Bestselling Author Of “Gates Of Fire” Reveals All About Hollywood, Writing Historical Fiction, The Evolution Of The Publishing Industry, Being A Guru, Getting Letters From Soldiers, What He Feels The Bush Administration Has Done To The Country, And His New Novel “Killing Rommel”
(The best excerpts from the goodreads Q&A...)
PRESSFIELD ON HOLLYWOOD
FAN QUESTION: Because your historical fiction is heavy on the historical, it seems like Hollywood doesn’t know how to turn your books into blockbuster films. Braveheart, Gladiator, Troy, Alexander, Kingdom of Heaven, The Last Samurai, 300. Millions of people love this genre. Have you ever thought about putting your screenwriter hat back on and crafting an original script? You could bring a lot of moment to moment battle-truth to this kind of movie, and maybe elevate it to a higher level of artistry.
PRESSFIELD: Tinseltown is tough, as you know. There's a big difference between being a novelist, however successful, and being an A-list screenwriter.
FAN QUESTION: I read years ago that Gate of Fire was going to be made by Michael Mann, who's my favorite director, but the studios killed it because the budget was too high, and pre-Gladiator no one thought the genre could bring in enough box office to make a profit.
PRESSFIELD: In a way I'm glad "Gates" hasn't been made as a movie yet. At least it hasn't been screwed up!
FAN QUESTION: So, no force on earth could persuade you to craft a kick-ass original screenplay in the genre we love? Surely you must be beloved in Hollywood, enough to lure a major director to make a Pressfield Historical Epic...?
PRESSFIELD: I'm in there swinging but a bit superstitious about talking about it right now.
FAN QUESTION: I didn’t care for "Bagger Vance" the movie, did you?
PRESSFIELD: I hated it too. But once you cash the check, it would only be churlish to complain. I had no experience with actors because they fired my ass before the first frame of film was exposed. I got to visit the location for one day, then they said, "Here's your cup of coffee, there's the van to the airport." But I can't complain. It was still a movie and we all know how hard it is to get a movie made, even a bad one.
PRESSFIELD ON WRITING HISTORICAL FICTION
FAN QUESTION: Which of your books is your bestselling book?
PRESSFIELD: "Gates of Fire" by quite a margin.
FAN QUESTION: Which do you feel is your best written book? Your next one?
PRESSFIELD: I hope so.
FAN QUESTION: Which of your books do you just, plain, love the most?
PRESSFIELD: Still "Tides of War." Although books are like kids, you love 'em all.
FAN QUESTION: Do you feel there is any correlation at all between how much an author loves his book, how well crafted it is, and how it sells...? Or is selling books just marketing and luck?
PRESSFIELD: No, I don't think there's any correlation. If there is, it might even be inverse. I'm not sure what factors make a book sell. Look at "Davinci Code." Nobody saw that coming, least of all the writer.
FAN QUESTION: Your next book, which you said is set a few years in the future... I’m not going to ask you anything about the story. As an author I know that talking about it before it’s done dissipates the creative energy. But my question is, do you have a long list or a short list or no list of ideas for future books? Do you have, say, your next few books you’re going to write waiting in a queue?
PRESSFIELD: I don't have the next ones in a queue. I'm just hoping the next one pops up when I need it. Did you see the very interesting (to me) comment by Norman Mailer that was quoted in his obituary, where they asked him if he had any regrets? He said yes, there were a few books he had in his head that he wished he had written. Sounds like you will not have that problem. As a sidebar on this, apropos of nothing, I was just at a reunion of college buddies; I asked one friend, who had been married three times, if he had any regrets. He said, "I wish I had married a few more women."
FAN QUESTION: What’s your process for writing your historical novels?
PRESSFIELD: I approach an historical novel just like a contemporary novel. The story comes first and underlying the story is the theme -- "what it's about." I bend historical "facts" to the theme of the story. I try not to bend them too much. But I keep in mind that I'm not writing a history or a biography, I'm writing a novel. Here's an example: in "Virtues of War" (which was about Alexander the Great), the theme was leadership and how closely a genius leader should follow his own "daimon." I wanted Alexander to represent that leader and the subordinate characters, particularly his generals, to represent different aspects of that theme. So I took two of them, Craterus and Hephaestion, and took literary license to make them what I needed them to be. There was some historical basis for this, as much as can be known of that era, but for the most part I was just "taking them over." I made Craterus represent the hard-core warrior for whom victory is everything and I made Hephaestion a more moral commander who believed that how one conducted himself as a warrior was just as important as whether one won or not. Between the two, I had Alexander -- torn between these different points of view. Does that make sense? In other words, the theme dominates; historical "fact" is respected but secondary. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
FAN QUESTION: Do female readers enjoy your Amazon warrior novel, or do they find it too brutal?
PRESSFIELD: I do believe that human nature is a settled thing, as you say, that seems to manifest itself in the same ways over and over again in different cultures, e.g. tribal societies of ancient ages and contemporary urban gangs. And yes, in writing "Amazons," I very deliberately and consciously used models of other cultures, particularly the horse cultures of the American Indians of the West. As to response from female readers, there have been two types: very enthusiastic responses from women who can relate to the Amazons and who feel that that side of the feminine soul has been underexpressed and underappreciated, and tepid to antagonistic from those who are more traditional. Basically they just tune the story out. Of course I'm only a guy and what do I know, but I really believe that that warrior sisterhood is a part of the feminine psyche that's been buried under centuries of male domination, brainwashing, "feminization," etc. It's not all Manolos and "Sex and the City!"
FAN QUESTION: What kinds of fiction do you enjoy reading?
PRESSFIELD: I'm not much of a reader of fiction. Most of the books that have influenced me are ancient and factual. As I said in another post, Plato's Dialogues, Plutarch's Lives and his "Moralia" ("Sayings of the Spartans" and "Sayings of the Spartan Women." I love everything by Xenophon. Herodotus. People find Thucydides thick going but I love it. Passages in there are tattooed indelibly on my brain. Of modern stuff, two books that have influenced me tremendously are Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" and Walker Percy's "The Moviegoer." I think it's the cinematic style, the way they both make you and absolutely "see" something and let the emotion arise out of that.
FAN QUESTION: Do you like Ayn Rand?
PRESSFIELD: I've tried a number of times to read "Atlas Shrugged" or "The Virtue of Selfishness" (is that the right title?) but I just can't get into them. I feel bad about it, but I just can't penetrate them.
FAN QUESTION: What inspired you to write “Killing Rommel?”
PRESSFIELD: I was just "grabbed" by the story of the Long Range Desert Group, the British special forces outfit that fought against Rommel's Afrika Korps behind the lines in the North African campaign. I loved their old Chevy truck and "rat patrol" jeeps; I loved the "muddling through" aspect of the English soldier (and New Zealanders, which many of them were); and I loved the chivalry of that campaign, where machine gunners of both sides held their fire when crews bailed out of disabled tanks and wounded men of both Axis and Allies were routinely treated side-by-side in dressing stations and hospitals of both sides, in a campaign that Rommel called "Krieg Ohne Hass," War Without Hate. My next book (I hope I won't disapoint you) is even farther from the ancient world, it's set a few years into the future.
FAN QUESTION: How much research did it require?
PRESSFIELD: It takes of ton of the stuff. The number of hours is into the thousands. Basically, I do it the old-fashioned way. I read books. I take copious notes, mark the hell out of the books themselves; I keep dozens of files on such topics as Slang, Weapons, Geography, Weather, Vehicles, Quotes. Every detail I find, I write it down somewhere and try to work the best ones in where they'll bring the story to life. A book takes me two to two and a half years. In a way, each one is like a Ph.D. I know I've researched a topic enough when I'm reading a book on the subject and I start seeing mistakes in it. When I find myself saying, "That's wrong, it didn't happen like that," then I know I know more than the writer of that particular book. It's total immersion. It's fun!
FAN QUESTION: Any advice for new authors who want to write historical fiction?
PRESSFIELD: Here's something else about research, if you're thinking of tackling a historical subject yourself: don't let doing research stop you from writing. Don't use it as an excuse. Plunge in, shape the story ... you can always alter it if the facts contradict (which they rarely do.) In a writing day, I'll often take the first hour for research-related stuff, like transcribing into files whatever I've been dog-earing in a book I've been studying. After that hour, I stop and get into the actual work. I use the hour to kind of "warm up," before getting down to the really hard part -- the blank page. It works.
PRESSFIELD ON THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY
FAN QUESTION: How do you feel about the way the publishing industry has evolved?
PRESSFIELD: When I was working on "Tides of War," back in '99 I think, my wonderful editor Shawn Coyne had some problems with the mansucript. He flew out to California and stayed with me for three days, going over everything. He sent me back to the drawing board for the next four months (and I probably should have done a month or two more.) That would never happen today. Publishing has changed dramatically. Shawn himself has since left Doubleday, started his own publishing house which succeeded very well for a time; now's he a lit agent at Endeavor. Take as much as you want out of that! Basically a writer today has to be an excellent self-editor. I'm very much opposed to paying money to freelance editors. Maybe it works out sometimes but I've never seen it happen. Editors today are so under the gun, they just don't have time to help shape manuscripts. In a way, that job has fallen to agents, at the pre-submission stage. For example, Shawn now does a lot of that for his clients at Endeavor -- working on the manuscript before it's submitted. A good editor, yes, can make a tremendous difference. Sometimes the writer himself is just too close to his material. In practice these days, such a task usually falls to the writer's peers, colleagues and friends on an informal basis (and a lot of friendships are ruined thereby). Most of us need help. We need a fresh pair of eyes -- or more than one. That said, I'm still very much a believer in doing it yourself. It's your book. Listen, take things to heart, but in the end it's yours and you have to do it.
FAN QUESTION: Do you have much say into your book covers or maps?
PRESSFIELD: I had minimal input in the maps and cover, just a little "consultation." It seems to just work that way.
FAN QUESTION: How much does your publisher help with the marketing?
PRESSFIELD: For "Killing Rommel," I did a whole big marketing thing myself. If you're interested, look on my website and click "The Videos." It tells everything. But basically I had two independent internet marketing people, my own website people, plus a video crew and all kinds of stuff -- in addition to getting a lot of help from my publisher, including them springing for a little TV advertising on the Military Channel. Without all that, the book would have sunk without a trace.
FAN QUESTION: How long does it you take to write and sell a novel?
PRESSFIELD: "Gates" took about two years. I already had an agent from a prior book, "The Legend of Bagger Vance," but when he took "Gates" out, he couldn't find a buyer. Here's what worked: my manager from Hollywood, Rich Silverman, had the bright idea and managed to plant an item in a Daily Variety column about screenwriters who had also written novels. The item mentioned "Gates" and gave a very brief description of the subject matter. An editor at Doubleday, Shawn Coyne, just happened to spot it and phoned my agent. That was how the book got published.
PRESSFIELD ON BEING A GURU
FAN QUESTION: Are you surprised by the success of “War of Art” among non-writers?
PRESSFIELD: When I wrote "War of Art," I wrote it for writers primarily. I figured other types of artists and entrepreneurs experience Resistance by nowhere near as bad as writers. I was wrong! I've gotten a gazillion e-mails from actors, dancers, photographers, software developers, not to mention people in all kinds of marketing where they're on their own, not part of some overarching organization. Resistance seems to be universal. Anybody who's trying to do something artistic, inventive and original has to fight that battle. It ain't just writers!
PRESSFIELD ON LETTERS FROM SOLDIERS
FAN QUESTION: Do you know your books are incredibly popular with soldiers?
PRESSFIELD: I'm tremendously humbled by the hugely positive response to my books, particularly "Gates of Fire" and "The Afghan Campaign" by troopers serving in harm's way for our country. That's kind of the ultimate test for this type of book. I'm honored that my stuff strikes a chord and seems to help a little.
FAN QUESTION: How do you get the combat in your novels to seem so real?
PRESSFIELD: I have never engaged in hand-to-hand combat except a couple of times when I came out very much on the short end. To help imagine that kind of hoplite combat though, I did spend a couple of days with Hunter Armstrong in Sedona, AZ. He is a swords master, Japanese and other schools, and a "weapons athlete" and a hoplologist (you can google his institute, which is very interesting.) Anyway he helped me get a real-life picture of what it must be like. In the end, however, it's all about imagination. That's what fiction is. How could a Western, Caucasian man write "Memoirs of a Geisha?" How could Homer, who was blind and lived several hundred years after the fact of the Trojan War, write the Iliad. He asked the Muse to help him and so does every writer of fiction. In fact, I've found in my own writing that the more "fictional" a scene is, the more convincing it is to the reader. It's the real-life stuff that often comes off false.
FAN QUESTION: Have you thought about writing a novel set in the Iraq war?
PRESSFIELD: As for writing about the current war in Iraq, I'm not exactly doing that, but my newest project, the one I'm working on right now (I'm too superstitious to say too much about it) definitely zigs and zags within that arena. I think we might put a couple of rounds on the target before it's over. We'll see!
FAN QUESTION: What do you think about the Bush administration?
PRESSFIELD: What's wrong with our government now, the current administration, in my view, is that they are not keeping their oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," which is, in my opinion, the true expression of the soul and identity of the country. In fact the Bush administration, in my view, holds the Constitution in contempt. Their loyalty, in my opinion, is to their own party and even to a thin slither of interest groups within it. A very strong case could be made that they entered their administration with the absolute goal of advancing the interests of their party at the expense of the Constitution and of the country as a whole.
Full Q&A at goodreads.com
Learn more at www.StevenPressfield.com
