Five Questions for Jerry Hatchett

Best Selling Thriller Author

By

Dora Machado

 

 

 

Jerry Hatchett writes unputdownable thrillers. The bestselling author of Seven Unholy Days and The Pawnbroker, Jerry is one of only a handful of self-published authors who has managed to ride the publishing revolution's wave and stake a solid competitive claim in the thriller market. Some of his books have over four hundred Amazon reviews!
 
Jerry's mind is a lot like his characters, an eclectic product that combines southern charm with American grit, everyday man with high tech smarts.  In "real life," Jerry is also the inventor and patent holder of the 1990's phenomenon “EasyBraid,” a licensed private pilot, a self-described “gadget freak,” an “IPO chaser,” and a digital forensic specialist. With all of that background condensed and poured into his novels, it's no wonder his thrillers have claimed the readers' attention.
 

Welcome to MB4, Jerry. It's a pleasure to have you here today. Word is you've got a new thriller coming out, Unallocated Space. What is it all about?

It’s about a guy named Sam Flatt stumbling into a situation he couldn’t have imagined. He’s a digital forensic expert, a digital detective brought into to find out who’s electronically stealing money from SPACE, which is the biggest, glitziest, and most futuristic casino in history. Flatt is a man with a dark past he thought he had left behind, but this case may just drag him back into that darkness.

 

How's Unallocated Space different from your previous best sellers, Seven Unholy Days and Pawnbroker?

Seven Unholy Days is a grand global adventure built around a character who’s a little bit larger than life from the beginning of the story. Pawnbroker is about an everyday guy who finds himself completely out of his element and in over his head. Unallocated Space’s main character is very different. He’s quiet and dark with a past that has shaped him into an eccentric fellow. (Despite a very high-tech career, he has no house, but instead spends most of his time living off the land with a very special horse he loves more than life.) It’s also a unique setting, with most of the action taking place inside a futuristic wonderland.

What do you think readers will like best about Unallocated Space?

If I’ve done my job, they’ll love everything about it!

What do you hope readers will say when they read the last line?

“I love this guy, Sam Flatt!”

What did this latest release teach you about writing, reading and yourself?

As with every book I write, it taught me that writing is a wonderful and difficult process that always presents lots of room for improvement. Reading continues to inspire me as a writer. Nothing excites me more than discovering a new author I love, and the publishing revolution has yielded several of those for me over the past couple years. I still have a lot of traditionally published authors I love, but now I’m also discovering indie authors who are loaded with talent and able to bring splendid entertainment to the market that’s free of the previous constraints. About myself? Hmmm. I continue to be reminded that I always underestimate how long writing a book will take! I think the main personal lesson I take away from the process, though, is that I’m very blessed to be able to tell stories that entertain people by allowing them to meet new people and visit new worlds that I get to create.

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ABOUT JERRY HATCHETT

Jerry Hatchett grew up in the creatively fertile Mississippi Delta. His stories often draw from his eclectic background, providing a foundation for intriguing tales populated with everyday people who often find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. His business experience runs the gamut from pawnbroker to inventor to technologist to specialized expert in digital forensics.

Hatchett lists John Grisham, James Rollins, Nelson DeMille, and Ken Follett as major influences on his writing. “I want to entertain people by creating new worlds and people for them to love and hate, and I always try to write a story that you just can't put down, ” he says.

A lifelong fan of Ole Miss and SEC football, he awaits each fall with zeal. He’s also a movie fanatic, an avid reader, and with uncharacteristic immodesty claims to cook the world’s best ribeyes. He currently resides in The Woodlands, TX, a suburb of Houston.

JERRY HATCHETT'S BOOKS

PAWNBROKER    Would you give killers what they want to get them to leave you and your family alone? Gray Bolton might, if he knew what "it" was. Life as a Mississippi pawnbroker is good, with a beautiful family and a bright future. Then he kills an armed robber and trouble cascades upon Bolton from everywhere. They all appear to be after the same thing and they will all do anything to get it. Unfortunately, Bolton has no idea what that thing is; but its discovery will test him in ways he couldn't have imagined, and the stakes are simple: Everything.

 

  

 

SEVEN UNHOLY DAYS     Technology and insanity combine to create a very bad week for the United States and the world. In this unputdownable thriller from breakout author Jerry Hatchett, tech celebrity Matt Decker is on top of the world until his flagship creation, the system that runs the U.S. power grid, suffers a crippling cyber attack. Chaos follows as a ruthless maniac sets out to create his own version of Revelation's battle of Armageddon. And he's making it personal as he blames Decker for the escalating disasters that stretch from New York to Israel to the "sulfurous scarps of hell."  Seven Unholy Days, should come with a warning:  Don't start this one unless you're ready to be sucked into a story that never lets go!

 

 

 

E-JERRY

Seven Unholy Days:  Kindle     Paperback     Audiobook

Pawnbroker:  Kindle     Paperback     Audiobook

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Dora Machado is the award-winning author of the epic fantasy Stonewiser series and her newest novel, The Curse Giver, available from Twilight Times Books. She is one only a few Hispanic women writing fantasy in the United States today. She grew up in the Dominican Republic, where she developed a fascination for writing and a taste for Merengue. After a lifetime of straddling such compelling but different worlds, fantasy is a natural fit to her stories.

When she is not writing fiction, Dora also writes features for the award-winning blog Murder By Four and Savvy Authors, where writers help writers. She lives in Florida with her indulgent husband and two very opinionated cats.

 To learn more about Dora Machado and her award winning novels, visit her at www.doramachado.com , email her at Dora@doramachado.com, find her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter.

 

Character Editing by Dave McDonald

 Meet Dave McDonald. He writes suspense. Give a read to his journey. You Murderers might see something that reminds you of your journey.

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I have written ten books with the intent of having a shared theme of common people forced to confront major social issues.  The social issues are my motivation for writing.

I wrote SAM’S FOLLY because I felt there wasn’t enough being done in the world to minimize the number of children being abused, and often kidnapped and killed, by pedophiles.

The last thing I wanted to do was to write another cop story.  I wanted my protagonist to be unique; a character who evolves from the darkness into the light.  A character who initially the reader dislikes but cheers for, and eventually loves.

One idea gave birth to another, one chapter begat another, and months later, I had written a story.  But stories don’t become books until the editing surgeon can no longer detect discrepancies.  And although I never thought I’d be able to say this, I’ve grown to love editing.
          

After reviewing the first draft of SAM’S FOLLY, I found my protagonist, Sam Johnson, to be anything but a common or likeable person.  I had created a psychopath.  I didn’t want a DEXTER for my leading man. I wanted a man with a heart.  But my story was centered upon Sam Johnson being a retired ex-contract killer. So my plight was how to create a killer-for-hire who wasn’t a psychopath; a killer that readers would hopefully think of as a hero.

I needed knowledge, a character baseline.

The first thing I did was good ol’ research.   I read a book written by a psychiatrist that defined both sociopaths and psychopaths.  These people have many problems, but their one major flaw is they don’t have a conscience.  An added scary side note is four out of every one hundred people are either sociopaths or psychopaths.  So we all know a few; an enhancement for dead-bolts sales.

Having general ideas about who I wanted versus didn’t want as my main character, it was time to get to specifics.

Lists are normally a good thing.  I listed the character traits of a psychopath and across from that grouping I listed the traits of the character I wanted Sam Johnson to be.  Now all I had to do was create a character that killed people for money and yet knew the difference between right and wrong.  Instead of ‘the Tin Man finds his heart’, my premise would be Luca Brasi (the family’s assassin in the GODFATHER) finds a conscience, a difficult task.

After weeks of floundering, my critique partner solved my conundrum.  He gave me a conscience-blocker Sam could utilize before each murder.  It was a simple and yet powerful tool ironically laden with remorse that was a catalyst for instantaneous action; thoughtless killing.

Then I rewrote the entire book, seeding the story with releases of stored emotions by Sam Johnson along the way; traits to give the reader glimpses of light in Sam’s darkness.

So how did I do?  Readers are the final judges.  I believe one of the 5-star comments about SAM’S FOLLY encapsulates my efforts.

It's hard to write a review without giving away the story. To sum it up, I found myself in an emotional tug of war. I wanted to hate Sam at the same time I was drawn to him. The author, Dave McDonald did an excellent job building a memorable character, defining him, and then stripping away his layers one at a time. In spite of my busy schedule, I managed to read it in two nights because it was simply that difficult to put down.
I do not hesitate recommending this book!

So if you find yourself in need of a character overhaul, research, lists of character traits, the use of emotional tools, and great critique partners are my suggestions for character editing.

Dave McDonald, a romanticist at heart, writes suspense thrillers.

Dave's Amazon page