Interview with Michael Connelly, Author of The Overlook

Michael Connelly was kind enough to agree to let me interview him again, this time for his new book, The Overlook, which comes out May 22. He previously let me interview him about his book, Crime Beat.

In book reviews I've raved  and raved about Connelly as a journalist, as a crime writer — my favorite remains The Poet — and as an inspiration for many journalists, myself included, who aspire to write best-selling crime novels. Rather than repeat myself I'll just include those links to past reviews.

Simply put, Connelly is one of the best crime writers around, with intricately-plotted storylines and characters of enormous depth. It is no wonder that The New York Times asked him to serialize his new novel. Furthermore, in an unusual move, four excerpts from his new novel have been acted out on videos at YouTube.

The Overlook is Connelly's 18th book. You can read more about him at his Web page.

Scott Butki: How did you come to write a book that was serialized in The New York Times Magazine?

Michael Connelly: The Times approached me and asked if I wanted to do it. They had started running serials the year before and I was happy to give it a try.

What did you have to do different to write a serialized book versus a regular novel?

The biggest challenge I didn't see until I started writing. And that was the constraints the series puts on the writer. I had to write each installment to fit a 3,000 word hole. That is not how I normally write. When I am writing a novel I don't care about the length of a chapter. I concentrate on its content only. So I end up with a chapter that could be three pages or twenty. It doesn't matter to me.

Were you sending out chapters before you finished the book? Did you ever wish you could change something in a chapter that had already been published?

I wrote the whole story before handing it over to The New York Times. So the whole thing was done and then it was published in the magazine. Then my book publisher and I decided not to publish it as it existed in The Times. So I had the opportunity to rewrite something that sort of already had a public existence. So that was kind of fun. I was able to add a lot that I held back on, add another level of plot intrigue and a little more characterization. The one thing I wanted to preserve, however, was the momentum of the story. It takes place in about 12 hours and it’s about a fast moving investigation. I wanted to keep that so I ultimately added about 20,000 words to the story but it still is not as long as any of my previous novels.

Article Author: Scott Butki

Scott Butki was a newspaper reporter for more than 10 years before making a career change into education... then into special education.

He reads at least 50 books a year and has about the same number of author interviews each year and, …

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