Award-winning thriller author Michael Sherer recently released his second Blake Sanders thriller. For this interview, Sherer discussed the series as well as problems created by the freedom of self publishing.
Many authors include an “overarching theme” in their books. Some authors consciously do this while others discover their theme after completing a book. Sherer said, “I’ve looked at some hot-button issues such as abortion and the scandals in the Catholic Church in past books. My goal as a writer is to entertain, but if I can educate and stimulate thought or discussion in the process I serve a higher purpose. In “Night Tide,” I examined a less consequential, but no less complex, issue—friendship and loyalty. I wanted to look at what constitutes a friendship, how much loyalty we owe our friends and in what circumstances.”
The idea for “Night Tide” came to Sherer, not from a personal experience, he said, but while reading. “I read an article about a man who was being released from prison after 20 years of incarceration for a crime he didn’t commit. I tried to imagine what it would be like to restart your life after losing 20 years, how friends and family might react to you, how you would reclaim your reputation. I built the story around that premise.”
Once he had a premise, it was time for Sherer to look at options for protagonist Blake Sanders. He asked himself, “What if Blake had a friend who had gone to jail when they were both teens? What if Blake had been at the scene of the crime, had been a witness? But what if Blake didn’t know for sure if his friend had or hadn’t committed the crime?”
The story Sherer wrote can best be described as “friends don’t let friends go to jail…and live to tell about it.” In “Night Tide,” Blake Sanders let his childhood friend Perry Langford go to jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Perry’s been locked up for twenty years. Now Perry’s out and he’s mad as hell.
“The biggest challenge for me,” said Sherer, “is writing about subjects I haven’t personally experienced. All authors use imagination to bring the world on the page to life—it’s fiction, after all. But I know of many who go to a gun range and fire the weapons their characters use, learn to fly the aircraft their characters pilot, and so forth. I haven’t got the time or money to get a pilot’s license or experience some of what happens in my books, but I do try to research as much as I can.”
Sherer thinks that many of today’s published authors don’t make that same effort. He also said he’s concerned by how many bad books are published. “I try to write the kind of books I enjoy reading. So many more books are published now than ever that readers often have a difficult time separating wheat from chaff. With the advent of digital self-publishing, too many writers put work on the market that isn’t ready for publication. Proportionally, there’s more bad writing out there than before. In my opinion authors can be divided into four groups: those who write crap—poorly plotted stories badly told; those who are terrific storytellers; those who write beautiful prose but tell disjointed, nonsensical stories; and those who tell stories that keep readers turning the pages with lyrical prose that enhances a reader’s experience. I love the latter.”
More information
Visit Mike Sherer at www.michaelwsherer.com or you can find him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thrillerauthor and on Twitter at @MysteryNovelist.
