My guest for this episode of the Crime Cafe podcast is crime writer Carter Wilson.

Don’t miss our discussion of his process for writing thrillers without outlining.

You can download the transcript here.

Debbi (00:53): Hi everyone. My guest today is not only the Publisher’s Weekly and USA Today bestselling author of 10 award-winning psychological thrillers, but his work has been optioned for television and film, and his latest release, Tell Me What You Did, was a Barnes and Noble National Monthly pick. Awesome. He also hosts a podcast Making It Up, and is founder of the Unbound Writer Company, which provides coaching services, writing retreats, and online courses. So he is a busy man. He has also contributed short fiction to various publications and was featured in RL Stein’s young adult anthology Scream and Scream Again. I’m pleased to have with me today Carter Wilson. Hi Carter. Thanks for being here!

Carter (01:46): For having me here. Debbi great. Great to talk to you.

Debbi (01:49): Oh, it’s great to have you here. Thank you so much. Tell us a little about your latest book and what inspired you to write it.

Carter (01:58): Well, I’ll start with the inspiration. A few years ago, I have a buddy named Blake and he and I would always give each other podcast recommendations, and he came up to me one day and he’s like, oh, you have to check out this podcast. Basically on this podcast, people can call in and leave a voicemail and leave an apology. And so I guess the conceit of the podcast is they would just play these apologies, and the human part of my brain thought that was pretty cool. The thriller writer part of my brain immediately thought, well, what if it wasn’t a podcast? What if it was a confession? And so that was kind of the nugget of the idea for my book. And I don’t outline, so I never know where my book’s going, but ultimately, Tell Me What You Did follows the story of 30-year-old Poe Webb, who is the host of the nation’s top true crime podcast called Tell Me What You Did.

(02:51): And that’s the conceit of the podcast. People call in and they can confess to crimes anonymously, and if Poe believes them, then they have a discussion about the criminal mind. And then one day she has this really creepy guest on who seems vaguely familiar to her, and his confession is that he murdered Poe’s mother. Now, of course, Poe knows her mother was murdered. Poe actually witnessed her mother’s murder when she was 13. But the thing that’s sticking with her, she realizes this can’t be the guy because Poe spent eight years of her life tracking down that murderer and killing him herself. So she’s forced with the question, who is this guy? And if he is telling the truth, who did I kill? So that’s kind of the setup for the book.

Debbi (03:37): Wow, that’s a very intriguing setup I have to say. I also, I just started it and the way you structure the beginning, it just pulls you right in.

Carter (03:50): Oh, good.

Debbi (03:51): It was so intriguing. It’s basically like a podcast within a podcast.

Carter (03:55): Yeah. There’s interspersed throughout the chapters is kind of a cut up podcast transcript between these two individuals, and that ultimate conversation takes place at the end of the book, but you’re seeing glimpses of that conversation throughout the story.

Debbi (04:12): That sounds fantastic. So is this kind of a commentary on true crime podcasting? Do you have any feelings about why it is that people gravitate to true crime podcasts?

Carter (04:29): I mean, I don’t know if I would say it’s so much of a commentary because when I kind of approach a book, I’m never thinking about what is my message here? I’m just thinking about, and again, because I’m not outlining, I’m just thinking about what happens next, and it kind of unfolds to me. But I have been asked that question quite a bit, and I do like true crime podcasts. I listen to ’em. Sometimes I can’t take ’em, sometimes they’re too intense for me. But I think what really speaks to at least American culture is just the idea that people are so starved for recognition, so starved for 15 minutes of fame that they’re willing to confess to crimes with this flimsy kind of promise of anonymity, which of course could be easily broken, but people are still willing to do that, and I think that is a very American mindset.

Debbi (05:22): Yeah, yeah, that is true. Yeah. Are there particular ideas that you tend to gravitate toward when you tell a story? Is there a type of story that you enjoy telling particularly?

Carter (05:36): My first book I wrote, and I didn’t even know it was a thriller. It was my agent who told me what a thriller was. I was so ignorant, I didn’t even know what thrillers were. But I always gravitate to stories that just have inherent conflict, that have kind of a protagonist who’s maybe a little damaged and is trying to almost find a way to heal, but realizes the only way to heal is to potentially go through more trauma. And so I just love a setup where I just going to throw things at my protagonist and just see how they react and just say, you’re going to fail a lot before you succeed. And I think that adds to the tension, but just it allows me to kind of from a safe distance get to say, what would I do in this situation? And that brings me joy when I write.

Debbi (06:29): Do you tend to focus on everyday sort of people as protagonists as opposed to people with powers or influence?

Carter (06:39): For sure. Yeah. And certainly I stay away from people who have very specialized jobs because that would be research for me, and that feels like homework. So I don’t know if I would call them everyday people because usually they’ve had things happen to them in their past that make them broken in a way. But certainly on the face of things, they’re fairly ordinary people.

Debbi (07:09): Yeah. Is there a focus in your mind on a particular subgenre of thriller that you, is there a sub genre? Do you do strictly psychological thrillers or do you think about that at all?

Carter (07:25): I don’t think about it. There are so many subgenres, and I feel like there’s new ones being created every day, and I’ve been labeled many different things from anything from thriller blending into horror to domestic suspense to psychological thrillers. The domestic aspect I feel, meaning familial. There’s usually family elements. That’s pretty consistent throughout my books. There’s usually some kind of father-mother figure that either something’s happened to or there’s a relationship that’s either healthy or fractured, but is central. Sisters. So I think domestic is, but the main thing for me, the psychological aspect is heavy because I usually write from a first person present tense point of view. So you are in the immediacy of this person’s mind typically for the entire book. So I love the idea of memory that’s not consistent. I love the idea of the trauma having kind of warped a perception of reality. And so having a first, somebody narrate the novel who may or may not be willingly unreliable is kind of interesting to me.

Debbi (08:44): This is all lending itself so well to adaptability, to film, I have to say,

Carter (08:49): Hey, fingers crossed,

Debbi (08:50): Present tense stuff, something thrown at the protagonist that they have to really fight to overcome, all of those things. Great stuff.

Carter (09:00): Thank you.

Debbi (09:02): So what kind of writing schedule do you tend to keep?

Carter (09:07): A pretty light one. When I started writing, I had a corporate job that I maintained for a couple decades after I started writing. And my advice to any aspiring writer out there is not to quit your day job because it’s a tough industry.

(09:25): So I’ve learned over time just to write an hour a day, and I still maintain that schedule. I write in the mornings and when I’m actively drafting, it’s kind of a five to 700 word goal, daily goal, but I don’t write more than an hour. It’s very rare that I do, and I also don’t miss a day. It’s very rare that I do that either. So with that schedule, I can have a draft done, if I can figure out what I’m doing, in about six months. So I try to do about a book a year published, and that keeps me, I think, my name out there without killing me. So many other things you have to do during the day to support writing. And I have other companies as well.

Debbi (10:09): That’s right. Yeah. I mean, you got to find the time to do the writing. That’s the thing, that’s the trick,

Carter (10:16): Right. And you’ve got to make sure you’re not, what I fear is, could you write four hours a day? Of course you can, but I think you have to build up to it. But I think for me, I really have to trust the story. And again, going back to the idea that I’m not outlining and I don’t know what’s coming next, there’s a pace at which it unfolds to me. And I think if I try to force it, if I try to put in those extra hours, I might be going down a wrong path. So I tend to be consistent but not overdo it.

Debbi (10:53): That’s interesting. What’s interesting is you’re probably the first person I’ve spoken to who is a complete pantser in terms of the plot, because a lot of people I talk to say, well, I’m a little bit plotted in a little bit pants. I have a general idea and all this kind of stuff, but you seem to be a complete pantser.

Carter (11:16): It’s a curse.

Debbi (11:16): Just taking everything literally as it occurs to you.

Carter (11:20): And I recommend to every writer to try multiple ways because you will eventually find that method that is organic to your nature. I mean, I’ll give you an example. I’m writing something now, and I had kind of, again, the opening scene idea, but not much more than that. I’m like, I am going to outline 20% of this book before I start. And I sat there for two days and I just couldn’t figure it out. And the moment I wrote the first paragraph, things start to reveal themselves to me. And so I’m convinced personally that my outline is fully formed in my head. I just need to write in order to tap into the subconscious part that is releasing it a little bits at a time, because it’s not like I change my books massively after I write that first draft. I just physically need to be in the act of writing to know what might happen next.

Debbi (12:15): Do you usually have an end goal in mind in terms of where you want the story to end?

Carter (12:20): No. I know what’s not going to happen. I’m not going to have my protagonist hit by a truck on the last page, but usually around 80%, 70, 80% in I start to get an idea of how it might end, but not usually before that.

Debbi (12:41): How much research do you do before you write or during the writing process?

Carter (12:47): I don’t do much. I mean, I do obviously all the research I need to do that supports the book to make it as believable as possible. I usually just don’t set myself up for a story that requires that once in a while I might have a secondary POV that might be a detective, and in that case, I’ve got a friend who’s a detective and I’ll feed him pages. I’m like, does this make any sense to you at all? But the beautiful thing about writing first person present tense from kind of an everyday character, that character walks around the corner and there’s somebody pointing a gun at her face, she’s not thinking, oh, that’s a Walter PPK, nine millimeter. They’re like, there’s a gun in my face. So you don’t really, but there are times where you do have to obviously look things up. If it’s a setting that you’re not familiar with, you either go there or you make sure that you’re doing it justice by that kind of research. But that’s usually the extent of it.

Debbi (13:49): Yeah, yeah. Just enough to make it feel real.

Carter (13:53): Yeah. Because you’re not going fool everybody, but you think about what you like to read and what resonates with you, and you try to adhere to those standards.

Debbi (14:05): Exactly. Yeah. What author would you say has been most influential and inspiring for your writing journey?

Carter (14:14): There’s so many, and it’s funny because I mostly read nonfiction, but I grew up on Stephen King clearly, and I think someone like Stephen King, you learn depth of character and maybe not even so much plot, but just emotion. I think he’s a master at that. Then you look at somebody like Cormac McCarthy who not only do I not write like, but I could never write like him.

(14:45): But when you read him, you realize, wow, his writing forces me to read every word. Why is that? And I think from him, you realize how to distill, how to take a paragraph and put that whole sensation of that paragraph into two or three words by just choosing. And that all happens in the editing where you realize, this feels a little bit lengthy to me. What am I trying to say and how can I make that visceral? But there’s a tremendous number of authors that I’ve read who they just tap into your head somewhere and you start to realize like, oh, this is sounding a little bit like Harlan Coben or whomever.

Debbi (15:33): Let’s see. Have you ever considered writing a series?

Carter (15:38): Not seriously. Series are a tricky thing. As a new author, you really have to have the series to go to a publisher or to an agent. You can’t just say, you bought my book, great, but let’s make this a series. And they’ll say, slow down. We don’t know how this book’s going to do first. And so that’s kind of how it started for me. And then I’ve always just written standalones and I just love where are we going this time? Who’s our cast? That’s so exciting for me. Also, when you start having fairly everyday characters, how much stuff can possibly happen to them that you can extend into a series? I certainly would never say never, but at this point, I just love going to a new world each time.

Debbi (16:33): Yeah. There is something kind of nice about going into something totally different, a different situation with a different set of people dealing with the problem. Totally.

Carter (16:44): I agree.

Debbi (16:45): It’s a challenge, but it’s a good kind of challenge. What advice would you give to anyone who’s interested in writing, in a writing career?

Carter (16:55): Well, the first one was, don’t quit your day job. You know what I’ve learned over time, and I do coach writing, I do coaching and online classes and seminars and retreats, and I feel like I have a little bit of an expertise at it because I started from a place of zero background in writing, zero aspirations in writing. It was literally, quite literally, I started on one day, it was a lightning strike, and I haven’t stopped, but I had to learn everything. So I’ve gone through all those pitfalls, and what I’ve really realized is, one, determine your, why are you doing this? Really think about that and make sure that’s an answer that you can print out and put on the wall and look at every day to make sure you’re staying true to that vision. And secondly is to write every day. The biggest complaint, people say, I wish I had time to write. And that’s just such a load of crap to me. You can write for 15 minutes, and if you do it every single day, you’ll build that muscle just like going to the gym. But consistency, I think overshadows inspiration, overshadows everything else because you will become a writer if you write every day. I mean, look at me 22 years doing this. I only write an hour a day. So you can find an hour in your schedule,

Debbi (18:19): And you’re doing well at it. Thanks. And you’ve got, you’re teaching courses and everything. That’s fantastic.

Carter (18:27): Yeah, I love it. I love talking to writers, so it’s always fun.

Debbi (18:31): Do you ever do things like masterminds or workshops?

Carter (18:35): Yeah, I mean everything. Yeah. I teach at other workshops, and then I just run my own as well. And I love, one of the things I love talking about, because I think I’m not a big believer in classes teaching you how to write. I think there’s a million ways to write, so I’ll teach how I write, and that may or may not resonate with you, but I love talking about the writer’s psychology, blocks, inspiration, consistency, things that really trip writers up and keep them from realizing their goals because they’re too stuck in their own head, because I’ve been through all that too. Fear of rejection, sharing your work, all those things are so scary. There’s a lot to teach along those lines.

Debbi (19:26): Absolutely. Yeah. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up?

Carter (19:36): I was just going to say I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the book.

Debbi (19:41): Well, that’s my pleasure, and I love the background you have set up for yourself with the covers on the wall.

Carter (19:48): Oh, yeah.

Debbi (19:48): Anybody who’s listening to the podcast, check out the YouTube video because there’s this lovely display of his covers on the wall to his right as you’re looking at this.

Carter (19:58): Yeah, it’s funny, I did that. I remember with my first book, I’m like, I wanted to have it framed, and then when I went to do a couple events, I would put it on a little easel, and then I started doing it with every book, and then I realized, this is a nice affirmation for me to be able to kind of, when I’m in my office, I’m like, oh, I did that. Yeah. And writers need that, we need, because we’re so full of self-doubt that it’s good to say, no, I’ve done this. And so I think that’s important for everybody.

Debbi (20:31): Fantastic. Well, I think that is great advice and just a great way to finish up. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your being here and telling us about this, Carter.

Carter (20:42): Thanks so much, Debbi. I really appreciate it as well.

Debbi (20:45): It’s been my pleasure. Believe me, I always enjoy talking to writers about this stuff, and I think the advice is good for anybody who’s interested in writing too, and for anybody who just enjoys reading crime fiction.

Carter (20:58): Totally.

Debbi (21:01): Thank you to everyone who’s listening or watching. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a review on your favorite podcast app. Also consider becoming a Patreon supporter. Check out our different episodes on Patreon, as well as our perks, which we put ad-free episodes up there, so keep that in mind. Also, we have different perks at different tiers, so please give that some consideration. Helps to support the effort here and keep us in business. Our next episode will feature Brenda Chapman. Until then, take care and happy reading.

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