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The James Altucher Show

334 - Brad Meltzer: Creating a Bestselling Novel (The Secret X-Factor Revealed)

The James Altucher Show

James Altucher

Society & Culture, Talk Radio, Writer, Philosophy, Comedy, Chess, How To, Entrepreneurship, Jay, James, The James Altucher Show, Altucher, Author, Jay Yow, Education, Jay The Engineer, Business, James Altucher

4.62.7K Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2018

⏱️ 75 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Brad Meltzer is one of the most passionate writers I’ve ever met. He writes page-turning thriller novels. “The Tenth Justice”, “The Millionaires” and his most recent, “The Escape Artist”. The first book Brad wrote got 24 rejection...

Transcript

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0:00.0

This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host.

0:06.4

This is the James Altiger Show on the Choose Yourself Network.

0:12.4

Today on the James Altiger Show.

0:15.2

I feel like the one thing you have to do when you write a novel for a reader.

0:18.4

It has to be something that the reader could hook onto.

0:20.8

Something that makes the reader feel like that little part of that short of them is in that character.

0:26.8

When I'm reading every one of your characters I'm going to figure out pretty early on what basic thing motivates them.

0:32.4

The plot is really there for the publishers and the audience to say,

0:36.9

oh okay, it's just thriller inside the White House.

0:39.6

But what really makes this good is not that it's a thriller inside the White House.

0:43.2

That's the answer.

0:44.4

The answer is never the plot.

0:46.4

What my best books have in common and it took me a while to even figure it out myself is,

0:50.8

it's not the White House, it's not the Millionaires, it's not the big bank,

0:54.4

it's that you care about that character.

0:58.0

The number one question I ask myself with every character is,

1:00.4

what does this character want?

1:02.4

What do they want?

1:04.0

And if I can't answer that question, I shouldn't be writing the character, I gotta go back.

1:08.4

If you just make the character, oh he just wants to save the girl.

1:12.4

Like why?

1:13.4

No, no, that's a plot.

...

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