Author R&R with D. Anton Stelzig

D. Anton Stelzig worked as biochemist, studying—among things—the fungus that caused the 19th century Irish potato famine, before he retired to open an art gallery in Morgantown. That kickstarted his writing hobby into high gear, resulting in his debut novel, Brotherhood, a political thriller set against the backdrop of power, secrecy, and betrayal at the highest levels of government.

Brotherhood follows Joe Angotti, who built a following by exposing the truth on his political blog. But when he announces the existence of a shadowy terrorist cell calling itself Brotherhood, he becomes the story. Kidnapped, tortured to discover how he learned about Brotherhood, and nearly killed by his captors, Joe escapes—only to find himself on the run from ruthless extremists,who want him dead and from a bumbling cop, who wants to send him to prison for crimes he didn't commit.

With his memory shattered, his name smeared, and people he loves in the crosshairs, Joe must piece together the truth before the clock runs out, because Brotherhood thugs aren't just hunting him; they're planning something far more sinister. And the closer Joe gets to the truth, the more dangerous it becomes.

Joe's troubles become complicated when the terrorists snatch both his girlfriend and a rookie FBI agent he has befriended, who they vow to kill unless Joe surrenders to them. Innocent citizens have died because of Joe's carelessness. Adding two more to his conscience is not an option, especially when the two are people most dear to him. But he has no idea how to find the terrorists, let alone what to do if he did—and he has less than twenty-four hours to come up with a plan.

D. Anton Stelzig stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing the novel:

I don’t particularly enjoy writing.

That may be an odd admission from someone who has just published a novel, but I’ve never been one of those authors who says he writes because he has to. I write because I can. For me, writing is a lot like assembling a jigsaw puzzle. It’s a lot of work, but the finished product can be pleasing. And once in a while, while rewriting my rewrites, I come up with a phrase or a sentence, on a really good day an entire scene, that pleases me.

That’s enough to keep me going.

For most of my professional life, the writing I did was scientific. I was a biochemist at West Virginia University, and much of my research involved plants and plant disease. I wrote papers for scientific journals, and the people reading them didn’t give a damn about my life or the lives of my graduate students. They wanted to know what we did, what happened, and what the evidence showed.

I suspect some of that followed me into fiction.

My chapters tend to be short. I like action. I want the plot to move. I spend time developing characters, of course, but probably less than a lot of writers do. If something happens, I want to know what happens because of it. And then what happens next.

That way of thinking came in handy when I wrote Brotherhood.

The novel begins when a young political blogger, Joe Angotti, gets an anonymous tip about a terrorist organization called Brotherhood operating in Washington, D.C. Joe publishes what he knows. Brotherhood wants his source. Unfortunately for Joe, he doesn’t have one.

They kidnap him anyway.

Joe eventually escapes, but he’s been tortured, shot, and nearly frozen to death. He wakes in a hospital with no idea who he is or what happened to him. Then the police start finding evidence that makes him look less like a victim and more like a criminal.

That’s where the puzzle really begins.

Except when you write a novel, you have to make the puzzle pieces before you can put them together.

A scientist deals with something similar. You collect information. Some of it turns out to be important. Some doesn’t. Sometimes a small detail becomes much more important later. And sometimes what you find tells you that what you thought was happening couldn’t possibly be right.

In Brotherhood, Joe is found shot, handcuffed, barefoot, and almost frozen to death. Then there’s a damaged Mercedes. Blood. A gun. Fingerprints. Stolen license plates. The police draw conclusions from what they find. Some are right. Others aren’t.

I enjoyed putting all that together.

Not the torture, terrorism, and people shooting one another, obviously. The problem solving.

My years in science taught me to pay attention to evidence. If you think something happened one way and the evidence says otherwise, you’d better reconsider what you think happened. You don’t get to change the evidence because it’s inconvenient.

A thriller writer shouldn’t either.

I knew where I wanted Brotherhood to go, but I still had to get everyone there in a way that made sense. If Joe does one thing, there has to be a reasonable consequence. If the police find a piece of evidence, they have to react to what they know at that moment, not what I know as the guy writing the book.

My background helped in some more obvious ways too. Chemistry gave me a foundation for some of the forensic and technical details. And after a tour in the Navy, I know my way around a ship well enough to keep the maritime portions of the story grounded in reality.

But I think the biggest influence of my earlier life is simpler than that.

I spent a lot of years asking questions, looking at results, and trying to figure out what they meant. Now I make up the questions, the results, and usually a few people trying very hard to keep anyone from figuring out what they mean.

I’m not sure that makes writing less tedious.

But it does make for a pretty good puzzle.

And every once in a while, when all the pieces finally fit, I have to admit that I enjoy it.

 
You can learn more about D. Anton Stelzig and his writing via his website and follow him on Facebook and Goodreads. Brotherhood is now available via Amazon.