Barry Eisler

 

 

 

Barry Eisler :– (8/4/08)

 

 

Question.

I was wondering if John Rain was your first attempt at creating a fictional character or if you have had other ideas that have evolved in to our beloved assassin.

 

 

Barry.

The short answer is that Rain Fall was my first book and Rain my first character. But the more complete answer is that I rewrote it so many times and so thoroughly before it was finally published that it might have been my fourth or fifth book by the time I got it right. Good writing is rewriting…


Barry

 

 

Question.

As a guy in the rubber suit, I spend lots of time crafting scenarios and experiences for people to make their training more effective.

Do you draw heavily on personal experience in comparison to say, research?

What experiences would you like to have, in order to better inform/enhance your characters?

Kind regards

 

 

Barry.

I love the bulletman suit! Did Peyton Quinn’s Rocky Mountain

Combat Applications Training course a few years ago and loved it.

I draw on direct experience, the experience of friends, reading, and imagination for pretty much everything I write about. Sometimes more of one, sometimes of the other… depends on the scene in question.

The more relevant experiences I have, the better I write… though at some point I guess there’s a balance to be drawn between benefit to my art vs cost to my soul and danger to my body.

(What’s that great line from Ronin? “You worried about saving your own skin?” “Yeah, I am… it covers my body.”
Barry

 

 

 

Question.

How are you?
Can you tell a bit more about your next projects?

I believe there is a new book coming soon. Can you lift the veil a little bit?

Kind Regards,

 

 

Barry. 

Sure, the new one is a thriller, though not set in Rain’s universe. Haven’t quite decided on a title yet, but the book is the story of two brothers, estranged by old but still-simmering family hurts and by conflicting cultural and life choices, who are forced to put aside their grievances, and to confront their own painful secrets, when one of them becomes a target in an international struggle for control of a powerful new technology. Here’s some jacket copy I’ve been noodling around with:

In Silicon Valley

, the eccentric inventor of a new encryption program is murdered in an apparent drug deal.

In Istanbul

, a cynical undercover operative receives a frantic call from his estranged brother, a patent lawyer who believes he is the next victim.

And on the sun-drenched slopes of Sand Hill Road, Silicon Valley’s nerve center of deal-making and finance, cultures collide in a desperate contest for control of a new technology—a technology with the power to create unimaginable wealth, or to destroy global information systems, all at the click of a mouse…

 

 

Question.

Hi Barry

I just wonder where you get your inspiration from. What writers and which movies do influence your work?

 

 

Barry. 

I read pretty eclectically—fiction, non-fiction, and poetry—and I’ve been inspired and influenced by a number of writers. I love Trevanian, whose killers Nicolai Hel (in Shibumi) and Jonathan Hemlock (in The Eiger Sanction and The Loo Sanction) are sympathetic in part because they are superior human beings—superior in intellect, taste, and culture. Andrew Vachss, with his dark, gritty Burke novels and hard-boiled atmosphere, has also been an influence. Pat Conroy and Dave Gutterson have inspired me with the lyricism of their prose. The cadences and imagery of T.S. Eliot and Cormac McCarthy are certainly influences, as well. Stephen King has inspired me with his humor and honesty, and his admonition that the author’s job is to tell the truth.

 

 

 

Question.

Hi Barry,
I’m sure you must have been asked this a few times before, but what advice would you give to someone starting out and trying to get their first book published?

 

 

Barry.

1. Keep writing. Can’t emphasize this one enough. Every day is ideal, but the goal is to just be as regular as you can. Same as learning a language, or a martial art, etc.

2. Reread passages from books you love and ask yourself, what is the author doing here that’s working so well? And if you see something that you think is bad, ask yourself, why is this bad? What could the author have done differently to make it work?

3. Read books on writing. Stephen King’s “On Writing” helped me a lot. David Morrell’s “Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing” is also terrific. There are many others. But don’t read the how-to books at the expense of your own writing. Whenever you have to choose, practice your writing instead.

4. If you’ve got time and you’re serious, a writer’s workshop can be a huge help with motivation, feedback, and discipline. Google “Writer’s workshops” and the name of your city and you’ll probably be able to find a bunch.

5. When you think your book is as good as you can possibly get it, it’s time to try to find an agent. The way to do this is to go a library or bookstore and get a book like “The Writer’s Digest Guide to Literary Agents.” Identify the ones that handle your kind of book and contact them in exactly the manner they request.

6. One of your best friends as a writer is what I think of as the “what if” question. “What if someone cloned dinosaurs and planned to open a dinosaur theme park on a remote island?” (“Jurassic Park

”). “What if a semi-yuppie drug dealer were about to do a seven year prison stretch?” (“The 25th Hour”). Etc. If the what-if question interests you enough, it’ll lead you to other questions, all of the who, what, where, when, why, how variety. Follow those questions and you’ll start to find your story.

A lot of people think that, in the writing business, it’s not what you know, but who. This has not been my experience. Who you know might get an agent to take a look at something you’ve written, but after that you will stand or fall entirely on the quality of your writing and other business calculations. In other words, the best a mutual acquaintance can do is to possibly get your work moved closer to the top of the agent’s pile. But this is a minimal benefit, because agents read everything that’s submitted to them anyway. That’s their business. It may take the agent a while, but eventually he or she will read what you’ve sent.

 

 

 

Question.

This is a question I often like to ask authors.

Authors often put a lot of themselves into their hero, I am quite sure that many portray their hero as the man that they would like to be, what I am wondering is how much of yourself does an author base his villians on, is there a touch of the alter ego gets played out in books and novels.

 

Barry.  

There are some similarities. Rain and I both love jazz and judo. And quality single malt whiskey and other aesthetic experiences. But the differences might be more telling. Rain has had experiences that I haven’t, chiefly war, combat, and killing. As a result, he is far more capable with violence than I, and also a good deal more cynical.

 



Question.
When you are writing a book, do you set aside a certain amount of time each day/week to sit down and write or do you aim to do X amount of words each time you write or do you just write when you feel inspired.

 

 

Barry.

I wish I had a schedule! I just write when I can—promotion is a huge part of the business. As for a daily word count, it varies. There’s a ratio between thinking and writing. When I’m just getting started on a book, the ratio is skewed heavily toward thinking, but as the story progresses and I figure things out, I can write more and need to think less. By the time I’ve reached the last ten percent of the book, I’ve discovered the whole story out and it’s pure writing—an electrifying feeling, like I’ve grabbed the back of a comet and am struggling just to hang on.

So at the start of things, a 500 word day feels great. In the middle, I feel comfortable with 1000 or so. 2000 always feels good. By the last third of the book, my average gets closer to 3000. The most I’ve ever written in a day, with my fingers a blur and my hair on fire, was 8200—the last two of which, not coincidentally, were “The End.”

 

 

Question.

Hi Barry,

I’m a big fan of the John Rain books. Thank you for being here.

I have a two part question for you. How did you find training at the Kodokan Ju

do institute? I imagine the physical and mental toughness required to even walk through the door was considerable?

Also, you’ve trained with a lot of very talented martial artists and its obvious from your writing that you are still a keen student yourself. Do you currently train and if so who are you training with?

thanks, looking forward to your next book.

 

 

Barry.

Many thanks, Chris; glad you’re enjoying the books.

Training at the Kodokan was a dream come true. The place is special for many reasons: talented instructors; tons of skilled regulars and visitors to train with; people from all over the world united in a passion for judo. The training was tough, but no more so than I’ve experienced in other arts and other settings.

I’ve gotten so busy with books and blogging in the past few years that I haven’t been training regularly. The last regular training I did was at Ralph Gracie’s jiu-jitsu academy, which I liked a lot (I tend to gravitate to grappling styles; just a personal preference).

But I still try to train when I can, and do privates with Wim Demeere when he visits the States, did Tony Blauer’s PDR camp a few years ago, Lethal Force Institute with Massad Ayoob… Great training and great background for the books.

 

 

Question.

Hi Barry,

I see you used your judo background as a martial arts for John Rain. I did judo when I was a kid but it was competition judo. In competition everything seemed to be won or lost on the ground, Rain usually doesn’t go to the floor. There are books like Cosnecks combat judo which also teaches strikes. I wonder if this kind of stuff is also thaught at the kodokan. Can you tell which books you studied to learn about the for competition illigal moves Rain uses?

 

 

Barry. 

Not too many strikes taught at the Kodokan when I was there; mainly as part of kata, and it felt pretty pro forma. The books Rain referred to in Rain Fall are just old texts that are referenced in modern books like Jigoro Kano’s Kodokan Judo. An Internet search for neck cranks and the like would likely turn up most of them…

 

 

Question.

A stupid question, Iknow, but one that has caused many lunch time discussions at my work:

Who is tougher and why:

John Rain?
Mitch Rapp?
Nick Stone?
Jack Reacher?

Charley Payne?


Bias expected….and many thanks Barry for taking part! I hope your book tour is going well and the film goes how you want it too…..

 

FYI - Marcus’s reply to a similar question -

quote:

My money would be on the two gray hairs in the crowd: Payne and Rain…

 

 

Barry. 

LOL! This one came up on Lee Child’s board a few years ago. I wish I’d saved my post… it was a message to me from John Rain. The gist of it was, men like Rain, Reacher, Rapp etc try hard to avoid each other on the theory that “when two tigers fight, one is wounded, the other dies.” If they’re forced to tangle, they cheat like hell. I can only speak for Rain here, but I can tell you that if he doesn’t like the odds, he has no problem running away. Rain doesn’t want to fight you; he wants to kill you, with as little risk to himself as possible.

Overall toughness? I guess it depends on how you mean. Tough in the face of what?

And I’ll take Marcus’s vote of confidence any day…
Barry

 

 

 

Question.

Is working within the CIA all action hero James Bond style stuff or does the bulk of it require sitting behind a desk doing mind numbing paperwork.

Also, how do you get into that anyway, do you need a blackbelt and a degree or can you just walk in off the street?

Many thanks for your time in coming on here to answer these questions

 

 

 

Barry.

My info is 15 years out of date, but I think it’s safe to say that as for all jobs with an excitement component, there’s an outsized paperwork component, too.

No need for a black belt etc., just a good knowledge of world affairs, physical fitness, sound mind (how the hell did I get in?). Foreign languages and military service a big plus.

Hope this helps…

– Barry