Author-2-Author: Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Somewhere in the bowels of New York´s American Museum of Natural History, two men were being watched by the lonely eye of a security camera. It silently watched as the two characters disregarded the closed sign and sneaked from location to location, plotting along the way. They didn´t care that it was midnight. After all, it wasn´t just a midnight tour, it was the beginning of an adventure that would affect millions and inspire generations of other men just like them.

That adventure of course is the writing careers of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, one of the best writing teams to hit the Thriller market. As for that mysterious night in the museum... well, all we can say for sure is that the best selling novel Relic was spawned that night. No one will ever truly know what took place.

Joking aside, Douglas and Lincoln formed a friendship that night and as a result they have written numerous best selling novels together, including the titles Relic, Still Life with Crows, Book of the Dead, and Riptide to name a few. A number of great solo novels have been produced by Douglas and Lincoln as well. Such as The Codex, Tyrannosaur Canyon, Monster of Florence, Utopia, Death Match, and Deep Storm.

C. L. Vaughn (CLV): Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, I´d like to thank you both for this opportunity to conduct an Author-2-Author interview with you. I know that you both have very busy schedules, so it means a great deal to me that you´d take the time to share your insight with our readers. No interview would be complete without asking the obvious question of "what is it like writing a novel as a team?" So, I´ll get that question out of the way first and try not to ask the same interview questions as every other interviewer out there.

Douglas Preston (DP): It´s a blast. We argue, we toss outrageous ideas back and forth, we egg each other on, and eventually something interesting begins to take shape and we have a chapter outline. One of us will begin writing, while the other is like a dog yapping at the heels, carping, cutting, and rewriting. Then we switch roles. Of course, all this takes place electronically – we live hundreds of miles apart and rarely see each other.

Lincoln Child (LC): We´ve been doing it together for so many years now that, in many ways, it seems effortless. It can be difficult, of course—for example, when one of us gets a notion for a plot device that the other can´t stand—but this has grown rarer with every book. It´s critical in a partnership like this that each writer have great respect for the other´s taste and intelligence. And you have to check your ego at the door.

CLV: When you two are writing solo, do you change the way you approach a story compared to writing together, such as outlining and character building?

DP: It is much harder to write a solo novel. There´s no one to bounce ideas off of but some other voice in your own head. As a result, I have to work much harder developing my characters and plot in a solo novel.

LC: Now that we´ve both written several solo novels, we´ve developed an appreciation for the writing process of joint books. Solo novels have their own unique advantages, of course—you can hold it up proudly and say "this is all mine!"—but as Doug says, writing them is perhaps more challenging, and certainly more lonely: it´s just you and that computer screen.

CLV: On your collaborative books your name placement has always been Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Is that by choice or is it simply alphabetical by first name?

LC: I´m not really sure anymore, but I think it might have been because at the time Doug had already published a nonfiction book (edited by me) with another on the way, so he had greater name recognition. Actually, we were lucky—there was such a prejudice at the time against novels written by more than one person that the early books were almost authored by ´Lincoln Preston.´

CLV: Doug, I noticed that you have written several nonfiction books. When comparing nonfiction with fiction, which do you feel was more challenging to write? Have you considered writing any more nonfiction books?

DP: On balance, nonfiction is more challenging. You´re in a straightjacket of facts. You have much less freedom. On the other hand, because there are fewer degrees of freedom in writing nonfiction, the path of the story is always clearer. My last nonfiction book, The Monster of Florence, was an exorcism of sorts; it dealt in part with a frightening and strange experience in my life that I wanted to put to rest—and writing is a great way to do that. And it told a story that was so bizarre, so outrageous and improbable, that it never could have beeen written as a novel; no one would have believed it.

CLV: I noticed that there are a few fan-sites with blogs. Do you ever visit those sites and if so, do you announce you arrival or do you prefer to visit incognito?

DP: I hardly ever visit, but when I do, it is always incognito. Not that I don´t appreciate our fans (on the contrary!). I just find it odd to have fan-sites at all. I´m afraid I would not make a good celebrity.

LC: I´m delighted that there´s enough interest to support such sites, and I´m honored people like our books enough to take the time and effort to create them. The only one I visit with any regularity, though (and that isn´t nearly as regularly as it should be) is the main ´Stormhaven´ forum that in one form or another has been going on for a number of years now. When I can I try to stop in and answer a question or two, so no, I don´t visit incognito.

CLV: Lincoln, with your experiences as a publishing editor you´ve had the chance to see the publishing world from both sides of the table. Do you have any insider tips about getting a manuscript published that you´d like to share with our readers?

LC: I´ve been out of the business for almost twenty years now (could it really be that long?) and lots of things have changed. In some ways it is easier now to get your work before an interested public: the Internet, publish on demand, etc. In other ways it is much more difficult. The number of publishing houses out there has undergone serious contraction, and the sheer volume of new titles each year make it harder to get your own title printed. This is probably a no-brainer, but I´d say that, if you want to break in to conventional publishing—a hardcover or paperback original with a mainstream house—getting a good agent to represent and advise you is critical. The "LMP" (Literary Marketplace) is an invaluable tool in this regard: the reference department of your local library should have a copy.

CLV: Some authors, such as Clive Cussler, really enjoy placing themselves in their novels as a cameo. I´ve heard that you two will poke fun at yourselves in some of your stories. Who came up with that idea and have you found that your publishers like or dislike it?

DP: We both came up with the idea. Our publisher has warned us in a friendly way not to play too much ´inside baseball´ in our books. A few inside jokes here and there are all right, but you don´t want to create the atmosphere of a private club.

LC: That said, we do enjoy adding internal references: not inside jokes per se, but allusions to characters, events, and places from other titles that long-time readers of our books will understand and appreciate. As we´ve written more books, we have—partly consciously, and partly unconsciously—created an expanding ´metaverse´ in which the individual worlds of our joint novels continue to overlap and mesh.

CLV: When you two sold the movie rights for Relic did you find it difficult to see the process of it becoming a movie? I´ve heard of several authors who were left with bad tastes in their mouths from Hollywood.

DP: An author in his library was in conversation with a friend, who said, "That movie they made ruined your book!" The author calmly took down the book, flipped through the pages, and announced, "No, it isn´t ruined. It´s still the same book I wrote." That sums up my feelings about Hollywood. It´s a gamble—sometimes the movie will be great, sometimes it will be a dog, but the book will always be the book.

LC: I´ll never forget the first time I saw the film version of Relic with a test audience. It was in a vast, vast theater in New York City. When I saw my name flash up there on the screen, I think I almost had a fit. It was an utterly unreal experience.

CLV: I´ve also noticed that the movie rights for Riptide have been picked up by 20th Century Fox and that it´s said that they´ve spent nearly $3 million on script development. Riptide was actually my introduction novel to you both, so I´m excited at the prospect of seeing it on the silver screen. Are there any updates on its progress? Any other movie deals in the future?

DP: The only update is that they say they are making the movie. I´ve heard it may be filmed on Vancouver Island. That´s as far as I know.

CLV: Where did the original idea for Riptide come from?

LC: As I recall, we´d just finished Reliquary and were looking for our next book idea. As we were tossing suggestions back and forth, I said, "Hey, Doug, what if we write a book loosely suggested by the history of the Oak—" And he interrupted, saying, "Don´t finish—The Oak Island Treasure!" The real-life Oak Island Treasure was something that had fascinated both of us as boys, and so it was an obvious choice for a fictitious treatment in our novels.

CLV: Doug, I was interested to learn that your novel, The Codex, was based on a true story involving an explorer searching for the White City in Honduras. Are there any other stories that you´ve based on true stories?

DP: Virtually all my books and our joint novels are based on a true story, or at least the kernel of one. To name a few, The Ice Limit was based on Robert E. Peary´s recovery of the Ahnighito Meteorite; Jennie was based on several true stories of chimpanzees raised in human families; Thunderhead was based on the search for the Cities of Gold. I could go on.

CLV: Lincoln, what inspired your most recent solo novel, Deep Storm?

LC: Speaking of true stories: I was reading a book that described how an abandoned salt mine in the remote American southwest was being prepped to store transuranic waste—essentially, nuclear garbage. My first thought was, "how creepy." My second was, "there has to be a great novel in this somewhere!" I´ve always been fascinated by undersea exploration and submarine life, and it didn´t take long for the framework of the story to come together.

CLV: Again, I´d like to say thank you to you both for this opportunity. I hope that you both continue to have successful writing careers and I look forward to reading more of your work. Is there anything you´d like to add for our readers?

LC: I´d like to thank our readers for their interest and enthusiasm over the years; for reading our books and taking the time to tell us, at book signings or via email, what they think of them. Your comments, good or bad, have been invaluable.

DP: Thank you kindly for supporting us in the style to which we have been accustomed. Seriously, without you I think Linc and I would be digging ditches somewhere.