Interview with Final Target Author and Real Life Private Investigator Steven Gore

Authors who bring professional experience to their writing have long been a captivating breed. Michael Crichton wrote medical thrillers; John Grisham managed to make the law exciting; Kathy Reichs and Patricia Cornwell do forensic pathology. To this group, it is time to add Steven Gore, a San Francisco Bay Area based private investigator turned creator of international thrillers. Gore has investigated international crime and corruption throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America. According to his bio, he has been featured on 60 Minutes, received honors for excellence. And, he’s just a genuinely nice guy.After a false start involving electricity-related phone failure, Steven Gore and I sat down for a long, detailed, and philosophical discussion about his new thriller Final Target, his former career as an investigator, his approach to writing, and the unexpected details of the business of writing.One of my favorite parts of Final Target appears in the prologue. I loved the line “more surprising even than the sheet metal buckling around her, was that she was dying in English.” Did you have a favorite scene while writing the book – something that stood out as a “that’s it!” moment?Can I tell you how that line came about? It was about eight years ago; I was working on a smuggling case in China. I was with an American interpreter, a native Mandarin speaker. We were in Northeastern China, standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the company owner. The interpreter was translating. Suddenly, he couldn’t think of a word in his native language; it was just a basic word. I watched as he panicked. It was as if his world fell away. He was disconnected.That started me thinking about people with a second language, that they learn to think and dream in. What happens [to the language] when something terrible happens?Back to a favorite part of the book – I think it would be the prologue. I had written two thirds of the book. I had an idea of how it was going; when I had the idea of meeting Katie’s parents…I realized it was her story. After writing the prologue I thought, ‘maybe I’m catching on to how to write these things.’Investigation is about finding people and seeing what they have to say. I don’t want to be in the reports that I write; I want it to be about them. When I started writing, I was the author. Then I realized it was the same thing. I had to disappear into the background. In writing the prologue, I’m not important; what’s happening to her is important.This may not be true for every writer, but I’ve developed a rule for myself that everything has to be from some character’s experience. If I stick to that rule, my writing is better. As a debut novelist yourself, do you have any advice for aspiring authors?Set some rules. Figure out talents for yourself, and set some rules and stick to them. I think there’s a lot to be said for writing what you know. Obviously we write about murders and none of us have committed murder, but if you write from a framework you know, you know relationships among people, you know scenes, you know the moral and ethical conflicts.

Article Author: Christy Corp-Minamiji

Christy Corp-Minamiji is a livestock veterinarian, writer, and mother living in Northern California. She writes fiction and blogs on the eclectic range of topics that interest her.

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