Bikers With Books: THE WHISPER MAN by David Flynn

What is your writing process?

For me, every story begins with “what if?”. That is such a truism for most writers that it sounds like a cliché. But it’s not. You truly need to let the dog off the leash and see where he goes, what tree he wants to sniff, what squirrel he wants to chase, what fire hydrant he wants to mark as his own. That’s what the dog’s story becomes and that’s what a writer does. He lets his imaginary dog off the leash and follows it, chasing after all the ‘what ifs’ his characters face in the course of a story. What if the hero is arrested based on bogus clues, but what if he really is guilty of the crime? What if the heroine has an affair but is so guilt ridden she tries to commit suicide, only to find out she was successful and now has to bargain in the next world for a second chance in this one?

Years ago I worked in advertising and there were two clichés that were nevertheless true. “Let’s run it up the flagpole and see who salutes” and “Let’s follow it and see what it eats.” The first might seem more appropriate after the story is written and you can gauge an audience’s or a readership’s reaction to the material, but the very first person to react to the story is the writer him or herself. When the writer follows the thread of a story to see where it’s going – or in effect, what it eats – he or she has to stop along the way and reread what he or she has run up the flagpole. If the writer can’t salute it then he or she has to back up and find where the tale went off the tracks and fix it. At that point the process of ‘what if’ becomes “then what?” When you start with “what if” there is an infinite number of possible answers, and when you choose one answer, you create a narrower set of possible directions a story can take until you’ve posited the final “what if” which will have a very limited number of possible answers. The hero lives or he dies. The villain is punished or he escapes, the word ends or it doesn’t.

David Flynn has worked for as a writer and actor (under the screen name Patrick Flynne) and is a member of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG/AFTRA). He has appeared in numerous motion pictures, both studio and independent productions, and in the daytime series, All My Children, Another World, Guiding Light and Loving and as the ongoing character Representative Ingersoll in videos for The Onion.

He has also performed as a spokesperson in numerous industrial films and television commercials, as a voiceover artist in radio broadcast commercials and as an English language narrator, editor and writer for several series on Ebru-TV, a Turkish company currently broadcasting on the Internet.

David has written 18 screenplays, including THE WAR CHANNEL, a Bronze Award Winner for Best Dramatic Screenplay at the Worldfest/Houston International Film Festival. This script was optioned by the Auerbach Company at Columbia TriStar Television. He has also co-authored two screenplays, one a Silver Award Winner for Best Dramatic Screenplay at Worldfest.

Under its original title, THE BRIDE OF DREAMS, the screenplay for THE UNDYING was one of fifteen semifinalists (out of a total of 3900 entrants) for a Nicholl Fellowship, a screenwriting competition sponsored by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). The Nicholl is considered to be the most prestigious screenwriting competition in the industry.

His novel THE WHISPER MAN is the first in a series of mysteries that focus on unusual crimes and criminals in New York City.

Author Links – http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HTEW8CS

Book Genre: Mystery

Publisher: Amazon

Release Date: Jan 3, 2014

Buy Link(s): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HTEW8CS

Book Description: Sex, vanity and psychology are the weapons David Barry uses as he kills for money in THE WHISPER MAN.

David's prey - and profit - are the wealthy of New York City, with each murder crafted to look like a suicide, an accident or the work of another, but always with the goal of increasing David's balance sheet. When a close friend of Manhattan ADA Joseph Kane dies at the  apparent hand of his wife, Kane refuses to believe in her guilt. He investigates the recent deaths of several prominent and wealthy New Yorkers and decides there may be an undiscovered killer behind them.

Kane develops a prime suspect and triggers a battle of wits with the brilliant and arrogant David Barry who must kill again, not for profit this time but to protect his identity. The jealousy of Kane's insecure wife and conflicts with his boss become the tools David will use to destroy his adversary.

Excerpt:

The moment after the crash was filled with screeching tires as following vehicles tried to stop or avoid the two ruined cars. If traffic were heavier it might have been a three or four car pile up but since the street was fairly quiet, no other vehicle added to the destruction. The two cars had struck each other on the right front fenders, leaving the drivers’ sides untouched. Behind the now deflating airbag Per Arnudssen sat in shock. He did not consciously register the fact that the driver’s door on the Cadillac was swinging open and the driver was stepping out.

Later, witnesses at the scene would describe the young Latino with the greasy hair under the tightly tied “do-rag” who ran from the scene of the accident. They would describe the puffy jacket and hoodie he was wearing, the baggy jeans and the large Nikes with the shoelaces loosely tied in the street fashion of the day. They would point north on Eleventh Avenue and east on 29th Street where they saw him run. It all happened so quickly and so unexpectedly. That was all the Police would have to go on.

The driver of the Cadillac stopped running as he turned onto 30th Street after crossing Ninth Avenue. He slowed his pace to a street swagger until he reached the narrow opening between two buildings. He glanced around quickly before slipping into the alley. Sure that he was not being observed, he stripped off the jacket and the hoodie and threw them on top of a garbage can. Next he slipped off the oversize sneakers and the baggy jeans, and they followed the jacket onto the garbage can. He was confident that within a couple of hours they would be found by a bum or an addict and sold to someone else for the price of a few hours of diminished consciousness. Recycled into the city’s economy, they would never be identified as the clothes of a hit and run driver.

Underneath the Nikes he wore slender white tennis shoes. Finally, he slipped the do-rag from his head and used it to wipe the grease from his face and ditched it in a different trash can. David Barry, wearing a buttoned down shirt, crew neck sweater, khakis and an attitude of innocence, walked out of the alley and over toward Eighth Avenue.

David decided that his plan had gone so well that he would take a leisurely stroll back to the scene of the accident and look over his handiwork before going out for dinner. By the time he reached 26th Street, a considerable crowd had gathered and was being held back on the south side of 27th Street. He joined the crowd and slowly worked his way to the front of the group. He watched the actions of the Police and the EMT team for about ten minutes before finally deciding on Thai food.

Giveaway:

1 DVD of The Undying, written and produced by Author, David Flynn