Matt Walsh Has An Honest Conversation With Andrew Klavan： Making Conservative Art
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Summary
Andrew Clavin is a best-selling novelist, screenwriter, and screenwriter. He s also the author of A Woman Undercover, A Woman Underground, and A Woman underground. In this episode, Andrew talks about the process of writing a novel, how he got into the writing game, and the process that goes into creating a novel.
Transcript
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well sitting here with uh someone you may have heard of andrew clavin uh this
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set is way too nice for an interview with you i think i think it is i'm actually out of my league
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here we stepped it up way too much we've got to dial back a little bit uh so you have a book that
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just came out a woman underground is what it's called i wanted to talk to you about
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kind of the creative process first of all it goes into writing books because i'm just fascinated
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by that uh and then and then some other things but before we get into that so what what and there's
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the book right there what tell us about the book first of all well this is the fourth book in the
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cameron winter series and it's kind of the the crisis book cameron winter is kind of unsteady
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mentally is kind of cracking up and he finds that the woman that he uh loved his whole life this kind
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of flame that he's kept and he's lost track of her he starts to he finds her he realizes she's still
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around and he starts looking for and as he starts looking for he realizes that a killer is looking
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for at the same time and he has to see if he can find her before that it's also takes place in the
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midst of riots and extremist politics and kind of an america like this america but a little bit
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dialed up so it's it's not a political novel but it's a novel that has a lot of politics in it
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so what the so that that book's probably but 280 pages or something yeah it's close to 300 yeah uh
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when i and i've written a few books none of them were very good but uh non-fiction and i want to
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talk about that too because we're talking off air a little bit about non-fiction versus fiction
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i can't even wrap my head around writing a novel like writing a story i can't i just can't even i
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wouldn't know where to begin and you've written how many novels over 30 yeah yeah so i don't even
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know how to ask the question exactly but how do you how do you organize your mind to sit down and
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start writing that that book like what what's the actual process that ends with that book sitting
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there well you start you start out a lot of times with a what if you know what if this happened what
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if you know the the only woman you ever loved came back in your life but was in trouble what if uh you
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walked in to look at your baby and make sure she was okay and she was gone you know what what if
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some some wild thing just pops into your head and you kind of let it just sit you know sometimes for
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years and until it finds the perfect person to be in the story which is one of the interesting
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things about writing a series is you have to have stories that actually resonate with the character
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because you don't care if a guy solves a mystery you only care if what happens to people internally
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so for me everything has to work as as a character thing so even if i have a fight scene or a chase
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scene or something it has to be important to the guy internally because it's a book it's not a movie
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it's like you can't just watch something and think that's exciting so as it unfolds you think what
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would happen if this you usually come up with some kind of ending and then you start to build the
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steps that go on and it's always it's always about the character and the story for me it's always like
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you know it's always why is this hard for this guy to do you know not just why is it hard to do but why
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is this does it challenge this guy and so winter is a very psychologically oriented character you know
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he's kind of trying to fix his he he used to be a government assassin essentially and now he's come
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back to the country and the country is kind of falling apart it's corrupt he starts to wonder
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what what was i doing you know what was i fighting for and it makes him unravel you know so you have
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to really be dealing with the guy from the inside out and and that's the way that's the way it gets
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built over time do you outline it i do yeah a lot of people a lot of people like just sit down and
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write but i i know everything i'm going to say before i say it how long does it take you to write
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that this one it takes about a year from start to finish including editing and all that yeah
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yeah um including various drafts yeah yeah and you you've also written of course screenplays
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yep take six weeks and you get paid better yeah i was gonna so so i i i assume it's it's a quicker
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process there's a lot less writing that goes into it but is even like the creative the way you think
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about it is that different too are you also starting with a what if and building it out or is it a
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different you do start with that but first of all the characters the first film i ever did uh was
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called shock to the system is based on a novel by simon brett and i i was a novelist so i wrote
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it like a novel i did long long character sketches and what was he going to be like and all that they
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hired michael cain to be in it and i saw the first day of rushes you know the first rough cut of it
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and michael came and i thought what was i doing michael cain creates the character it's going to be
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michael cain you know it's going to be whatever he says it's going to be so it's much much easier it's
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kind of like building the frame to something and they the director and the actors all put it
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together and seriously if if it takes you six weeks to write a screenplay it's probably because
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you were busy doing something else you know it's very few words it is kind of every word has to
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every word that appears on screen has to be great so every line of dialogue has to be great but the
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descriptions only have to convince people in hollywood to buy it they don't have to be that
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good you know so it's it's much easier what what drew you into novels to writing novels to begin
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with i just loved them as a kid i just loved them and like i they formed a lot of my role models
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like you know for what a guy was like should be like like i started reading tough guy detective
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stories and uh raymond chandler philip marlowe stories uh the maltese falcon by doshel hammett
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and those were the kind of guys who kind of spoke to me because i was kind of living in this suburb
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this leafy suburb and everything like this and i i thought no these are the guys who like never bend
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they never bend and like raymond chandler had this great essay about his character he invented
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the phrase mean streets and he said down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean
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and i must have been 15 when i read that and i thought bingo that's that's what i want to be
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like and so i just started creating stories about those kind of characters i'm not like that but i
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create stories about those characters what what do you think it takes to be a good a good writer
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what does it require the the first thing is some people have talent and some people don't yeah you
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can just see it the minute you start reading you know and like i always had a gift for it i always
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had a an ability to do it and then i did stuff if you don't have the talent you think it's just
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there are some people you just don't have it and that's it there there's some people who have no
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talent except that they know how to build crappy stories that people will buy and they make a lot of
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money and that's all good but i can't get past page three because the minute i start reading i think
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this is garbage you know i won't name them but there are a lot of them on the best sellers list
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you know um why don't you name them name one no i can't okay i can't even name one but but they know
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who they are do you well i don't want to go off on a on a different tangent but i think about this a lot
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too about talent do do you think because this this applies in in in many fields yeah pretty especially
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any creative field uh and i i think i generally believe that it's like you either have it or you don't
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yep uh and if you don't have it you never will or is it possible to you don't have it and then to
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somehow gain it no you know it's why i have this magic touch for because i grew up my father was a
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famous dj and i grew up in in radio and i have a magic ability to hear broadcasting talent so the first
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time i heard shapiro on the air i actually got in touch with him and i said you know you you could
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have a big career he was on some little you know la station with doing three a show with three people
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in it and i said they should take those other two people off the air uh i and uh you know you have
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it nulls nulls can pretend to have it um i was just talking to glenn beck today glenn beck is the
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greatest broadcaster alive you know like uh and i was before i went on the air i was on the phone
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listening to his commercials and i was embarrassed that i ever went near a microphone just listening to
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back work because he just has this thing it just it just comes across the mic and and look you you
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know in your movie i can see it i can see that you have this way of communicating through the camera
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it's just something people have or they don't have you cannot buy that you cannot buy it you can hone it
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you know like kevin costner it doesn't work very hard he strolls on and he's handsome there are a lot
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of people these days having a fair amount of success in creative fields even though they have no
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talent they suck yeah because yeah because we don't we don't reward talent we were you know
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people reward stuff that fits in with the narrative and all these things and i it's it's really
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interesting for me because the other thing now after all these years i can tell a good writer when
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i see one and you can read one paragraph and you just think this is garbage but it might have
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something that the audience is going to like and it is a business and if you sell copies you sell copies
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what tells you in one paragraph so in one paragraph you could tell someone's a good writer
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yeah what are you what are you looking for in a paragraph it's not something you're looking for
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it's a kind of magic that just comes across that the the scene leaps to life um you know one of the
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things that that people keep saying about this is they start it and they can't finish it they can't
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that's because i'm good at what i do you know and it's like you see that you can see it immediately
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that i'm in the story i see the things that they're describing and they kind of resonate with me and
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and then you can see somebody who's just phoning it in or working really hard but just doesn't have
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what it takes uh we were talking off air a little bit about non-fiction versus fiction you were saying
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it's the the challenges of uh not only writing fiction but also getting people to read fiction
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wow especially in the right yeah yeah and i and i'm totally uh a i'm i'm a culprit here because
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i generally only read non-fiction i i'll go through weird phases i went through a weird phase like
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eight years ago where i just got into russian literature and i started reading dostoevsky
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yeah yeah tolstoy but and then i just and i i'm not interested anymore and then i go on to
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non-fiction uh but i also recognize that that's a like that's a problem i i know that there's real
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value in reading fiction and this idea that you should only read non-fiction because you're learning
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like you're learning about a thing that actually happened and that right there's only value in that
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and i think that's kind of the thought process especially if conservatives only read non-fiction
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that's sort of my thought process but i also recognize that that's not right what's the value
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of fiction fiction grows your life there's just no question about it if you read really good fiction
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and it can be genre fiction be fantasy mysteries all these things if it's really good it grows your
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life you are you get to turn off all the things that you're you that are usually on in life your moral
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sense your anxiety your worries about things all of a sudden you just can observe the world and
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experience the world it's not fiction is an experience it's not an actual thought process
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you read something and you live it somebody dies you cry somebody you know murder somebody you're
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afraid you're horrified so it's an actual experience and then you have an experience that you would
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never have had in your life and you get to live it without having to make decisions about it and
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somehow like i've read a lot of fiction all i've been reading it all my life and somehow you just know
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life better afterwards it's an amazing amazing thing and conservatives are very um you know
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practical people a lot of times and also very suspicious of people telling them why are you
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telling me this if it's not true you know and it's really interesting and men read less fiction
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than women and i'm kind of a man's writer and so it is it really is a challenge it's you know i've
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written a couple of non-fiction books and you can get interviews on every conservative
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venue there is you know they know who i am they want to talk to me and here i am talking about a
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subject that i have a book they get that but if you have a book that's a fiction a story they don't
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understand unless it has a news hook they don't understand what's what it's about there are few
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exceptions glenbeck is one of them glenbeck reads fiction so when he talks to you you actually know
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he actually knows what you're doing uh russell limbaugh used to read a certain kind of fiction
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but most conservative guys are like that you know we're moralists and so fiction is beyond morality
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it's kind of a meta thing the the morality you get from it is is understanding life better and so
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that's a moral enterprise but fiction can have bad guys who win and good guys who lose and unfair
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things that happen and drives conservatives crazy you know we talk a big game about traditional values
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but how many of us are actually walking the walk when it comes to prayer let's be honest with
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ourselves for a moment most of us are about as consistent with our prayer life as congress is with
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balancing the budget we've all been there prayer feels so daunting to get started we end up not
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three-month free trial of all 10 000 plus prayers and meditations what do you say to the argument
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that the novel has been replaced these days by shows and films and that's that's sort of our version
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of the novel yeah is that the same value no there's nothing as intimate as the novel there's nothing like
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there's nothing at three o'clock in the morning when you're alone you can actually connect with
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another mind in a novel and it's just incredibly direct you know you it's michael cain creates a
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character but now you're no longer reading me i wrote what he said but now you're getting it
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interpreted by michael cain where this you're getting something direct you're getting a vision
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of life direct and it's a remark it's when you pay attention and when it's done well it's a remarkable
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experience and people who love novels will tell you that you just you just get carried away in a way
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you don't anywhere else and so the novel is is now no longer what it was when i was a kid which was
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the major form of entertainment i mean that's the movies actually even when i was a kid it was still
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the the movies but it's still different it's like theater you know theater is not the main form of
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entertainment but there's nothing like going on and seeing a live play seeing an actor work live it's
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remarkable and there's nothing like picking up a story that's going directly from one mind to another
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have do you think there are any television shows that have almost made it to the level of a novel
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in terms of the intimacy of the storytelling and the depth of it nothing is is intimate but there
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are some that have been as complex like uh the sopranos i think was was up there when i watched the
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sopranos i knew i was watching a work of art when i watched a couple of seasons of games of game of
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thrones i thought that um tv has just gotten so much better than it used to be when you go back and
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look at television it's amazing how bad it was and it's it really has gotten better but it still
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hasn't got that in utter engagement that you get with a book for me now uh i hate to pay you a
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compliment but oh yeah you are you're a real writer you're like an actual you're a good writer you're
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an actual writer yeah uh so you're an artist yes um there's not a lot of company you don't have a lot
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of company on the right uh especially among conservative commentators um a lot of conservative
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commentators write books and 99 of them are just god-awful terrible uh why is that like why why is
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it so rare you know actually this book is a good answer to this question this is a book in which it's
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about american life now and so it has to have politics in it right it has to have people on
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the right and people on the left and the kind of tensions that we're all living with now you can't
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write about a contemporary america without writing about politics but the main character has no politics
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he doesn't care he keeps it it's one of the running gags that people keep trying to convince him
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of their politics and he just says i don't care i'm just looking for this girl you know i just want
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to find this girl to do that takes a lot of discipline you really have to understand what
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the novel is about to not tell people what to think but to let the experience live and conservatives
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want to tell you what to think and sort of leftists you know that's why that's why so much left-wing
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art is crap you know it's like it's like they want to preach to you about what's right and what's wrong
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and i just want to each character to sort of make his case in the story i mean this has a main character
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and you live in his head but there are a lot of characters and they're very very different and
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every time one of them opens his mouth you're getting an entirely different consciousness an
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entirely different way of looking at the world and that's not something like political people are
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very comfortable with you know i mean it is the way i look at the world even when i'm talking about
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politics i kind of look at the world like i understand there are people who disagree and see it
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from a different way and all that stuff and they should be in prison of course but that's not the way
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i write a novel when i write a novel i put it all aside and just let the characters live in the story
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it's hard to do yeah i mean and it's true that the extreme left is has the same problem which is
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why they do terrible art these days yeah but also you don't have to go back back that far to find a
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time when liberals were making great art yep yeah at least films and shows and even music and it it does
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just seem that like for it's only liberals were doing it it's like it's like almost all the great artists
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certainly in modern american culture have been liberals and probably if you go back historically
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all the great ones were liberal by their own standards well but liberal is different than
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leftist i think i think you're right that you have to be liberal in the sense that you allow each person
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to be himself you know i don't know about you but i always get these letters how can i convince so
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and so to believe so and so and i think you know just leave them alone you know just be who they are
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which is what art is about in a lot of ways is letting people you know i don't think shakespeare
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was a villain but when he wrote mcbath he let mcbath be this complete person who had motives for what
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he was doing and and a reason for being in a way of looking at things and so it is you do have to be
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liberal in that sense but there are plenty of political conservatives they keep their heads down
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who have been great art and cormac mccarthy just died i'm absolutely positive he was a conservative
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and you know he never came out about it all the i don't know if you saw that thing with um
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uh cubrick stanley cubrick where they were objecting to the fact that donald trump
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used full metal jacket in one of his ads and cubrick's daughter came out and said he voted for
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reagan he would have loved trump you know and he just kept it quiet so there are a lot more
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politically conservative artists but you can't be conservative in the sense that you believe
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there's only one way to live or that anybody who disagrees i mean for instance i'm an ardent
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anti-feminist but this book has a feminist in it who's an absolutely lovely person and who act
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and who the the hero who's a patriot very patriarchal guy he loves her he thinks she's a wonderful person
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even though he can't stand anything she writes or says you know and that's kind of you have to be
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liberal in that sense i think to create art um now we got to wrap it up but what do you how do you
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think we get conservatives more involved in in art well i've been banging this drum for 20 years this is
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why i started talking about this because when i lived in england for a long time and i came back
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and found our culture so sickened and twisted that i was shocked and so i started giving speeches to
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conservative groups saying you know this is about the movies this is not about winning elections this
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is about talking to people about what life is really like and showing them what life is like
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20 years ago when i started doing that they looked at me like i was nuts like they kind of thought i was
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cute because i was working in hollywood and i dressed all in black and they thought like wow this is
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cool you know hollywood guy but they had no idea what i was talking about today they do today they
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get it they still think that what we need is more propaganda movies that will sell you know
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conservatism but but it's starting to change i mean this place look at this place i mean you you
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you made two cultural things i know they're non-fiction but they're still cultural works
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jeremy understands obviously that movies have to be you know created by people like us that's the
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important thing it's not that we write conservative things it's that conservatives make stuff you know
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so i think it's changing and i think i i would describe it as a field of ice with little sprigs
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you know popping up through it so i'm kind of hopeful about it and i just think you got to keep explaining
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to conservatives what art is and the fact that conservative art is not like conservative life
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you know i live a conservative life i'm a married man a family man a religious man i you know love my
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country that's the life i live but that's not what art is about art is about like you know dramatic
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things that happen because of clashes of personality and that's a very different thing
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and it's like i said it enlarges your life the people who wrote the constitution and the declaration
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read shakespeare they read you know euripides they read the greeks they read art you know they
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that's why they had that broad way of looking at life that helped them to form a government
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and if you read the federalist papers those were written by people who understand what people are
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like and people like that have read the arts you know where can people buy the book any anywhere
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anywhere if you get it you can get it at our shop the daily wire shop so i should say that out of
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loyalty if you get it on amazon and move it up the list that helps it a little bit good talking to