Writer2Writer with Lee Child

Jeff Abbott continues his interview series with noted crime writers, talking to Lee Child about all things Reacher, the writing process, why his use of dialogue is underrated, and whether the confidence demeanor’s a facade or not:

Jeff: ..[T]his sort of self-doubt, though, is absolutely crucial to succeeding as a writer; otherwise you sink into laziness and complacency. But you also come across as very confident in just who you are.

Lee: Am I self-confident in real life? Kind of. Or, I’ve been faking it so long that the illusion has become reality. At four years old I was a serious, earnest, na�ve little boy, and due to circumstances beyond my control we moved from a pleasant suburb to a real inner-city hell-hole in England’s equivalent of Detroit. Some inner sixth sense — I remember it well – led that earnest little boy to understand that life was going to be sink-or-swim now, and that surface image was going to be critical … so I built a very convincing “You do not f**k with me” demeanor, and I have kept it going ever since. Eventually it became more real than the truth, which is that I’m no more sure of myself than anyone else, I guess. Although in some ways my brain ended up wired differently. I literally trained myself over the years to replace fear with aggression. I’m not scared of the things that scare most people. One Halloween we were at Universal Studios in Orlando, after dark, and they had these guys dressed as the guy from the Chainsaw Massacre movie, and they were suddenly jumping out at people with leaf blowers tricked out to look like chainsaws … vroom vroom … people were screaming and fleeing � but with no conscious control at all I just hit my guy in the face. Instant reaction. Bang. Never back down, never back off. Lessons learned long ago. They’ve gotten me in all kinds of other trouble … the idea of ever being defeated in anything was so dangerous to the image that it led to me accepting ludicrous challenges, like for instance eventually becoming the union organizer, and the uninhibited way I did the job, which was definite suicide professionally. But there was also some kind of noblesse oblige in there too. It needed to be done. I could do it, temperamentally, therefore I should do it. I built some of that stuff into Reacher. Maybe I’m trying to explain myself to myself.

That is an interesting concept to me, that we can adopt personality traits that may initially be alien to us and then make use of it for so long that it blurs with who we “really” are supposed to be. Acting? Maybe, but it’s certainly helpful. Especially since so many other people are unsure of who they are and who they are supposed to be.