Twenty Questions with Jack Getze

Jack Getze is Fiction Editor for Anthony-nominated Spinetingler Magazine, one of the internet's oldest (and best) websites for noir, crime, and horror short stories. His Austin Carr Mysteries Big Numbers, Big Money, Big Mojo and “Big Mouth” (a short story) were published by Down and Out Books in 2013 and 2014. His newest, Big Shoes, was released by Down and Out in September. Jack’s short fiction has appeared in A Twist of Noir, Beat to a Pulp, The Big Adios and the 2014 anthology, Down, Out and Dead.

Jack has worked as a newspaper reporter and bond salesman. He has carried the idea of “my characters speak to me” farther than most: a character interviews him. Yes, when interviews appear on Jack’s blog, it’s Austin Carr who interviews The Famous Author. (TFA to his friends.) He also has a pathological relationship with redheads and can be trusted to look after a friend’s wife when said friend needs to absent himself from a bar.

One Bite at a Time: Tell us about Big Shoes.

Jack Getze: I think it's my best book, although I'm not certain why I say that. I just like Shoes the best. Mama Bones kind of takes charge, apparently of everything. The novel I'm now writing is Mama Bones as a teenager, solving murders and meeting her future husband years before Austin Carr is even born, a historical mystery.

OBAAT: Where did you get this idea, and what made it worth developing for you? (Notice I didn’t ask “Where do you get your ideas?” I was careful to ask where you got this idea.)

JG: My wife's family serves as major source material for all my New Jersey stories, in this case her maternal grandfather, a race track enthusiast nicknamed The Turk. You have to ask in the right circles, but he was an Asbury Park legend during the Great Depression. The stories are fun and that is always my motivation for development -- to entertain my readers.

OBAAT: How long did it take to write Big Shoes, start to finish?

JG: Nine months, although when Down & Out wanted the series several years later, I ran the manuscript through another two-month re-write. Figure a year then in total, which is pretty much my goal when I start a project. Never turns out that way because nothing I've written has ever sold immediately. Always re-writes.

OBAAT: Where did Austin Carr come from? In what ways is he like, and unlike, you?

JG: He used to be the devil on my shoulder, the voice that had always gotten me in trouble. I think now he's turning into my conscience. The violent events of the first three books are changing him and the way he looks at the world. One some level, Austin is Jack Getze's younger, more-daring, vocal self. I created him to complain about my second career as a municipal bond salesman. Every day, all day on the money machine (telephone) asking people for their money. Oh Dana, did I hate that job. But I was desperate when my new wife dragged me back to Jersey, and once I started, the money hooked me. I was a bad salesman and never made what my friends did, but sales sure paid better than writing newspaper stories or even writing corporate annual reports. Two young children and another needing child support payments in California, I spent a long time doing a job I disliked. And getting out of that business is Austin's number one goal, especially in #4.

OBAAT: In what time and place is Big Shoes set? How important is the setting to the book as a whole?

JG: It's written as taking place in the present, although the fictional setting of Branchtown and Mama Bones give the novel a certain near-history element. I mention it in the book early, describing how the town resembles a collection of buildings from three different centuries, and how Mama Bones clings to an illegal lifestyle that is fast disappearing in the age of legal gambling. Though Branchtown and Mama Bones are fictional, the streets and the people are real. They cling to old foundations in the towns close to where I live -- Red Bank, Long Branch, and Eatontown, New Jersey.

OBAAT: How did Big Shoes come to be published?

JG: It's the fourth in the series, so I'm guessing Down & Out Books hopes this one will bail them out.

OBAAT: What kinds of stories do you like to read? Who are your favorite authors, in or out of that area?

JG: I venture into the best seller list from time to time, but crime is my mainstay. Life is tough for me since Elmore Leonard died. Don't look forward to the rest like I did Elmore, but Robert Crais, Michael Connelly and a few others keep me reading. Newcomers I've been enjoying are Chris Holm, Tom Pitts, and a guy named King. Dana, maybe. His P.I. Nick Forte is top notch.

OBAAT: What made you decide to be an author?

JG: The easy fame and fortune. And I guess I love telling stories.

OBAAT: How do you think your life experiences have prepared you for writing crime fiction?

JG: Newspaper work helped -- meeting so many different kinds of people and trying to understand them. Not to mention a couple of million words onto paper in the 13 years I did it.

OBAAT: What do you like best about being a writer?

JG: Seeing my books, reading the reviews of people who enjoyed my stories. Doesn't get much better than that.

OBAAT: Who are your greatest influences? (Not necessarily writers. Filmmakers, other artists, whoever you think has had a major impact on your writing.)

JG: My brother was a much bigger influence on me than any writer, I think. He was older, a school teacher, and he loved to read. He got me started reading Willie Mays' biography at about nine or 10 years old. I was hooked on reading and went on to the Hardy Boys, Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, Somerset Maugham, A. Conan Doyle, and Ernest Hemingway-- all in high school.

OBAAT: Do you outline or fly by the seat of you pants? Do you even wear pants when you write?

JG: The more I outline, the better my stories get. I'm in the process of losing my pants.

OBAAT: Give us an idea of your process. Do you edit as you go? Throw anything into a first draft knowing the hard work is in the revisions? Something in between?

JG: I write the first draft knowing there will be a second and a third. I throw in whatever comes to mind. Tangents, Flashbacks. Poems. It all comes out later but it's fun to include all kinds of junk. Inspiration sneaks up on me if I just keep working.

OBAAT: Do you listen to music when you write? Do you have a theme song for this book? What music did you go back to over and over as you wrote it, or as you write, in general?

JG: Tried the music thing once and I'm still trying to sell that novel, so I haven't done it again. No music for me. I try to disappear into the story without distraction.

OBAAT: If you could give a novice writer a single piece of advice, what would it be?

JG: It's what you say, not how you say it.

OBAAT: Generally speaking the components of a novel are story/plot, character, setting, narrative, and tone. How would you rank these in order of their importance in your own writing, and can you add a few sentences to tell us more about how you approach each and why you rank them as you do?

JG: Story is what I love the most about reading and writing, but character is always the biggest part of that, so I think they're hard to separate. Setting, narrative, and tone sound like things writers should worry about, but I don't much. In fact I think tone and narrative belong to the character talking, not the author. The setting should be fun.

OBAAT: If you could have written any book of the past hundred years, what would it be, and what is it about that book you admire most?

JG: I can't answer this question I'm afraid. I only want to write my stories, the stories in my head and heart. I think Bonfire Of The Vanities might be a great one for a long time because it captured so well the craziness of America, but Gone Girl might have topped it. Honestly, I can't think of a book I wish I'd written.

OBAAT: Favorite activity when you’re not reading or writing.

JG: Reading novels or watching movies. I play fantasy baseball, travel a little with the wife. Also, I love to leave bombastic messages all over Facebook.

OBAAT: What is it with you and redheads? I mean, I like redheads—a lot—but you, you like redheads a lot. Explain.

JG: Some day, pal, I will have a drink with you and the Beloved Spouse and tell you the story of how I left journalism and The Los Angeles Times. There were many root causes, but the inciting incident, the true beginning, was a redheaded sports reporter from Chicago. She changed my world, and symbolically I blame her red hair for all of the world's problems.

OBAAT: What are you working on now?

JG: It's 1963. The young woman who will become Mama Bones Bonacelli is seventeen when her father is murdered, leaving Angie his bookmaking operation, a small fortune, and a clue to the grisliest murder in Asbury Park history. It's -- gasp -- a historical mystery. Mama Bones made me do this.

November's Best Reads

November was a well-rounded reading month. Added a new author to the list, caught up with a favorite, and was reminded why a Grand Master is a Grand Master. Can’t ask for more than that.

The Second Girl, David Swinson. I scored a pre-release copy at Bouchercon. My review and an interview with the author will run in the spring. Suffice to say, you’re going to want this book, and you’re going to want to keep an eye on this writer.

Big Shoes, Jack Getze. Getze has a deceptively easy style that sounds like protagonist Austin Carr is bullshitting with you. Writers know that’s a lot harder to pull off than it sounds. Just as difficult is switching from first person to third person point of view, and he also does that without taking one out of the story. That’s writer, “inside baseball” stuff. What matters is that the fourth book of the Carr series has all the wit and wacky plotting the first three books (Big Numbers, Big Money, and Big Mojo) have led us to expect. Great fun, and Austin Carr wears well as a series protagonist.

The Choirboys, Joseph Wambaugh. I reviewed this one in detail last week. Suffice to say my opinion has not changed. A classic from a master.

Blog Hop

Last week, John McFetridge tagged me as one of his two authors to participate in a blog hop. Here’s how it works: each participating author tags two other authors until the Internet crashes and writers can get back to writing, as they will have lost all venues for whining about Amazon-Hachette, why they can’t make any money, or why writing is the most difficult occupation in the history of man, and getting harder by the day.

Info on the authors I tagged can be found below my answers. Thanks to John for thinking of me.

What am I working on?

Right now, nothing. (Ha!) Over the weekend I finished polishing and formatting a Nick Forte PI novel that had been sitting on my hard drive for several years, ready to send to the agent or self-publish. After Labor Day I’ll get to work on the edits for the fourth Penns River novel, which has been left to ferment over the summer. For the remainder of August I’m reading and watching a lot of baseball.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

It’s written by me. Remember, I’m unique, just like everybody else.

The Penns River novels are police procedurals, so they owe a great debt to Ed McBain. Where I think they are different from most is the setting: a small, economically depressed town. What I guess would be called an exurban setting; where the suburbs change into rural areas, with a small, decaying downtown. This gives me the opportunity to write a little urban, a little rural, and whatever other kind of setting and crime I care to indulge.

The Nick Forte PI novels are pretty traditional, with, I hope, an interesting twist. He’s a divorced father with a daughter he adores. He and Caroline have a couple of scenes in each book that serve to ground Forte, and to, hopefully, humanize him for the reader as his character becomes darker from book to book. I’ll start the fifth Forte book over the winter, and the violence he’s faced—and committed—will have worn him down to the point he’s clinging to Caroline as his life preserver, which even he recognizes it’s too great a burden for a twelve-year-old girl. As she grows, he also becomes more aware, and involved in, family and women’s issues cases.

Why do I write what I do?

These are the kinds of stories I like to read, and feel most comfortable telling. Especially now, that I have established this universe—Forte and the main character in the Penns River books are cousins, and there is some cross-pollination, especially in Grind Joint—I tend to come up with ideas that fit into one or the other’s established world. I have an idea for them to cross over again sometime in the future.

How does my writing process work?

I’m a little OCD. (The Beloved Spouse just gave me That Look.) Okay, I’m a lot OCD. Not like I’m a Matchstick Man, or anything.

When drafting, I have to write one single-spaced page a day on workdays, two on days off. I read and clean up the previous day’s work before moving on, and read each chapter to The Beloved Spouse as it is finished. Then I leave the book alone for a few months before reading it start to finish and taking notes. Then comes what are usually two drafts: one to make sure the series of chapters make a unified novel (adding or removing chapters, subplots, or characters), and another to make them good. (Tightening everything, adjusting for flow, making sure each character has his or her own voice, etc.). Then it sits for another month or so before I do a word frequency search and remove some of the worst offenders. After that comes the final polish, which has a routine of its own:

Day One: Read Chapters 1 & 2. Just read them. Nothing else.

Day Two: Read Chapters 1 & 2 sotto voce from the screen and edit. Read Chapters 3 & 4.

Day Three: Print, read aloud, and edit from the hard copy Chapters 1 & 2; when this pass is finished, they’re done. Period. Read Chapters 3 & 4 sotto voce from the screen and edit. Read Chapters 5 & 6.

Day Four etc.: Repeat until finished. Weekends get an extra chapter a day.

When this process is complete, I’m allowed to type THE END at the bottom, and I’ll mean it, unless the agent or an editor wants some specific changes.

Now it’s my turn to tag two authors, both of whom are favorites of mine.

Charlie Stella is the Godfather of mob fiction today. He has a gift of showing life from the underside of organized crime. Not necessarily the bosses, but what it’s like in the trenches. His dialog and situations feel as true as anything written by George V. Higgins. You can read Charlie’s answers next week on his excellent and frequently updated blog, Temporary Knucksline.

Jack Getze is the author of the Austin Carr series of “Big” novels. (Big Numbers, Big Money, and the soon to be released Big Mojo.) As a Famous Author, he may not have time to answer on his blog, The Crimes of Austin Carr, but Austin is pretty reliable, regardless of how people think of him in the books, and he’ll post something if Jack is busy.