I had the chance to sit down with first-time novelist Matt Richtel. Matt's written one of the best thrillers of the year, Hooked: A Thriller About Love and Other Addictions. However, writing is not new to Matt by a long shot. He covers technology and telecommunications for the New York Times, at their San Francisco bureau. He's written on many topics, including Internet gambling, identity theft, and the Silicon Valley economy and culture. 

He also writes the syndicated daily comic strip, "Rudy Park", which appears in newspapers around the country. He writes the strip under the pen name, "Theron Heir", and is illustrated by Darrin Bell. 
 
 

Robert Lewis: How did the book happen? What made you decide to write the book in the first place? 

Matt Richtel: I think I was viciously attacked by a muse. The muse led me to a café and I wrote the first page and a half and then I was so interested in what had caused the café to blow-up and what had happened to the protagonist's ex-girlfriend that I started writing the story. And a book ensued. There was a point where I actively decided to write a book, but that's not how the process started out. The process started out with a few pages and some questions. 

Lewis: Did you go back after you realized that you had a book, go back and THEN created an outline? Or did you walk down that dark hallway with a flashlight pointed at your feet, watching what comes up? 

Richtel: Definitely a little head lamp that blinked on and off, and sometimes the batteries went out. I didn't realize how hard it was to write a book. I was fairly cavalier about the idea, that I could just sit down and write. Having been a journalist, I was accustomed to writing 1000 words a day, so it wasn't very hard for me to open the flood gates and let my imagination roam and have a enough of a writing muscle to force it through. I think that now that I'm trying it a second time, realizing how hard it is to write a book, I'm much more disciplined about trying to understand what might be around the next corner, or the next three or four corners ahead. So, I think in brief what drove it was passion, ignorance, and luck. 

Lewis: The first book can be, I think, sometimes like a lucky experiment. 

Richtel: Yeah, I think so. 

Lewis: It's the beauty of not having any foreknowledge. Like beginner's luck. 

Richtel: To me it's a bit of an accidental thriller. The one thing I was cognizant of was that I wanted to keep readers attention, so I kept introducing hooks at the end or middle of chapters. It propelled me to answer what was happening and I hoped it would propel readers to keep going. I wound up with a thriller without really intending to write one. 

Lewis: There's a really great quote by Science Fiction author Alfred Bester, where he said, "The book is the boss". 

Richtel: Totally. 

Lewis: From what you say, that's how you managed it, and let the book go where it needed to go? 

Richtel: The book was the boss of me, yes. I let it go where it was going to go, although with one big and important caveat: I don't think I could've written the book had I not two basic ideas in mind. One, what the conspiracy was about, and the other was about the emotional content of the book and where I wanted it to end up. If I don't have at least a general idea of a point on the horizon I'm heading for, I've got a challenge on my hands. 

Lewis: So, you knew the ending? In a general way at least? 

Richtel: I knew that there was a conspiracy about compulsive tech use, and I knew how I might reveal that near the end of the book. Beyond that, the micro aspects of it were completely unknown to me. It was like the book was my GPS system, but I knew I wanted to get to the east coast. I had no idea if I would end up in Wyoming, or Texas, but I knew I was heading to the east coast. And I think that people who are writing really character-based stories can probably get away with letting the characters go where they go, but if you're writing something plot driven, you have to have an idea of where you're headed or you could end up writing in a big circle, back where you started.  

Lewis: With more character-driven fiction, it seems more about the growth or arc of the character, rather than the events surrounding that character. 

Richtel: I think one of the challenges for writing popular, commercial fiction is how much character development can you introduce and still be commercial. And I don't actually mean to suggest I want to get away with as little character development as I can. I like to put a lot in, but not to the extent that it becomes a different sort of book. That's a hard decision to make.  

Lewis: When I read Hooked, I was struck by how fitting it seemed for today's fast age; a breezy read, with short, punchy chapters. It seems to fit in more with where our minds are heading in these times.  

Richtel: We got really, really lucky from a marketing standpoint. The publisher said upon reading it that this was perfect, that we were going to market the book written in the medium, or the rhythm, of the conspiracy it seeks to illuminate. And I really didn't think about that, but in retrospect, I can see why it was more deliberate than I realized, in that I was worried that today's readers might have short attention spans. I know that when I'm busy, I have a much shorter attention span.  

Lewis: At the signing I attended, a gentleman in the audience asked whether you believed the book was a polemic, that you were making a statement of a sorts with the book, taking a stand. At the time, you said you hadn't considered it. I was wondering if you've had anytime to sit down and consider it now. Do you see the book that way? 

Richtel: I don't see it as a polemic. That would, to me suggest that I intended some lesson to come out of it. I do believe that we use tech in a hyper-compulsive way. We joke about it, very tongue in cheek, calling it the "crackberry", instead of blackberry. We're hooked and we can't get offline and we feel bored when we're not online and I think I wanted to raise the issue in a more serious fashion, but not a "slap you on the wrist" fashion. For me, polemic sounds like something you get taught at Parochial school.  

Lewis: How close is Nat to you? 

Richtel: Unfortunately I have never done any of the mildly heroic things that Nat manages to pull off. The initial drafts had Nat more heroic. The wonderful editor/publisher of the book said that if you want people to believe a mystery/thriller, it has to adhere to reality as much as possible, make people suspend disbelief as often as you can. The one part that is largely autobiographical would be the emotions in the book. I've either experienced them, or other people that I know have, and I don't think you can write a book that resonates with people, or you as a writer, unless it is drawn from a really emotionally resonate place. So, in that respect, the book is very autobiographical.  

Lewis: I think writers are addicted to knowing how other writers write their books, especially ones that get published. After you got done with the first draft, what happened with the book? What was the rewrite process on this? 

Richtel: I sent it out to some agents, and I landed one, but they had to withdraw because of some personal business. We were in the middle of a rewrite, and I had to find a new agent. With the second agent, we cleaned it up and sent out to publishers. They liked, but didn't love it, and so we did a little more work. Let me say one thing about this: if this is your first book, it's gotta be REALLY good. With my agent we went and rewrote the ending of the book, to give it a major, major twist and got it to a place that got the book sold. That first book has to really sing, beginning to end. The place where I really learned the most was in the editing process with this wonderful editor and publisher, John Carp. He was formerly at Little Random House where he worked on all sorts of great books, like Seabiscuit, and The Orchid Thief. Have we talked about his publishing house? 

Lewis: No, no we haven't.  

Richtel: Okay, so his house is called The Twelve, and it's new. It's only twelve books a year, a boutique imprint and for the most part its very well-heeled writers. The first book was by Christopher Buckley, and the next was by Christopher Hitchens. The fourth was John McCain, and the third was this first time, derelict novelist, me. John Carp calls it The Twelve, but I call it the Eleven And A Half. I had so much to learn. One of the things he told me was, "I want you to strip away from this book any language or observation that is not interesting, or telling, or unusual." So, we took 115K words and cut them to 70K. We retained the skeleton of the book, but we got rid of any dialog that wasn't pertinent to the book, or didn't tell us anything about the character uttering it. We got rid of any cliché observation about love and life, or Silicon Valley. It was almost like... well, like spring-cleaning on my copy, on a massive level. 

Lewis: Well, 50K words is A LOT to lose. 

Richtel: We got rid of every conceivable writing bacteria, microbe, cliché, or bad dialog. Then he said, "Okay, now lets go back and look for any opportunities where can make the language richer, the characterization more complex and real, the dialog more effective." He said he didn't want ANY observation of Silicon Valley that anyone has ever said before. We put back about 20K words.  

Lewis: I was really struck by the noir tone of the book. I'm a big fan of noir, and here you've got the femme fatale, the police officers that operate somewhat in the shade, you're not really sure about who your friends are. Nat's thrust into this episode, this incredible episode in his life, and I was wondering: have you read a lot of noir? Any noir heroes? It's like Hooked is this really cool modernization of the genre. 

Richtel: All those tenants you're describing were, or are things I love about noir. First and foremost, I love a book that takes an everyman, or everyperson, and puts them in an extraordinary circumstance. One that offers them the prospect that something wild could be happening in their lives. I think most of us fantasize about the idea that we could be caught in extraordinary circumstances, and those can range from what if I won the lottery, to what if I had to save the plane from terrorists? It's almost tantamount to religion where you ask, "what if I could be a part of something larger than myself?"  

Lewis: Like the classic "hero called to duty". 

Richtel: Yeah! The reluctant hero. It's partly that, but also the idea you are part of something bigger than yourself that you didn't realize. It's very exciting for me to contemplate that, and I think for a lot of readers, they not only get to escape into the story, but you get to believe that something amazing could be happening in your own life. The other tenet I try to do in my stories is to not know whom to trust. It makes every conversation interesting, and every moment potentially exciting. The great noir writers will leave to the bitter end who you can trust, and often give you a fundamental twist that explains a character's behavior that seemed inexplicable throughout. That's one thing I tried to emulate in this book. You know what else I like about those stories, too, is the sense of place. And, for some reason, I associate a lot of them with San Francisco. You know, I like the idea of a boat dock, and the bar with the ashes on the floor, the back alley, and the hat turned down with the raincoat. 

Lewis: Are you working on your next book? 

Richtel: I'm working on a next book, and it has to with memory. It has to do with how our computer memory is exploding, our gadgets are exploding, but at the same time we're having an epidemic of dementia. Our human memory is fading. The story looks at the connection between those two ideas, and revolves around a grandson, and his grandmother who is demented. The grandson is framed for murder, and the only witness that can save him is the eighty-three year old grandmother that can't remember anything she's seen.  

Lewis: How did the idea come about? 

Richtel: Well, it came a lot more slowly. I used up most of my world- view in the first one, and also a lot of my philosophies and observations. I'm intrigued by, scared by, moved by the number of people that I know, or are one degree of separation from me, that are starting to get older and are experiencing dementia. They're experiencing a physical existence, but not an emotional or intellectual one.

I think it's going to get all the more profound in the coming years, and I'm curious as to how we're going to deal with that, along with the loss of wisdom and experience we face in their absence. I'm interested in the difference between computer memory, which is exploding and lacks any emotional core, and the loss of the perspective and wisdom of Americans whose minds are becoming like motherboards wiped clean. 

Lewis: I was thinking the other day how strange it will be to live in a world where there will be no more WW2 veterans.  

Richtel: That's a piece of this. I mean, we're losing a generation that was very anchored and grounded in a truly patriotic and American perspective, and all the things that represents. You can put that in books, or on computers, but it's not the same thing as watching the passion or the voice withering away in front of you. 

Lewis: The book sounds great. Do you have an E.T.A. for this? 

Richtel: No. It's going much more slowly. I've written the first hundred pages three times. I think this version that I'm closing in on for the fourth hundred time, I think I'm getting close to a point where I'll be sharing it with my agent, and others. I having had relative success with the first one, that my bar is fairly high for doing this one right. Not only from a commercial perspective, but personally. I don't just want to write a book, I want to write one that I can walk away from saying I communicated real ideas and real emotions that were important to me that a reader will connect with.  

Lewis: Where do you see society going, this Crackberry-like society going, if this level of tech addiction remains unchecked? If it keeps exploding? 

Richtel: I think there will be some really good things that happen, and there will be some behaviors we'll need to be wary of. The problems will be when we become so accustomed to the onslaught of stimulation, that in its absence, we feel bored. When we completely lose our quiet and creative time because we have a radio in the shower, a cellphone in the car, and the TV and the computer going when we're in the living room. Nothing new in that thought, it's been talked about by lots of folks. I think the difference is that, if there's in any difference in what I'm communicating, is that the digital stream now comes to us under the guise of productivity. We're being told the more we're online the better, the more email you answer, the better. Email not fast enough? What about I.M? It's not clear to me; I thought email WAS instant. Now they've got instant messaging. It's instant-er! Where are the reflective moments going? We're being told that if we use our gadgets around the clock, we're more productive. Are we? That's the place where I worry about us. Where I worry about me.  

Lewis: Do you feel you're jacked in a lot? What are your habits? 

Richtel: I think, based on my life philosophy, mine are pretty good. I don't own a blackberry, I don't email when not sitting at my computer. I talk on the phone when I have time to myself, but I also take pains to turn it off when I'm in the room with someone else, in a conversation. I deliberately try to unhook when I know there's something I want to think about, or, you know... try to create. I notice all the time that my machines are beckoning to me. I once went to cafes where there was no email access, and at some point that jittering feeling of being away from email would go away and I'd really get into the story I was writing. Now all cafes have internet access, so, if I find myself stuck on a sentence or a paragraph, I'm prone to hooking on, and hitting refresh on my email. What am I hoping for? 

Lewis: That speaks to an interesting article I read about a guy who unplugged for a month. Turned off his computer. Sent letters instead of emails. He said it was a very interesting experience, and he learned his attention span had been really harmed by the constant use of the internet, his attention span had shortened quite a bit. I guess he had to relearn how to "be in silence", in a way. 

Richtel: I think we're getting terrified of silence. That's the direction that I fear we're headed.  

Lewis: It seems that even though we're more connected, we're more lonely. It's like it's a surface connection, not a real, deep, heart-to-heart connection. There is no more sitting around with Grandfather, him telling us his stories. 

Richtel: Yeah. My wife was just telling me that there are three communities that have the oldest living folks in the country on the whole, and they're places where the older folks remain very integrated in the community. Instead of being isolated by computers or by phone, they're actually in the community. I think there's something about connectedness that you're dead right about. 

Lewis: I was on your blog (www.mattrichtel.com) today, and read about how you haven't checked the numbers on your book.  

Richtel: I do not know. I just want to say that I'm widely in the dark about my own career.  

Lewis: How many drafts did Hooked go through, from beginning to end? 

Richtel: I'm gonna say, upwards of twenty-five. 

Lewis: Twenty-five? 

But I will say of a draft, that could mean going through it one more time to clean up all the typos, it could mean stripping out all the clichés and letting it sit, it could mean adding a single plot line that was not fundamental, but essential. A character might need to be tweaked in some way, and that meant tweaking the character throughout the whole book, but that doesn't mean the whole book was rewritten. There were 25 versions that might look different from the other 24, but that's far from a total rewrite. I would say, from a total rewrite standpoint? Let's say, four.

Lewis: A definite question that other writers want to know, ones that don't have an agent yet, is how did you get your agent? Referral? Being in journalism, did you make connections with people? 

Richtel: Yes. I knew a lot of people who knew people through journalism, and this one thing I will hugely impress: it is who you know. I sent my book out to a handful of agents, and the ones without exception who said "I want to represent you" were people who I had some indirect connection to. The others said, "Gosh, I really like your book, but I'm not the person for you." I can't believe it is a coincidence that the agents that wanted to embrace me were ones from personal references. I would say to anybody out there, looking for an agent, keep up your relationships and conversations with other writers, with other people you know that know people in the business. Don't be afraid to see this as a business. In fact, you're negligent if you don't see it that way. 

Lewis: And don't be afraid to ask for favors, I suppose! (laughs) 

Richtel: Most writers, unless they're prodigies at the age of fifteen, have been through all the wars and they're plenty sympathetic to what the rest of us are going through. Just one last thing: You asked about do I know the sales numbers. I don't know the sales numbers, but a few things have happened that have made me very happy, regardless of what those numbers end up being. The first thing is, I wrote a book. The second thing is, I sold a book. But beyond that, I've had some very nice experiences that are truly beyond what I had the right to expect: I hit the Chronicle best seller list. I hit the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News best seller list, and maybe the most cherished thing of all was that I was selected as a Book Sense (www.booksense.com)  pick for July. Booksense is the independent bookstore organization that are, well, they are readers. It let me know the kinds of people that I wanted to reach, some of them I'd reached. You know, you gotta take your victories where you can find them, and run away and stare at them with a flashlight, there in the dark.