Entertainment Weekly interviews Dan Brown

katiemac · Sep 14, 2009

I hesitated about posting this because I'm not interested in a discussion about the merits or not of Dan Brown's writing and frankly, we've done that before in other threads. Instead, I think it's worth sharing as an insight into a published writer's process.

The full interview with Dan Brown at EW will be up later in the week, but this is the part I was interested in highlighting:

Brown makes it clear he didn’t spent that last six years procrastinating. “I write seven days a week, starting at 4 o’clock in the morning, including Christmas,” he says. “I worked on this book at 4 in the morning in my hotel room while I was living in London and going to court. I’ve probably written 10 novels worth of pages to write The Lost Symbol.” The first review, from the New York Times, has already hit the Internet — and it’s a rave.

ejwriter · Sep 14, 2009

wow. that's a LOT of writing.
wow.

ejwriter · Sep 14, 2009

just read the whole blurb. he sounds a little bitter about his critics, no?

katiemac · Sep 14, 2009

ejwriter said:
just read the whole blurb. he sounds a little bitter about his critics, no?

Maybe it's one of the reasons he's so dedicated to BIC. He does get dragged through the mud a lot. It seems he spent as much time and writing as needed to write the best book he could.

ejwriter · Sep 14, 2009

i must say, if it's true, it's humbling. 4am? and on Christmas? don't think i'll ever embrace BIC quite like that.

Salis · Sep 14, 2009

Well, how would you feel in his position, being panned so often?

... Then again, if I was in his position, I'd probably be able to laugh it off. Maybe it's just me, but you make that much money and have that much success, I wouldn't give a shit if I had twenty billion critics.

Thomas_Anderson · Sep 14, 2009

What's BIC?

katiemac · Sep 14, 2009

Butt In Chair. Which basically means sitting down, focusing and writing every day. Apparently a method Brown seriously subscribes to.

Caramia · Sep 14, 2009

Thanks for sharing the link. Not a site I normally visit, would'a missed it.

Silent Rob · Sep 15, 2009

Bit off topic this, but I read somewhere recently that Dan Brown's first choice of career was pop star. Apparently he's released an album. It had a song about phone sex on it.

I don't know where that one charted.

Back on topic - I'm not surprised he spends so much time on his books. When you think about it, whether the masses of info he crams in are all strictly true or not, it's still quite an accomplishment to get so many facts and an actual story into something of readable length. I imagine that would take a lot of honing.

Izz · Sep 15, 2009

Silent Rob said:
Bit off topic this, but I read somewhere recently that Dan Brown's first choice of career was pop star. Apparently he's released an album. It had a song about phone sex on it.

Unless my google-fu is broken, it would appear to be from an album entitled 'Dan Brown', and the track was titled '976-Love.' He has released 3 mainstream music albums so far, the last in 1994, titled 'Angels and Demons.'

http://redpill.dailygrail.com/wiki/Dan_Brown
http://en.allexperts.com/e/d/da/dan_brown.htm

Attempting to relate this back to the OP, it looks like Mr. Brown works hard at doing the best he can in whatever endeavor he is engaged in.

Silent Rob · Sep 15, 2009

Nice. Itunes, here I come.

Attempting to relate this back to the OP, it looks like Mr. Brown works hard at doing the best he can in whatever endeavor he is engaged in.

Sign of a professional.

scarletpeaches · Sep 15, 2009

I don't understand why it took him six years to write one book if he was at it all day every day.

thethinker42 · Sep 15, 2009

scarletpeaches said:
I don't understand why it took him six years to write one book if he was at it all day every day.

I guess everyone works at their own pace, but I think I'd lose my mind working on the same book every day for six years.

scarletpeaches · Sep 15, 2009

It's impossible to come out of six years of writing every day with only one book unless you write so much extraneous material you end up binning eleventy billion books' worth. He obviously doesn't have a problem with that; I'd call it wasted energy.

I'd rather work on different books in that time but I don't think he has to worry about money. There will be plenty of people willing to buy the novel. I'm not one of them.

ETA: Also, I've just read that review and I'd hardly call it a 'rave'. It was very critical in parts.

Willowmound · Sep 15, 2009

Salis said:
Well, how would you feel in his position, being panned so often?

I'd feel rich.

scarletpeaches · Sep 15, 2009

I'd ask myself why it was happening, when so many other successful authors are respected and admired.

BenPanced · Sep 15, 2009

Brown, however, knows not all critics are in love with his work, something he learned the hard way. “The Da Vinci Code had the audacity to park at No. 1 for a little bit too long,” he says. “And it became very en vogue just to trash my books.”

There must have been some reason people trashed his writing, so I hardly think the kewl kidz set up a smear campaign.

Phaeal · Sep 15, 2009

The review is, indeed, full of little backhanded slaps. However, judicious cutting should yield useful quotes for the marketers. For example:

"Within this book’s hermetically sealed universe, characters’ motivations don’t really have to make sense; they just have to generate the nonstop momentum that makes The Lost Symbol impossible to put down. So Mal’akh’s story is best not dissected beyond the facts that he is bad, self-tattooed, self-castrated and not Langdon’s friend."

could yield:

"Nonstop momentum...impossible to put down."

This seems to be the reviewer's overall impression: Yeah, if you liked The DaVinci Code, you'll probably like this. Which presages big sales, but I don't think those will surprise anyone.

Claudia Gray · Sep 15, 2009

I'm sure the amount of promotion Dan Brown does is mind-boggling. Between interviews, working out negotiations on the movie deals, okaying various marketing plans from his publishers, etc., I can easily believe that, even with a lot of BIC time, it would take him a while to finalize his next manuscript.

Also, keep in mind, he's one of the precious few writers on the planet whose deadline is "whenever the heck he feels like it."

katiemac · Sep 15, 2009

I don't understand why it took him six years to write one book if he was at it all day every day.

I'd be interested to know much time it took him to write the other books. Based on the pub dates of his other three, I'm thinking this one is significantly more time. Claudia is correct about the other things he would be dealing with in addition to writing.

But I also have to admire a writer who knows whatever he puts on paper will sell, yet he's out there trying to make it his best. There are other best selling writers out there at his popularity who just do whatever.

seun · Sep 15, 2009

So, who's this Dan Brown guy?

Norton · Sep 16, 2009

He is writer like you will never be, Seun.

Noah Body · Sep 17, 2009

seun said:
So, who's this Dan Brown guy?

A guy who's book sold one million copies in one day, apparently...tough to beat that.

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