The Gray Man's Journey: Mark Greaney on Writing, Research, and Realism

DAVID
00:00:17

Welcome to the Thriller Zone Podcast.

MARK
00:00:19

People only see me at a book event or on a podcast like yours and they think that this is a big part of what I do. But I mean, it's less than 1/10 of 1% of what I do. The rest of it is, is writing.

And which is probably why when I'm at a, you know, at a book event, it feels like every fourth person has a great idea on how they think I should spend my time, you know.

DAVID
00:00:39

Hello and welcome to episode 214 of the thriller Zone. I'm your host, Dave Templ.

Here in month two of our new season eight, I'm happy to welcome back for a repeat performance number one, New York Times best selling author, Mark Graney. Now if you're not familiar with Mark's work, then A, shame on you, but there's time to catch up. B, welcome to the MG fan club where I'm the proud vp.

And C, today's show will be the perfect place to get an introduction to one of the most popular thriller writers working today. Mark has a new book called Midnight Black. And if you enjoy large stories chock full of intrigue and espionage, you come to the right place.

And if you're looking for a podcast host who loves their job and works hard each week to bring you the best thriller writers in the world, man, have I got a treat for you. So get comfortable, get hydrated and get ready to dig into the creator of the Gray man series, Mark Grady on the Thriller Zone.

Dude, I was just doing a little homework here. You are back for a four, Pete.

MARK
00:01:39

Really?

DAVID
00:01:40

I mean, I should get like a special mug or something for having you back.

MARK
00:01:45

You should. I can't say that I've got that much new material, but I. There's a new book, but there's not a new me.

DAVID
00:01:53

It's so good to see you, dude.

MARK
00:01:54

You too. You too.

DAVID
00:01:55

We're going to roll here in a second and this is going to air on this coming Thursday. So the super bowl will be clearly well in our rear view. But were you front and center last night? Yesterday?

MARK
00:02:09

No, I didn't really have a dog in that hunt so much and I. Yeah, no, I. I was traveling yesterday, got home yesterday afternoon. I could have sat and watched it.

We had it on during dinner and then we kind of like made it into the back room, started watching a severance watching TV show.

DAVID
00:02:29

That's a great show, isn't it?

MARK
00:02:30

Oh, it's so good.

DAVID
00:02:31

Yeah, it's. That's the. Who directed that? Ben Stiller.

MARK
00:02:35

Ben Stiller.

DAVID
00:02:36

And it's just. It's so, so off the beaten path. I really like it.

MARK
00:02:41

Yeah, I did not get last night's episode. Then I go online to like, see people do rundowns and I'm like, oh, I didn't get that. I gotta watch it all again.

DAVID
00:02:50

See, I heard him on a show with Cara Swisher and she. And he was. And they were both talking about the nuance of the show. And I'm like, I didn't realize there was all that nuance.

I was just digging it because it was a funny, off the beaten path show.

MARK
00:03:07

Yeah. Yeah. Apparently there's just so many different levels to it.

I probably need to stop reading on the Internet because who knows who what's right and what's wrong. But yeah, they were seeing things. It was pretty esoteric.

DAVID
00:03:21

Yeah, that's a good word for it. Hey, who's doing your lighting? You've got a whole new, new system there. It's very warm and cozy.

MARK
00:03:30

Good. My nephew, who is 20, is. Does like film, like he's studying it in college and he was in town, told me what camera to get and just a couple lights.

So everything's very pieceme. It's all going to fall over if I move too far to the left or the right. But.

But yeah, I mean, I'm doing enough of these to where sometimes I'll hear them and I'll go like, God, the audio doesn't sound good. So I beefed up the audio a little bit and the lighting a little bit.

DAVID
00:03:59

The difference between guys and gals who take the extra little effort to. To do exactly what you're doing. A good camera, good microphone, it's all the difference in the world.

MARK
00:04:09

Yeah. I wish I had some ability to kind of pad the walls around here, you know, to. To improve the audio a little bit more. But it just seems like it's for.

It just doesn't. I don't really see how I'd be able to do it.

DAVID
00:04:23

Yeah, it's a nice little piece of inside scoop. And I will probably be using this on the show.

Is that with AI now you can do all kinds of really cool sexy things like create a warm atmosphere, which I will do for you on the show.

MARK
00:04:42

Yeah. Hit it.

DAVID
00:04:44

Yeah. All right, let's see. Well, here's the. Come on, look at this thing. Look at this. You got to be proud of this one. Midnight Black. Oh, yeah. So good, dude.

And look at this. Nice, nice new headshot.

MARK
00:04:58

Yeah. Every five years I'm like, well, like it or Not. I'm five years older. I gotta get a new picture.

DAVID
00:05:05

You know what? It was funny, Mark, because I was. As I said, you know, you're back for the four Pete.

And went back and looked at all my promo ad cards that I built for you, and I'm like, honey, come here. Look at this Tammy guy. Doesn't change. What's his secret sauce? I mean, dude, this is a. We're going back to 22. This is February. Let's see, first one.

You first appeared on February 22. Let's have some fun with this. Are we on a time constraint, by the way?

MARK
00:05:36

We're fine. I don't have anything right after this. I've got something a little bit later.

DAVID
00:05:39

Yeah, I just want to be sure. So February 22nd. You came back in June 22nd because, you know, you're Mr. Prolific. So you're banging the puppies out.

Let's see you roll back around on March 24th. February of 25. Here will be the four peep. But I don't know what happened in 23 either. You were 23. Was.

You were really stacked, and I was probably stacked.

MARK
00:06:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know I had something out, but I. Who knows? Who knows?

DAVID
00:06:05

I remember we talked once and you and I were chatting. You said, hang on a second, Dave, let me look at my. And you pulled up your cheat sheets. Oh, yeah. That story is about so and so.

MARK
00:06:16

Yeah. Last year was Chaos Agent. So it was very technical AI book.

And I was like, I knew all this stuff when I was writing it, but I finished it six months ago. So I had all this stuff in case somebody started, really started hammering into it.

And this one, I've got a couple things written down in case anybody wants to get deep into Russian politics or whatever, but otherwise, I'm just winging it today.

DAVID
00:06:42

You know what? I'm going to go easy on you. I don't think I'm going to drill down. I'm going to sprinkle some accolades throughout here.

And I do want to know, with the Gray man gaining complete notoriety internationally, I wanted to know how often. How much of the TV and the movie biz are you able to be around these days?

MARK
00:07:06

Little to none. I mean, I have something in development. Another series is in development, and then the Gray Man.

I haven't heard anything new other than the fact that they were working on the script again. So it's not part of what I do. What I do is 100% the writing.

And I'm writing something next year that's a Little bit out of my genre and not out of my genre, but out of the sort of the espionage military wing of the thriller world. And, you know, I'm hopeful that that could get picked up for. For an option or something like that.

But I'm not really writing it for that because I don't really know how to do that. I'm just going to try and write the best story I can for print, which is, you know, how. I know how to do it.

DAVID
00:07:55

Sure.

MARK
00:07:55

And then just let the chips fall where they may.

DAVID
00:07:58

See, honey, I told you he was going to do romance thriller. I. You. He would.

MARK
00:08:02

You're not wrong. I mean, there's a little bit of that in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

DAVID
00:08:06

Well, you know, I remember last time we chatted. I mean, let's. Let's break it. And we're going to talk to. About Zoya here in a second. But I remember Zoya being introduced.

I don't know what it was introduced, but I remember last book I was like, wow, you're dropping the romance. You know, little, little hearts are like everywhere.

MARK
00:08:24

Yeah. I mean, that's just part of the growth of the character. You do.

You do 14 books in a series and you want them all to be standalone, but at the same time, you want there to be some story arc that goes beyond the individual books. And I mean, that was. That was the uncharted territory for that character. So for the Court. Court Gentry character. And so that was.

That was fun to kind of like go off into that area.

DAVID
00:08:50

Yeah. Let's take 10 seconds on that. 14. How does that make you feel? It seems, in one sense, it seems like it was just yesterday.

In another sense, it seems like Court's been around forever.

MARK
00:09:01

Yeah, it. So it mostly feels like it was just yester.

And I can think back to book two and book three and remember writing particular scenes as if it was just yesterday. And then there's other books that I couldn't tell you the plot if you held a gun to my head right now and said, what happens in Relentless?

And Relentless is one of my highest rated books. But it's just like it wasn't one of the first ones and it wasn't one of the most recent ones.

So sort of like that's where it gets foggy and I can't really. I remember some scenes and it was during COVID so I didn't do any travel for it. That's another reason.

Like, it's not as locked into my brain as Dead Eye, which was like years and years before Relentless. But I went to Estonia and Sweden to do the research for that one. So I remember a lot more specifics of that book.

So it's, it's, it's kind of bizarre how the mind works and I would be surprised if before I was an author if I heard some authors say like, yeah, I've written entire books and I can't tell you the name of the bad guy or things like, like that, but it's, it's really true. Unfortunately.

DAVID
00:10:05

Well, and, and not for nothing, but this one clocks in somewhere around 506 pages and so I, yeah, I can't do the math out of my head that fast, but I'm guessing it's somewhere north of about 130. 130.

MARK
00:10:20

It's a 160. 160,000 words. Yeah.

DAVID
00:10:24

I mean kids, you listen at home, who dabbling in this world of writing, you have any idea what it takes to craft 100,000 words?

MARK
00:10:35

I mean, well, I didn't have any. I always say this, but it's true. It was a self inflicted wound. No one asked me to do it.

I mean, obviously when I started writing books with Tom Clancy, they got bigger and, and broader. Every single book I say this is the one that's gonna, I'm gonna do in140,000 words because I don't want it to look ridiculously short.

And there's kind of a style of the story that requires some depth. But I, every time I'm getting to about 120,000 words, I'm like, there's no way I'm wrapping this up in 20,000.

So I've never gotten really any better at looking at my idea for my very general idea for a story and going like, that's 150, that's 140, that's 130. They all end up between 150 and 175. The Clancy books were longer. And then I wrote this, co authored this novel called Red metal that was 217,000.

But it was a very different type of book and I would love to make them just right. At 140,000 words, I think you could tell a good story, but I always go off on a little bit more of a tangent.

Add one more character or one more little twist in there that ends up adding whatever, six chapters or something.

DAVID
00:11:54

See, I like those tangents though. And you did it in this book and you take us down a tangent, we don't feel like, oh, here we go down this tangent road.

No, it's like, oh, okay, well this is Going to be an essential part of the story.

MARK
00:12:08

Yeah.

DAVID
00:12:09

And that's what I've always liked. And, and one thing about this particular book, and you've done it now before, but it's the way you. And where did I read this? I read where you.

And maybe this was your press people put it out because it was so succinctly put. It blends like the classic espionage of the 70s with a modern pacing of a John Wilk film.

And I'm John Wick and I'm like, that is pretty spectacular on. Spot on.

MARK
00:12:35

Yeah. I mean the plot directed that.

It wasn't my initial idea that I'm going to go in and write this book and make it sound like a, you know, like an old Clancy or Le Carre or Frederick Forsythe novel, but I grew up on that and I love that stuff.

And one of the major plot points of this story is my hero is desperately trying to sneak into Russia and he makes contact with a Cold War era resistance group in the former Soviet Union, Latvia specifically. And so these people in their 70s and 80s are integral in helping him along the way.

And so it harkens back to a lot of the Cold War stuff because he's running through the Moscow streets today. But it feels very much. What's going on over there today feels very much like the height of the Cold War in say the 80s.

So it's all kind of threaded in there, but it's still a Gray man book. So it is still kind of a lot of action. John Wick and some paramilitary stuff, some actual military.

Did a ton of research about, you know, what's going on in Ukraine with, with the war and tried to fold that all into, into one big book.

DAVID
00:13:48

Well, there's two things I want to say and I, I didn't make as many notes in this one as I usually do, but I went. This is this one particular scene. And it was early on.

I just remember at the early on I made a note so I wanted to come back and study the way you did. I'm a nut that way. And I'm like part Jason Bourne scene, part the Equalizer. I call it a perfect scene.

MARK
00:14:09

Well, good. What was that scene?

DAVID
00:14:11

It was the one. Well, it's right there at the very. It's the prologue, I mean.

MARK
00:14:15

Oh, yeah, sure, yeah.

So yeah, the book opens up where you see a very desperate hero who has, has tried all the easy ways to get into Russia with some sort of a network that can help him find his way to his, his, to his, to his objective, and none of that's worked. So now he's taken to trying to liaise with Romanian and Bulgarian mobsters down in the Balkans. And. And that doesn't work much better either.

And so he's. He's a very desperate man on. In the first word of the first paragraph of the first page of the book. And he is. He is.

You know, I think there's a line on the first page where, you know, he's like, he shouldn't be drinking right now. But he'd been making a whole bunch of terrible decisions recently. But he's. He's really desperate and he's right in the middle of a.

Of a difficult scene with Romanian and Italian mobsters and Bulgarians.

DAVID
00:15:16

It was so good. I'm going to read the very first sentence.

Cortland Gentry sat at the bar, his drink in front of him, and he flashed occasional looks up into a grimy mirror, first to identify and then to purchase, prioritize. All those in the crowd preparing to kill him.

When you start a sentence like this, and it's so funny because I was making notes, and you and a couple of other guys, I don't want to single them out necessarily, then the other people who didn't get mentioned will go away, man. I kind of do that too, David, but it's the way that you shoot out of the gate like a rocket.

And I know there are a lot of people who like to tiptoe into this scene. You don't do a lot of tiptoeing, and I think that's why I'm so attracted to your work. So there. Yeah.

MARK
00:16:03

Yeah. I feel like I still write like somebody who's desperately trying to get published.

And one way you do that is you, you know, you go into the story and it's your job as the writer to give just the barest information to where people understand, you know, they orient themselves in the scene, but they don't have to know the big picture. They don't have to know that he'd spent months trying to get into Russ and what his objective in Russia is.

And he had spent weeks in the Balkans and had other misfortunes there. And now he was doing what he thought was his last, you know, last chance to get. Get himself smuggled across the Black Sea. Yeah.

And, you know, like, all that sort of stuff that has to be threaded in very deftly later.

I like to open up, if not with action, at least with, you know, a lot of tension and a lot of, you know, just a lot, throwing a bunch of backstory and a big info dump isn't really. That doesn't lend itself to good tension.

DAVID
00:17:06

No. And who really needs it? Because I know I'll get the info dump later. But, you know, instantly, he's sitting there staring at the. In the.

At his image in the bar, and he's kind of casing the room, and there's all these nefarious characters all around him. And that's all you gotta say because, you know, oh, I can't wait for the shit to hit this oncoming fan. And you know it's coming.

I'm gonna have two different things to say here. First of all, I'm going to say that I agree with Mr. Real Book Spy in that it is your best work to date in both of our opinions.

MARK
00:17:40

Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

DAVID
00:17:42

Now what? I want to take it a step further because I want all the accolades subscribed to me. Of course. And that is. I put it into three words.

Fasten your seatbelts. Because it is that kind of. And it's exactly what you want. Yet again, sounds cliche, but it isn't everything you want in a Gray man book.

Out of the gate, ready to roll. Great characters now.

MARK
00:18:04

Thank you.

DAVID
00:18:05

Yes, sir. I don't say it unless I mean it. And you know, I want to. Was. Besides. And you've.

You've inferred to this besides Core Gentry making his way across Europe to. To rescue his love Zoya. What can we. What can a reader brand new to you. Because I.

I'm constantly researching this show and watching the new people come to the show, so a lot of them are. I know this is hard to believe, Mark. They're just discovering you for the first time. It doesn't seem logical.

MARK
00:18:36

It's not hard for me to believe at all. People all the time will be like, I'm sorry I haven't read your book yet. And I'm like, you're in the majority still. You know, it's like, I don't. I.

I don't find that surprising. That. Yeah, I mean, you know, things are going well, but, like. Like, you know, I'm not the household name. Yeah. You know, these. These books, there.

There is definite, Definite geopolitical aspects to the story, but I don't ever want that to slow it down. I don't ever want it to be about anything other than the human condition and relationships between humans and their characters.

I want you to care about. They're villains I want you to hate.

But I also want you to not understand in A, in a sense of like, you know, take their side, but understand that this isn't just a guy that I placed a back black hat on and a mustache on and sent him to do bad stuff. He's doing things for reasons that, that make sense to him.

And in the, in this book, there's a very cunning colonel in the fsb, which is Russian domestic internal security, who has a, a plan to lead court into a trap. And it' kind of very cynical plan that he has. And I, I didn't want to write him as an arch enemy or an arch villain.

He's, he's a person with a very set objective and he's a person that's had a lot of success in his career and he's a cruel guy and all that sort of stuff.

But I want, when, when you're in his point of view or when you're hearing about him in the story, I want that to be just as interesting as when you're hearing about, you know, the hero trying to save the person he loves. And the last thing I'll say is Zoya, who is the, the woman who is imperiled in this.

She's in a hard labor colony inside, well, inside of Russia in the middle of winter, dying slowly.

She also has a lot of agency herself, I wanted to write her as when, when you're in her scenes, she's not just a pawn just sitting there waiting to be rescued or killed or whatever. She has a lot of agency in the things that she does.

And so, you know, every page is important in one of these novels, even if there's 506 pages in it. And I want the reader to care about every single character.

And so even though it's a big geopolitical book and it has a lot to do with the war in Russia and the kleptocracy in Moscow and all these kind of big geopolitical things.

The story is you're on a ride with this guy who is trying to help this woman, and you are on a ride with this woman who isn't trying to stay alive in a prison in Russia and finds an opportunity to where she can maybe help things in a geopolitical sense at the same time. So it's all about the people at the end of the day.

DAVID
00:21:25

Yeah. Well, I'm so glad you said along for the ride, because that matches my metaphor. Fasten your seatbelts perfectly.

I also say I'm very proud of myself for not using the word up unput downable, which is a word to this day I really, really hate. But I can say ripped from the headlines is very fair. Do you always set out Mark, like every book?

Do you go, okay, I have to pull this in some form or fashion from the headlines? Or do you say it just so happens that the idea that I've been gestating on for this much time happens to come from that.

MARK
00:22:05

I'm interested in things that happen in the headlines, so I like to fold that in. My first book, the Gray man really had nothing to do with real geopolitics.

It was a story about a hero, a spy who's living on his own, whose handler's grandkids, the only kids that he ever really connected with, are imperiled and so he'll move hell in high water to save them. That has no geopolitical. But then I started writing with Tom Clancy and things got a little bit different.

And I was writing about the cartels or about the Janjaweed in Sudan or the Ministry of State Security in China or Russia or whatever. And so that geopolitical stuff is interesting and important to me.

I will say a big part of me writing the book in the spring and summer of the year before is trying to figure out where there's. Where the world's going to be when the book comes out in the following February.

But this was the first book that I've ever written to where I said, you know what? I'm not going to try and get it exactly right. I'm going to write a more hopeful world than I expect to find.

And I think that that's, in most ways is pretty true.

This book involves the West's relationship with Russia and I envisioned a much more robust, organized and less compromised Russian resistance than really exists. There is a Russian resistance against Putin, but they're compromised. A lot of the groups, I didn't use real group names.

I use one real group name, but in a different context because anybody could go, well, that group is anti Semitic or that group is. They're also anti Ukrainian, but they're more anti Kremlin.

So I kind of created not like a utopian group, but a group who basically had the same mindset that my hero did.

And I also envisioned the world, or wanted to create a world where the west was dealing with Russian sabotage and Russian irregular warfare in the West a lot more head on than they really are.

So, so this, this was a book where I'm like, I need to learn everything that's going on and then I want to write a fictionalized version of it and in some ways, that fictionalized version, I don't expect that to be where we are in February. And I was, I was pretty right. We're not there.

DAVID
00:24:38

Well, this is one thing that I think I speak for everyone who is a fan of yours is you're known for your research. Whether it's shooting a gun or jumping out of a helicopter or swimming across a channel or fill in the blank, you're gon be the guy that does that.

And I've always thought that was cool.

And I always thought that if you really wanted to get across the nuance, the feel, the smells, the all that visceral stuff that you experience when you're on location, then you got to kind of do that. Yeah, yeah, you can Google it and fly over and all that stuff.

But there is a palpable reality to your books and you've, you've always felt that that was absolutely key, haven't you?

MARK
00:25:25

Yeah, it helps me as a writer to a great deal. First off, I like to travel. I did research before I was even published.

The first thing I ever completed, I went to Europe and did research on and the book never got published. But I, I learned a lot. And I did it for the Gray man and I did it for On Target, you know, and so, so as I wrote, I sort of always did it.

I'm always surprising myself. There's my imagination of a place is always so off from what's really there.

So to the extent that I can get out and do things, I do it and I like to do it. I don't think you have to do it, but it does help my writing quite a bit.

And when I fly in an airplane or take some long distance shooting course or something, there's always these tiny little intangibles that aren't even interesting to the people that are really good at that stuff. But to like a layman and you know, an official sort of like a, I don't know, like a, an effect.

Someone who, who isn't an expert but is definitely, you know, like an enthusiast. We can see some cool stuff that, that others might not see.

I've done like opposition force things where I'm shooting at SWAT teams and shoot houses and something like that.

And I feel like I'm really good at going like, oh, that's super cool or that would be an amazing to work into something and these guys that can do it a thousand times better than me would probably be focused on, you know, the interesting part is this and, and I might disagree.

So it's Almost like by not being an expert, that is, that, that helps my writing and I try to do as much of that stuff as I can in the time that I have.

DAVID
00:27:13

And to that point, do you ever have any guys come up to you who are both huge fans of yours and huge fans of the technology and say, and it's a little bit of a. Putting you on the spot, but I know you can tell me this.

Hey, Mark, you didn't quite get that right or you know, you might want to rethink this, do you? You probably, with your amount of research and editorial input, you probably don't run up to that too much, do you?

MARK
00:27:39

I run up to that all the time. O yeah, yeah. No, you know, you get things as correct as you can in the time that you have to get there.

And you know, people then you, then you just get the emails and you know they're coming and it doesn't matter what the discipline is, someone will know more about something than you were able to learn as you were, you know, spending six months writing 160,000 words and having to make 160,000 plus decisions. And somebody will be like, you know, who's your, who did you, you know, consult on the subject of quantum string theory on this?

Because you had this slightly wrong or whatever. And yeah, you know, it's, it's if they read the book, they, they get to tell me what they think and, and that's fine.

Sometimes it's, sometimes they're wrong, sometimes they're right and, and sometimes they're right. And I'm like, yeah, I should have explained that better. I should have understood that better. And sometimes they're right.

And I'm like, yeah, I am not trying to write a technical manual. And you know, early on in one of my Clancy books, there was a assassination attempt on the President in Mexico City that I wrote about.

Did a ton of research on IEDs and all these different things.

And I had some like explosive ordinance guy send me this long email about how, you know, this bomb would not have, you know, blown up the beast, which is the president presidential limousine and for reasons X, Y and Z. And I'm like, it's not a how to manual.

At the end of the day, it's like last thing in the world I want to do is, you know, write in my little fiction novel, you know, five page way to blow up somebody in an armored car. That's not, not what I set out to do. And if I, you telling me I didn't do it right is probably the best news that I have all day.

So you get it as right as you can. But there's a million different. Different disciplines you have to write authoritatively about. And, you know, you just have to be credible.

You don't have to get everything right. When it comes to guns and firearms and stuff, I'm not. I. I know a lot, but I don't know everything. And there's. There's definitely things that I could.

I could learn.

DAVID
00:29:52

And you want to say to Frank, hey, Frank, that's why they call it fiction.

MARK
00:29:55

Yeah. Yeah. I try not to. I try not to use that because people will just be like, well, you know, you act like you know what you're talking about, so.

Yeah, but at the same time, it's true. I am getting.

You know, you have six months to write these books, and I have all these people to go like, well, with your next book, you need to have me read because I am an expert on the US highway system, so. Or whatever thing it is.

And I'm like, I don't write these books with, like, three years to spare to get everybody's feedback and work it all in to get it all right. It's like, I am so late when I turn my book in as it is.

DAVID
00:30:30

Yeah. Let's take a real quick, short break, and when we come back, we're going to find out what the Washington Post has called Mark.

We're going to see if you agree with this new handle. I think he knows what I'm talking about. It's Mark Graney, and the book is, of course, Midnight Black. Stay with us. You're on the Thriller Zone.

MARK
00:30:54

I feel like, you know, everybody that says, you know, you just have to keep working, keep working, keep working, and good things will happen. And I feel like you have to keep working at something that you're passionate about for good things to happen.

Because there was no way I would write a book if I didn't like writing. If I had an idea for a story and I wanted to get paid for it, I could not have written a book.

I wrote a book because I like walking around thinking of stories, developing them, writing them out, editing them, like the whole process. And if it wasn't a labor of love, I wouldn't have gotten anywhere in my career.

So I always, always, you know, tell people that are trying to get published or whatever.

It's like, take a step back, ask yourself if you like doing it, if you like doing it, then just relax about everything else, because there's your reward. And if you get you know, and then other good things, as you just said, other good things will happen to you if you just keep at it, if you love it.

DAVID
00:31:46

So the reason I play that is to show, as I mentioned earlier, Mark has not aged a single ten minutes in three plus years, whereas Mr. Gray Hair has.

Well, anyway, I also share that because it, it reflects what we were talking about before the break about your passion of writing in your. You don't worry about all the facts because again, as I had said, it's fiction.

And the real message is, and you and I have talked about this before, what makes your heartbeat? What's the passion? If the passion is to write, I'm of the frame of mind. Don't worry about the detail, don't worry about the how.

Just do the what, you know. Why.

MARK
00:32:33

Yeah, I, you know, I always recommend to people that want to be writers. I run into so many who are trying to write character sketches and really plan everything out.

And I can't tell you whether to be a pantser or a plotter, but the people that seem frozen in place and are not work, you know, are not writing. I worry about because it's like, it's like you're trying to make the world perfect before you can get down and do the work.

And I don't think that's going to work. And it sort of makes me think you don't like writing that much. You have to kind of like it.

You have to want to just go even with a legal pad or whatever and just scribble out some stuff. And, you know, to the extent that you can do that and keep doing that, you'll get better and better and better. And, you know, the.

All, all the other minutiae of it has to take a backseat to your passion for, for writing it. For learning about whatever you want to write about. Forget about. Write what you know, you know, go, go, go know something new.

You know, it's like, yeah, you have to write about what you know, but you don't. You know, that doesn't mean.

If I worked in the medical device industry, if my first thriller novel was about a, you know, spinal implant or something.

DAVID
00:33:52

Yeah.

MARK
00:33:53

That. That would not have done as well as making it about a spy who across France.

DAVID
00:33:58

Yeah. Call me crazy, but you're right. And, you know, I'm gonna. I hope I don't hack this is the phrase. Perfect is the enemy of good. Have I got that right?

MARK
00:34:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

DAVID
00:34:09

And I remember hearing that and I'm like, golly, that is so true. We do do that. We want to make sure the outline is perfect and the characters are so well fleshed out.

But I was listening to this podcast the other day and they were talking about how they had compared. Listening to.

I think it was Tim Ferriss actually compared Stephen King's on writing versus another writer who was talking about every minutiae of detail in an outline possible. And he said, why not just try to find your spot in the world somewhere in the middle where you do enough of an outline.

And I don't want to drill too much because this is usually how we wrap the show. But not too much time here and not too much time willy nilly.

MARK
00:34:56

And yeah, yeah, I like to have a very kind of thin. Well, I would love. I'll just be perfectly honest.

I would love to be able to completely plot and completely outline and just go in every morning and paint by numbers. And every single book I say I'm going to do that. And the first month is no writing at all.

It's me going like, like I will just really try and come up with the entire story and I never get anywhere with it. I mean, that's most. Mostly a wasted time.

And I learned so much about the story that I'm writing by working on the dialogue in the opening scene or trying to build. You know, it's really, it's really helpful for me that I don't have to write chronologically in the story.

I can bounce around because I'm always stuck somewhere. And so to the extent that I can go right somewhere else.

So, you know, once you have four or five little parts of the book, you might understand it a little better. Once you have the dozen parts of the book, you might understand the big picture a little bit more. And it just keeps going like that.

So for me, it's just about my butt in the seat and working on the story as much as I can, as long as I can. And I tell myself that the word count doesn't matter. I.

I do find myself getting really fixated on word count because in my brain that's progress, but it's really not progress. More Words is not necessarily a better book. So I tell myself that the words don't matter.

It's just every hour that I spend with that document open on my computer and not doing something else, the book is somewhat better.

And you just string enough of those together and you have a book and people that are still trying to write their first book, it seems like this really lofty thing. But once you've done it, once you go like, all Right, let's boil that down. How much was I working and how long did I really spend? I spent.

You do spend a long time, but once you've done it, you go, okay, I could cut out a heck of a lot of fat and do that a lot faster and a lot more effectively.

DAVID
00:37:02

My sister and I have this phrase that we came up with some time ago, and I want to come back to it because I like it and it's perfect for right now. Start where you stand.

MARK
00:37:14

Yeah.

DAVID
00:37:15

Like we're always talking about. Well, if I. If I can just get a little more experience.

MARK
00:37:18

Yeah.

DAVID
00:37:19

Oh, if I can just write a bigger, better outline. If I could do more research, if I could find something more timely. How about just starting where you stand today? You had an idea, a thought.

Scribble it down. And this is a big thing I'm a fan of, and I know you are. Marking Mark. Don't put the pressure on yourself to worry about the.

All the nebulous you have no control over. Will it be accepted? Will it be liked? Will my friend like it? Will my editor like it? Will. Will the audience play to it? Will they appreciate it?

MARK
00:37:53

You know, yeah, that's very, very true. I. Having said that, there's a time every summer when my book is late and I'm not happy with.

With, you know, it's usually my third draft before I really like what I'm writing, where I do, I start stressing about every little thing and. And you just have to take a step back and go, like, complete wasted energy. And. And I've, you know, the.

Just stress is the enemy to creativity a hundred percent. And so if. If you are. If your brain is in the place where you're just worrying about what's going on, it's just going to make you less than that.

And if you can just free yourself up and as you said, start where you stand.

And I mean, there's nobody that wants to be an author in the world that wouldn't benefit from sitting down with a legal pad or a laptop and spending the next hour just fleshing out ideas, typing lines of dialogue that may not relate to anything, but just something that it seems like this character would say in the situation. My second book, On Target, it began. The first line I wrote in that book was a line of dialogue that happens probably 4/5 of the way through the book.

I just thought it was kind of clever and I didn't really know what it went.

And it turns out the hero gets shot in the back with an arrow and he's in the Sudan and he's basically on the radio explaining to his boss what had happened to him. And his boss is basically demeaning him because they're in the middle of a gunfight and it's like, like, how did you get shot by an arrow?

And it was kind of like a funny little throwaway thing, but it kind of informed that character, Zach Hightower, who's become a huge character in the series, who's Court's boss in this book.

And it also just kind of informed the Gray man character that he's just, you know, bad things happen to this dude and, you know, it's kind of Murphy's Law is just hitting him in the face right in the middle with all this other stuff.

And as I, as I was writing the book, it was all sort of geared around at some point late in the book, they were going to get themselves in that situation. And it, and it, I won't say the book wrote itself because my books never write myself, but it does really help me.

So if you just sat there and just typed out lines of dialogue or situations that you think you like to have, you'd be a better writer in one hour. And then, you know, you do that for a few days, a few weeks, few months, and you know, you could really change your trajectory.

DAVID
00:40:20

I just submitted a different kind of a non fiction book to an editor this week and I. And he said, hey, I can't do anything with any. I can't, I can't work with anything that's not on the paper.

So if you haven't written the words yet or enough of them, I can't really help you. And so it's kind of shining an extra highlight on what you're saying.

MARK
00:40:45

Yeah.

DAVID
00:40:45

If you don't start, if you don't practice, if you don't just throw it out there, even if it sucks.

MARK
00:40:50

Yeah.

DAVID
00:40:50

You've got nothing to work with.

MARK
00:40:52

Yeah.

My editor, Tom Colgan, says that all the time I will just sort of be whining a little bit about, you know, not sure about this or not sure about that. And he's like, you know, when I, when you get a draft to me, then we can have all these conversations.

But you know, when it's all just amorphous and in your head and, and you know, there's not much I can do to help you. I mean, actually he does.

I mean, I, I'll call Tom with it with an issue or something and sometimes we'll just talk about it for a while and then it Just gets worked out. And sometimes I go, like, I think I worked it out, but I only worked it out by having him ask me the questions and, and, you know, talk around it.

So, you know, it's. It, you just have to sit there and you just have to type and you have to love it. Love it to do it or you're not going to keep coming back that.

DAVID
00:41:40

You said this in that video. Others have said this recently. I've heard it time and again. And it has to do with.

If you don't love it, like it's a real genuine passion of yours, don't do it.

MARK
00:41:55

Yeah.

DAVID
00:41:56

And the more I think about it, especially when you talk about the people who are at the front, at the, at the gates, manning this in the publishing world, they'll tell you similarly. Yeah. How many stacks of query letters and how many stacks of manuscripts I got.

And you're, you're brand new, so you're, you know, you're going to be way back there, but if you love it, it won't matter to you.

MARK
00:42:17

Yeah. Yeah. And that'll, that'll make you better at it. It'll make you finish it when otherwise you wouldn't finish it.

It's just, you know, I hear all this advice, like, never quit, never give up. You know, you, you can do it. And it's like, I don't know if you can do it. You know, it's like, I'd love to be all sorts.

I'd love to be a professional soccer player. You know, if, if I walk out the door right now, pick up a soccer ball and go, I'm never going to quit. I'm still never going to make it.

I'm 57 years old. I got a bad back, you know, but so it's not just the love, but like, if that's what gets you, do I, I don't have to make it.

I like to kick the soccer ball around with friends or whatever. You know, it's like, I don't have to make it in that. I didn't have to make it in this. It was just something I really like to do. So.

Yeah, you know, I would never say don't quit.

It's like if, if, if you wanted to be a writer, my advice to you, don't quit is lousy advice because I don't know if you love doing it and, you know, it might be the best thing for you to do, to quit and then pick up painting and you're being an incredible painter. I don't know. But if you Love to do it. You don't need inspiration from me. People will say, what inspiration can you give me?

And I'm always like, if you need inspiration from me. You know, it's like, if I needed inspiration from Stephen King to be a writer, that in itself wouldn't have done it.

I mean, it'd been cool to talk to him or something early in my career, but that wouldn't have affected whether or not I was going to spend the next, you know, 10,000 hours writing something.

DAVID
00:43:46

Yeah. You know, I'm embarrassed to admit this, Mark, but we're good enough friends.

I think I can say that I feel okay saying this, but I realized when I was going back and. And looking at my notes from your other visits, I wanted to know what. And I. And I don't think I ever asked you this. This is why I feel stupid at it.

Where did the inspiration for the Gray man come from? Because I went back and I'm like, I don't think I've ever asked him that.

And I know there's a real specific little story that that's revolving around.

MARK
00:44:24

Yeah. So I'd written a book called. What was it called? It's called Brotherhood of Vengeance. Never got published. Never got in front of an agent or an editor.

And then I wrote another book called the Last Enclave and got that in front of an agent. And he's like, hey, you're a good writer. This is not a great book. Write something else. So I had been studying Spanish.

I had to use Spanish a lot in my job. I worked for a medical device company here in Memphis, where I live, and I spent a lot of time speaking Spanish, but I wasn't that good at it.

And so I got some paid leave and went down, or unpaid leave, and went down to El Sal. To Guatemala and studied Spanish for several months. And in the middle of that, I went to El Salvador for just a weekend vacation.

And I was just sitting in a darkened bar in La Libertad, El Salvador, on the beach and. Or off the beach, and an American guy came in.

And all the other Americans there were either language students like me, or else they were like surfers down there because there's crazy surf. But this one guy seemed very, very different.

I mean, he looked like he was like right off a cargo ship, except there wasn't a cargo port anywhere around there. But he was American, and he just looked harder edged than anybody else I saw down there.

He sat down at the bar, turned off the little light next to where he was sitting just so he could Sit in the dark, had a beer by himself, didn't talk to anybod. And I was by myself as well.

Never spoke to the guy, but I just kind of made up this little backstory about him that he was, like, CIA, but he was hiding out in the developing world because they were after him and he didn't know why. And in the meantime, he was, you know, working as a highly paid assassin, but he was only taking jobs that he thought were, like, super righteous.

And, you know, I came up with all this stuff in 30 minutes to an hour. I can't remember how long I was sitting there, there. But I. I was not initially going like, I need something for my next book. It was just daydreaming.

And the next day or the day after, I was like, oh, I could sort of base him around a story. So I wrote an entire book called the Goon Squad that had him in it and gave that to the guy I wanted to be my agent.

And, you know, took me, whatever, nine months to write it and another six months for him to read it. And then he called me up and he said, I'm not going to publish this book. I think it's good, but I think you could write something better.

I do love the Gray Man. He's a really cool character. But there's a subplot in the Goon Squad about all these people that are after him for things he'd done in the past.

So he's trying to do some kind of a mission, but he keeps bumping into these people that are targeting him. And he's like, I want the book to be about groups of people targeting him and him having to go through a gauntlet.

And I was like, why is he doing that? And they're like, he. My. The guy I wanted to be my agent's like, I don't have a clue. That's up to you. You have to figure that out.

And so I basically took that character and I wrote Gray man, which is about a bunch of different kill teams that are hired almost as a contest to kill him before he's. The whole purpose of it in the movie is very, very different in the book.

And in the book, he's killed the brother of the president of Nigeria for good reason. And they basically, the president of Nigeria wants his head on a bladder. And so that was the story.

And at that point, that agent couldn't tell me no again, because he told me no multiple times. And I always did exactly what he asked for. And I was like, I'm going to he kept saying, more action, more action.

I was like, I'm going to choke this guy on the action in this story to where he can't possibly say that to me again. And that's how it turned out.

DAVID
00:48:15

Yeah, I love that story. I'm so embarrassed that I'd never asked that before. Is that agent still your agent?

MARK
00:48:21

He's still my agent. So he was the first agent that I ever spoke to. I went to a writers conference.

He was the agent of a guy named Ralph Peters, who is still around and a fantastic writer. And I was like, whoever Ralph Peters agent is, that's who I want to be my agent. And that's who I went after.

And so I first met him in 2005, and he agreed to represent me in 2008, and my first book came out in 2009. So it was a lengthy process, but we're. Yeah, he's still my agent of every one of my books, so. Great guy.

DAVID
00:48:54

Do you mention his name or do you like to keep it quiet?

MARK
00:48:57

No, his name is Scott Miller. He's with Trident Media, and he's. He's fabulous. I think he's the best in the business.

DAVID
00:49:04

Here's why I wanted to know that, because I love the fact that he had the chutzpah to say, I don't like this book. I'm not going to be able to sell it. But there's something in here. There's a kernel of truth that I really like it.

And if you take this and spin off this, you're onto something. And you couldn't ask for a better life lesson or scenario to be in than that right there.

MARK
00:49:26

Yeah. Yeah.

And then one other thing he did when I was writing Gray man, because he told me no a couple times, and he sent me off to write a second book with the Gray man in it. And I said, can I give you the first 50 pages? And just so I know I'm on the right track, and I gave him the first 50 pages.

In the opening of the Gray man, the. The hero sees a helicopter shot down.

There's a bunch of Americans in it, and he's too far away, but it's al Qaeda surrounding them, and they basically kill them all. And. And, you know, he manages to use a sniper rifle and exact some payback. He's a mile away, over a mile away. When. When he does this.

So that's the opening scene, and my agent's like, that's really great. He needs to save somebody, though. I was like, well, I mean, he can't Save anybody, because he's over a mile away.

And, you know, it's Al Qaeda and he's just one dude in a Range Rover, you know, and he's like, nope, he needs to save somebody. And I'm like, I don't know how to do that. And so for like a day, I was like, that makes no sense. And then I was like, okay, this is just.

I have to bend reality. I want to make this as realistic as possible, but at certain points, this is going to go into fantasy land.

But it's my job to really sell this to the reader, and that informed the whole series. When I'm writing today, I will write something that is like, okay, I've put a lot of realism in here. This is very, very accurate.

And then this probably wouldn't happen. This has gone a little too far here. But that's. I think the success of the series basically came out of him just going like, no, he's.

He's got to save somebody. Even though it doesn't really make sense to you, you know, like, tactically, it's like, yeah, find a way. And so it was my job to find a way.

DAVID
00:51:06

Yeah, well, it goes back to that line I said earlier. That's why they call it fiction, and that's why we. That's why we. We read it, to escape.

MARK
00:51:13

So, yeah, yeah. And if you can really sell the reality, where there's reality, the reader will let you get away with some stuff.

And, you know, obviously, you could write a superhero story, but that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to do something that, you know, here and there, it's going to really strain credulity, but.

But hopefully I've earned a little bit of belief in the story from. From other things that I've written.

DAVID
00:51:35

You know, and one of the things I love about reading the Gray man series, especially now that the guy that I got the bromance crush on, Ryan Geisling, now when I'm reading it, I'm picturing Ryan as doing it. And for me, that's just kind of cool because I tend to. When I'm writing stories, I tend to kind of pick somebody.

I would like to be just the holding spot for it.

And so it has to be a little extra exciting for you because, you know, as you're crafting the story, if he's signed on for a multiple year contract, and I have to believe that that would be the case, then everybody wins.

MARK
00:52:14

Yeah, I. And of everything about the film, I was happiest about his portrayal of the character.

I thought it was very nuanced and very good and very much the way I wrote it. It.

There's aspects to that character where I'm like, I don't think he read book seven, but that's kind of a vibe or a feel that I sort of created, you know, further on down the road in the Gray man series. And he understood and got it. And so I really love that about him, you know, his portrayal of it.

If I didn't like his portrayal of it, I think it would really kind of mess with my head a little bit. When I was writing, I still see the books and the movies as two completely different, different entities and, and, and, and all that.

But at the same time, he did such a good job with it. It's makes it a little bit easier for me to write that character. I can feel it.

DAVID
00:53:09

Well, you know, and it's funny I almost mentioned this before we went to break. I said when we came back, I'd tell you what the Washington Post said about you.

They call you the Tom Cruise of thriller writers, which I agree, I like. Why do you suppose that nickname fits you so well, Mark?

MARK
00:53:25

Well, I think they're saying that because I do a lot of the Washington Post came down to Memphis last year and they're like, hey, we want to kind of photograph you doing some sort of research. And I'm like, well, I mean a lot of times research for me is like going to Hong Kong.

You know, it's like, we're not gonna, we're not gonna do that on a Tuesday in, in, in Memphis. But I was like, you know what?

I can go down to this sheriff's department range gun range down in Holly Springs, Mississippi, where I've got a lot of buddies who've trained me before and they have a SWAT shoot house and we can do some long range shooting. And Travis Andrews, the writer came to town and we put guns in his hand and he got to shoot and do everything.

So I have had the good fortune to scuba dive for research or to go to the Pentagon for research or to fly in the back of an F18 for research. Church and, and lots of cool things. And I, you know, they, they play it up a little bit there.

You know, I was, I, I got to fly the F18 a little bit for a second.

But you know, it's, it wasn't, I'm not going to say I was really anything other on a passenger on a very small, very fast airplane because that's really what happened.

DAVID
00:54:43

Oh, and that, you know, it's so funny because we talk about Tom Cruise and, and Tammy, and I have watched every Mission Impossible so many times. It's. I. But, you know, he. He does. He does do so many of his stunts. And so I'm like, well, I said to her last night, like, I'm going to ask Mark this.

I bet you this is going to be the reason. All right, we're running up against time, so I want to wrap up with these two questions. Now. I always ask what your best writing advice is.

I'm going to hold that for one second because I thought about this. I'm like, I want to.

I want to come up with a slightly different twist, and I want to know the best way to become a successful writer, and this is going to be different from the best writing advice. So I want to see if you can make a differentiation, focusing on the business of making it happen.

So what would you tell someone, again, specific to the business?

MARK
00:55:34

Specific to the business? I would.

You know, this isn't necessarily advice that's going to make the difference between success and failure, but I'm just a strong, you know, proponent of. There's one thing that you have control over, and that is the quality of the writing and the quality of, you know, what, what ends up on the page.

You.

You can't control your media or, you know, independent authors have to do a lot of their own publicity and all these other things, and I think you can just go off chasing that all the time, and the, the writing will suffer. And I, if, if it was in my brain that, okay, 30% of the time I get to really work on my book, 70% of the time I have to shill for it.

I think that would just be really detrimental to the writing. Now, I do a lot of publicity. Obviously, I'm doing publicity now, and, and, and all that, but it is very much structured. You know, it's.

People only see me at a, at a book event or on a podcast like yours, and they think that this is a big part of what I do, but, I mean, it's less than 1/10 of 1% of what I do. The rest of it is, is writing.

And which is probably why when I'm in a, you know, at a book event, it feels like every fourth person has a great idea on how they think I should spend my time. You know, everybody wants me to be in a book club or to start this organization or this or that because it.

It sort of seems like I'm just sort of like Standing around waiting for something to do. And it's not like that. So, I mean, it's just to the extent that you can focus on, on.

I want to make myself a better writer this year than I was last year or this month than I was last month.

In whether that's reading people that you like and respect, whether that's doing research that'll go into your book or whether that's just sitting there and writing, I think that's, that will help you in the business more than trying to come up with the next great guerrilla marketing thing to, you know, get your name out there.

DAVID
00:57:40

Do you think, and this is a loaded question, do you think, do you see a tangible result from the time that you take away from writing?

Because this is a conversation I have with a lot of co writers that instead of spending the time writing, do you see a sizable result from spending time book tours, book signings, podcasts, etc.

MARK
00:58:08

Do you mean as far as sales? Yeah, I, I think it's beneficial. I mean, I mean, I definitely think it's beneficial. You know, it depends on, I guess, what you do.

I've definitely done, you know, radio interviews where I, I'm like, I don't think that sold a book. You know, it's like, hey, you're talking to Spiffy the Bean and, you know, Bad Bob and, you know, in this town. And it's like, it's, it's fun.

A five minute, you know, conversation with people that, you know, are just going like, what was Tom Cruise? Or what was Ryan Gosling like? Or whatever.

DAVID
00:58:42

Right.

MARK
00:58:43

I don't think that everything, you know, leads to, to, to much, you know, generates much. But I mean, I think overall it does. And fortunately, I have a publicist who makes those decisions.

I think if you're independent, you kind of have to be smart in that area and learn. But again, I think you really have to manage your time and figure it out. You know, these are fun.

I like coming on here and I, you know, this is, this is forever, right?

You know, someone can look up this book, hopefully 10 years from now, you're, you're looking at this one and going like, hey, I used to say you didn't age. Boy, you've aged. But there, here you were shortly before it all went to pot. You know, it's like, as long as, as long as I keep doing these.

DAVID
00:59:27

Yeah. Well, folks, once again, the book is Midnight Black. It's the Gray man novel. Mark Graney's my guest.

Go to markgrainybooks.com if you want to learn more. As always, Mark, you're always welcome here. And I. I'm so apprecia of the time and the energy you always give me.

MARK
00:59:43

Thanks a lot, David. This is always a good one.

DAVID
00:59:45

How about that, huh? One of the nicest guys working today. And talented. Yeah, boy. Okay, before we scoot out, I'd like to mention just a couple of things.

If you're enjoying this podcast and you'd like to help support it in any way, you can do one of two things.

First, you can be sure to follow us wherever you listen to your favorite podcast, whether on any of the podcast channels, on YouTube.com the thrillerzone or on our very own super sexy website. Thanks to podpage thethrillerzone.com Second, if you're finding value in this podcast, you can share this show with a friend. Yeah, it's easy.

Okay, that does it for this week. Join me one week from today when international bestselling author C.J. box joins the show.

Until then, I'm Dave Teppel, and I'll see you next time for another episode of the Thriller Zone, your number one.

MARK
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Podcast for stories that thrill the Thriller Zone.