Author Interview ~ Jeffrey Anderson

Jeffrey Anderson received MD and PhD degrees from Northwestern University in neuroscience, after initial graduate studies in abstract mathematics. His research on brain function and imaging has been published in SCIENCE, NATURE NEUROSCIENCE, and NEURON, among other journals. He is currently a neuroradiology fellow at the University of Utah Hospital, and runs a research imaging laboratory with emphasis on functional magnetic resonance imaging. His first science thriller, SLEEPER CELL, was nominated for a 2006 International Thriller Award. SECOND GENESIS, his second thriller, was released in July 2006.


What book or project is coming out or has come out that you’d like to tell us about?

Second Genesis is my most recent novel, out now for a few months. It’s a story about taking control of evolution by engineering the next generation human, and making all of us obsolete.

Tell us about your journey to publication. How long had you been writing before you got the call you had a contract, how you heard and what went through your head.

I found an agent to represent me the old fashioned way, sending out a gaggle of form letters and checking email 30 times a day between looking to see if something had fallen out of my mailbox, all for about 6 months.

Once I found a wonderful agent willing to take me on, Sleeper Cell sold about 6 months later. The week it sold was all champagne and roses. There’s so much rejection and frustration in this business that you really learn to savor the good news. I got a call from my agent that a few publishers were interested, and that we might be hearing some offers soon. Around the same time she was getting some great vibes from a motion picture studio on film options (which ultimately never panned out).

The next day I got a call with a first offer, and it was a much better offer than I had thought possible. Then she told me she turned it down because it was too low. I almost screamed at her “What are you thinking? Take it! Now! Deal! Deal! Deal!” This is the best reason why authors really do need an agent. The publisher came back the next day with an offer 25% higher, which we accepted in a pre-empt bid.

What are the elements of a good thriller?

There are hundreds, but to a first approximation, you have to write characters that feel real and put them in situations that are frightening.

I write science thrillers, and there’s one other element that is crucial – you have to have a mindbending premise. Some core idea that feels original and shocking is the most difficult part of the whole novel for me, and I spend more time coming up with a one-paragraph summary than I do researching and writing the entire novel. I probably reject 99 out of every 100 proposals I draft because I really care about the ideas in the premise, and the grandeur of the idea is all in its precision. You have to get that one paragraph perfect to pull off a fresh science thriller.

What, in your opinion, separates a thriller from straight suspense?

Only semantics. A good piece of suspense fiction is a thriller to me.

Is there another genre you long to write in?

Most of my ideas tend to fall in hard science fiction. They involve complicated, sometimes counterintuitive science, and admittedly attract fewer readers. It’s a dance to come up with something that I find interesting and is also mainstream enough to be appealing to a wide audience.

Do you still experience self-doubts regarding your work?

No. Never.

What mistakes have you made while seeking publication?

I think it always boils down to impatience. Like all writers, I oscillate between thinking I’ve written something earth-shattering only to find it sucks the next morning or the next month. You just have to wait long enough to see the warts in your writing and revise before sending the manuscript off in a pretty box before it’s ready.

What’s the best advice you’ve heard on writing/publication?

Something I heard Elmore Leonard said: “Get the story right and then give it to someone else to put the commas and shit in.” The point to me being that writing is about ideas and images. It’s easy to get bogged down in mechanics instead of spending your writing time in the creative high country tracking the really beautiful ideas and communing with your characters.

What’s the worst piece of writing advice you’ve heard?

Anything that starts out “Foolproof formula for a great thriller” is bound to be wrong and offensive.

What’s something you wish you’d known earlier that might have saved you some time/frustration in the publishing business?

Get over yourself. No matter how good your writing is, someone lives for the opportunity to tell you why you should stick to selling insurance. And no matter how bad your writing is, someone will tell you it’s perfect. It’s much too rough a world to spend the emotional turmoil it takes to salvage your ego. Best to just learn what you can from criticism but not to let the negative undertones of rejection get to you.

Is there a particularly difficult set back that you’ve gone through in your writing career you are willing to share?

I’m feeling that a bit now. I’m trying to finish my medical fellowship and I’ve got 4 kids and I’m working too many hours. I would like to take my wife out to cocktail parties and plays or take the kids skiing or a million other things, and writing is getting squeezed out. I’m finding this a very difficult time to get a new project off the ground, and hoping it will be temporary.

What are a few of your favorite books?

I love old Russian fiction, especially Dostoevsky. The characters are some of the most passionate and villainous in the business. Such fabulous, interesting people. It’s really hard to do better than The Brothers Karamazov.

I also like to look at the roots of my own genre. Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Isaac Asimov were the real pioneers. I find 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Time Machine, and The Foundation Trilogy to be endlessly inspiring.

The greatest science thriller ever written was Jurassic Park.

Gregory Benford also has magnificent science thrillers. I particularly liked Cosm, Artifact, and Timescape.

Preston and Child are doing more with their Pendergast series these days (which I enjoy), but really loved their science thrillers as well, particularly Ice Limit and Riptide.

What piece of writing have you done that you’re particularly proud of and why?

The one piece I’m most proud of was a Science paper I wrote in graduate school. It was about how noise in the brain helps explain a longstanding problem about how the visual part of our brain processes information.

Do you have a pet peeve having to do with this biz?

I find the excessive self-promotion tiresome. I understand why writers feel everything out of their mouth needs to get the message “buy my book” across. But I’ve never been fond of talking to salespeople.

Can you give us a view into a typical day of your writing life?

I wake up early because my 3-year old wet the bed. After I change the sheets and get her a drink, I can’t get back to sleep and I start thinking over an idea. What would it be like if there were people trapped inside Schroedinger’s famous thought experiment about the dead cat in the box?

Eventually I get up and try and make it to the gym to run 5 miles or do some weights before morning conference at 7:30. Then I spend the day running around like everyone else trying to get the work done so I don’t stay late, picking up a thing or two new about how to read a brain MRI or do a spine procedure a little better.

I come home and talk my wife off the ledge and she tells me about how #2 bopped #3, and #4 was writing on the fridge in marker while she was helping #3 clean up the Cheerios thrown down the stairs, and why does #1 have to walk around school at recess pretending he’s a velociraptor and why aren’t our kids just normal and maybe we should simplify some of our clutter again in hopes that the house really isn’t all that small…

On a good day after the kids are in bed I might be up for working a little on an outline or writing a chapter. Unless stuff comes up…

If you could choose to have one strength of another writer, what would it be and from whom?

I’d be tall with ripped abs like Lee Child.

Do you have a dream for the future of your writing, something you would love to accomplish?

I’d like to feel like before I kick over that I could write the perfect science thriller.

Was there ever a time in your writing career you thought of quitting?

Of course. I have a great day job. I’m generally happy. Writing for me is all about telling a fun story, and the day the dark side of science no longer challenges and fascinates and grabs me, it’ll be time to check out.

What is your favorite and least favorite part of being a writer?

The best part of writing, without question, is when I sit down alone as I’m just starting to explore a new idea, and some really cool scenario comes to mind and I know I’ve got an idea that could really work. That is fun. There are some very interesting people who write, and going to conferences to have a drink and talk about how best to kill a conference center full of sorority girls takes a close second.

What do you do to publicize your work?

Not a thing. No time. My problem; I know it’s not wise and I should be doing all sorts of things to publicize, but that’s life. I’d rather spend my time doing other things. I don’t floss either.

Parting words?

Thanks for your blog. There’s some excellent information here. Feel free to drop by my website for more information: www.sciencethriller.com.