Bestselling Author Steve Berry Ups His Story Game With The Masterpiece The Devil's Bible

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a r r o e dot net. Enjoy your exploration. Hello and good morning, Steve. How are you doing?

Dude, I got to tell you if I do believe in perfection and this is the one. I don't know what it is

about the devil's Bible. Your new book. The thing is is that it really has my attention to the point

where I don't want to put it down. I don't want to put it aside. It's it's walking with me. How

how did you do it this time? That really I've got that vibration and I can't be the only one.

Well, I hope they're not the only one. You just try to keep this suspense going. You try to

keep everything going. Keep a clip along. This is I think what you're reflecting on is something

you may not realize. This is the shortest book I've ever written. It's 91,000. It's 91,000 words.

Normally, my books are 105 to 110. Now you might think, well, shorter, you know, writing shorter

is harder, much, much harder to write. And so what happens is you got to keep it tight. You got to

keep everything in there. Nothing wasted. Everything has to have a meaning to it. And so I think you're

you're seeing a reflection of that. This is the tightest novel I've ever written.

Well, you know what? What I'm feeling also Steve is I feel like that you know exactly where we are

because I'm going to be honest with you. I loved the timestamps right there in the very beginning

because it told me as the reader, this is where we are. This is how the story is going to go. You

really you you made me feel like that I was part of this story. Well, thank you appreciate that.

That's what I tried to do. I want you to become the protagonist. I want you to get into cotton. I

want you to be part of him. And as I said, this whole book takes place over about a two day period.

So it happens. Everything happens really, really fast in this novel. A lot is going on. A lot of

things are coming at you. They're not quite what you think they are. There's some surprises in the

book. And all of that is on purpose because I wanted to kind of be in cotton world a little bit.

Well, see, and that's the very reason why I would love to sit in some sort of focus group and just

listen to people talk about cotton alone because I believe that that cotton is so effective in our

personal lives right now just at different areas of definition. But we all pull something from cotton.

Yeah, he's an ordinary guy. That's where I think people like about him. He has trouble with his

ex wife. He has trouble with his son. He has women troubles. He has a business to run. He has all

of these things that all of us deal with on an everyday basis. But he also can rise up and do

extraordinary things when called upon. I think that's what makes him interesting to people as well.

And that's how he survived now over 20 books. This is one of those stories. I mean, first of all,

it's a Swedish princess that is kidnapped. There's a backstory here. And I love back stories because

I believe that before our presence of now, there has to be a story before it. And that's what you

did. You totally fed into my imagination on this. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you. That came to me when

I was in Stockholm because I was I had my guide was taking me around, brought me over and wanted to see

me see something. And on one of the back streets there was an elderly lady walking her dog

in the snow there. And just meandering along mine in our own business. And that was the

daughter. I mean, the sister of the king of Sweden. He does it every day. My guide told me. And

that's when the novel kind of hit me. I went, oh, what happened at this and this and this and this

and this. And it all kind of came together when I saw that real life thing happening.

Don't you love that those Steve went when something like that comes to the author because

I'll be on the streets and a cobblestone street in Charleston, South Carolina. And all of a sudden

I have this unbelievable urge to write, if I walk away, I'm going to lose that vision. What about you?

Well, that's the thing. I mean, I've got to see you got to be there. You got to be there on

the ground. You got to see these things on the ground. And that was one of those moments where I

saw something quite extraordinary. And I asked some questions and she told me that the sister does

not like the security. She doesn't like people around her. She doesn't like to be all of that.

She likes to kind of stick to her cell. And all that kind of occurred to me. I said,

well, well, and of course, I changed it up quite a bit. But those are the things you learn on the

ground that you can't learn from books or online. That's where you learn when you're right there

seeing it. What are you feeling from your focus groups and your gatherings in the way that this

doesn't necessarily you don't have to be a cotton malone fan of a long time period. You can

be brand new and still sit in a conversation and hold a lot of attention by bringing in your

perception of the book. Yeah, absolutely. My books are not written. There's 20 cottons, but you

don't have to read them in order. You don't even have to read any of them. In fact, in order to know

what this one is about, you can start with this one and go backwards. I mean, that's the way I

write the series. I want you to, you know, each book in a series has to be the same but different,

which is a tall order. But that's what I try to do. I try to keep them the same but different. But

I also keep them where you know, you're not going to have to, you know, read a whole bunch of

other books in order to get this one. Each one stands on its own two feet. When you're writing the

thriller, though, it's got to move through you first. I can't imagine. I mean, because I know

how, how wild I am sitting in a chair. Do you get in the same way where it's out? You can't sit still?

There are points in a novel where that does happen. Is that a good thing? That's a good thing for me

because that means the writing is coming, the words are coming, the plot is coming. There are times

when it goes very, very slow when I'm kind of dead still and I can't figure out where to go, where

I've written myself into a corner or whatever. And I have to figure it out. But in, you, you want

those moments where everything's clicking along and you go like, okay, I know what's next. Yeah,

I know this. Now I know, now they're going to go here. Now we do there. This book was interesting

because there's, there's some things that happened later in the novel that actually never occurred

to me till I got to that moment. I got to that moment and I went, okay, this is where I want to go.

It required some rewriting to fix earlier, but it was interesting in this book in that the plot

evolved itself a little bit differently than I had envisioned. Well, part of that vision that you

hold is it to have shorter chapters because the attention span of most readers these days is

pretty much ticked talk as short as can be. Yeah, you got to have short chapters, short sentences,

short words. And now a shorter manuscript because I got it down to about 92,000 words,

which again is much harder to write than 102,000 words. But you try to get it as tight as you

can in today's world because the attention span of the reader is limited and they're getting

tugged from every direction. Yeah, please do not move. There's more with Steve Barry coming up next.

The name of his brand new book, The Devil's Bible, we are back with author Steve Barry.

How do you deal with the editors in a situation like that because I will I cringe inside my soul

when it comes back saying, Hey, look, let's let's let's work on this area and I've and revisions

just kill my soul as a creative person. How do you deal with the revisions? I'm pretty open to it.

I really do. I learned to write in a critical process where my writing was criticized. I can deal

with that. I want to I do have one rule, though. Don't tell me you don't like that or you

take that or that doesn't work without telling me why and how would you fix it?

And I want to I want to hear I want to hear what that has to say. It's really easy to say,

I don't like that. Okay. I didn't really ask you whether you liked it or not. The question is,

does it work? You know, you it may work and you just don't like it. I need to know why and how

you would fix it. And I would say, you know, I probably between my editor and Elizabeth, my wife

who does the first edit on it, I go with about 90% of what they suggest. I would say. Yeah,

because when I allow my wife to do some editing, that's that's that to me is the toughest one,

even worse than me because it's that fear of the one I love is the one that's reading what just

came from me. Oh, in mine is tough. She owns her own publishing house. She owns a blue box press,

which is a publishing house in the romance industry. She's had three number one best sellers.

She's tough. She's tough on me. She gives me she don't cut me any slack whatsoever. So her read is

always tough and and and I want it that way. I've told her I said, don't hold back. Do what you

got to do. Lay it out. And again, she knows that. She knows that when she tells me something

doesn't work. She's got to tell me why and how the book opens with second Timothy for verse seven.

Amazing. I to me that just set my heart up is what it did. I have fought the good fight. I have

finished the race. I have kept the faith. What an amazing way to start a book. It is and it

votes what's coming down the line in this novel. As I said, this novel has surprises. Cotton's world

is going to get up ended a little bit. It's already been up ended with a possible adult daughter

he might have. And now he's got some other things coming in. And over the next few books,

his world is going to change for him. That's been fun for me because I like to change things up and

do something different. But I hope it'll be fun for the reader because just like in life,

fiction has to change too. Yeah. I am a book cover snob. I love book covers because my fingers love

to touch book covers. I love the raised. It's not lettering, but it's the behind the scenes. So

there's two different layers here. I love that and my hands are just pleased because I'll sit there

and I'll just I'll play with that while I'm reading. I said, God stop it, dude, stop it. But you did

that for a reason. Yeah, it's a beautiful cover. It really is. It's a mat cover. I've only had one

other mat cover that was the Templar legacy. All the others have been glossed covers. Interestingly,

the Templar legacy is my largest selling book. So maybe there's an old man there that this book

will hopefully do well. But we wanted a feel to this book, a feel to this cover. And it is one of

the prettiest covers I've had on a novel. And you're right. The texture is different. Instead of

instead of the embossing coming up, it goes down and that it's a little bit different. Yeah,

it really is. So can you talk about a 12 part series on Netflix or Hulu that you're going to be

doing or you're going to be turning this into an animation? I mean, because this can't just sit here.

Well, it'd be nice. I've been optioned. I don't even know how many times, 15, 20 times.

But nothing yet. I still on the right. So if anybody out there is interested in making a Netflix

series, they need to give me a call. So now, now, what what becomes your learned lesson on this

project? Because that's what I love about writing. You're always going to be the students.

You're going to pick up something new along the way. Yes. Every novel I write, I make a point to

do something craft-wise that I've never done before. I do that in every novel. At least one thing I've

never done before, which is learning to finish from me. This one was to write the shortest manuscript I've

ever written in 92,000 words. And I will say it was a challenge. It was a very, very tough challenge

to write. It's the famous line from Lincoln when he was writing letters to the to the mothers of

dead soldiers. He apologized. Because if he'd had more time, he would have written shorter.

So that's what he said. It's that way. Writing shorter is harder. So this one is there. But I

liked it. I learned from it. And I'm going to try to keep it going in the books ahead.

Well, I'm going to learn through you. And the reason why is because I just had a Chicago station

invite me up to Joc Farm. And I said, no, I can't accept your job because you just want me to talk

over song intros. I can't talk over song intros anymore. It's not enough. So for you to be doing

this, now I'm going to be watching you, Steve, to find out how you experience fewer words. Because I

think that's what they teach us when it comes to brevity. Use less words. Use less words and

choose your words carefully. Because when you use less words, you got to really pay attention. And

I know this was a tough plot for me to write one this tight. But I'm glad I did it. I kind of

got the hang of it. I think I can keep it going. Wow. Where can people go to find out more about

everything you're doing? Because you are in touch. It's Steve Berry dot org. My website, all 29

books are there. The novellas are there. And everything is there. You can check it out. And

the devil's Bible's out in stores today. It's all over everywhere. So you can you can get it at

your favorite bookstore. Now, I know I'm going over the limit, but you just said novello. And I

know that we have a novello festival here in Charlotte. Don't you encourage a lot of these

unpublished authors? Please participate with the local novellas because it's an opportunity

to be seen as well as heard. Oh, definitely. Absolutely. They should do that. And novellas are tough

for me because I've always been a novel writer. So, but I'm learning how to do that and writing

the novellas helped me in writing the devil's Bible because novellas are 30, 40,000 words.

One of them's only like 20,000 words. Very tight. Very, very tight. Yeah.

You got to come back to this show anytime in the future, Steve. The door is always going to be

open for you. Thank you for having me. Will you be brilliant today, okay, sir?

I will. And I'll look forward to coming back. Thank you, sir.