Some really really fun questions authors get to ask!!!
Today I get to welcome Douglas E. Richards to my blog. He's the (New York Times best-selling!) author of a string of fast-paced sci-fi thrillers, including Wired, Amped, and, just released, The Cure. So, if you've ever wondered what goes on in the mind of a writer, and how they turn those scary ideas into stories, well... read on.
And thank you Douglas for visiting my blog.
At that point I called Dr. Mike Koenigs at the
University of Wisconsin Medical School. This is a researcher who goes into
prisons and conducts brain scans on psychopathic murderers and rapists. Really. It was one of the most
fascinating conversations I have ever had. They park a trailer on prison
grounds with an MRI machine inside. “So when the guards bring you psychopaths to
scan, are they wearing Hannibal Lecter masks?” I asked him.
And thank you Douglas for visiting my blog.
Fun Questions Authors Get to Ask
“How can I poison this city’s water supply?”
by Douglas E. Richards
I write thrillers with
accurate science and science fictional elements (in the tradition of Michael
Crichton). I strive to make them fast paced, action packed, full of twists and
turns, and with enough philosophy, ethics, and groundbreaking science to
provide readers with plenty of food for thought. But above all, I strive for
accuracy. Most of my research involves reading dozens of books, magazines, and journal
articles—along with extensive research using the Internet, the most incredible
resource in the history of the world.
But the really fun part
of my job is when I get to do research by speaking with actual humans. The
first time I did this was many years ago, when I was a biotech executive at BMS
in Princeton and was writing my first novel (which, alas, I never
finished). I needed my villain to poison
the water supply of an entire city, but I didn’t have the faintest idea how this
might be accomplished. So I called up the guy who runs the water treatment
facility in Trenton, New Jersey, on the banks of the Delaware. I took a deep
breath and explained that I was an aspiring author and what I wanted. “If I
brought over three or four pizzas for you and your team, do you think I could
swing by during lunch and get a tour of the facility? And, um . . . you know,
your advice on how to poison the water supply?”
Now this was before
9/11 happened, but still—I half expected him to hang up and report me to the
FBI. Several seconds passed. I thought he was weighing the pros and cons of
telling a stranger how to kill millions of people. But I was wrong. He was
pondering what pizzas he wanted. “Okay,” he said. “How about two cheese, and
two pepperoni.”
The tour was amazing.
Taking water from a river, purifying it, and adding chlorine was a fascinating
process and I took notes for a full hour. “What if the bad guy dumps a huge
amount of poison right at the intake valve?” I said. “Where the water from the
Delaware is sucked into the plant?”
He shook his head. “Why
dilute it that much?” he replied. “In fact, if you add the poison anywhere in
the purification process, you lose punch along the way. I would just dump it in
the reservoir. Because from there, the water goes directly to people’s
faucets.”
I nodded. “How heavily
is the reservoir guarded?” I asked, my pen poised above my notebook.
“It’s not. There’s a
fence around it, but it’s easy to climb. So easy that every summer we find
local kids swimming in the reservoir. So you could dump your poison in there without
being caught, no problem.”
I swallowed hard. This
was troubling. It shouldn’t be that easy.
And wait a minute, kids were swimming in
the reservoir? “Didn’t you say this water goes directly to faucets? So how
do you re-clean it after the kids swim in it?”
He shook his head. “We
don’t. It still meets the parts per million purity requirement.”
My lip curled up in
disgust. “Good to know,” I said evenly.
For my book, AMPED, I wanted a character to ambush
another character on a yacht. But I knew nothing about marinas or yachts. So I
called up a marina in Orange County. By then, I was a New York Times bestselling author, which was awesome, because it
really helped me get accomplished scientists and others to chat with me. I
explained to the person in charge of the marina who I was, and that I wanted to
know how the many yachts moored to their docks were protected, and the best way
to set up an ambush on one. Seconds later I was listening to a dial tone.
The marina expert had hung
up on me.
Wow, buy a guy some
pizza and he’ll tell you how to kill millions. But even if you’re a New York Times bestselling author, people
are very touchy about revealing the secrets of yacht ambushing. (The good news
is that I called another marina and got the help I was after)
Which brings me to my
latest novel, THE CURE, which was
just released. Allow me to take a moment to give you the gist of this novel:
Erin
Palmer had a devastating encounter with a psychopath as a child. Now a grad
student and scientist, she’s devoting her life to studying these monsters. When
her research catches the attention of Hugh Raborn, a brilliant neuroscientist
who claims to have isolated the genes responsible for psychopathic behavior,
Erin realizes it may be possible to reverse the condition, restoring souls to
psychopaths. But to do so, she'll not only have to operate outside the law, but
violate her most cherished ethical principles. As Erin becomes further
involved with Raborn, she begins to suspect that he harbors dark secrets. Is he
working for the good of society? Or is he intent on bringing humanity to its
knees?
I got the idea for this
novel after reading startling new research showing the brains of psychopaths
differed from non-psychopaths, possibly accounting for their absolute
selfishness, ruthlessness, and lack of conscience. I was intrigued. It seems we're
in the middle of an epidemic of these monsters.
I
wondered, if psychopathy is related to brain structure, what if someone found a
way to diagnose it remotely? Would society be justified in monitoring
psychopaths? Even before they’ve committed any crimes? And even more intriguing,
what if you could cure this
condition? While answers to these questions seemed straightforward, the deeper I
dug, the more unexpected complexities I found.
Dr.
Koenigs laughed. “No masks,” he replied.
“Are
they just handcuffed? Or are they put in leg cuffs as well?” I asked.
“No
cuffs,” he said. “The prisoners aren’t restrained in any way.”
I
shook my head in disbelief. I mean, these were only harmless psychopathic
murderers and rapists, but still . . . you’d think you might want to take some
precautions. “Okay,” I said, “so how many guards go with you into the back of
the trailer?”
“None,”
he told me.
“None?
None! Are you kidding me? Are you out of your mind?”
Sixty
minutes later when I hung up the phone, I knew I had to write this book. And I
knew that much of this conversation would have to be in it.
Final thought before I
end this post. Writing novels can be brutally hard work, but also great fun. And
one of the greatest things about it is that a big part of my job is to call
experts and ask them crazy questions. And only once have I been stopped in
pursuit of the truth. By my wife.
My son attends the
University of Arizona in Tucson, and part of THE CURE is set there. I happened to be in Tucson while writing a
scene in which a character steals something from the U of A bookstore. Later
that day, my wife and I were in this very bookstore, so she could shop for a
sweatshirt. “Wait here,” I told her.
“I’m going to find the manager and ask her to walk me through the security
system and tell me the best way to steal from this store.”
“Oh no you’re not,”
said my wife immediately, looking horrified.
I never did convince
her to let me do it. Go figure. Good thing she wasn’t there when I was asking
the manager of the water treatment plant how to poison an entire city. I guess
she just underestimates how helpful some people are willing to be.
____________________________________________________________________________
Author Bio:
Douglas E. Richards has
been widely praised for his ability to weave action, suspense, and science into
riveting novels that straddle the thriller and science fiction genres. He is
the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of WIRED, its sequel, AMPED, THE CURE, and six
critically acclaimed middle-grade adventures enjoyed by kids and adults alike.
A former biotech executive, Richards earned a BS in microbiology from the Ohio State University, a master's degree in genetic engineering from the University of Wisconsin (where he engineered mutant viruses now named after him), and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
A former biotech executive, Richards earned a BS in microbiology from the Ohio State University, a master's degree in genetic engineering from the University of Wisconsin (where he engineered mutant viruses now named after him), and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
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