Recently a friend posted that he was releasing his first novel this week. I had no idea he was writing one, but immediately I was curious about his experience and path to publication. But I should go back. Calling him Charles feels weird. I don't know if he goes by Charlie professionally, but I know him as Wachter. I knew him when he was a young man making indiscretions, but I will not mention those here. A few years back a friend who was producing documentaries moved to LA, and I introduced them. They had coffee, and I do not know what resulted from that. My friend was new in LA, but had a documentary he recently announced was finally being released as a feature film. Maybe Wachter had something to do with that, but I don't know.
In fact, I know very little about the Hollywood industry. I have a few friends like Wachter who have made their careers there, but are quiet people, not celebrities in the spotlight. They get married and have families, and do their thing. However, when Wachter published a novel, then he and I are intersecting in our creativity, and that's fun. He did not talk about his novel, so he had a lot to bring me up to speed. Other writers might appreciate hearing about his creative process and experience.
Apparently there was a reason he never mentioned this book, because it first appeared as a concept fifteen years ago. That's right. He wrote this book while having a full time producer job, in between production schedules. Perhaps those with limited time schedules chipping away at their novel can find inspiration in this. His inspiration was Chrichton. He spent three years breaking down Chrichton's writing, so he could model his writing in a similar style. Then he spent another three years on outline/ research. He began writing in 2013, but he shared with me that that sometimes looked like writing four or five times that year, nothing regular. In 2018 he had a break between production projects, and pushed out 40% to near the end.
He highly recommended to me undergoing all three types of editing, and based on my frustrating experience in the spring, I felt validated by two issues he mentioned that not all editors had understood. He said first the developmental edit needs to come BEFORE proof reading or line edits. It seems obvious, right? Then he said always trust people who identify consistent issues - if three people say it is a problem, it is probably a problem. BUT he also validated my visceral reaction any time someone starts with the words "You should," I check out. He said that never trust someone who tells you how to solve the problem, because they are not in the creative drivers seat. It's amazing to me how much flack I was getting in the spring trying to tell people not to operate this way, and getting called all kinds of names!
So, Wachter's book! Of course we should talk about the final product.
https://www.amazon.com/Twin-Paradox-Charles-Wachter/dp/1735361224
He said "Ready Player One meets Jurassic Park" is the best of it, but there are a lot of layers going on. Reading the synopsis, I told him I had no idea how he had done this ten years in three minutes business. He did not give me any spoilers there, and said that was meant to be the draw of people who were interested in time bending phenomena. He did say it is a group of 18 year olds, though he did not mean it to be consider YA. He said it was like the Stranger Things, where the cast was younger, but it was written for adults. He classified it as Thriller and hard Sci-Fi.
One tip he had for me on exposition, was he said he liked thinking in terms of Cameron, who said "the more I have to explain, the more action there is," and recommended the trick of putting heavy world building while characters are in an action sequence like a car crash, trying to figure things out. Hope we see some writers out there showing us that trick soon!
Other than that, Charlie Wachter said if groups want him to tune in virtually for an author chat, he welcomes the opportunity. He said in a world where he is collaborating with others, he really enjoyed this creative process that was just his, and he loves talking about the process with others. He has started the next book, but he did say it might take him another ten years, so not to look for it too soon. You can reach his agent at CAA for inqueries.
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