This
month, Fabulous Florida Writers is pleased to welcome guest blogger Steven
Forman. He is the author of a series of hilarious mysteries set in Boca
Raton. His newest novel, A Better Place, was released in July. Forman
was our featured writer on February 3, 2015.
As
a young man my favorite books were expansive sagas that spanned generations. I
loved James Michener’s epics and enjoyed the unique experience of reading The
Source while traveling through Israel in 1986. I was able to see what
Michener described in such exquisite detail. I think I read every book by Harold
Robbins which were often multi-generational sagas, broad in scope. So, after
writing and publishing three mystery/comedies (Boca Knights, 2009, Boca
Mournings, 2011, Boca Daze, 2012 from Tor Books) I decided to write
a novel like the ones I loved reading as a young man. My latest release, A
Better Place, is the result of that decision and though I love the outcome,
I struggled with the process — and it took me five years.
Writing
mystery/comedies came naturally to me. The plots, characters and humor flowed
effortlessly — if not always perfectly. Conversely, writing a
multi-generational saga encompassing eighty years, two world wars, the Korean
War and Vietnam, multiple, interconnecting characters, in different places, was
an entirely different challenge for me. It required extensive research and more
patience than any of my previous novels. For instance, I wanted two of my
characters, a teenage boy and his uncle, to travel from Zurich, Switzerland to
Berlin, Germany in 1936 and attend Hitler’s Olympics. The uncle is a wealthy
circus owner with his own limousine and chauffer and decides to take his limo
rather than a train to Berlin. I had to address the following: What kind
of limo would a wealthy Swiss businessman own in 1936? Were there decent roads
between Zurich and Berlin in the summer of 1936? Could a Swiss citizen easily
cross borders into Germany at that time? Were there gas stations along the
route to enable them to make the ride? What was the route? How long would it
take? The travel itself was not crucial to the story but I thought these minor
issues should be addressed to add credibility to the story. I did the research
and got the answers.
As it
turned out, I cut the scene, determining it wasn’t important enough to a book
that was already approaching five hundred pages. I was concerned with
making the book unnecessarily long. Granted, my idol, James Michener, wrote
books that exceeded a thousand pages, filled with extensive research and
brilliant writing, like the scene he wrote about the death of a dinosaur that
brought tears to my eyes. He was known and loved for his technique — but
I was not James Michener. So, I chose to cut down the scope of the book
and follow the trail blazed by Harold Robbins— character driven historical
fiction. Considering Robbins had twenty-five best sellers, that sold over
750 million copies, I was still aiming high.
A
Better Place is driven by
unique characters both mighty and meek who live through important historical
events but always remain the story’s focus. The title comes from a scene where
a father asks a son how he felt after committing an extreme act of violence.
The son thinks before he answers and says, “I feel like I made the world a
better place.” To which the father responds, “A better place for who? That
question is the central theme of the book. Is there anything that would make
the world a better place for everyone. Leaving my writer’s comfort zone was …
well … it was uncomfortable. But it was also an educational adventure, and I
feel the outcome was well worth the effort. Since completing A Better Place
I have finished a new mystery comedy and am working on another.
For more
information, visit Forman's website at www.stevenmforman.com
