Brandt Dodson Interview

Q: Let me start with asking you to tell us a little bit about who Brandt Dodson is.

In a nutshell? I’m a Christian, father, husband, son – I write because I love to do it, but I’m defined by the other roles.
I came to Christ later in life than most, which astounds me now because I was raised in the church. But I was pretty headstrong in my earlier life; driven to succeed, motivated to make my mark, all of that kind of stuff. But there was a turning point for me and it came when I read a Hal Lindsey book. Even though I had sat through hundreds of hours of sermons up to that point in my life, it took a book to help me see gulf that existed between where I was and where I needed to be.
My persona is generally quite, reserved. I can entertain myself for hours and enjoy reading more than any other single activity. I enjoy good conversation with friends, and holidays spent with family. I appreciate the time I have with my boys because I can see them growing up and I know I won’t always have them with me.
I see my writing as God ordained and God driven. I have a plan for my writing career, but He will direct my path. That means I recognize that God is fully in control and the writing career (or life, for that matter) I have planned may not be the same as the one He has planned.
I have doubts at times, but I live a life that free of fear. It’s very liberating.

Q: Could you give us the highlights of your professional writing career including how you got your first writing break?

Again, it was God ordained. I have wanted to write since I was in grade school, but it wasn’t until later in life that I began to take the dream seriously by attempting to write for publication.
Now I know it has become popular, of late, to say that God can call you to write, but not call you to publish. And maybe that’s true. But if you can’t publish what you write, who’s going to see it? Who will it edify?
It took twelve years and a final throwing down of the Gauntlet to see if I was doing what God wanted me to do, or if I was doing what I wanted to do.
He accepted the challenge and opened the door by allowing an article I had written to find the right editors at the right time. It was my first publishing success.
Later, after writing my first novel, it came quite close to being accepted for publication but was ultimately rejected. The editor who had championed my cause gave me some very good advice on how to make the book stronger. He also encouraged me to send it to someone else.
I did, and it was accepted a year later. Now, looking back, I’m sure that it would not have been accepted by the second publisher had it not been rejected by the first. Although that rejection was hard, it was necessary to motivate me to re-write it and make it the book it became.
As I said, God is clearly in control.

Q: Would you tell us about your current book release, White Soul?

White Soul is my first departure from the Colton Parker series, though not my last, and is a stand alone novel that is loosely based on real events. The protagonist, Ron Ortega, penetrates a Cuban-based crime syndicate in Miami and must confront the temptations that are thrown in his path.
This is a common problem for undercover officers, and I wanted to see what would happen if a Christian undercover officer had to face the same temptations.

Q: If your readers could take away only one message from White Soul, what would that be?

In short, to put on the full armor of God, knowing that our enemy, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
We have to remember that Satan doesn’t play fair. He isn’t going to announce his attack, and he sure isn’t going to hit you when you’re looking for it. He’s evil. He’s cunning. He’s had lots of practice and he’s highly motivated. He will hit you when you’re down. He’ll hit you when your up and feeling a bit cocky. He’ll hit your kids. He’ll hit you’re aging parents. He’ll attack you’re dreams. He doesn’t care what angle of attack he has to use, so long as you end up dead and he wins.

Q: White Soul, deals with the drug world, a subject very few Christians, actually most middle class Americans, don’t want to talk or think about. Could tell us why you chose to write about this subject?

For many, drugs are the ultimate temptation. They offer a high that is pleasing to the brain (bio-chemically speaking), along with the opportunity to “belong” to the “right” crowd. But once that threshold has been crossed, there is hell to pay – often literally. I used the drug culture because of the power of temptation it holds, along with the resultant loss of life. I chose to set the story against the backdrop of Miami because of the “in your face” materialism that exists there. I wanted to use flash, money, and mind-altering drugs as a metaphor for all of the other temptations we can face.
Each of us faces a different bait, but we all face the same enemy. I could never be tempted by drugs, but maybe my brother or sister in Christ can be. We each have our areas of weakness. But regardless of the angle of attack, they come from the same enemy.

Q: One of the things I found most moving about White Soul is the internal struggle a police officer must face in choosing to do the right thing when he sees the lifestyle living on the wrong side of the law can provide. You painted an incredibly poignant contrast between Ron Ortega’s struggle and desire to support his wife, when the drug lord’s around him are living in the lap of luxury. Coming from a law enforcement family, is this a common struggle for an officer and how do they deal with it?

This is an incredibly strong force to deal with. A typical police officer in a medium sized city will make an annual salary of $45 – 50,000.00 per year. Now weigh that against a bribe of two thousand per month, and you can see why the struggle to remain pure is so hard.
In his book, Donnie Brasco, author and former FBI agent Joe Pistone talks about the very real temptations that surrounded him during his six years as an undercover FBI agent, and how difficult it sometimes was to remain loyal to his oath and his badge and do the right thing.
Thankfully, the vast majority of officers DO choose to do the right thing.

Q: In your books, you do an outstanding job of portraying people just as they are, very real and in some cases very scary(Jimmy and the bathtub scene comes to mind here). How are you able to get inside the heads of such a variety of people?

I’ve spent a lot of time watching people and some of them could be considered less-than-law-abiding.
But I also delve into myself. IF I was a Mafioso and I had an interrogation to perform, how would I do it? IF I was a cop undercover and I was struggling financially, and someone offered me the world on a platter, what would I do? How would I react? The bible says there is nothing that will be – that hasn’t already been. I believe that’s because we’re all the same whether we compare ourselves to the generations that have come before us, or we compare ourselves to each other. The difference lies in the restraints we have and how we exercise them.
I think Chuck Colson said it best when he said: “We only have two kinds of restraints on human behavior. We have external restraints – things like prisons or jails ? and we have internal restraints. Now, if we have enough internal restraints, we don’t need jails and prisons. But if we don’t have internal restraints, we won’t be able to build enough jails or prisons.” (This isn’t an exact quote, but very close.)
What makes a man like Hitler do the things he did?
We all know that evil exists, because the bible tells us so. It says that human heart is wicked and fixed on evil all the time.
It’s scary to say, but getting into the heads of men like Jimmy (from White Soul) is often a very short trip.

Q: Your books have been marketed as great fiction for men, yet I know many women who enjoy your work. In fact, the reviewers on our site for The Lost Sheep were all women, and each of us gave you high marks for that book. When you craft a novel do you write with an audience in mind? And are you surprised that women enjoy these more hard hitting story lines? (Not meaning to start a gender war here LOL)

Tom Clancy once said he was astounded to find that most of his readership was women. But maybe he shouldn’t have been. After all, most readers – most book-buyers – are women.
I write the kind of fiction I wish I could find in a bookstore but can’t. I write to entertain myself and I always ?ALWAYS try to write a bigger, more complex book. If I’m not wondering if I can “pull this off”, then I have to assume I’m not pushing the envelope and that scares me. No writer, no matter who they are or what they’ve written, can ever “arrive”. We should all be pushing a little harder, edging closer to the abyss, in our efforts to improve.
Men are drawn to my fiction because I’m a man and write what I like. But women are drawn too, because there is a story to tell and everyone likes a good story. Besides, most women have at least one man in their life (husband, son, father, brother) which, by the way, has scored a bevy of readers for me.
Thank you ladies!

Q: Where do you find your inspirations for your plots?

This is almost going to sound clich?, but I get my plot from my characters.
Colton, for example, is a hard-hitting, short-fused, individual who knows no other way to score a hit than to go at it head-on. Consequently, that’s the type of story he generates. Ron Ortega, while capable of doing what needs to be done, is more cerebral. He thinks before he acts, always weighing the risks. For example, he explains in the third chapter of White Soul, why he did what he did in Chapters 1&2.
I usually begin with a premise and a set of well-defined characters, and then let the plot roll from there. For example, in my next novel, Daniel’s Den (to be released in January, 2009) I have a premise where a man discovers that he no longer exists. His ATM card doesn’t work, his credit cards are no longer acceptable, and the police have a warrant out for his arrest.
Now, why would that happen? And who’s behind it? And where does he go to get his life back?
These are the kinds of questions that make writing fun.

Q: Is there one book you would like to write but haven’t because of the genre you are published in?

Absolutely. I have a historical novel that I’d love to write.
One of the problems in publishing (ABA or CBA) is the apparent need to pigeonhole an author. Branding, is the term I hear now.
But to be fair, it is done for marketing considerations. Readers want to know that if they pick up a John Grisham book, for example, they’ll get a finely plotted, legal suspense novel. Now he has done other types of books to be sure, but none of them have done quite as well as his legal thrillers.
I’m an eclectic reader. Therefore, I tend to be an eclectic writer.
Daniel’s Den will be much different than either the Colton Parker novels or White Soul.

Q: How has being a published novelist differed from your expectations of the profession?

Better than I expected, actually. My editor is great and I’m pleased to consider him a friend. He’s mentored me like editors used to do in days gone by, and I am immensely thankful.
But it is also much harder work than I had imagined, and the wheels turn much more slowly than I could ever have thought possible. The editing process can be daunting, for example, but fun nonetheless.
The marketing never begins early enough, and a good deal of it rests with the author. So there have definitely been some surprises, but on balance I’ve been very pleased.

Q: Would you share with us what you are working on now?

Daniel’s Den features Daniel Borden, a man who finds himself tossed into the “lion’s den” and then has to overcome the odds to get out.
There is a strong romantic element to the book, and more complex, fully developed characters than a straight crime novel or Private Eye novel could ever allow for. I’m excited about it.
Q. As a multi-published author, what do you see as the greatest obstacle to becoming published today?

Generally, without trying to sound trite or clich?d, it comes down to the writing. But having said that, I’ve seen some pretty amazing writers who have yet to break in. Certainly things like finding your voice, finding the right genre, writing something that is marketable (read into this: commercial) as well as finding the right editor and house, all come into play.
Getting published today is as difficult as ever. But I do believe that persistence is the key. Write to the best of your ability, make “studied and intelligent” submissions, and never give up. Never.
If this is God’s will for you then do the best you can do and leave the consequences to him (as Charles Stanley has been known to say).

Q: Who do you see as the up and coming authors in the Christian Suspense Genre?

The CBA is developing an increasingly larger stable of talented authors.
I would say keep an eye on Robert Liparulo. His novels are original as any novel can be, and he’s attracting a lot of attention.

Q: How have you seen the publishing world change since you were first published?

I’m seeing more of a trend now in the CBA of wanting a first-time novelist to come out with a “blockbuster”. That is a trend that has been prevalent in the ABA for sometime. It is disturbing, but unfortunately will be with us for a while.
The other trends, such as: Romance is in, Romance is out. Chick-lit is in, now it’s out ? are cyclical trends that tend to come around periodically.
Christian fiction is the hot thing right now and I’m seeing a lot of ABA authors crossing over. Anne Rice comes to mind, among others. This could be a very good thing. I’m seeing agents becoming a bigger part of the Christian publishing world as well.

Q: Would you name three great fiction books you read in 2007 and tell us why you think they were great?

I read Dean Koontz’ The Taking. (Great use of metaphors and imagery. No one does it better)
Anatomy of Story by John Truby. (An excellent primer on developing character arc, plot, etc.)
The Preacher and the Presidents by Gibbs and Duffy. (An excellent book on Billy Graham’s relationships with our presidents. Graham, whether you admire him or not – I do- has defined Evangelical Christianity for the twentieth century.)

Q: Your background in law enforcement and medicine is certainly an interesting combination. How did you make the decision to and at what point in your life did you go into Podiatry?

I had just gotten married (1980) and was noticing that one of my supervisors had tossed into the trash can a letter that he had received from his ten year old son. The letter came from New York to our Indianapolis office, thanking the supervisor for the “baseball glove you sent on my birthday”.
The FBI was, and is, notorious for its transfer policy, which leads to the dissolution of many marriages. I didn’t want that to happen to me, so I left the bureau and went to Podiatry school. (I had applied to medical school and podiatry school, and was successful at gaining admission to both. But when I looked at the work hours and the family time I’d have available, Podiatry seemed far and away the better choice for me.)

Q: How have these career paths helped your writing?

It’s given my work verisimilitude. But then, ANY experience will add fullness to your writing. But my background has also opened doors to contacts I otherwise would never have had.

Q: What question have you never been asked in an interview but wished you had been asked? And what is the answer?

Well, THIS question, for one.
I’ve never been asked why I don’t maintain my own blog. I post on Keep ME in Suspense and on my Amazon blog, but don’t have a blog that I can truly call my own. And the reason is simple. Time.
My practice is heavy surgical and diabetic wound care, plus I teach several residents, lecture at two local hospitals, do periodic TV and radio interviews on new trends or procedures, serve on several committees for my state association, serve in my church, and teach at writer’s conferences. On balance, I have about ten hours per week to write and market what I have written. Doing two books a year just doesn’t allow the time -or the creative energy- for me to blog.
Besides, what would I say? I’d rather put it in my stories.

Q: Anything else you’d like to tell or share with us?

I am one of the few odd ducks who truly loves the process of writing. I love the creative flow, the revising, the re-writing, and even the editing process. If I didn’t have that “joy”, I wouldn’t do it.
So for all of your readers who want to write: find something about this that makes your heart sing. Because if you don’t have that, writing will become a chore; just another thing you have to do. And when that happens, it will come through to your readers and you will have a very short career indeed.