Interviews with Authors

Brian Haig is the best-selling author of the Sean Drummond series. His latest novel, The Hunted, is a different kind of thriller -- it's based on the real life of Alex Konevitch. GYWO Editor Laura Jones recently interviewed Brian about making the shift from Drummond to Konevitch

LJ: You are a master at inserting key bits of information early in your novels, and having them play a significant role later. Does this sort of foreshadowing come in the first draft or do you work it in with subsequent drafts?

BH: Almost always in the first draft, but different writers approach this differently. Some outline very extensively before they set finger to key. Some have storyboards or elaborate personal organizing tools. Others, as you suggest, write a rough draft, study it a while, then go back and plant clues and leads to 'sexify' the story. I don't outline or storyboard, but I do have a few things firmly in mind before I start writing. I know the point or points I want to make, the themes, for want of a better word. I know the general mystery I want to create around those themes. And I know the ending. So it's not totally free-flowing like Jazz, but having those fixed points or parameters allows you to distribute clues and shadows that, by design, only appear relevant and flower in the last few chapters. The key here is know the ending.

LJ: Your previous books were based on your own experiences. This current release is a fictionalized account of a living man's story. How closely did you have to work with this man?

BH: You're right, it was very different. First, of course, I had to get to know Alex and Elena. You can't really fictionalize a real-life character without some sense of who he is, or who she is. Fortunately he and Elena were wonderful company and I liked them both a lot. And they were in every sense a wonderful love story, and that became a centerpiece of the book. Second, I needed to become very familiar with what Alex and Elena experienced. Here, fortunately, there were newspaper articles and even TV coverage -- including a segment of 60 minutes -- detailing Alex's
experiences. But most importantly, Alex wrote a short book about it called Defiance. Now the real-life Alex, as you might've surmised from The Hunted, is quite brilliant, which is fortunate because I'm not. He left lots of breadcrumbs and made it very easy for me.

LJ: How many of the other characters in your novel are based on real-life people?

BH: In the case of The Hunted, I had two real-life characters as models -- Alex and Elena -- and created the rest out of whole cloth. I mean, when Alex and I first spoke, I told him that I would prefer to fictionalize his experiences rather than confront the legal risks involved in writing a nonfictional account. So The Hunted is inspired by what happened, but nearly all the characters are creatures of my imagination.

LJ: How did you convert the slow pace of a true story to the fast pace of a thriller complete with unexpected twists and turns?

BH: That was exactly the challenge when I first considered The Hunted. The real-life tale occurred over an almost 20 year period, from the time when Alex was a college student, and got booted out of Moscow U. for doing a bit of capitalist work on the side, to the day when the FBI finally stopped coming after him. So first, how do you compress 20 years of events and experiences into a shorter, more workable frame. To begin I cherry-picked the nonfictional events or turning points that I felt were most vital to an exciting tale. But so much happened in those 20 years that it meant jettisoning some truly excellent material simply because it would've made the book into a doorstop. In the end, though, I decided that any timeframe less than two years was unworkable. Of course by thriller standards this is still like watching the ice age unfold. So necessarily it required some sections where I 'told' the story rather than 'showed' it, in order to compress the story without losing its continuity or complexity. The first half of the book is actually just one day, but during the course of that day you get flashbacks and summaries that compress about five years. Then another year -- the year of Alex and Elena settling in the US -- is compacted into a two page summary, so the bulk of the second half of the book really only deals with one year.

LJ: Did you have to do extensive research of Russian law and American immigration law in order to write The Hunted?

BH: Actually, no. Thankfully, I had the benefit of Alex's excellent oral and written personal accounts that explained most of the key legal issues.

LJ: What would be or is your ideal writing environment?

BH: Well, I suppose sitting on top of a massive pile of cash would help. I haven't tried it yet, because I don't have one, but I definitely believe it would help. So for the time being, I shuttle back and forth between the unfinished basement and my office upstairs. With four kids you just try to outrun the noise and chaos, and carve out a little piece and quiet.

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