wish you had to do less?

Pay the bills. There’s a reason for the term “starving artist”.

Which of your books or other works are you personally happiest with? Why?

Blood Land. It’s the book I always had to write. Book one in my James Pruett mystery series, set against the backdrop of the majestic Wyoming town in which I grew to manhood (and first started writing). There’s a part of my heart and my soul in everything I write—if there isn’t, I’ve written myself short—but in Blood Land, well, there’s a heaping portion of both. It’s also true of the books in the series that follow, but none, to me, like the first one.

I’m also happiest with it not simply because it was always in me and I finally put it down on paper and let it out of the nest, but also because it has been so well-received, winning several different awards for both me and for the book itself, garnering so many positive reviews, and all the emails and comments from readers about how parts of my character, James Pruett, his imperfections, his struggles, and even his failures at times, but still being the man of character and, of course, the hero, have helped them in their real lives.

I don’t care what anyone says, that’s powerful.

I mean, if any of us can do that for even one person, couldn’t you make the argument “a successful career it’s been?”

What part of writing or publishing do you think you could help other writers with?

Ironic question. And not a short answer, I’m afraid.

I believe I came up with some answers to that a couple years ago after reading one bland book after another. I don’t mean by people who couldn’t write at all (of which there are plenty—sorry, but it’s like singing and everything else: there are all levels), but rather authors that write very well, but their structure and flow and tempo and cadence—well, there was none of it. Their characters were two-dimensional. Nothing wrong with them; you could meet one on the street and never take notice. Perfect, cookie-cutter language; perfect cookie-cutter people. Excellent writing. As in, “If this was English Composition, you’d be getting straight As.” Problem is, we don’t read fiction to see the ordinary. And writing is more like music than people understand.

There’s staccato.

Really.

Then there are runs and dips and crescendos and high notes and low notes and pauses and repeated stanzas.

People don’t rumble or gurgle or spew or bark or yowl or, despite what Walt Whitman liked to say, YAWP.

They SAY.

Otherwise, the flow is choppy as the reader (unknowingly, even) catches on every YAWPED; every COUGHED UP; every CHORTLED.

And the don’t say things absentmindedly, adoringly, awkwardly, beautifully, briskly, brutally, carefully, cheerfully, competitively, eagerly, effortlessly, extravagantly, girlishly, gracefully, grimly, happily, halfheartedly, hungrily, lazily, lifelessly, loyally, quickly, quietly, quizzically, recklessly, remorsefully, ruthlessly, savagely, sloppily, stylishly, unabashedly, unevenly, urgently, wishfully, or worriedly.

Once in a while? Absolutely. Every time they speak? No, not even close. And the simpler the better.

Quietly, eagerly, briskly, or lazily.

Anyway, I’ve been in dozens of writing workshops, even run a few, and after critiquing so many stories, chapters, etc., being critiqued by some very talented and experienced writers, learning to accept criticism and apply the suggestions, and also reading the greats who really get it right, you pick up what I refer to as “an ear for writing.” I did. I “hear it” when I read other’s work (or my own, after stepping back from it for a while).

So I wrote a short, to-the-point book, INK, the size of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style (which I read at least half a dozen times a year), on eight easy steps to a better book. It’s meant to impart everything I’ve learned in my decades of editing, being edited, reading, being read, writing very well and writing very poorly—all that experience carved down into a Spartan, concise, just-the-meat-no-potatoes reference that one can go back to when needed; a cookbook of secret ingredients to add that special something. Thing is, most aren’t secret, it’s just that no one has ever grabbed these writers—scribes with so much potential—and said “YOU, don’t do this, DO do that, try using these, throw away those, and you’ll improve your writing tenfold.”

It’s for writers who want to get better and who believe in themselves enough to realize we always can.

Thank you, Rob!

Rob Guthrie grew up in Iowa and Wyoming. He has been writing fiction, essays, short stories, and lyrics since college.

Black Beast: A Clan of MacAulay Novel marked Guthrie’s first major release and it heralded the first in a series of Detective Bobby Macaulay (Bobby Mac) books. The second in the series, Lost hit the Kindle shelves in December 2011. Reckoning closes out the trilogy. For now…

Guthrie’s Blood Land is the first in the Sheriff James Pruett mystery/thriller series and represents a project that is close to his heart: it is set in a fictional town in the same county where he spent much of his childhood and still visits. The sequel, Money Land, hit the shelves Christmas Day, 2012. Honor Land, the third in the James Pruett series came out in 2014.

Rob is the founder of RABMAD, Read a Book, Make a Difference, where writers and readers donate to worthy charities. He lives in Colorado with his wife, three young Australian Shepherds, and a Chihuahua who thinks she is a 40-pound Aussie.

Rob’s books:

• Blood Land: A James Pruett Mystery (Book One)
• Money Land: A James Pruett Mystery (Book Two)
• Honor Land: A James Pruett Mystery (Book Three)
• Black Beast: A Bobby Mac Thriller (Book One)
• LOST: A Bobby Mac Thriller (Book Two)
• Reckoning: A Bobby Mac Thriller (Book Three)
• A Killer Thriller Collection—Eight The Hard Way (Mystery Thriller Suspense) (free)

Visit Rob’s

• S. Guthrie website
• blog
• Amazon author page
• Facebook page
• LinkedIn

And follow him on Twitter @RSGuthrie