Interview with Keith Snyder
by Jon Jordan
Keith's Web Site

Jon: So right off the top, can you give a run down of your books for people who haven't had a chance to read them? Are they hardboiled, comedic, or a combination of things?

Keith: The longer I do this, the less I know what kind of books they are -- except that in some way, each has ties to the mystery genre. The ties are different each time around, though. My first book, SHOW CONTROL, was a mystery; it started with a death and ended with the killer caught. Once I'd done that, I didn't want to do it again. (I also don't believe that an amateur can believably keep stumbling over bodies, or that any amateur has believable reasons for continuously investigating murders.)

My second book, COFFIN'S GOT THE DEAD GUY ON THE INSIDE, was a find-the-Maguffin comedy and, I think, a funnier, tighter book.

TROUBLE COMES BACK, my third, is where being funny stopped being the main goal. It still has funny parts, just because I have a sense of humor and so do my characters, but it's a departure from the previous books in terms of tone and character depth.

In most ways, THE NIGHT MEN continues along that path, away from genre conventions, but in other ways it's tied more closely to the genre than anything else I've written. It's a love song to the hardboiled P.I., though not, itself, a detective novel. There are three intertwined stories in it: A modern-day story in which Jason helps out a friend whose music shop has been vandalized, possibly as a hate crime; a story in which similar circumstances bring Jason and Robert together for the first time as teenagers; and the detective story they're reading back then.

I want this to be a series where different kinds of things can happen. The down side of this is that in addition to having to fight some reviewers' ideas of what a mystery should be, you're also fighting their ideas of what it is you do. People think they know what to expect, based on previous books; so they grade new work against that perception instead of seeing what it is you've done this time and judging whether you're any good at it.

The up side is that I'm not bored. The characters continue to age and deepen, I take on larger technical challenges with each book, and I've never had an uninteresting moment in front of the laptop. Throwing myself curve balls means I get to remain engaged and absorbed.

Jon: In addition to writing, you also are a musician, and run a web site. What other things do you do as the renaissance man of mystery?

Keith: I don't really do enough things to be called a renaissance man. Da Vinci sculpted, painted, pursued scientific knowledge, designed instruments of war... I just write and compose, make short films when financially possible, and by day I work as a freelance graphic designer (when there's work). "Artist" is quite enough of a job title, since that's all I really am. I just like to do it in various media.

Jon: You live/ have lived in LA and in New York. Which do you prefer? Or if you like both, what are the qualities of each that makes them special?

Keith: I haven't loved New York in the three years we've lived here, and I've generally objected when anyone's called me a New Yorker, but Recent Events have, I think, made me one. It still isn't the place I think of when I think of *returning* home, but it's home.

I like the pizza in New York, but the Mexican food is not very good. The donut situation is exceedingly lame for a place that thinks of itself as a "food town"-- no maple bars, no bear claws, no apple fritters, no buttermilk bars, and no understanding that these aren't exoticisms--and what gets called a Cobb salad here is ridiculous. The word "gourmet" is used to the point of meaninglessness. What I do like is the amount of contact you have with other people; in LA, you see people once you get where you're driving. In New York, you're with them all the time. This bothered me at first, but now it's kind of fun.

Los Angeles is a much more convenient and generally pleasant place to live. The drawback that's relevant to my life is the lack of opportunity for an opera singer who doesn't politick -- which is why we moved to New York.

The word "famous" is to Los Angeles as the word "gourmet" is to New York.

A lot of New Yorkers I've talked with say Los Angeles is unfriendly and phony. On further interrogation, it seems most of them either visited for a week and didn't have a car, spent some time at UCLA, or had some sort of dealing with the entertainment industry. None of these is the Los Angeles I
know.

Jon: I would guess that you've been playing music a long time. Have you been writing a long time as well?

Keith: Since I was five. My first musical composition, in collaboration with my little sister, was called "Thunder and Lightning." It employed nonstandard technique and twentieth-century principles of randomness.

I guess I've been writing that long, too, if "I Love My Cat Tigger" can be considered a point on my writing path.

Jon: What made you want to write mystery? Was it planned or did it just kind of evolve into that?

Keith: When I was 20 or so, my sister gave me some of Robert B. Parker's Spenser books. Jason's reaction to the book-within-a-book THE NIGHT MEN is drawn from the effect they had on me, especially EARLY AUTUMN. Before that, I never really read mysteries. I didn't know all the subgenres and conventions until after my first book got published.

Jon: What role do you think the internet plays in the career of a modern author and or musician?

Keith: As much or as little as the author or musician wants. I sell CDs on the web and hang out on rec.arts.mystery, but conventional approaches are still probably as effective, careerwise. Maybe more effective. I have no patience for paperwork and networking, so the Internet is good for me.

Jon: Any strange tales to tell from conventions or signings?

Keith: Just the usual people who have a great idea for a book and want me to write it and split the million dollars. I'm happy to help if I can get my cut up front.

I'm outgoing at public events, but I'm naturally an introverted person, so crowds take a lot out of me. I spend most of my convention time in small groups, and I try to get back to my room often, just to decompress before heading back out. I also prefer the kind of signing where we just hang out and talk to the kind where I present myself and you listen. The Q&A period is my favorite part of being on a panel.

Jon: Was it hard getting the first book published?

Keith: Not as hard as it's been for a lot of people. I met my first publisher at the American Booksellers Association trade show, where I'd gone to see who I could pitch it to. A few months later, I had about a dozen rejections and a contract offer.

Jon: What would be a perfect weekend for you?

Keith: SELL IN HELL winning "Best Short" at Cannes, THE NIGHT MEN getting optioned, Sony Classical calling to say they want to issue FIVE FEYNMAN SONGS with Kathleen singing the soprano part, an indie film backer interested in CUPID & PSYCHE, and next month's rent money already in the bank.

Jon: Who are some of your favorite authors?

Keith: It's pretty fluid. Right now I like Italo Calvino, SJ Rozan, Mary Doria Russell, Annie Proulx, and Dostoevsky. Who knew THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV had funny parts? Unfortunately, I had to put it down for about a month, so now I'll have to start over.

Jon: Being a musician is something that takes discipline. Does this help with your writing?

Keith: I have no discipline outside of my project deadlines.

THE SHIP THAT LIES AT THE BOTTOM, the big concert theater piece I did in April, took a serious toll on my finances, and I haven't had an opportunity to get back to composing, though I did finish a spoken word/music piece based on Joseph Wallace's short story THE HAUNTED JOHN. But that was a matter of sanding down the seams between two existing elements I'd already mostly combined (the music and the story). It's at http://www.mp3.com/keithsnyder and also http://www.mp3.com/joewallace.

Jon: What' s more important to you, plot or characterization?

Keith: If you're trying to write what Hemingway called "people, not characters," then they're almost the same thing. If the two motivating forces in a plot are the characters and the world, then things can only happen that (a) these particular people would do or (b) come from outside the people. There's no opportunity for plot going its merry way and "characters" that are really thinly clothed plot points just getting plugged into it. That's why I can't write puzzle-based mysteries; they're not believable enough to me to support the kind of characters I want to write. I think drama can be made from the kinds of things people actually do.

I'm also less and less trustful of huge, Romantic gestures, at least in my own work. Small ones that build and multiply are more compelling to me, and I think there's a lot I haven't discovered yet about them. Reich and Mahler are both great, but my own natural tendencies definitely lean toward the former.

Jon: Do you think that it's important to be realistic and believable in writing, or do you think that it's ok to assume the reader can follow along with a stretch of the imagination?

Keith: I'm going to go astray with this question so that I can return to it.

I don't think any single approach is inherently superior. If you're writing a gritty police procedural, then it's important to be realistic. If you're writing a fantasy -- by which I mean a flight of the imagination, not just a book with elves -- then it's important *not* to be realistic. What's imagined is, by definition, what's not experienced.

It's important to me to rid myself as much as possible of artistic prejudices. I don't want to be an artist who believes that successful art is recognizable by the presence of any single element. In early-twenty-first-century America, for instance, many of us think roiling, raging emotions are essential to good art; and many who believe this even extend it to include the lifestyle of the artist.

I think this is an adolescent fantasy. My view is that big, brash rock musicians can be artists -- but so can shy, perfectionist classical cellists and socially retarded geeks who chop up sound on a computer. The possibilities of art are wider than any single approach--even any single good approach--including those that appear emotionally honest to polite people because they're loud or rude.

Some artists are self-destructive; some are emotionally stable; some prefer realism; some prefer surrealism. Whether they're artists or not has nothing to do with their personal style, and everything to do with whether they do something interesting with it.

So I don't think either of the approaches you named is "more important," except in the context of what a writer is trying to accomplish at the moment. For myself, when I'm writing Jason, I'm trying to grow plot from character details, large-scale structural ideas, and a lot of trust of my unconscious; but when I wrote "Instructions," which has no characters at all, I was focused on entirely on plot and language mechanics.

My hope is that by doing what I'm not yet good at--instead of finding one thing I'm already good at and doing it over and over in order to get praise and thus validate my innate resistance to change--I'll get better at more things. It's very hard to give up prejudices, but even when I fail, I think the return is worth the investment.

Jon: What is some of your favorite music?

Keith: Frank Martin's "Concerto for 7 Wind Instruments, Timpani, Percussion, and Strings"

M'Shell Ndegeocello's "Peace Beyond Passion."

Lately I've been humming Denise Broadhurst's "The North Star," which I helped her put up on the web: http://www.mp3.com/broadhurst

A lot of African music, mostly from the 90s, when I could afford CDs.

Steve Reich's "Different Trains."

Ozomatli's "Lena."

Jon: How important is an editor to the writing process?

Keith: Good suggestions are always useful when I'm stuck and ask for them. Otherwise, I don't like anyone's opinions until I have a big chunk completed and I'm not feeling as uncertain. My editor offers his views when I ask for them, and I'm free to take them or not. I think that's because we respect each other and he knows I'm listening. I don't think I've ever made a major change to a book because of anyone's suggestions, but my wife is often very helpful when I'm stuck. We don't think the same, so even when I can't use her suggestions, they get me thinking in directions that don't occur to me otherwise.

Jon: Do you think it's important for an author to do self promotion in addition to the publicity that the publisher does?

Keith: I have no idea. I do some, but I can't say how effective it is. My books aren't printed and distributed in huge numbers, so my feeling is that if I can sell an extra hundred or two hundred by talking about it online and doing signings, that's a significant enough portion of the total to make it worthwhile. My suspicion is that the bigger you get, the less effect self-promotion has on your career.

Jon: Do ideas for your books come from real events? Are you influenced by events around you?

Keith: THE NIGHT MEN came from a lot of things. One of them is my experience, around age 15, of staying up all night to try to protect our house from hate crimes. I wanted to describe what that was like. Unfortunately, the entire country just found out what that's like, and worse.

Jon: If you were able to talk to a fifteen year old Keith, what advice would you give him?

Keith: Eat better.

Jon: Batman or Superman?

Keith: The Tick.

Jon: Any future writing plans you can tell us about?

Keith: I'm very concerned with rent right now, so I'm not writing as much as I'd like to. I've got the first couple of pages of a screenplay I'd like to produce and score. It would let me write, compose, and produce, which are my favorite things to do. I'm not a great director of photography, I've learned, so it would also be a chance to learn more about that by working with someone who is.

Jon: What kind of movies do you enjoy?

Keith: Good ones, of any genre -- though I don't enjoy horror flicks. Lately we've been borrowing videotapes from a coworker of Kathleen's who used to be a reviewer. THE BANDWAGON, with Fred Astaire, was great, and I liked seeing my great-grandmother in FUNNY GIRL. She's the old lady playing the violin in the Brooklyn party scene.

The only recent releases I've seen are SHRECK, which I liked a lot once it got past the first ten minutes of fart jokes, and JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK, which was farts without jokes.

Jon: And........What's the one thing always in your fridge?

Keith: 9-LIVES (tuna and egg) with a plastic cat-face snap lid.