Transcript
I am so excited. I am I am like a fanboy of my favorite TV show of the year. It's called Dark Matter. It's on Apple TV plus. It's I don't know how to describe it. It's thriller. It's drama. It's science fiction. It's emotional. It's it's great. It is a great show. Every episode's a cliffhanger. I mean, it's just a well written show. The reason it's well written is based on one of my favorite novels, Dark Matter, by one of my favorite novelists, Blake Crouch. Blake also was involved in writing the TV show. Blake agreed to come on the podcast, and we talk all things writing, thrillers, dark matter, TV, publishing. He answered all my questions about my favorite show and about his writing process and on and on. So here's Blake. This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. I almost even don't like categorizing it as science fiction because I feel that says, oh, there's science fiction shows, and then there's real shows with good acting and and, you know, good writing. Yeah. Like, it it's a great show. Like, I'm surprised how great the acting and the emotions are. And I you know, it's always hard to talk to a fiction writer on the podcast because I don't wanna give away any spoilers, but prep let let's let's first off, let me just say, great show. Everybody should watch dark matter. I reached out to Blake because I love the show. I'm so grateful you came on on the podcast, Blake. And but, also, I've been following your career and and writing for quite some time. So, when I saw Dark Rider was on TV, I watched it instantly, and and it and it was well worth it. And, welcome to the show. Well, thanks for having me on, man. And and I wanna get I mean, you you are such you you you you're so great at, like, coming up with these great science fiction ideas that on the one hand seems so obvious. Like, oh my gosh. Why didn't somebody else beforehand think of such an idea? And and some of these tropes are, I don't wanna say common, but have been used before. But dark matter was particularly, like, creative and interesting. This idea that there's a a a multi because of quantum mechanics, there's a multiverse. There's an infinite number of worlds and infinite number of versions of you where you make every decision forks off a new world. And so the main character, well, I I can't even say much at the beginning because why why don't you describe dark matter? So then I let it lets me know which spoilers you're comfortable with or how you describe it. I mean, it's a by the way, the book came out 10 years ago, and the show's been out now going on it'll be 3 months soon, and I feel like we can talk some spoilers. And if your viewers haven't watched the show, go watch it. And, come back and listen to this. Dark matter is sort of a scientific exploration of that Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken. It's about a guy who, has lived a pretty good life and has a wonderful family, does a good job. They're not really wanting for anything, but occasionally, he wakes up at 3 in the morning and asks, what if what if I followed my work back in my late twenties and and just stayed head down on that? Instead of embracing the family life and all that comes with that, the good, but also time is finite, and you can't do everything. And it's a show that really gives him the chance to see what that other life might have been like, all in the service of sort of this epic journey across worlds and multiple versions of our characters. And Yeah. I mean, it is sci fi, but it's about life too. And and and there's a thriller component as these kind of different versions of this character, kind of vie for the reality that they want. That's right. That's right. Oh, it's yeah. All my stuff is probably first and foremost a thriller. I think that's the most core DNA of my fiction, and the show and the shows that I make. What what one realizes when watching this is that it's not just like, oh, I wish I had had, you know, chosen this bit different path over here, and then my life would be different. But your personality depends on those choices you make. So, like, the 2 different characters, they seem like they're the same, but just in, you know, other universes, but they're actually you start to the differences start to really crack open, and that is revealing to the other characters in their lives. Well, that's right. Well, a lot of that goes to Joel Edgerson's performance. A very nuanced take on 2 versions of the same man. But you see, like, in the Jason 2, which is sort of the Jason, the interloper who kicks this whole story off, the one who takes over this guy's family. You see that not having had a family for all those years and and just really focusing on himself and his work, it it sort of made him a little harder around the edges. Whereas having a being a family man and being selfless really made Jason 1, sort of our protagonist, a little more, I would say, well rounded and a little more generous of of spirit to his loved ones because he's had a life of, that was in service, not just of himself. And, you know, I wanna get into your writing career and process and so on, but I do wanna you mentioned the actor Joel Edgerton. He really did a brilliant job, like, conveying these subtle differences in personality even towards the end where I won't give any spoilers, but there's, you know, there's aspects where it probably was particularly hard for him to do the acting, and he did a really great job. Like, I was impressed how different that I I had to really tell myself it's the same actor. Yeah. I that's a huge compliment, I think I I think to to Joel's work because he but he also never made it feel like a skit. And and one of the things that we talked about a lot was, like, Jason if you look at all versions of Jason, it's not like yellow Jason and black Jason and white Jason and purple Jason. It's they're all shades of the same color. And so the differences between them aren't massive and huge. They're they're subtle, and the differences are attributable to the choices that they made. And we just really zeroed in early on on wanting the show to have a grounded feel. And and part of that was not making wildly different versions of our characters. Like, the closer they are to this core, this core character, then I think it it it it helps you buy in a little bit more. Now do you believe that, perhaps in some version of quantum physics, there is that that what you described is more real than than we realize? That there is a multiverse where every universe is spun off from every decision? I I think it's highly possible. I think, the I mean, like, with all of my books, which are kind of technically techno thrillers, it's all about this core concept. In the case of dark matter, this box, which is cancels out all external stimuli and this drug that cancels out the consciousness piece of our minds that give way to decoherence or collapsing all realities into 1. Yeah. It's just a matter of is this technology something that we would see in our lifetime. And I don't necessarily think it is in the case of dark matter. I had subject matter experts on the show, and we would talk about this kind of stuff and and what it would actually take for us to put a human being in superposition. And it would take a lot. It would take a lot. Like, you know, what what's the roots of this? Like, were you thinking to yourself one day, boy, if I had made x y z decision, I wonder what my life would have been like. Like, what were you what were you thinking when you kind of, This is the book I need to write. Mhmm. I had been, I didn't take any science courses in college, in college except for, you know, geology, rocks. I was, like, I was far more interested in in literature and and writing. But when I got out of school, I I became fascinated with science just because of, like, emerging technologies. And, also, it I I saw it as a way to sort of put a different sort of a spin on the kinds of books I were write I was writing, which at the time was just more straight thrillers and a little bit of horror. And this was in the early 2000. And, you know, we didn't have, a Marvel movie coming out every month that was making use of quantum superposition as its core story point. There hadn't really been, like, a real, I don't think, like, definitive take on the idea of the multiverse and multiple versions of ourselves. I mean, there have been things that did it, but Yeah. Nothing like I mean huge. DC Comics has, you know, Infinite Earths. They have their kind of but, you know, the comic book version is not really doesn't really deal with any of the actual issues. It's just sort of comic book. They're not human. It's not it's not about, like, the human Yeah. Ramifications of playing with that sort of technology. So, anyway, I fell in love with the idea of quantum mechanics. Just started reading a lot about it and, wondering if there's a way to turn that into a into a story. And and, I mean, I this was, like, 10 years in the making. And I was writing other things. And around the time that I started working on dark matter, I was in my mid thirties. And just, like, for the first time in my life, like, old enough to look back at the choices I had made, some great, some not so great. And I started wondering if what if there are other versions of Blake out there, what they were doing, what that looked like. And and that just sort of married really seamlessly into into this concept. What decision in particular do you do you wonder about? You know, I my early on, I was gonna I I thought I'd be a lawyer. Not because I really wanted to be. I just thought, well, writing isn't really a, a kind of career path you set out to endeavor to make money on. It's, you know, it's very lucky if you're able to support yourself in the arts. So I had applied to the to law school out of college, but only to 1. And I got wait listed. So they considered me, but it was, like, on the bubble. And I just was wondering, like, what what if I'd gotten in? My life would look really, really different. You think it's one of those moments where how how close were they to admitting me? And if they had, I probably definitely wouldn't have pursued writing to the extent that I did. I might have done it in my spare time or come to it much later in life or forgotten about it altogether. And I just thought a lot about that and how tragic that would have been to me not to do it. But for all I know, if I'd been a lawyer, I'd be even happier than I am now. So I I think it gets dangerous trying to look at the path not taken with, regret, just sort of what the book on the show is about. And do you consider yourself pretty happy right now? I do. Like Yeah. I get to do exact I I feel like I'm busy. I feel like, I I could not have ever imagined, my life as busy as it is, and creatively interesting. It's it's kind of hard to process sometimes, especially coming off the after, like, a show like this, which has been so long in the making for me. And then suddenly, like, millions of people get to watch it and have opinions and thoughts about it. It's very surreal. Yeah. Like, on the surface, you're kinda living the dream life. You get to write science fiction novels that get made into TV shows. I mean, probably everyone listening to this podcast would be like, oh, I'll sign up for that if I can. So Yeah. Yeah. And and but it was it like, you started writing, like you said, in the early o o's. What was what was the beginning of your career like? Like, what what got you into writing? When did you start writing? You you weren't always writing science fiction like this. You've written a a couple different genres. Yeah. I was always a a storyteller back when I was 10 years old. I'd tell my my younger brother, bedtime stories and try to scare the s**t out of him. And then I wrote some short fiction in, in middle school and went through a spell of writing a lot of bad poetry in high school. And then my senior year of high school, I started to try to write a novel. And I finished it my freshman year at college at Carolina. And it was this giant, like, 200,000 words sprawling family saga that was, you know, was never gonna go anywhere. But, I sent it out to literary agents and I ended up meeting 1 and she rejected it. But, it was very encouraging about the writing itself and I was already writing a new thing at that point in time and it was something that was it was a much more of a thriller. It became my book, Desert Places. And it was it was more of the kind of thing I loved to read and and to watch. And I sold that, and that was my first book that was published. So your first Yeah. Thing, other than your your virgin effort, your first thing that you wrote, you basically got sold it. Who'd you sell it to? Saint Martin's Press. And and what And I was, I was 20 22 years old. And they they And I and I thought I made it. I've made it. I made it, and I had not made it. Well, okay. How much did they pay you for that first book? $6,000. $6,000? Okay. That was that's a $1,000 more than my first book, so congratulations. And did, when you were 22, you sold your first book, you got the news. Did you instantly go out and ask the girl you had a crush on out on a date because you had confidence now? Or, like like, what happened? No. I was actually married at the time. What? You were married at 22? Yeah. I was I was married at 22. No. It was a big celebration, and it felt like, oh, this is amazing. This is but like everything, you've, like, set this, Like, you wanna do something and and and you achieve it. And then you realize that this little mountain you've been obsessing about getting to the top of that when you get to the top of it, then you see the real mountains in the distance. And they're even farther away than that one is because the book comes out, it just does okay. It sells a few 1,000 copies. You get a new book deal, but it's not for that much more and you're still having now you're having you still have a day job and you can feel the dream of of wanting to do this full time and throwing yourself completely into it. Like, it's struggling to to stay alive, and I did that for 10 years until I finally, broke through and and and and and wrote something that, really connected. I I wanna get back to the beginning stuff, but what was the breakthrough? It's a combination of things, actually. So it was so this one now would have been around 2011, and I had written this novel called Run. It's the first thing I wrote that had a little bit of a speculative twist to it. It wasn't I wouldn't say it's not sci fi in the way that, Weird Times or Dark Matter or Recursion are, but it had a speculative thing going with it. And it just was the best writing I'd done and the story had really come together. And I had a new agent, but they couldn't sell it because all of my, track record for my first four books was not good. And, interestingly, this was the moment where self publishing was a viable new thing. And I got the rights back to my old novels, and I published this. And it's the only book I've ever published. It's new. That would be front list. I self publish. And it just took off. And suddenly, I was making every month what I had been paid for my first novel. And in a very impulsive moment, I quit my day job and threw myself straight into all of it. And doing that allowed me to focus in a way I hadn't before. And then the next thing I I wrote was the first book of the Weird Pines trilogy, which did change my life. And that eventually became, like, a TV series. Right? Yeah. Mike Shyamalan, directed it. It came out on Fox at the time. It was the biggest day and day release of a TV show ever. We had a great cast. It was right before the streaming thing really hit. Came out in 2015. Yeah. So it was it was a it was a it really, like, increased my profile and also gave me more of a a platform to do my next book, which was Dark Matter. Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It means so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at altutra@gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks. Let's talk about the self publishing for a second because you said you you you self published, and in part because of the frustration you were having getting published because publishers relying so much on track record and so on. And around that time, you also saw things like wool, you know, which became silo by Hugh Howie. That was originally Yep. Self published. And the marcher was originally Right. So Andy Weir and Hugh Howie has been on this podcast several times. And, and self publishing, 50 shades of gray was originally self published. Like, all this was kind of occurring around the same time in this as as at where people realized that Amazon Kindle was not you it was print on demand, so you didn't have to, like, stock up with some vanity publisher a bunch of books. And the Kindle reader was was coming out so people could easily and and cheaply download your book. And you could control your marketing, and you got like you said, you got paid every month, and and you got all the statistics about how it was selling. And and you teamed up actually to write some stuff with JA Konrath, who's been a who's a writer, who's a big proponent of self publishing. So what what right now are the pros and cons of self publishing versus publishing? I have no idea. I haven't actively self published since, 2012. I guess because, like See, I thought I thought the I never I knew that I always felt like we were in a moment, and the moment was great. And it was like there's this time where it felt like you could you just like open the umbrella upside down and and self publishing money rained down out of the sky. This was before Amazon started gaming the system and trying to, you know, sell right I know now I know writers who are who do really well self publishing, and they spend $30,000 a month to do it. I I don't think it's not I know this. It's just not the same environment it was 10, 12 years ago. I I just so I never believed that books were really gonna go away. I never believed that like, I I would sell a lot of books, but I I always wondered, like, when you sell a book for 2.99, people are really reading it. I don't think it makes I I never felt like the numbers were good. The money was good, but I didn't feel like you make fans at 299 for an ebook. But but people could buy make some fans, but not not at that level. It's it's it's a skewed metric. Like, if you sell a 1,000,000 ebooks, there's a a much smaller percentage of those people are actually reading, finishing the books, and going on to your next one versus if you sell a million, of a print book. Like, you buy a print book, you're probably gonna read a print book. But you could buy you you could self publish your book and say, okay. It's I want it available as Kindle, but also paperback, hardcover, and Audible. You can make the Audible version too. Sure. And I did that. I did all I did all those things, and I just saw I I just saw the the tail starting to Yeah. And you had to do more, and I didn't get into writing to be my own marketing. I mean, I did it for a while. I kind of built a, a core group of leaders who, you know, helped get the word out and and and loved my stuff. And but that's not why I got into to this business, to to, to market myself and to put myself out there like that. And so when I had the opportunity coming off of, Wayward Pines, which was not self published. It was published by Amazon Publishing, which is a real publisher. Right. I I jumped because I was like, I'm now is the moment to to go back to traditional publishing in the right way. So I've gone back and forth with nonfiction, and I I can't really decide which I prefer. But like you say, when you self publish, you're you're the publishing company, so you have to do everything. You have to market it. You have to find a designer. You have to you have to do the whole thing. So it's a little it's a different type of task. Maybe less frustrating, maybe more frustrating depending on your personality. So you know, and and how much you like dealing with publishers and so on. You know, just what self publishing relied upon, in my opinion, was that Amazon and Barnes and Noble and Kobo and Smashwords and all these places, but mainly Amazon, at that moment in time wanted to give visibility to self published authors. They stopped wanting to do that, And they saw that instead of, bringing up a bunch of writers, letting them have an equal footing with traditional publishers, they just made, you know, they they I think they saw them then as, oh, these are marketing targets. We can sell marketing packages to them, which is what it's really become now. It's hard. It's hard. I I think it was really cool for a moment, but and it helped me in my it bridged I I was a failed traditional novelist. Maybe it's being harsh, but I think I was a failed traditional novelist. Self publishing bridged me into my success. And for that, I will always be grateful. Now earlier, you you kinda described that you basically your your very first effort, this 200,000 word family saga was didn't really work. And then you wrote something you started getting more into writing, you know, thrillers and techno thrillers. What is a thriller? Like, what defines what are what's the boundaries of that genre, would you have to say? I think what really defines a thriller is sort of the intensity of the plot that's happening to the protagonist. And everyone I think there's multiple versions of of what a thriller is that are are valid, but for me, it's the intensity of what happens to the protagonist. I think you have thriller, and then I think you have horror. Not like horror in the sense of monsters and and things like that, but I mean horror in the sense of, like, truly horrific stakes, truly an an intensity of the experience they're going through. And all of my books have a little bit of that horror in them because all of my characters do go through hell in in in from page 1 to to the end of the book. For me, it's about that. It's about pace. It's about, like, how fast how much are you sucking a reader in and and making them neglect their home duties. So, like, like, break like, what are the beats? So, like, in the first chapter, is somebody kidnapped or killed? Like, what what's what would you say? And, again, this is not a there's no formula. I'm just saying for you Yeah. Like, maybe you can take the structure of of dark matter or some other book. Like, what are what are the basic beats of a thriller as opposed to a a a family saga or or a mystery? Mhmm. It's about a I I I think there has to be a certain normal normalcy about the protagonist's life. To me, a thriller is they have to keep they have to feel like a normal person, and then a normal person who is dragged into an insane situation. And how quickly they're dragged into it, I think is up for debate. Yeah. You can do it in chapter 1, but I think sometimes it's better to slow burn it out and, like, really let the s**t hit the fan in chapter 3. I I I did that a little bit more with recursion, the book I did after dark matter. I didn't I didn't wanna get pinned down into, having to do some, like, crazy thing to grab someone's attention in the first chapter. Like, I I wanted I I I wanted to do it in a more nuanced way that built and built and built. And there's all sorts of ways. You can grab someone by the throat in chapter 1. You can just slowly turn up the temperature between 1234. There's truly no one right way to do it. But let's say you do it in chapter 4. Works. How do you keep people interested in chapters 1, 2, 3? How do you keep them interested? Yeah. Let's say you're gonna really turn up the intensity in chapter 4. What are the what are the Mhmm. Tricks of the trade to keep him interested in re in the the reader in turning the page chapters 1, 2, 3? Oh, you for see, I don't it's not just about, like, what happens that I think pulls a reader along. It it's it's asking questions that makes them lean in. Like, is there there's something under the surface. There's a backstory that's only teased at, but you tease it in such a way that you're like, I don't ask me to name it. I was literally reading a book last month that did this very thing. It was just like one sentence. Like, the first chapter was kind of quiet and just setting the scene and introducing the character, but it was like one sentence that suggested a backstory that it grabbed me. Sometimes I think you can overly you could do it you can do too much in the first chapter because, you don't wanna, like, use all of your ammo in chapter 1. And then because and that's what I read that happens a lot. Some crazy stuff happens in chapter 1, and then it's, like, flat lines for a while before while we do all the other business. It's a it's a a weird equation and then but there's no one right way to do it. Every every book is hard because every book needs its own approach, and and, like, every book sort of has to teach you how it wants to be written Well to make what you have in your mind work. In in in dark matter, I like how you do it in in both the book and the the TV show mirrors what what happens in the book where, and I don't think this is a spoiler to describe chapter 1, but, basically, Jason, Jason's friend Ryan, wins this great prize for his intellectual his scientific brilliance and is given all like, $1,000,000, all sorts of money and opportunity, and and, his life seems great. And you're kind of it's hinted at that this could have been Jason. And so so you don't you're not real we're not really into the story at all at this point, but you do sense the kind of personal conflict Jason has had and and to some extent, his wife also has had in in their lives, leading up to this point. That's tension as well. Like, tension isn't just like running from somebody or a gun coming out. There's a there's a lot of different ways to to build tension. And for me, it was like in dark matter, I thought, like, well, what I would do here is sort of give you a sense of something just not right under the surface. And that will pull you to the inciting incident, which is the masked man comes out, grabs him at gunpoint, whisks him away, and then you're off. I don't know. Do you have do you have to be swept away by some crazy thing in chapter 1? Like, what works on you? I think for us a regular let's call it a a procedural thriller, like a crime detective kinda thriller, I think I have to be swept away as early as possible because those are more formulaic. And, I know I wanna as I'm reading what I'm getting myself into, I know some kid's gonna be kidnapped. His parents are gonna hunt hunt down the killers and or the kidnappers and whatever. But for something like what you're doing, there's there's an idea component where I'm trying to I don't need to be swept away because I'm also I'm I'm getting excited to be indoctrinated into the ideas. I know roughly what the ideas are by the the, you know, the back cover and how other people have told me about the book. So I know this is gonna be a topic I'm interested in, and and I'm curious how the writer is gonna engulf me in those ideas. So it doesn't See, I don't I don't I don't really yeah. That's fascinating. I don't really sit around and think about I don't I don't try to, I guess dangerous to try to reverse engineer how a book works because the premise of that is you're just gonna go do that again. That is not what I think readers want. I think I think readers want to be surprised. The best thing you can ever do is just surprise someone. See, I think That's it. I think that's a really important point because, like, I always wonder how writers do a police chase because how do you surprise somebody if you're writing a police chase? It's kinda obvious what happens in every scene of a police chase. Someone's being chased. They have some they fall a little bit, and, eventually, someone's either caught or they get away, and we're gonna have to chase them later again. So Yeah. Yeah. And Yeah. There's you know, yeah, exactly. There's a yeah. There's a great quote. Robert Frost said that, you know, no tears in the reader, no tears in the writer, no surprise to the writer, no surprise to the reader. Like so you have to surprise yourself first. If you surprise yourself and if you move yourself, then there's a good chance the reader is gonna feel that as well. But if you know exactly what and there are writers and then, like, in total respect, like, who sell way more books and publish way more books than needed. Like, it's a formula for them, and they know what they're doing. They call the shots, and they knock it out of the park. And good for them. That's just not what interests me as a writer. I wanna be surprised, and I don't wanna do the same book over and over again. There are certain elements of my books we'll always have because that's just what I love. But I I want it to be different, and, you know, it that makes it harder. Yeah. Like, I would say in dark matter first off, there's many surprises, but I would say other than the inciting incidents, there there's, you know, major surprises in the middle. I I won't I I I won't describe exactly how because it's touch leading to spoilers. And then, obviously, there's major surprises at the end. And it's pleasant to be surprised. Like, did you surprise yourself when you were writing those parts? I I think you know what surprises I'm referring to, but maybe not. I don't know. Yeah. I did. Well, see, I started taking notes about, I take notes and journal about books for a while before I write before I start writing, and I got to that point you're talking about in dark matter. And it just seemed pretty obvious to me what the resolution was gonna be, you know, mano a mano. And that didn't seem particular I it just seemed expected. It seemed what was there, and I thought it was gonna be enough when I was writing. But I got to that point of having to actually start writing those scenes, and I was just like, I don't know. I'm not feeling that. And I set the book aside for about a month and I went back through my journals. And literally on day 4 of my planning for dark matter, I had written, what if Jason gets home and then blah blah blah happens? I'm not gonna spoil it for the audience. And then I'd written, no, that's too crazy. That would never work. But having written, like, 250 pages and trying to figure out what the great ending of this book is, I I saw that with fresh eyes. I was like, I can that's I can definitely make that work. I completely had forgotten I had done that. And then and it just immediately changed what the 3rd act of of the book was going to be. And I I think it's one of the cooler, I mean, I don't know if I'd call it a twist. Maybe it's a twist. I think it's one of the cooler twists that I've ever written. I would love to write another twist like that again in my career. You know, those don't come along very often. And I'm fascinated by the concept of a twist in in a thriller because, like you said, you're right. If you if the if the writer is not surprised I don't know whether or not that means the reader is surprised or not, but at least the writer doesn't know. If the if the writer is not surprised, the writer certainly doesn't know if the reader is gonna be surprised or not. Like, you can't you can't plan a surprise, I I think. Because if you figured it out while you're writing it, then the reader's probably gonna figure out Right. While he or she is reading it, unless it's a complete nonseparate. And so, you know, like, there's one kind of writing, you know, formula where, basically, if the writer gets stuck, you're supposed to just kill your main character. It's like a a way to kind of induce a twist. But I always feel that's very fake or artificial. Like, it it's sort of obvious that they're they're doing that. You know, I've seen it. I've seen that happen where you kill the main character in chapter 1, and that's kind of interesting. I I saw Neil Gaiman do that in the graphic novel, Black Orchid. But, and then it was it was like it blew my mind then 30 years ago, but I think it's hard to to pull that off. But I think it's surprising and, like, I I was talking to Brad Thor, who's a thriller writer, and it's interesting because he outlines everything out, and he didn't so much have twists. You always sorta knew what was happening, but he always had cliffhangers at the end of every chapter, and that's what kept the reader going as opposed to surprises. Mhmm. Oh, I think that's I I I love the serialized approach. I mean, we did that with the show. I I always I I try to do that. And you can't I mean, cliffhangers in the early chapters get a little trickier. They it feels it might feel a little more forced. But once you've, like, set everything in motion, absolutely, that's it's a wonderful way to, to not only, like, bring the reader along, but to, like, stop writing for the day when you hit a cliffhanger. Because then you come you know that when you come back the next day, you've got something great to dive into, and it just makes the process far easier. As you're surprising yourself, though, do you ever kind of surprise yourself into a corner where you can't back out and figure it out? Oh, yeah. Every book. Every book, I end up throwing away hundreds of pages because, usually, it's after usually, it's the 3rd act. You know? I'm really, really hard on my 3rd acts because I don't think most I don't think most movie I don't think most media ends well. I think plenty of things start well. I don't think a lot of books, films, movies, TV shows, I don't think they end well because endings are hard. And I like for dark matter, I didn't throw away a lot in dark matter. Recursion, I I I wrote this whole the whole book and then realized I didn't like anything past the midpoint. So I threw out 200 pages of recursion. I threw out 300 pages of upgrade. Wow. Just because it doesn't it doesn't make sense anymore, like, for me to publish a book that isn't, like, in my opinion, great, surprising, does all those things, emotional. It just doesn't it doesn't make sense. I didn't like, I think something that a lot of maybe writers don't know is that one, like, really successful book that connects with readers is worth literally a 100 books that you could write that is just good or okay. If you can break through and make that one book that really just grabs people, it will change your life. It will change your career. It will give you more time to to to find the next idea like that. I think a lot of writers have this, I gotta keep putting books out. I keep putting books out. I keep putting books out. I'm like, why? Why? Put out great. You know, it's like, like, good like, so it's that saying, like, good is the, good is the enemy of great. Now perfect is the enemy of finish. Nothing can ever be perfect. But if you can find that sweet spot in between there, that's where, like, that's where careers, like, level up and, and take different turns. Where dark matter really connects is this is not on the science fiction level, but where this idea that, hey. I could I have chosen a different path in my life that would have made me happier? And I think everybody relates to that. And then, of course, it's kinda cool, the whole multiverse thing and traveling through multiverses, blah blah blah. Like, that's intellectually interesting. It's it's science fictiony, and and it got gets this thriller going. And but but I think having that having it be character focused first on something on such a fundamental issue that humans have as opposed to, like, again, a police procedural. Someone dies. There's some intrigue around it. Mhmm. The policeman's having problems in his marriage, but also needs to solve his crime. Like, oh, we've seen that, been there, and done that, and it's not a question that we all ask ourselves. I think I think that's where dark matter really resonates. I agree. I think that's why, I think that's why it it it really broke through because it it it asked that a question that we all ask ourselves. And there aren't many of those really existential questions. I mean, are we alone? I think Well, upgrade. Your your novel always interesting. Your novel upgrade is very interesting in this sense. And the idea that if I can change myself right now, what would I change? Now that's just this fundamental question we all ask, but then the the science for that is we're we're on the verge right now of the science of that. So this is a question that people almost have to take more seriously. Absolutely. I I I don't know how many people are really I still don't feel like the what like, the truth of gene editing has hit the mass awareness just yet. You know, there's a lot of other It completely has not. Tire fires on our horizon. It it completely has not because When it hits, it's gonna be like, what? Yeah. Because gene editing is here right now, and the only things slowing it down are, correctly, ethics issues, and, b, there is some computational complexity to figuring out which genes do what when there are multiple genes involved. Right? Because there's so many genes that if if more than one gene is involved, it's an exponentially hard problem that computers can't solve easily. A 100%. You need yeah. Exactly. We don't have the, the computing power to, like, really understand because once you need to make a correlation, between, you know, the gene itself and its expression because everything in your body is an expression. The shape of your head, your eye color, all those things, they're all expressions of, you know, these incredibly complex gene systems working together in concert. And, like, you you could take a 23 and me and probably do some sort of, you know, cross reference analysis on all of the customers, their genetic stuff, and and start to drill down into the into those things. But is there enough computing power in the world to really do that? Right. But so yeah. Probably not yet. So you have this convergence right now that's happening of quantum computing and AI and gene editing where as that convergence happens, you will be able to do it, and just no one knows when the tipping point will be. But at some point, we'll know, oh, these 17 genes define your IQ or your personality or your height or whatever. And right now, they've only know single gene mutations. Maybe it's 2, 3 gene mutations, but it's very, very difficult to even do 2. And but but to that point, it's on the horizon as opposed to traveling to the multiverse. And so upgrade, you're asking a question we've all asked in since we were a kid. Like, if I could change one thing about myself, what would it be? Of course, I would be more handsome. But, and but but now the technology is almost there. We can ask this question. And so that's why upgrade kind of is is, on a personal level, very interesting. Yeah. I mean, I it's, I'd love to not have to sleep. We'd make juggling all the things I have to do much easier. I'd love, increased focus, concentration, the things that make you a memory because, you know, writing is all about memory and pulling, moments and experiences from your life and distilling it through the story you're telling. Yeah. It's a fun thought experiment. Yeah. And, like, so it's interesting. So starting with these kind of thought experiments like, oh, what if I had made a different choice in my life? Or what if I could upgrade some part of my life? You know, starting with that, starting with the the personal torment that results in you know, these are all questions of frustration. Right? I'm frustrated with a a a choice that I made. Like, I'm frustrated with some feature of myself. And then having some science fiction way to to solve that and then creating kind of a throwing a thriller trope on top of that. I'm not saying this is your formula for a novel where we're just we're just talking, but, like, that is an interesting approach. Yeah. I mean, I I think you could definitely look at the dark matter recursion and upgrade as a kind of trilogy of stand alone novels that all kind of function that way. Looking back in hindsight, I don't really do it when I'm write when I'm writing or planning a book. When you look back at it, it's like, oh, there's a personal issue that we're dealing with. There's a sci fi overlay that sort of gives the sets the characters out on their journey and brings in the stakes. And then there's just the larger, zeitgeisty conversations about, you know, in upgrade all the things you're just talking about. What if you could do this? It's like a what if. There's a what if element of it in recursion. What if you could return to a memory and live your life again from that moment, dark matter? What if you could visit another version of of yourself or another world where you made different choices? You know? Those are, like, engines that make books not just run, but also it it gets it it makes people want to talk about them to other people. I think that's a really big component of of my writing is that I want it I want it to sort of have like, it's to start a conversation. I I like people to want a book club about it. And I think it it is weird because, like, a lot of book clubs, like, read, like, my books, but then, like like, what we traditionally think of as book club fiction. But it's all just about it's about emotions. You know? That's what people wanna talk about, I think. Now, you know, looking at, like, Wayward Pines, which which turned into this TV show, what do you think like, m Night Shyamalan who who ended up running with this show producing it, he has a very particular style of of thriller. Like, you always know there's this weird, you know, I see dead people twist at the end of an M. Night, Shmayan type of thing. Mhmm. What do you think attracted him to Wayward Pines? I think it was the, I think it was this the idea of the town. You know, I always looked at Wayward Pines as sort of a a to Twin Peaks, the TV show, was a big impact on me when I was 12. I watched it when it aired. And so way but, you know, like, in Twin Peaks, Twin Peaks was weird because it was a David Lynch show, and David Lynch just does weird, cool s**t. I mean, like, everyone's acting weird because they're in a David Lynch thing. And I always thought And, by the way, did you did you only think that the first three episodes were interesting? Because that's the all that David Lynch was involved in. I sort of lost interest after the first three episodes. This is, like, 1992. Yeah. No. Yeah. No. I love the I love the whole thing. And I thought, you know, what if what if it was that we're talking what if there's a town that was weird in that way, but there was a real there was actually a reason why it was weird. Not just because it's a a director that makes this kind of stuff, that's surreal stuff, but there was a real reason why everyone was acting strange and keeping secrets. And and that sent me down that path of of of that book. And but I think the twist I think the twist, is what probably pulled Knight into it. Although, I don't know. I think he, you know, he the man loves his twists. The man loves those big, like, reveals. And, I remember when he read it, the pilot script, he was like, as long as the reveal is not they're all dead, I'm in. And it's interesting because it's hard to do those big reveals. Like like, just taking, you know, 6 Sense, his first big movie, you know, the guy didn't talk to his wife. I mean, it's not giving spoilers. The movie came out, what, in the nineties. So if you haven't seen 6 Sense, then I don't know what to tell you. We're gonna talk spoilers for a second. The guy didn't talk to his wife for an entire year, and suddenly only then you realize like, everybody was willing to go along on that ride with him where he's not talking to his wife for an entire year, and only at the end you realize he's dead. Like, that's for the fact that he pulled It's kinda it's kinda genius, though, and only, yeah, it'll only a movie can do that because you I think you tell yourself one of 2 things. Either one, something else is going on here. I'm just not sure what it is. Or while he's talking to his wife, they're just because those scenes are more off camera. You know? Yeah. Because we're just you know, you obviously can't show every moment of someone's day. That's a good point. Maybe he couldn't have pulled that off in a novel. Because in a novel, there's always Yeah. You can always throw in one sentence somewhere where he's having a conversation. That's right. That's right. Oh, what did you think of lost where I feel like they did a really great job setting things up, and there seemed like there was a reason behind everything, but then they had a hard time ending. So I was saying earlier, I just think a lot of a lot of things, and I would put that as, you know, offender number 1. It's really easy just to ask a bunch of questions. That's easy. That's not hard to do. But providing answers that are satisfying, but also, like, push the plot forward. Like, I think in when you're writing, when you're when you're plotting and then playing around in the world of, like, reveals and twists, it's not enough for them just to to tell you so finally what it is. Like, the answer itself should raise another question that pulls you through to the next part of the story. I mean, I think with loss, they just they literally they lost their way. I don't think they really ever knew what it was. They kind of pulled it together at the end, but not really. But there's so much of that show that works so well and is so entertaining. And I kinda wanna go back and see it again now that's on Netflix. I've watched the whole series, like, 6 or 7 times. Like, I I love lost. I'm not even gonna criticize the ending. It just you could just sort of feel they didn't really wrap all wrap it all up as opposed to, like, let's say, a sci fi series. Well, like dark matter, but a a multi season series like Battlestar Galactica, I feel it was a big mystery, and then I felt that they nicely tied it up. I don't know if you saw that series. But Oh, I loved it. I'm also watching a series my kids called from, which is awesome and a little losty. Little more horror than lost, but it it reminds me of lost and that, you're about we're about halfway to the 2nd season. And then they just all they've done is ask questions. They've answered none of them. And the I was talking to my kids the other day. We're like, I think there's just just 2 seasons now, but I think they're making a 3rd. We're like, if there's not some answers by the end of season 2, like, we should just go ahead and realize that maybe they don't have any idea of what this all means and say, oh, that was a fun time, but we're not watching this anymore because we're expecting to have anything explained. But it's fascinating. If you haven't seen it, it's it's a blast. Oh, I haven't I haven't even heard of it. I I definitely have to watch that. Yeah. And as long as we're doing from. Doing a did you watch you must have watched Coherence, which is about multiple universes Mhmm. In a dinner party. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's like the ultra low budget version of dark matter kind of Yeah. I thought it was I thought it was very brilliant because you start to realize the layers at which this whole the concept started in the movie. Like, when did this start happening? You get further and further back into the movie. So There's something deeply unsettling about it. I also love primer, which Oh, I don't know that one. I don't know if you've seen. You don't have primer? No. Oh, Shane Carruth? Oh, yeah. Well, I think your your viewing has been sorted out for this evening if, you don't have plans. It's Exactly. Good luck. Good luck trying to understand anything that's happening, but it's fascinating all along the way. What about something like there like, everybody was always recommending to me Tenet, and I started and I just didn't like it. Mhmm. Yeah. I love Tenet. I I know a lot of people don't like it. I love it. I think it's a blast. I think it holds up to repeated viewings because it's so such a, like, a pretzel. I think it's I think it's a lot of fun. I I just love that he swung for it. Literally has and people, like, moving back in time as others are going forward. It's bonkers and beautifully, beautifully shot. I and I I was a fan. Now you're you're so prolific. Like, it sounds like there's a a long process for writing a book. Like, you're talking about, oh, I threw away 200 pages or I set the book down for a month. I think I'm prolific. If I publish a book every 3 years. That's not prolific. Oh, I feel I mean, I made a show also. Yeah. That's okay. You're right. You're making shows. You're right. It looks like more than every one book every 3 years. Well, good. But it's, at least since dark matter, it's been, it's been a book every 3 years. And what are you working on now? Working on, working on a new book, kind of in the earlier state early stages of it, but, you know, trying to find my way. I've, you know, had some starts and stops with it, but I'm I I think I've found my, I think I've found my way in. Do you write every day? Which is also half the battle. No. I wish I did. I don't. Most of my books get done in real intense bursts. Like, there are, like, period of 6 weeks where I'm writing, you know, every day when I'm, like, just jamming along. But until I get to that place, it's a little bit of star start stopping, journaling, trying to understand my characters. It's and everyone is different. I'm I'm like I mean, no one should look at the way I write books for any kind of, guidance on how to write books. Well well, I don't know if that's true. Like, you've described interesting ways of of kind of how you conceptualize these books. But, like, what do you mean by finding your way into it? Well, if you have an idea, right, you have a a premise, a big idea. There's, I'm a let me take it away. Okay. So for dark matter, before I landed on the way that it's now written in the book it became, I I had this idea that the box shows up in someone's backyard just one day, and they have no idea what it is. And they start exploring it and trying to sort of deconstruct it to understand what it does. Like, that's a valid way into that story. I had, thought of thought of telling it from Jason 2's point of view. I there's a there's a lot of ways in to telling a story and not necessarily one right way. But when you have a general idea, you you're living in a superposition, and there's so many doors you could open that are different versions of that story. So for me, it's about finding, like, what's the best version of it? What's the one that I'm excited to tell? And it usually ends up coming back to an emotional question. It's like, why are you writing this book? What's that what's that emotional existential crisis question that maybe you're personally wrestling with that you wanna work out on the page? That's what it and it I don't always know that at the time, but when I look back at books, I'm like, oh, yeah. Well, that I understand exactly why I did it that way. Yeah. Because it seemed like I see what you're saying how, like, there's multiple ways you could it's almost like, an analogy to the to the novel itself, the process of writing the novel. Like, there's a lot of choices you could have made in the beginning that would have totally altered how this novel was done. But now in retrospect, it seems like you made all the perfect choices, like starting with Jason 1 Yeah. As opposed to Jason 2. And, because he's the one that's most like us, like human. That's right. And That's right. And the the trope itself, the multiverse trope is one that's been done. And so, of course, there's multiple ways to choose to do that, but the way you did it, I felt feel like had the most thriller like aspect to it as opposed to a box appearing in someone's backyard. Right. Right. I still think that's a cool idea. It is. It is a cool idea. I've try it's almost like the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe type of thing where, oh, there's a closet that's magical, and and that's where it starts. Oh, exactly. So Exactly. Exactly. So is there gonna be a a dark matter series 2? I don't know. You know, I mean, the show just ended end of June, and I think we're just taking a minute to sort of catch our breath because it was 2 of the most intense years of my life making that show. And just, you know, I I kind of it took me away from books and other things. So I'm enjoying those other things at the moment. I don't know. I'm not trying to be cagey or coy. I just I I don't know at the moment. Yeah. Usually, the writer is not as involved in making the show, and I'm assuming you enjoyed that process? I loved it, in the case of dark matter. I don't think I would have done it any other way. It was just too special of a of a book to me, and, I just didn't wanna see it get f**ked up, you know. Is Dark Matter your best selling book? Yeah. It probably is. It probably is. A lot of people really, really love recursion. I don't know if it's my best loved book. I I think I would say it's probably my most popular. I mean, Pines was Weird Pines is also up there. It was published differently than Dark Matter. Dark Matter was a traditional published publication from Penguin Random House. Weird Pines was, Thomas and Mercer. So it was just one platform, but, with the show and stuff, you know, we really sold a lot of that book. And and how do you think, you know, this now has changed your career in terms of, like, the success of the show, the success of the book? Like, what's next career wise? What do you see as a change that's gonna happen in your career? I don't know. I mean, like, success gives you options. It gives you, you know, people return your calls. Doesn't really change anything when it comes to just like, why I think I'm successful is because I come up in with good ideas and I choose the right way into those ideas. And that need hasn't changed. The the success of the show doesn't change the need to still go back to a blank page and journal and think about, like, what's the next story I wanna tell? Why is it important to me to tell it? Why is it why do I think it's important for other people to hear it? That hasn't changed. So in some ways, yes, things have changed, but, also, it's still it's still the same. It's more just like you can get very distracted as with things, as you get more successful. I I like those questions you just asked. Opportunities. I I like those questions you just asked because I I haven't heard a thriller writer or a writer describe it quite that way where you're you you look for what what it is I I forgot exactly how you viewed it, but, like, why do you need to tell a story? Why do people why would people wanna read this story? Why would it be important to people? Like, that's kind of an interesting way to kind of, you know, begin the process of writing a story. Well, I think that's like, that is the if you look at books that are that sort of that they fall into the zeitgeist and and that people talk about, and wanna share with others. It's generally because there's some real emotional resonance within them, and they they touch on questions that are universal. So I do think it's like sometimes you just start a story because you see some cool scenes and a cool character and you rush forward through it, and I absolutely do that. But at some point during the process, I will begin to ask myself, but why does this actually matter? What what elevates this out of just being a fast, slick thriller into something that, like, stays with people and makes them want to talk about it? I don't think people, like, talk about books that are just merely entertaining. I think people the word-of-mouth begins with books that really make people also think. And so that's what I'm trying to do. Like, I I think though there's an aspect where your books are also a little I I don't know if aspirational is the right word. Like, I'd like to upgrade myself, or I'd like to Mhmm. Not just what if, but I'd also really like to upgrade myself. I'd like to potentially visit alternative universes and see what decisions I've made. So there's something that's like what do you call that? It's like a a Wish fulfillment. It's wish fulfillment. Yeah. Wish fulfillment. As opposed to, like, let's take old man in the sea. So there there there's a question there too. It's not just a a a book about fishing. It's a book about how age, you know, you you almost well, actually, how would you describe Old Man in the Sea? It's it's it's this this old fisherman is Man versus nature, man versus himself. It's about about how age, you know, tears us down and how we fight against it. It's all those things. You know? And just beautiful. It's just beautiful. It's such a beautiful vibe to live in. Right. It's beautiful, and the writing fits the questions. And, but it's not wish fulfillment. Mhmm. So No. So I think No. And it but it still works. Yeah. Yeah. It still works. So I almost think there's these these two these two aspects of literary style writing. 1 is kind of these questions with an element of the wish fulfillment, and the other is just the questions, not as much the wish fulfillment. The meditation. It's a meditation. A meditation. It's like you're living in the yeah. You're just sort of living in the environment and reflecting on what it's like to be there. Yeah. Yeah. And, Lost also has a little bit of the wish fulfillment. Like, what if I could escape society but be on this magical island Mhmm. Where where there's something amazing happening? It's a little bit of wish fulfillment. But in any case, Blake, Blake Crouch, author of dark matter, also author of the best TV series on TV, dark matter. I highly encourage people to read the book. And by this is one of those things you could read the book and watch the TV and be pleasantly surprised in both, and I highly encourage people do it. Plus, recursion, upgrade, other books by by Blake. Blake, thanks so much for for coming on the show, and come on the next novel you're writing. You always have fascinating stuff to write about. I I love your books. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you so I loved this conversation then, and, it's fun to get to talk craft and writing a little Yeah. A little more. It's been a joy. I'd love to come back. Thank you.
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