245. The Rest is History

This week Jennia talks with author Harrison Stockeland about how he adds historical elements and uses the most of his resources to create his page-turning stories.
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Harrison's website:
https://www.officialharrisonstockeland.com/

Find Harrison on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Harrison-Stockeland/author/B0BW6BSG3Y?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the podcast for people who write, edit, read, or listen. Our guest today is author Harrison Stockeland, who will share how he adds historical elements to create a riveting narrative. This is the rest is history, episode 2-4-5 of the podcast. Welcome to the show, Harrison. I'm so glad you're here.

Harrison: I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.

Jennia: Great. Would you like to introduce yourself to the audience and let them know a little bit about what you write?

Harrison: Yeah, certainly. So, uh, my name is Harrison Stockeland like uh, Jennia said, I write in crime, in the crime genre, mostly crime thrillers. It's been my passion both in writing and reading for the last several years, and I see myself continuing in that genre with maybe a couple of steps outside of that, just depending on where the stories take me.

Jennia: Great. Are your stories standalones or are they part of a series?

Harrison: Well, the first one is a standalone. Um, Watch It Burn came out earlier this year. Um, that is a standalone. November's Whisper is the first in a static series. Um, so the hero will be visiting different, uh, different cities, different areas of the country, and solving different mysteries in each book. So that is pretty exciting.

Jennia: Yeah, it is. So where does he visit in the first one?

Harrison: So in November's Whisper the one that's out now actually came out in November.

Jennia: Well that's timely.

Harrison: Yeah, I figure if the title has a month in it, you should probably release the book in that month. So, uh, we worked really hard to make that happen. Crunched some timelines. But he visits Ipswich, Massachusetts, which is a small, little, tiny town about 30 miles north of Boston. Uh, so if you've ever been to Boston, hopefully you were struck just like I was. It's a beautiful area, but more beautiful still is that northern part of Massachusetts. It's very heavily wooded. Um, it's got this kind of cozy feeling, and in the fall, it's just gorgeous. So, uh, this book is set in November of 1983, and the FBI profiler, my main character, Henry Hayes, visits Ipswich, Massachusetts to solve a serial murder. A series of murders that have been going on for the past few years.

Jennia: Yeah, I started reading it and you mentioned that you've been there, and if you want to tell us a little bit about how you were able to portray the town in the book and how you did it, both in the mostly present and then also in the past.

Harrison: Yeah. So lucky for me, Ipswich is a historical town, like, um, a lot of those towns in the northeast when you visit a lot of the buildings have been around for a long time. You'll see some really grainy black and white photos of the same schoolhouse with the same , you know, six churches. That was one thing that really struck me up there. Uh, I live in Franklin, Tennessee, or Franklin, Tennessee area. There's a lot of churches in the south, there's a lot of churches in the northeast. So, uh, that did surprise me. But visiting the town, I think one of my biggest takeaways while being there was being able to walk around and compare to the past and the present. For example, they had changed the location of their police station, I believe about 50 or 60 years ago. So right before this story took place. So I kind of put that in there. I like catching little things like that where have someone mention like, oh, the old station used to be over here or whatever, but it's a small, small town. I mean, I can't remember the exact population. I want to say it was like three or four thousand people. It's a small town. It's one stop, uh, on the commuter rail from Boston to Newburyport, which is just a little bit further north. And it's amazing. I put that in my author's note for the book. I wanted to make it very clear that I loved Ipswich. I'm going back. It's a beautiful place. Um, and there's never been a serial murderer there or really much crime of any kind. It's a very safe place, but it's so beautiful, I had to plague it with some terror for a while.

Jennia: Yeah, it's always that contrast. It's always a small town and no one ever expected anything like this to happen here, so definitely works well with that trope, for sure. Was there anything surprising that you found out about the town or an element that you just had to include and work in somehow because it was so interesting.

Harrison: I would say, strangely enough, it was the river. I didn't really focus on the river as like a continuing point in the book. It's not like a main location or anything like that. But it was upon, visiting it was very evident that the river is a big part of the town, at least from what I could tell. They've got this beautiful walkway that's. It's modern. I think it was put up about ten or twelve years ago. It's like a river walk. So it goes past the river, crosses over, goes into their small kind of town hall where the police station is. There's like a little park there, Middle Green Park. Um, so that was really striking. And the way that the houses backed up to the river, one of my characters has a house that backs up to the river because when I visited, I had to change that up a little bit too, because I was like, this is too neat to not have in there. Um, very original seeing these colonial or very old homes that are backed up to the river with like small, little jettisons and little jon boats on the back. So I thought that was pretty neat. Something I added in.

Jennia: Yeah. And it's so often those details where someone who's familiar with the area can say, okay, this person's obviously been here. They know what they're talking about. I know I read a book once that took place in the town I grew up in. And as far as describing the downtown area, it was just so wrong that I almost couldn't continue reading it. So do you think that it's important then for authors to visit the locations that they're using if they're not a fictionalized place?

Harrison: I mean, if it's possible. So when I wrote Watch It Burn, I wrote that, I'm 20 years old right now, I'll be 21 in June. So I'm pretty young. Um, when I wrote that, Watch It Burn, I was 18 to 19. I, uh, was kind of in that middle of the year time. And that takes place in southern Italy. Uh, most 18 year olds can't make it over to southern Italy.

Jennia: I mean, most people can't just make it over to southern Italy, yeah.

Harrison: Yep, so I mean, if you can't make it there, I would obviously suggest making it there because not only will you make your product a lot better, I think my book's about five times better, uh, when I revised it after being there, after visiting, if you can't make it there, just do a lot of reading, look at a lot of photos. Google Maps is amazing because you can drop a little guy down into the street and look and you can see different things. And then you can always find photos from history, uh, from the past, if stuff changed, know big cities like San Francisco or something like that, for example. But with Ipswich, I did a ton of studying ahead of time. I really wanted to learn about the area. I picked the town because of its location in northern Massachusetts, because it's close to the sea. Um, that's something I really love. I love sailing. I love all things nautical. And so I picked something close to the sea and it has a really unique name and it's in a very unique spot, and it has a unique look as well. And so from there, I just started studying the town. Um, I read up on its history. Um, I read up on some of the big things that have happened there. They had three or four different presidents use this presidential room in their library or something like that. Or two presidents, something like that. Yeah, something like —there's things like that, like when I visited, that was neat to see. But when you do all that studying and then you go visit the town.

Jennia: Mhm.

Harrison: It's very strange because it feels like you made this thing up in your head, even though you didn't, it existed before you were born, but you show up there and you're walking around and you're like, oh, this is where that happens in my book. And this is where that happens in my book. And, uh, I think that's really original. I don't think that happens in a lot of literary work, but I like the idea of being able to walk in that town and point to different places and being like this was in the book that's in the book. You know, you can find this here. The last thing I want is to open up Goodreads one day and see a review that says, I'm from Ipswich, Massachusetts, and this place that he described is nothing like my hometown, he's full of crap and all that. That's the last thing I want to hear. So I think just putting the product first and putting my work first and making that the best it can possibly be definitely involves visiting those locations.

Jennia: Was there anything that was different in person than what you anticipated it would be like?

Harrison: It was a lot smaller in person. I grew up in small town, North Dakota.

Jennia: Mhm.

Harrison: So for me to say a little town is small. It's very small. Yeah, other than that, it was perfect. Just the way I had imagined it. Just the way—I mean, I'd seen tons of pictures. I kind of knew where I was going without a map. Like, I'd obsessed over this little town for months. But yeah, it was amazing.

Jennia: How did you start doing your research? Was there a source you went to first or some type of source even that you looked to?

Harrison: So for the story as a whole, this story kind of came to me after I had just been doing some hobby reading. That's one thing—the book On Writing by Stephen King, I think that's an amazing book. Even if you have zero talent and you can't write and you failed English and all this stuff, if you read that book and apply those tactics, you'll be able to turn out a readable manuscript, I think. Anyways, I was hobby reading, and I picked up a book called Mindhunter by John Douglas and Markable Olshaker

Jennia: Mhm.

Harrison: Amazing book. So I picked up Mindhunter. I finished it in like, three days.

Jennia: Nice.

Harrison: I was like, this is amazing. And it's basically about this FBI profiler's career, how he got started, how he kind of developed the profiling program from something that was stigmatized. This is like the late seventies, um, Hoover is still in the FBI. It's very blue or black suits, shiny shoes. Like, you've got a list and you got to pay attention. Rule of the law. There's some corruption still going on.

Jennia: Mhm.

Harrison: Um, as always. And, uh, but when they explain it and they lay it out, you learn that it's a very scientific process. They pulled in Ann Burgess, who is a, uh, I don't want to mistitle her. She was a very prominent professor in psychology and/or psychiatry. I don't want to mistitle her. She's amazing. I read one of her books as well. They brought her in. She helped them develop from a clinical standpoint. And so they developed this scientific process. But their biggest struggle was getting it past the old heads of the FBI. There was times when they missed, and they missed big, but for the most part, it's a very effective tool. And so I was reading this book, learning about this, and I was like, this is amazing. Come to find out, it's so amazing Netflix made a TV show about it, there's two seasons. Um, but after studying that, I was like, okay, this is interesting. I'm just going to kind of file it in the back of my brain. And then I guess just one day, I was thinking the right kind of way, and the little grain of sand inside the clam started turning into a pearl.

Jennia: Uh, I love that.

Harrison: And all of a sudden, about six months later, I popped this thing out.

Jennia: Good for you!

Harrison: Kind of how it goes.

Jennia: Yeah. So apart from setting, what other areas of the book did you research or what other parts of the narrative?

Harrison: I did a lot of research into the profiling specifically. I wanted to get that right, because as I kind of started obsessing over the subject, obsessing over the topic matter, I read some other fictional books that focus on profiling, and I started being able to pick out things. I'm like, yeah, but that's not right. And that's okay. It's fiction, so you're able to make those mistakes. I just don't want to do that in my work.

Jennia: Why do you think that's important? I mean, what's the reason that you've decided not to bend the rules a little bit and to try and be as factual as possible?

Harrison: So I do bend the rules. I mean, there are points when things bend a little bit, but I want to bend them in a way where, let's see how to phrase this. If they were bent like that in real life, the outcome would be the same. Right? So I don't know, it's like teeing up a scenario and then being able to chip it with the real life information,

Jennia: Mmm

Harrison: If that makes sense.

Jennia: Yeah, no,

Jennia: Definitely.

Harrison: If I take this guy who's been killing people about once a week, every other week for the past month—

Jennia: Mhm.

Harrison: —that's a pretty rare case. You're not usually gonna find a killer that's moving that rapidly and that quickly. And, uh, I wanted my book to move quickly because if it's dragging out over years, it's not as interesting in my opinion. It doesn't have that thrilling element, especially when characters are getting involved and it's like, oh, maybe one of the characters is a target. You want to have that fast-paced environment. Like, you want to feel like this person's next.

Jennia: Right, right.

Harrison: And so even though that's an extremely rare scenario, I take that scenario and I tee it up and I say, okay, well, if there was someone killing once a week, once every other week, how would they handle it? And then I go from there. So you kind of bend, but then you also, you put it through that filter of, uh, what would actually happen in this scenario. So I started studying profiling. I wanted to get it right. I especially wanted to be able to write a good profile in the book. Now, the FBI, as you can imagine, gatekeeps the exact forms and formulas for profiling. They don't want those out there for everybody to use. And I don't have, uh, I guess the clout to go in there and ask for them, just to use them for a book. And so, uh, what I did is I just kind of studied a few of their different cases, kind of got a loose format for it, and then I actually had my character write a real profile, and it's in the book. That was probably the heaviest amount of research I did. Now, the most fun research I got to do was interviewing law enforcement personnel. That was amazing. That was, uh, that's also in my author's note. I thank them because without them, this book wouldn't have been half of what it is. And that was so amazing because I knew I had to do it for the book because the two main characters, or the three main characters, I guess, are an FBI profiler, a state investigator, and then a local investigator. They're working together on a multi-agency task force.

Jennia: Mhm.

Harrison: I was like, okay, well, I got to get this right. So I got to find people from the state level and I got to find people from the local level and I got to interview them. And I was kind of dragging my feet on that because I was like, man, I'm going to go interview these detectives. And they're going to think, like, they're going to be like, why are you writing fake stories about our careers? Like, this is serious, this, that and the other thing. And when I sat down for my first interview, I was blown away by how willing they were to be like, yeah, let's talk about it. You have questions, you have scenarios? And it was just amazing. And that was across the board. That was everybody. That was the former assistant DA that I talked to. That was the former, uh, head of a state police organization that I talked to. Um, that was the local detective that I talked to. I mean, that was the police officer at Ipswich that I talked to. That was across the board. It was just amazing. And from that, I was able to gain not only what you would call, like, factual things to put in the book, like what I could get from reading—I could just read a police manual. But you gain real life experiences. You're able to take in some of their, like, yeah, generally this happens, but in this scenario, this might happen. And things like that were very helpful. Like, you don't really learn that just by reading. So those interviews, even in a fictional setting—I had some people that were kind of confused. They thought it was nonfiction.

Jennia: Oh!

Harrison: And I was like, no, this is—I'm making this up because I was asking questions like it was fictional. And they're like, is this a real . . .? And I'm like, oh, I'm sorry. I must not have made that clear. This is not real. But yeah, that was by far my favorite part of the research process. I plan on doing that with all of my story matter. I like talking to people, just in general. So when you get to talk to them about something I love, that intersects with something that they are very good at or something that they love, um, are passionate about, it's just amazing.

Jennia: Yeah. How do you come up with your list of interview questions? Or do you tend to do more of a freestyle interview? Or do you go in with an actual list printed out that you are ready to just go down question by question?

Harrison: So all—I love notebooks, um, in specific little sharpie pens. They're my favorite. So I'll, uh, sit down and generally what I'll do is the day before,

Jennia: Mhm.

Harrison: I'll try and think of a few open-ended questions. I don't really like the yes or no's. Like, could this happen? Could this happen? I'd rather open ended because that's how you get some of those interesting stories. And I'll sit down with, I'll probably bullet point out five of those and try and touch on each of those in an interview that usually last around an hour.

Jennia: Mhm.

Harrison: From there, it always spins off into something else, something I wasn't expecting, or I'll think of something in the moment. I try not to keep it rigid. I try to keep it open. I find that that works the best. My biggest, and this is for the young authors out there, of which I'm probably at the bottom of the age spectrum for. My biggest hur—it wasn't even a hurdle. It was just something, thankfully, I was aware of. But was my age. I knew, you know, calling up, uh, Investigator so and so from the police department, and they hear me talking, and they meet me and they're like, this guy's like a kid. I needed to make it very clear that I was very serious about this story. I was serious about their careers, and I was serious about the questions I was asking. And I did that by formulating really well-worded and specific but open-ended questions. That immediately opened them up from, oh, this is just a kid I'm talking to, to, we're actually having a good back and forth conversation, and it's no fault of theirs. I would feel the same way if I was, uh, a 30 year veteran of the state police force and I'm talking to some kid. I'm not going to give him all the beans right off the bat, because who knows what he's going to do? So I totally understand, but that was something I was very aware of going into those interviews, and I think it would be wise for young authors to just pay attention to that, because if people know that you're taking your own project seriously, you take their time and their career seriously, they're going to take you seriously, and that's how you get the best product.

Jennia: Yeah, completely agree. How much of your book did you have to have plotted before you went in? And if you didn't have something plotted, did you come up with a question later that you wished you would have asked?

Harrison: Yeah. So with Watch It Burn—Watch It Burn was a little bit different. I didn't do any interviews for that book. Watch It Burn is about the Italian 'Ndrangheta mob in the 1980s. Um, so it takes place far away from anybody that I know, uh, or anybody that I have a connection to. I did a lot of reading for that one, and I just started writing and started going for it. The Italian mob is a lot different than the American mob that people are familiar with from movies and, uh, you know, books and stuff like that. So getting those differences correct was key for me, because there are certain things that don't happen in the Italian mob that do happen in the American mob, and I want to get that stuff right. That's pretty basic. I want to get parts of the area right and things like that just differentiate between the groups. And there is some crossover because the story is about an American mobster who marries into an Italian crime family in Italy. As far as plotting went for Watch It Burn—

Jennia: Mhm.

Harrison: —You know, I never have, like, a general master plan. I think, uh, this isn't my quote, but "The best way to immortalize bad ideas is to write them down." In my opinion, at least in my experience—

Jennia: Mhm.

Harrison: —if I were to write down an outline for a book that's 115,000 words long, that's about a four month writing process for me. I write really quickly. I write every day, so it helps. But that's a four month writing process. Over four months, the story always changes. The content always changes. Sometimes it's in huge ways, sometimes it's just little personality ticks in the characters, but it always changes. And if you're following that outline, those changes, which are like, 98% of the time, they're for the better. I've never published a change that I've been like, this wasn't very good change, obviously. But those changes are always for the better. And if you have such a strict outline—now, you can have like, act one is about this, and act two is about—I do that. That's necessary, otherwise you'll get lost. But having those strict outlines, I feel like, really restricts kind of how you can change the characters, how you can change the environment, things like that, that I feel like are very important to be able to have that fluidity. Now, if you're writing a mystery like Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane, which is fantastic book, it's my favorite novel of all time. Um, if you're writing Shutter Island you have to write stuff down, because that book is so complex. There's so much going on. There's 30 characters. You have to write that down, but you don't have to write down—you don't have to get so surgical with it where it's like, this happens, and that happens, and this, happens, chapter by chapter, like, no way.

Jennia: Well, have you ever had something come up in your research that has been the catalyst for one of those changes? Apart from what you mentioned earlier about the setting and the houses and the river?

Harrison: Yeah. And those are like the minor kind of topographical changes I was talking about. Uh, as far as big changes go, November's Whisper was definitely my biggest second draft rework. If you read the first draft of the book and then you read the second draft of the book they would seem very similar, but you'd know that they're different books. Um, the outcome is the same, the mystery is the same, but there's several things that shift around and most of that revolved around visiting Ipswich. Uh, but some of that also revolved around the continuing interviews I did with law enforcement—

Jennia: Oh okay.

Harrison: —where I learned certain things where I'm like, okay, this wouldn't happen. This is—this is too crazy, right? This is too out there. Like, we talked about bending the rules. It's too much bending. And I tell myself this. I just kind of internalize it where I'll run a scenario by somebody and they'll just kind of look at me with glassy eyes and they're like, this kid's crazy. And so then I'll get rid of that and fix it. So I did a few things like that. Unfortunately, they're kind of integral moments to the story so I don't want to give anything away.

Jennia: Yes, that's fair.

Harrison: Um, but if you see there's a couple of big moments towards the end, the last act, the third act there are some big moments and most likely in those big moments I changed some stuff from the original just because it didn't quite fit and it didn't fit with the rest of the story. You're trying to keep things realistic and then all of a sudden you have some big explosion. I want to make my stories realistic in the sense, I guess the example I give sometimes is True Detective. I want a, uh, a detective or an investigator to read my story and when they get to the end of it, I want them to go, that was cool how he incorporated a lot of real life scenarios. Some of that stuff would never happen but it was really neat that he put it in there. I want them to think it was cool even though it might not happen. I want them to think it was interesting without them going, "That was so unrealistic. That would never happen. It ruined the book for me."

Jennia: I think you've just completely nailed exactly why you want to have these elements in there and why you went to do your research because you couldn't even do that otherwise.

Harrison: Yeah.

Jennia: For our last question, do you have any favorite resources or places that you would direct other authors to go to if they want to start conducting their own research for their own manuscript or even resources to stay away from?

Harrison: Resources to stay away from. Now, that is good. The problem with resources to stay away from is you just learn by using them. I mean, I can—I can use that in terms of fictional books that I read. As an author, I think, especially if you're a fiction author, um, reading other fiction is very healthy. It's like taking your vitamins, eating right, and exercising. It's very healthy for you. It's healthy for your mind, and it changes your work. I notice my work changes depending on who I'm reading and just in little ways that probably only I notice, but it does. And I think that's very healthy. But you're going to run into authors where you're like, wow, this is—this is tough. Reading this is a hard—and then you'll look, and they've got 30,000 reviews on Amazon, and they're New York Times number one bestselling. And you're like, well, this is crazy. But it's encouraging because you're like, well, that little egotistical part of you goes, well, I think I'm better than this person. I think there's probably a few other people out there that would think I'm better than this person. And if they're New York Times number one bestseller and they've got 30,000 Amazon reviews, that means that I can get there, too. So I guess as far as what to stay away from, you don't know until you try. And, uh, you'll be able to find out what's real and what's fake just by double checking and other sources. But my go to when I have an idea, I punch it into Google and I see what comes up. Then I just go down rabbit holes. I'll spend hours on my computer reading articles, finding books. If I see a book mentioned on a specific topic more than three or four times in different places, I'm reading that book. That's like a must. That's like the teacher's must homework. Like, you've got to get that done, otherwise you're going to fail the class—

Jennia: It's on the syllabus.

Harrison: —you've got to read that. And one of my biggest hacks is Audible. I suggest that everybody gets an Audible account. Whether you're a writer, just a reader, or you just want to learn. Audible has a ton of free books you can listen to every month with your subscription. It's like $15 a month. You get a book credit every month. I'm kind of pitching for Audible here.

Jennia: Yeah you are. We should tag them.

Harrison: You get a book credit every mon—yeah, right? You, uh, get a book credit every month, and that allows you to purchase any title in their library. Um, then when you're done with that, if you're like me and you're done with that in three days, then, um, you can just go through their free books. They change them out every month, so there's always new stuff to read. They put good titles in there.

Jennia: It's pretty good. Yeah, and just to add to that, they have all the free podcasts too. And a lot of those will touch on certain areas of history or certain royal families or certain historical events. So you can really do that deep dive just listening to those and then going from there.

Harrison: Yeah. And shout out to, uh, Small Town Dicks. That is an amazing podcast about detectives. It's all these true detective stories. Some of them are really grandiose, they're true, but they're crazy. Some of them are just normal day to day, uh, things, but they're all told by the detectives that investigate them, which is something that's super special. And it gives you that unique glimpse into the life of a law enforcement professional.

Jennia: Yeah, I guess that even being helpful for dialogue or characters—

Harrison: Yeah! Oh for sure. I mean, slang—

Jennia: and coming across their personality hearing that. Yeah.

Harrison: Yeah, having different slang words, I mean, that's the hardest part, is coming up with some of those—that insider information. Right?

Jennia: Yes.

Harrison: So that was one of the things going back to the interviews where you're talking and they say something you've never heard of and you're like, what's that? And they're like, oh, that means this. And you're like, oh, great. Okay. Write that down. Put that in the book. Just another way to connect with those kindred spirits.

Jennia: Yeah. Well, thanks again for being here. This was really fun, and I feel like I learned a lot.

Harrison: Yeah, absolutely! Thanks for having me. This was amazing. We'll have to do this again sometime.

Jennia: Yeah, definitely.

Jennia: And that's all for today. Thank you for listening. And please check out the show notes for more information. Next week, I'll be talking to author and agent, Lucinda Halpern about her new book, Get Signed. Please join me then. Thank you.