Unclean Hands
by James Rosenberg
Season 2 Ep. 6

TPP Season 2, Episode 6 with James Rosenberg

Jim: This case is such a good backdrop for a book, and this is why I was so scared when I tried the case, because you can look at it from the other side and say, oh God, they have a good case. It’s like a 50% case. It could go either way. And no matter how I had the jury come out, I feel like it was justified one way or the other. So obviously I picked the ending that I think is best for storytelling purposes.

Mark: Hello and welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast, the director’s cut of the thriller book world. I’m your host, mark Naau, and joining me today is James Rosenberg, author of the Legal Thriller, unclean Hands.

Mark: Jim, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here today.

Jim: And thank you so much for having me.

Mark: I have your book with me, unclean hands. I’m showing it to the camera. Thank you for sending me an autograph. Copy. I loved it.

Jim: Um, well thank you. Thank you for reading it. Thank you for having me. Um, it’s always nice to find new readers. I.

Mark: And interesting fact, this is the first legal thriller. You’re the first legal thriller guest I’ve had on the show. So I’m excited to talk legal thrillers ’cause this is the first time I’ve had to ask about the specifics of legal thrillers and all that. So

Jim: Well,

I, I just wanna say before we get started, that whenever I give a talk, it’s to convince people that legal thrillers are like the greatest genre, and they’re, and everybody loves ’em. So hopefully part of this pitch will be to get people to like legal thrillers more than they do already.

Mark: Okay, well let’s do it then. Pitch me unclean hands.

Jim: The short pitch for unclean hands is should somebody die for shoplifting? The story involves a man who was killed while shoplifting and then involves a trial that his wife brings on his behalf for, dying improperly, for wrongful homicide. It is based on a trial that I handled, 15 years ago.

That was the scariest trial that ever handled because I handled it on behalf of the people who killed the shoplifter. So it was very nerve wracking. But it’s a really interesting story and there’s lots of parallels between what happened in that trial and what’s in the book, which is obviously fictionalized, but also there are some parallels to events that have occurred since then that make you know whether or not it’s okay to kill somebody in a parking lot. Even more relevant than it was.

Mark: Awesome. Well, normally my first question is where’d the idea come from? And now you kind of explain that with the fact that it, 15 years ago, it was based on something that happened. That’s, that’s awesome. I did not see that coming.

Jim: Um,

Mark: can you give me a little bit more information about that?

Jim: yeah, absolutely. I have written five books in the Verdicts and vindication series, and three of which are based on trials that I have handled. And so they’re the fictionalized version of the trials that I’ve handled. This case that’s in unclean hands occurred in a grocery store in a small town in Ohio, and a sort of nice sort of not so nice guy stole stuff from the store.

The. Manager and another assistant chased him through the parking lot, tackled him, and then had two people help them out to detain them until the police came. And unfortunately, by the time the police came, they had smothered the guy to death. So it was a question of, it’s a question of whether or not you know you, how far you can go to detain somebody for shoplifting.

Or put the other way, should somebody die for stealing from a big company.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So

Mark: So you were defense. You, you meant, you were the defense of this case,

Jim: yes,

Mark: side of our hero

Jim: in real life,

Mark: was that like? I.

Jim: That was the scariest trial I’ve had in my life. We won that case, but I’m reasonably confident that if the case came up now, given the change in way things have happened in our country, that we’d stand a much greater chance of losing that case. But the in, in, in real life during that trial, there were some really fascinating people who testified and who show up in the book as a fictionalized form of themselves, one of which was Cyril Wecht.

Who testified on behalf of the plaintiff, the, the guy who died. And Cyril WeCh, for those who don’t know, was a famous coroner who is from my town of Pittsburgh, but had a national reputation that he originally got getting involved in the, in the Kennedy murders. But he was a big name. He had a huge ego. He testified on behalf of the plaintiffs in that case, and nah, he was an okay witness.

What. He wasn’t as great as he thought he was. But I mean, the, the whole trial and, and in that trial, after the trial was over a, after we’re waiting for the, the jury, it took the jury two weeks to come to a verdict, which I’ve never experienced. And that was gut wrenching. We, we would drive up to the court every day and wait for the verdict to come.

We knew that if we lost the case, it was gonna be a significant verdict, millions of dollars. Luckily in that case it wasn’t, I won’t say what happens in the book, but there’s a different ending than what happened in real life.

Mark: Wow. So if we take a small step back when we’re talking about legal thrillers, and this was a court case that I assume, given that it was drawn out over, well, I don’t know the length of time, but let’s say weeks or months or however long this case went on, how do you go about crafting this real world situation that happened to you while trying to maintain what is a, a thriller pace for legal thrillers?

Jim: I, I started writing. I operated under the assumption that people were interested in seeing exactly what happened in the courtroom. And so my books all include pretty much a full blown trial from start to finish, from picking the jury to opening statements to pretty much all the witnesses, direct examination and cross-examination.

And the people who read these books are really interested in the dynamics of the courtroom. This book, interesting story. When I finished writing it, I, I found an editor to review the book who turned out to be a relatively young woman who wrote me back as part of her critique that she didn’t believe that anything in the book was real and that nobody would ever believe it, and that this is not how judges would act, and this isn’t how lawyers would act in the courtroom.

I wrote her back and I said, this has taken like word for word from what happened in this trial. I’m pretty confident it’s a good reflection of reality, but the the point being that people who, who read in this genre, and I think I do this more than most people, I mean, Grisham, when he writes his books, he has courtroom scenes, but generally speaking, he summarizes them more than gives specific testimony. I give much more specific testimony than summarize because I think people enjoy getting in the head of a lawyer and thinking, why is he, why is he asking this question? Why is he thinking this way? And yeah, it’s not for everybody, but it’s for a lot of people.

Mark: Yeah, I actually moved from being a fan of fantasy is kind of how I started with my like so called reading journey, and then I got into Grisha. Funny that you mentioned that. And the Lincoln lawyer, Michael Conley’s, the Lincoln lawyer. So I got, I absolutely love, legal thrillers and I love how this book actually did play out that whole scene and as we were unfolding. And so it was, it was really enjoyable. What kind of challenge did this book present to you an author and a lawyer?

Jim: Well, every book presents a challenge in terms of getting it written. I still work full-time as a lawyer, so I try and sneak in writing as much as I can. ’cause I really, really, really enjoy it. In this book, the, the challenge for me was trying to write characters who were interesting and real and give an accurate reflection of what it’s like to be a lawyer and try and get a sense of the, the pressure that lawyers feel when they’re trying cases. Which is, you know, I talked to when I, when I’m trying a case from the smallest case to the biggest case, I get really anxious and I think it’s pretty typical for most trial lawyers. You don’t sleep at night, you worry about it.

You think about all the worst things that could happen. And that kind of eats at you. So when you’re in trial, the week or two weeks that it is, that they’re in trial are difficult. They’re horrible. I mean, you, you, you don’t sleep, you, you’re nasty to your wife. I didn’t say that, but you, you, you, you’re not a pleasant person to be around and all you do is worry.

So my goal was to convey the pressure that a lawyer is under while trying a case, you know, trying to corral your witnesses, uh, trying to make sure that you, you have all your exhibits ready, trying to make sure that you make a good presentation to the jury. And a good lawyer is able to make a good presentation to the jury where they don’t even realize like how much work went into it and it just looks easy and natural.

Um, so I try and present that in a court case the same way, like. Yeah, that, that sounds good. That looks good. But give the reader an understanding of how much work went into the lawyer actually making that presentation that looked pretty easy.

Mark: Yeah. Do you find like when you crafted the first draft of this book. Do you find that you almost override it and then come back to cut for pacing or to try and move the story faster?

Jim: I would say no. That I, so there, there’s the old, you know, pants, servers, plotter discussion.

And I am 100% a pants. And so I know where a book’s starting and I pretty much know where a book’s ending and the fun is getting it there, you know, filling in all the blanks in between. I am pretty good about plotting as I go along and I mean, I definitely edit a lot after I finish the first draft. You know, it goes through 3, 4, 5 drafts before you even send it to an editor. But it’s not a huge amount of plot changing or cutting. It’s more crafting and making it sound better and making sure that it’s clear to the reader. So mainly I’m pretty good about getting the plot.

But there, and trust me, there’s always holes and you always gotta add stuff. And, and this book in particular, there were a couple of times when I felt like I wrote myself into a corner and you kind of gotta back it off and try and get around that corner in a different way. But usually I get that done by the end of the first draft.

Uh, and so the whole process is, I mean, that my favorite time in writing a book is at the end of the first draft because then for the second draft, you get to read the book and you actually, like, that’s when I learn what the story actually is. Like, does it connect together well? Do, do characters have a good arc?

That sort of thing. And so the whole, yeah. Finding out what the actual story is to me is fun and reading it as a reader so that I can get a sense that a reader would like this or enjoy this or what they wouldn’t like is a lot of the fun for me.

Mark: Who is your first reader and how early do they read your book?

Jim: Um, generally speaking, my first reader is my wife. And she gets first crack at it, but she’s usually pretty slow. And the second reader is my old secretary who reads a ton and gives incredibly good feedback. So those two are kind of one A and one B. And I rely, and then I have a group of other people who I usually send it to, to get feedback.

Then you have eight different people reading it and giving you feedback, and then it’s trying to try and control the feedback so that you’re, you know, and that’s hard. I, I, I have great trouble with that, but I, my, my wife gives really good feedback and I listen to about 86% of what she has to say, and then she gets mad at me for not listening to the other 14, and always tells me that she was right in the, in the choices that she was suggesting.

Mark: Yeah. What kind of suggestions happen your books when you’re the, essentially the expert? What kind of, what kind of suggestions sometimes come like pop up in like unclean hands that may have impacted this story?

Jim: There are all, I mean, there was the editor who said the story wasn’t real, which, that wasn’t, that wasn’t a good suggestion. My wife always comes up with good character suggestions. Like, this is not how a person who you are describing them to be would act in this particular situation. So she’s really good at making sure that characters stay true to form and that the, their, their story arc is real by the time you get to the end of the book.

And there you there, there was a twist at the end of the book that my wife pretty much came up with. So she, you know, she kind of suggested it based on a character arc and so I think the twist is actually really good. I like it. So I give her all the credit in the world for that.

Mark: Nice. So when someone does finish the book and put the book down, what are you hoping they’re gonna feel or what they’ve experienced after reading this book?

Jim: So when I write, my plotting is very important, but ultimately my goal is for them to connect with the characters and want. So I want them to feel something. Good. Well, I want them to feel something by the time they’re done with the book. And, and so I mean, most of these books, most legal thrillers stay with you for about two hours after you’re done with them.

My goal is that it stays with them a little bit longer. And the primary goal is to say, Hey, I’ve read this book. I like this author. I want to go through and read his other books and connect with them. So there is always in the book, and, and this is where I’d say I distinguish myself from somebody like Grisham, in that I think my books are more character driven.

His books are more plot driven. Um, and, and so the connection with the character and rooting for the character and wanting them to win or. If they’re an ass, wanting them to lose that sort of thing is very important. So I, I want them to feel connected in some way to the characters in the book.

Mark: Do you ever write for, to have people think about the theme, and especially in this book, ’cause I’ve been thinking about this book since I finished it and I finished it like five, six days ago or something like that. I’m still thinking about. What happened and what side of the case I might be on because it was such a difficult Tried well by both sides, which were, you know, nicely to portray both sides. But there’s that question of if it, well, I guess it did happen. I didn’t follow the actual case. I didn’t know it was a real case. But there’s that question of like, what? Like, wow, that’s messed up. What happened and who’s right and who’s wrong?

Jim: Well, and that this case, I mean this is why I think this case is such a good backdrop for a book because, and this is why I was so scared when I tried the case, because you can look at it from the other side and say, oh God, they have a good case. And. This one. You know, I, as, this is one thing I say as an author is I really like being an author because I get to control the outcome of my cases in real life.

I don’t, I’m relying upon real people who are jurors to say, you’re right or wrong. This case was really good because it’s kind of like a 50% case. It could go either way. And no matter how I had the jury come out in this case, I feel like it was justified one way or the other. So obviously I picked the ending that I think is best for storytelling purposes, not necessarily for reality purposes, but, I think of all, all the cases portrayed in all my books this is the most evenly divided one, and you can read it. Any way you want and come out to any conclusion you want. Which, you know, it’s interesting ’cause in this book there’s video, it, it portrays video in, in the case and video I have found video is much more prevalent than it used to be in trials because, you know, there’s 8 billion cameras out there now and it is amazing when two people or 12 people on a jury watch a video and I think the video obviously shows this to have happened and jurors or other people look at the video and they see the exact opposite of what I see. So evidence is kind of a Rorschach test for people. They can see it however they want, and that’s kind of why you do voir dire to get to people’s biases to see are how are they gonna see the evidence?

Are they gonna see it the way you think you want them to, or are they gonna see it the way the other side wants ’em to? And like I said, in this case, I think they could see it any way they want and they would be right.

Mark: Yeah. That sounds very intense to be involved in a case. And you, you said the toughest case of your life. I can see it ’cause man, even the way you’re explaining it, that sounds To be on the other side of that, trying to like justify and def or defend, in this case,

Jim: Well, all, all I can say is I tried this with another lawyer from our firm, and every morning I would find him in the parking lot of the hotel. We were staying at chain smoke and cigarettes. He, he was a basket case. I was just incredibly nervous.

Mark: A couple of the characters, the defense in this case, and I’ll try not to give spoilers, there might be light spoilers in, in a way, but did you write those characters in the conflict between the, the two sets of lawyers in order to almost sway the reader to want to come to the conclusion in the end that was hit?

Jim: I, I, I think the answer to that is no. I think it’s more interesting if there’s conflict among the attorneys. And, you know, so to give a little history that they had where they didn’t like each other, yes, you’re going to be rooting in this case for the protagonist against the, the nasty or other side of lawyers, most likely.

 so yeah, I could see how that would sway you to want to see the evidence come out the way that it did. But, it one of, one of my themes when I talk about legal thrillers is one of the reasons they’re so interesting is that there’s so many different potential forms of conflict. Meaning you got a witness on the stand who’s being cross-examined by a lawyer that’s conflict you.

You got a judge who’s bringing whatever stuff he or she is bringing. That can create conflict. The two lawyers can have conflict, and then you gotta convince these 12 people who are sitting on the jury to see it your way. And that obviously creates conflict. So like you think about some of the greatest movie scenes in the history of movies, and immediately you can think of three or four or five really good courtroom scenes.

Primarily it’s because there’s conflict and the stakes are generally really high because you’re involving somebody’s life in some material way. So the courtroom is a great little crucible for bringing together a whole bunch of conflict and a whole bunch of stress, and if you’re only watching it rather than living it, that’s much more fun and entertaining.

So that’s my short version on why people should wa read and, and, and, and go to the movies that that involve legal thrillers.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. They’re a lot of fun. In this book, at the beginning, you chose to introduce a number of characters quickly, how do you decide, or is there a trick that you have to try to keep the reader from getting confused or keeping track of who is who? As each chapter were kind of introduced to somebody new, and it, of course, it all comes together and it plays out well, but in the beginning, as a reader, sometimes we’re caught thinking, okay, who’s this character now? Who’s this person?

Jim: And you’re, you’re suggesting that you were a little bit confused there, which is fine. I mean, I, I don’t believe my books are terribly complicated and this book probably had more characters than most of mine do. But I trust the reader. I think generally speaking, the readers of my book are reasonably intelligent and they know that even if there’s a little bit of difficulty of telling person A from person B at the beginning, by the time you get to chapter 12, you’re gonna have a pretty good idea of who’s who and, and where, where they stand in the pecking order of importance as as witnesses.

So, I mean, yeah, this book. Especially when you start, including all the people who testified at trial, brings in a lot of characters. And it that, I mean, I think that’s partly where you rely upon beta readers to tell you if they’re having difficulty keeping track of readers. Which I don’t believe in this book that was ever an issue for a beta reader.

Not that I’m suggesting it’s never an issue for anybody, but, I think readers trust that you as an author will get them to where they need to get to not only understand the story, but to appreciate the story. So hopefully it wasn’t terribly confusing.

Mark: No, no, no. I’m always curious when, at the very beginning when I get different viewpoint characters more so than the confusion of, of, of the characters themselves.

Jim: I mean, I think the goal is you gotta make them interesting in, in one form or another. And I mean, what, what I’ve liked or what some people pointed out that they liked and they don’t even realize is, the, in one of the initial chapters introduces the husband and wife, the husband who ultimately dies and sees them in their real light. But then I think the reader forgets what their real light is and sees the wife as a different person than she actually is based upon the image that she’s trying to project.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So I, I always struggle with trying to give readers enough information that they know what’s going on and have a set without spoonfeeding them too much so that they, you know, they, they want to figure stuff out for themselves also.

Mark: Yeah. How do you keep track of everybody if you are. Well, I guess a better question would be how long does it take you to write a book and then assuming it’s a, you know, if you’re just kind of putting pieces together when you’re not working, how do you keep track of all those things yourselves? The characters and the personalities.

Jim: I mean, that’s a great question. So I, my goal is to write a little bit more than one book a year. Which I, eh, it hasn’t quite been that, but, um, so to go start to finish on a book in a year means you gotta write the first draft in five months, give or take, you know, and then you gotta go through all the revisions and then you gotta do everything else to get it ready to publish.

I told you already, I’m a pants, so I just kind of write, but. The last chapter of the book. I don’t know too much detail, but I write on Atticus, which I really like as a writing tool. And the last chapter, even though it’s not really a chapter, is all my notes on characters where they stand in the book.

Perhaps motivations. I mean, my biggest trouble with characters is remembering their names. So I often have to go back there and go like, what’s that friend’s name again? What’s the doctor’s name again? ’cause I can’t remember. Um, and, and so I try and keep notes in the back to keep things consistent and then rely upon beta readers.

When they tell you that you, you told me he had a green shirt on this page. Now he’s wearing a blue shirt. Or, you know. He went to Johns Hopkins and now you’re saying he went to the University of Dayton, whatever. It’s like re readers are really good at finding, when you forget a detail and, and, and then put something conflicting into it.

Mark: Okay. I have a question from Susan Walters, who’s the last guest on my show. She asks, do you have any unsold novels sitting in your desk, and is there a plan?

Jim: That that’s like, it feels like that’s the perfect question. The answer is yes, and I started a book three or four years ago and I’m probably halfway done with it, and I absolutely love it. And it’s a political thriller slash legal thriller where somebody’s son, the main character’s son, kills the president of the United States, and it, it gets into the political environment of today.

It gets into whether or not it’s ever appro, ever justified to kill somebody. That seems to be a common theme. And I’ve written half of it. I think it’s really good and I wanna finish it, but I’m so scared to finish it because it’s gonna piss off a lot of people. Presently, I’m like just about done with my next book, which is the start of a series, and I’m trying to decide if I should write the next two books in that series or go back to the book that I started three years ago and finish that one.

And I, I, I don’t know the answer yet. So, um, again, it’s like more time I’d be able to get all these things done.

Mark: Yeah, so the, the concern is the political, the political side of, of what’s happening right now Without getting into political talk,

Jim: Yeah, I,

Mark: right now and, and what happens in your book, I would imagine.

Jim: Yes, and I don’t wanna draw us into a political discussion. But yes, it would, yeah, it, it raises things that would make a lot of people unhappy.

Mark: Okay. Most of your books currently are standalones, right? Even though, yeah. So in your series that you have planned coming up, I’m just curious ’cause you mentioned a series, is it gonna be the same taking on new cases. Is that how a serious plays out to you?

Jim: No. The, yeah, this is, so the first books I wrote were in the Verdicts and vindication series, which you’ve already said and are right, that they are five standalone books, which thematically there, there’s definitely, they’re, they’re related and and it’s good to write in a series. The, so the next book I wrote, I kind of wanted to break away a little bit from the lawyer taking on a case and then going through the whole case and I am. I don’t wanna, I, I’m trying to emulate Grisham a little more in this next book, and it’s about a newly married couple who find out that her father, who’s very successful, has received all of his backing from a Mexican drug cartel. So what, what do you do when you find out that your father and father-in-law is in, in deep with, with the Mexican drug lords

Mark: Mm-hmm.

Jim: how that plays out. So then, so I’ve written the first book in that one, which is pretty much done. And then I realized like there’s a lot of backstory that’s pretty interesting. And then it doesn’t resolve itself in the first book so there’s clearly a book or two after that. To, to see what happens. So that is more typical of a series where you, you follow the same characters over time.

Mark: So are you going in the Grisham direction because the idea where the idea took you and it seems fun, and it concerning for you to leave what people now know of your brand, so to speak, as these courtroom dramas?

Jim: No, it doesn’t scare me that much because it’s still a legal thriller. So it’s still still within the same genre. But I mean, I, I love Grisham. I think for what he does, he’s awesome and he sells an awful lot of books. So I’d like to emulate that. That would be, that’d be great. So, no, I mean, I think you gotta branch out and, you know, move away a little bit over time.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair. For sure. What advice would you give someone who just published their first or second book?

Jim: My advice to anybody who comes to me about writing is, and I’m presuming that they enjoy the whole process of writing, is to just keep writing. It’s like it’s, it’s the best way to learn. It’s the best way to feel good. It’s obviously the best way to be productive. So, you know, some people say like, oh, I’m having troubles getting out of this, so I, I, I just can’t write. And I’m like, you’re right. And sometimes it’s good and sometimes it sucks, but just keep writing. And you know, then if you’ve just written your first book, then you get into the whole marketing thing. And

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: I’m not sure I’ve, other than you have to market. I don’t really have great advice on that because that’s, that is my weak link and I’m getting better at it and I’m learning how to do it, but it’s like what I like a lot about this whole writing stuff is the business aspect to it.

So they do say, and I totally agree, you gotta treat it as a business. So you gotta learn not only how to write, but how to publish it and then how to market it, and then how to write your next book so that it, it, you get boosted. Your first book gets boosted by writing your second book.

Mark: Mm-hmm. Do you find, given that you’re still working full-time, is writing right now, does it ever become almost overwhelming or on top of your job? Like you have a second job that you’re trying to get this next book out, or is it, do you still see it as like a hobby and it’s just a pure joy to get to the page at the end of the day?

’cause you probably have some very long days I would imagine. and, and to just get to that keyboard and to write. That’s one of the things that new writers especially have a really hard time doing.

Jim: For, I, the answer is kind of no to both parts of that because, I don’t, I don’t treat writing as a hobby. But I also don’t put pressure on myself to, you know, meet goals. I mean, my goal is to write a book a year and if it takes 13 months I don’t care. But I, I mean, the process is, I, I, I, I really love it.

so coming home after work and writing, I love it. I mean, so some people ask me like, how do you have time to write? And I say, because I have no social life. Which is, eh, my, my wife takes care of that. But, um. The point being, being alone and writing is in the top three things I love to do. And also, I, I mean, what I used to be better, but I used to, like, I would block out 20 minutes a day for writing, and that was enough to get pushing a thousand words on the page.

To move you forward for that day. And then I remember being at a talk and being asked like, when do you find time to write? And my boss was in the crowd that night, so I lied and I said, oh, yeah, I, I, I write at one o’clock in the morning when I have time, when the, the truth was I take 20 minutes a day at work or half an hour and write there.

So usually I don’t come home and write. But oftentimes I. Spend 20 minutes or half an hour at work, clanking away on the keyboard and getting words down on the paper. And so far I haven’t gotten in trouble for that.

Mark: Yeah. Good strategy. I like that. What do you think, if you could pick one thing, what do you think has led to your success so far?

Jim: I writing about something I know. And writing in a genre that people like. So I know about trials and I think people find them interesting to read about, and so that lets me write and sell books. It, it, it, it works.

Mark: That’s great. Where can listeners find your books?

Jim: Amazon.

Mark: All right. That is the easiest place.

Jim: Yeah, I mean, you can go to my, my webpage, my webpage, my author page which is james rosenberg legal thrillers.com, and it’ll direct you to Amazon or you can go directly to Amazon and search either for my name or search for verdicts and vindication, or search for unclean hands, and it will come up pretty quickly.

Mark: Awesome. And if people want to follow you, where could they do that?

Jim: I am on Instagram, I am on Facebook, I am on, oh God, what are all the social media sites? I can’t even remember them on, on. Most of them I’m mediocre at, but I’m trying to get better. I’m trying to connect with more and more people. I would love if people you know, went to my website and. Le left their mailing address so that we can connect. But yeah, Facebook and Instagram are the, are the two biggest at the moment. I just started doing Substack, which I have no idea how that’s going. It,

Mark: Okay.

Jim: it’s a whole new area.

Mark: Yeah. Well, thank you so much. This has been awesome. Before, I just want to kind of pause bef to say thank you for those who are gonna cut out before I go into the spoiler section. ’cause I have a couple of questions I wanna ask you that are spoiler full. thank you so much for, for taking the time to be here. for those who do not want to have the book spoiled, now’s the time to pause, go read the book and then come back and listen to the last few questions.

So in the end we discover that the, the twist is that Molly was having an affair and she knew presumably ful, she knew about the thefts that were going on. Do you think that changes what we perceive Rick’s character arc to be?

Jim: That, I think that is a part of his character arc is that he realized that he was totally duped by her and that he wanted to win so badly that he was willing to accept what she had to say, hook, line, and sanker. So yes, it alters his arc, but it’s, it’s a big part of his arc also.

Mark: Yeah. Did you ever wanna write a little bit more, like any more aftermath of that, or you were just happy to cut it there? kind of wanna know what happened to Rick after it.

Jim: Well I think that’s a good thing and you know, hopefully with any book I write, people who read it say, yeah, I wanna know more about these characters. I wanna find out what they’re doing later or how they got to the point that they got originally. So far, I haven’t had that much of an urge to follow the characters in these books again, but who knows?

So if they’re interesting characters, then tomorrow should be an interesting day for them also, even though we don’t know what tomorrow brings for them.

Mark: Do you ever think about, the character when you’re done writing it? Like when Rick went to work the next day, was he almost, was he still elated that he solved all his problems with having solved something? You know, having, having won the money that he did through the case, but knowing what he knows now?

Jim: Rick clearly is gonna be conflicted the next day. And I, I think that’s pretty clear from his reaction at the end of the book. But I think that’s up to the reader to decide. I mean, I, I think what Emily’s gonna do the next day is just as interesting that she now has all this money. Is does she have even a twinge of guilt over what she did or is she totally able to, I think she’s totally able to justify it, but and so I, I mean, books, I guess in some way have to have resolution for the characters, but it, it can’t resolve everything. And so if a book stays with somebody after they’re done reading, then yeah, they’re gonna think about the characters and where they’re going next week, next year. Although now I’m thinking about the first book I wrote legal Reserves, which had an epilogue at the end five years later. So I guess at that point I was more curious what the events of the trial would do to the characters, and I answered those in that book. But no, I did not do that here.

Mark: Okay. Do you yourself, just move on to the next book. Do you find yourself, like when you wrap one book up, or do you, do you start writing your next book? Maybe a better question. Do you start writing your next book once one is like done, or are you waiting for it to be published?

Jim: I generally wait until it’s published because there’s so much work to be done on the book pretty much up until the date that it’s published. And, and. I find like I gotta focus on that book and it’s really difficult to focus on the next book. And, and I always say with my trials, like once a trial’s over, I’m done with it and I forget about it, which is for the most part, some, some stick with you longer ’cause they hurt.

But you know, for the most part, I can’t remember the details of a trial two weeks after it happens. I think with books, I mean, I, I, I can tell you all about all my books. I, I don’t forget ’em, but you kind of put them aside and move on to the next book ’cause you wanna make that one as good as possible.

Mark: Mm-hmm. When you wrote Rick’s character, I guess let’s say the first draft of the book, do or even any of the characters do you write the legal thriller first, and then add in the backstory or the side plot where we have Rick, who’s, you know, in the background is not just struggling with his court case and all those things going on in his brain, but he has his, uh, alimony payments and his child payments and his daughter’s sick, and all these other things that he has to battle right up until the end of the book.

Jim: I mean, I think for a main character you gotta have a concept of where they’re coming from and what, you know, first page, why they’re standing in this position that they’re standing. So I, I feel like my books are, again, character driven. So. I need to know what drives that character in order to move the character, which then moves the plot.

So Rick facing his demons, Rick dealing with his problems is all part of the plot that I got a pretty good sense of. Now, that’s not to say that when you’re done with the first draft or the second draft, that you don’t add details to make the character more interesting or make his arc more believable.

But I think for the most part, especially with the main characters, you got a pretty good sense of their motivating factors from the beginning.

Mark: Okay, so as a pants, you almost have like a vague outline of character already in your mind versus writing down like an outline.

Jim: Yes, and that said, like I said, you know, you have a general concept of who the character is or why they are, but when you write it. I always feel like I learn who my characters are when you write it, you learn the details about them, and it’s like, you know, you write a, a page or whatever about that character and you’re like, oh, that’s pretty interesting.

That’s good. You know, that’s, I, I like that detail kind of thing. It’s like,

Yeah.

Rick, Rick can be interesting.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. It’s really fun to discover characters as you go, any plan doesn’t survive plans most of the time, unless you’re a heavy, heavy outliner. I’m a bit more of an outliner, but my plans never even as my, I outline my character’s always throw things into the story where I’m like, yeah, they’re

Jim: Well, that I was just gonna ask you are, are, are you a planner or a panther? But you, you, I’m guessing you’re the combination of both,

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: which I think everybody.

Mark: have a, I have a general idea of what’s gonna happen. I don’t do chapter by chapter, but I have a synopsis. I have my book cover, I, I get my book cover kinda like done up in my mind

Jim: You do the book cover first. That’s actually really interesting.

Mark: to see it almost come to life before I even start writing it. It’s like that theme and tone comes to life for me.

Jim: Well, that, that’s, I mean, obviously one of the favorite parts of doing a book is seeing the book cover. Like whenever you, I mean, it’s like, oh my God, it’s, that makes it real and. That’s the best part of it. And, you know, and I got my favorite cover of all my covers is Unclean hands. I, I like that cover.

Mark: How did this one come about? Show it again for the viewers here. Oh,

Jim: um,

I’m, I go through a service that does a well, backing up even further before I wrote two books that at that point weren’t in a series and Unclean Hands was the next book. And all three had different covers, which were kind of mediocre. And that’s when I was learning more about marketing and learning more about selling books.

And I talked to a guy who was helping me and he’s like, A, put ’em in a series because they are thematically related, and B, get covers that work as a series. So. I redid the first three covers and then added covers for the next books and covers are, as you know, really important in terms of selling books. A good cover helps and a bad cover hurts.

And although, like my first book had a, I thought it was, it was a decent cover and the book sold really, really well. And then when I changed the cover, it sold a little bit better So that, that, those are the sort of things in doing this, like a business that you have to be willing to do.

Mark: Yeah. Well, congratulations on your success so far.

Jim: Thank you. It’s been, it’s been fun.

Mark: Well, thank you so much for your time. This has been great. If you have a few minutes for the after show, the Rapid Fire After Show, we can quickly jump into that. Thank you for, for taking the time.

Jim: Thank you for doing this. Love it. Thank you.