At a recent speaking event, an audience member called out, “You write like a girl!” How is it that you are able to write novels that appeal so strongly to women? Is there something in your background that has influenced this aspect of your writing?
I grew up with three sisters, a mom, a female parakeet, and a female black lab. Maybe that had something to do with it.
It used to ding me when readers waved my books in my face and stated, “You write love stories.” Made me feel like a windswept Fabio should be posing on my covers. I’d scratch my head and glance over my shoulder. “Why can’t I write cool guy stuff like Vince Flynn, Clive Cussler, Robert Ludlum, W.E.B Griffin, or Louis L’Amour? What’s wrong with me?” But while I enjoy those stories and admire those writers, deep down I don’t want to write like them. It took me a while to see that. To be okay with being me. I like what I write. That’s why I write it. I used to joke that I write like me ’cause I can’t write like them. I quipped, “If I could, I would.” We both know that’s not true. I’m writing the stories in me that I can’t not write, regardless of how they come across.
When that lady stood up and screamed, “You write like a girl!” she was affirming that I write with emotion. That I don’t bury it. That I say things that her heart and others’ hearts need and want to hear. And yes, that goes for me, too. And I’m okay with that.
I wrote Thunder and Rain (in part) for this very reason—that us guys are good at living out of one side of our hearts but we stumble when it comes to living fully out of both sides. (This goes for me, too. Just ’cause I’m talking about the idea doesn’t make me a pro.) We’re good at storming the castle, at slaying the dragon, but we ain’t too good at dinner table conversations in the weeks, months, and years ahead. “Good with sword and spear” does not necessarily equate to “Good at listening to wife” or “Good at engaging with kids.” Maybe my stories are my attempt to awaken this part of my own heart.
John Eldredge is right—we are living out a love story and yet we were born into a world at war. We are Londoners during the Blitzkrieg. I love the stories of the guys I’ve mentioned above, and if I was stuck in a bunker in London with the Germans raining bombs down on my head, I may very well read their stuff as an escape. We’d pass around their books and say how good they are and what we liked about them. But when I’ve turned the last page, and curfew has clicked off the power and I’m laying in the dark listening to the rumbling above me, I’m still wrestling with how to wake up tomorrow morning and put one foot in front of the other. Questions like: How do I fight for the heart of my wife? My kids? Friends? My own? What’s it look like? How do I walk that out?
Yes, I hope readers like my stories. Yes, I hope they’re entertained. Yes, I hope they pass them around and talk about them. But more than that, when the lights go out and they’re facing a tough tomorrow, wondering how to climb out of bed and just stand upright in a world where the bombs are raining down, I hope that something about my story reaches down inside them where the world has dinged them, in the dark places they don’t talk about, and whispers the words they alone need to hear.
Have you been to any of the places where Unwritten is set?
Yes, most (I think), if not all. Those I haven’t been to, I made up. ;-) Rarely do I put a “place” in a story if I haven’t been there. If I can’t smell it, it’s tough for me to write about it. I spent time in the Ten Thousand Islands, the Everglades, the Gulf, the Keys, Miami, New York, and France. My wife, Christy, loves it when I “research” settings and take her with me. After our trip to France, she thinks my next book needs to be set in Hawaii.
Where did you get the idea for the orchids Peter puts up in the trees?
We were driving out of Miami after a weekend there and drove by an orchid cart on the side of the road. Three for $20. Or four for $25. Something like that. Christy bought a few. While she was talking with the owner, my mind wandered to the Everglades and the Island. One thing led to another. How I got from that roadside cart to thirty feet up in a tree in the middle of the Everglades is a testimony to the wonder and majesty of story and one of my favorite things about what I get to do every day.
What is the most surprising question a reader has asked you? What was your response?
Not sure. There have been several. A few I can’t repeat. But the thing that amazes me more and more is when people ask to take a picture with me. Seriously. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind. Take all you want. I’m happy to oblige and I’m happy you want to be seen with me. Please let me know if I’ve got something stuck in my teeth. I guess it’s just strange. I can understand taking a picture with somebody famous, but I’m just Charles. I wear socks. I brush my teeth. I can be grumpy. I realize therein lies the difference. Your perspective of me versus my perspective of me. You see me as the guy behind the stories. I see me as husband and dad and son and dreamer.
Somewhere in this line of thought is the “thing,” or one of the “things,” that fed the writing of Unwritten. The idea that man is not made to be worshipped. To be praised. It’s antithetical to our DNA. We’re not made to receive it, but to reflect it. Want a good picture of this? Pour gasoline in a Styrofoam cup and you’ll see what I mean. It eats you from the inside out, eventually spilling you across the sidewalk. And Katie, and Peter, and to a much less and smaller extent, Charles, can tell you a good bit about this.
The Author Answers the Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think the title of the book is Unwritten? In what ways is that theme conveyed in the book?
Peter answers this far better than I in his letter to Katie on here. I can’t say it any better than that.
2. Shortly after meeting Peter, Katie confesses to Steady, “I don’t like the way I treat people.” Why do you think she behaves the way she does? Is her behavior justified?
I think she’s in pain. Justified? No, but that’s not the point. She doesn’t like it any more than we do. One of the things I love about both Steady and Peter is that they don’t try to fix the symptom—the behavior. They’re looking at the cause. The root. They realize that the water in Katie Quinn’s glass is poisoned and that occurred long before it entered the glass. So they follow the pipes, walk upstream, and pull the lid off the well where the spring is bubbling up. One of the two clicks on a flashlight and that’s where they find the bodies. Deal with the bodies and the water downstream will take care of itself. I have found this to be true not only in the lives of the characters I create, but my own life and the lives of those I love.
3. Why would Steady believe that Peter and Katie are more capable of helping each other than he is of helping either of them?
Steady understands the nature of the pain Katie and Peter are living and knows that each can speak to the brokenness in the other. Did I “know” all this when I wrote this book? Did I outline all this in sequential multicolored drafts pinned to the walls of my office and then work it into my story with a complete ontological and epistemological understanding of all the emotional complexities playing out between the pages? No. Not by a long shot. I wrote a love story about two messed-up people trying to walk down the painful road from broken to not broken, and now that you’re asking me, I’m scratching my head and giving you my best guess. And that best guess is this story you hold. I’m attempting—after the fact—to dissect the whole and describe the intricacy of the pieces. Tough to do and I’m not very good at it. This is one of the beauties of Story—it answers questions that my intellect can’t really wrap its hands around. And yet the answer satisfies and resonates as true. Funny how that works.
4. Do you think Peter did the right thing in helping Katie through door number three?
On this side of it, Peter would say no, but let’s don’t second guess what he didn’t know at the time. He had to walk it out with her. Seemed like a good idea at the time. For the record, I agree with Peter so I’d have done the same. Also, you need to know that sometimes readers ask me questions that I can’t begin to answer. I’m
a writer. Not a psychiatrist with a couch. These pages are where I work out the stuff that’s nagging me. Remember what I said above about “knowing” all this. Same truth applies here. Sometimes I’m discovering as much about my characters in the writing as you are in the reading. They make me laugh and cry, too. I find people are surprised at this. They ask, “You cried?” Like a baby. The human heart is pretty good at spotting counterfeits. If I’m not moved, then how will my story move you?
5. Were Katie’s fans truly mourning her after her death? Is the act of mourning about the person lost, or the person who is mourning?
Not sure I’m qualified to answer this. Let me try… In my experience, I’ve both mourned the person who’s passed and I’ve mourned my interaction with them—or what they gave me. Just being honest. Last Saturday, I was at a race for my son. At the starting line, they played the National Anthem. I stood there listening while that perfect, angelic voice rose up out of those speakers. Halfway through, I found myself thinking, Has this ever been performed any better? As the recording finished, I realized how the absence of Whitney Houston still stings. How I miss her voice. I’m not sure I can describe what I miss about it other than I do. I miss what it does on my insides and the hope that she might be around to do it again. Is that selfish? Maybe, but we lost a great one in her and I’d be willing to bet I’m not alone in this. I just know that when that song finished, I missed something pure, good, and beautiful and the absence of it hurt. I imagine that those fans in the Gulf mourning the loss of Katie felt the same.
6. In what ways are Peter and Katie similar? How does it impact their relationship?
Both are uniquely gifted. Both drink life emotively. They “feel” deeply… intensely. It’s how they’re able to do what they do and resonate with so many. That trait amplifies both their joy and their pain. And… it’s common among artists.
7. Why do you think Katie had so many disguises? Were they a help to her or a hindrance?
Anything that masks our true identity is probably a hindrance. Matter of fact, that might be a pretty good definition. Although in Katie’s defense, she had lost all anonymity, so I think it’s tough for anyone to understand that phenomenon who hasn’t walked it. Myself included. Think about somebody like Will Smith, Tom Hanks, Oprah, or name your icon. Those people—and they’re just normal people like you and me who eat, sleep, and laugh—can’t go anywhere without folks like you and me hammering them ’cause we think we know them from their movies and because we love to touch our idols. In truth, we don’t know squat. I’d be willing to bet most would pay—and probably do—a good bit to not be known. For anonymity and some sense of normalcy. I would. Kind of makes you wonder how many superstars are lonely. In Katie’s case, there’s a difference between masking her face and masking her heart. One is simply an outward reflection of an inward condition. It’s the reason the scene at Steady’s church on Easter Sunday is so powerful to me. Without giving away too much to those who haven’t read it, let me say this—Katie can only do what she does there because she’s already done that with the one on the inside.
8. In what ways is Katie influenced by the opinion of society throughout her life? How has it shaped who she is?
Others’ opinions of her hasn’t shaped her nearly as much as her own. While others’ are painful and sting, it’s her own that hangs the rope around her neck.
9. Peter stops writing after he loses Jody, even though there are many children who love his stories. Why is that? Was it really about Jody?
I’m not sure. I just know that when I closed my eyes and put myself in his shoes, the all-encompassing pain that had become his life was enough to put him in the front seat of that southbound Mercedes. And then keep him there. I know that.
10. Discuss the theme of forgiveness in the novel.
Please see here–here.
11. In what ways does Katie help Peter?
I spent nearly a week writing the last page of this book. No kidding, five days focused on somewhere around four hundred words. I rewrote it twenty, thirty, forty times. It is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful pictures I’ve ever scripted depicting the interaction between two people. And it’s a pretty good answer to your question. Katie hands her bag of broken pieces to Peter and for the first time in a long time, the bleeding stops—and he starts to heal. As strange as it sounds, broken people are fixed by other broken people. It’s God’s economy. It’s why soldiers who carried stretchers across the Bulge scribble beneath benches and become priests whose hands are stained.
12. What do you think would have happened to Katie and Peter if Steady had not pushed them together? Could they have healed on their own?
Don’t know. I didn’t write that story. In truth, I have no idea. “Healing” for you may look a bit different than “healing” for me, so I want to be careful I don’t put it in a box of “it must look like this.” I just know both Katie and Peter had Steady, or maybe Steady had them. Either way, I’m glad they did. Steady is one of my narrative treasures. I love him. If and when this thing is made into a movie, it will be fun to see who is tagged to play him. What a role. And no, I don’t have anyone in mind. I don’t see my characters that way, but it would be fun to play that mental game and see who we all came up with. Whoever he is, I hope he nails it and I’ll be pulling for him.
Also by Charles Martin
Thunder and Rain
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Contents
WELCOME
DEDICATION
PART ONE
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
PART TWO
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
PART THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
EPILOGUE
AFTERWORD: DOC SNAKEOIL
READING GROUP GUIDE
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR
THE AUTHOR ANSWERS THE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
ALSO BY CHARLES MARTIN
NEWSLETTERS
COPYRIGHT
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Correspondence from John Dyson reproduced by permission from his estate.
Copyright © 2013 by Charles Martin
“Doc Snakeoil” Copyright © 2013 by Charles Martin
Reading Group Guide Copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U
.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at
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ISBN 978-1-4555-0394-0
Charles Martin, Unwritten
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