Writing Thrillers and Unraveling Geopolitics | Brandon Webb

29:20Are they thrillers or more literary? What kind of novels are they? They're not thrillers, they're novels. I literally wrote a book. I'm finishing it now. I wrote a novel about four women going through SEAL training, and two of them make it. I wrote that. I think that's, and it's all takes place in this like hectic seal training. And so that, that book is, is done and I just finished rewriting it, but that hasn't been published. I wrote three quarters of a book about three homeless friends that live inside Penn station in New York. And one of the guys inherits, he was an ex-doorman. He ends up a lady that this guy had a tragic story.

30:04He quit a 20-year doorman job to go to a new building in New York and then got falsely accused of stealing a package and got fired and then he couldn't get his old job back. And then one of the women in his old building ends up leaving him her fortune, like a couple million bucks, her pet house apartment. But it's a burden to him. He's homeless. He doesn't have responsibility. He hasn't thought about his daughter and now he's like thrust into this this situation where he has to take he has to get his life together in a similar sense the other main character donnie was a wall street guy got framed in the 2008 crisis like they pinned it on him when he was like saying look we shouldn't we shouldn't invest in these in these um i forget what they call these derivatives right where they bundle the bad mortgages.

30:56And he basically gets fired, and then on the way home, and he has a drinking problem, but he's sober. And on the way home, he gets a call, and his son is hit by a car, likely to die, and for sure is paralyzed. And so he just goes off the wagon. He never makes it home. He goes on a drunk and then ends up living in Penn Station for two years. And then one day he sees his son in Penn Station in a wheelchair. And then his son is like a tech kid. But this kid is like rolling past him in the wheelchair and doesn't realize his dad is the homeless guy. Like it's crazy. But that book is really, I'm excited about that.

31:37Wow, I love this book. That should be published. Yeah, well, I'm going to finish it. But this is me practicing it. Because like you said, and you and I have talked about, fiction is very different from nonfiction, right? it's yeah I feel like it's you and I could create a cool plot but to fill it in with interesting characters and then you got it a lot of it's the dialogue you really got a nailed dialogue and that's tough and I just personally just from my own experience had to practice and that's why I've been writing these novels on the side and then learning from guys like uh Brad Thor and and getting help from them like how what their techniques are and everybody's different like i'm john and i write together he's very methodical like i i like for sure to have my plot and my outline and my main characters like very put put a lot of effort into that and then i just write the story um in a free flow form i i feel like i feel like you're you're good at plotting like he's sort of i mean correct me if i'm wrong um you kind of because you're the ex-navy seal you sort of like make the plot yeah and then he sort of like fills in a lot of the sort of words around telling the story yeah i can make the plot i'm really good at kind of like the a lot of the characters and then what john's brilliant at is bringing them to life and then as you know he's he's good at naming too and but yeah we work we work well together but he writes very different than i do I write more Stephen King style where it's just free flow where he's like, no, he's got it all mapped out.

33:16Like he's got the entire, you know, very detailed architectural plans where I'm like, okay, I got a loose sketch and I'm going for it. I feel like I would be really good at, and I know this from just my previous attempts, I'm really good at the premise. So I'll come up with a good premise, like your premise of three guys in Penn Station who are homeless and one guy inherits some money. and boom, the story goes off. But then I have a hard time kind of coming up with twists that the reader can't guess in advance. Like I think, and by the way, I see that in other writers. Like for instance, I think one of the best writers in history for premises is Neil Gaiman, you know, who's written so many novels, movies, comic books, and so on.

34:01But I think sometimes, at least with some of his stories, it doesn't always come full circle. The plot doesn't always end well. and not a criticism of him. He's the best premise writer in history almost, but I feel like it's hard for me to then get into the particulars of plot and the twist. I'll tell you what, because I think you and I both have good, like we're good at generating ideas. You should go into GPT-4 and say, this is my plot. Give me some plot twists. Give me this. You just develop a really good prompt and be completely blown away by what it gives you. I asked it, I want to write science fiction that has to do with special ops in the future.

34:47And it should be like climate change, rising sea levels. And now we're actually fighting deep under the oceans for control of minerals and resources. And then there should be some crazy portal that aliens left in underwater to kind of check on the planet earth and give me like a bunch of different worlds and describe each world in detail. And it's, and so I had a very good prompt and it blew me away and it described like this world was a water world. This world was desert, like dune. And like, it gave me everything. And I was like, Oh my God, it's so good. And, and I think that, people would go, oh, you're cheating.

35:32But no, these are the tools that are available. And if you're not using them as an artist and a creator, you're going to be left in the dust. Yeah, I agree. I don't view AI as a replacement because whenever I see total replacement, it's not that good. Like if AI were to write that novel, it wouldn't be that well written. And by the way, people say, oh, well, that's just going to improve really fast. It's not really going to improve very fast. It's already processed every single piece of text ever written. It's going to improve, but it's going to improve much more slowly now than it has to get here.

36:08But if you view it as an assistant, then it's perfect. It's a good assistant, and you and I are at an advantage because GPT has access to everything that's been published on the internet pre-2021. It knows your voice. You saw what I told you, right? I gave it a prompt. It knows your voice. It can write in your style. And the same with me, because my son Hunter told me, he's like, hey, Dad, I just want to let you know, like, GPT really has you nailed. I had it write a short story in your voice, and it was like you speaking to me. And I'm like, holy shit. So I went and started messing around with it, and I was blown away by how good it gets, because I just tell it right in the voice of Brandon Webb and, you know, create this, and it's insanely good.

37:11let's take that concept of the three homeless guys one's the ex-wall street guy one's the whose son is in a wheelchair the other is the doorman switch buildings unfairly accused but the old building inherited the apartment and a couple million bucks okay great premise i love it let's say that's the first third of the book what's the twist what's the problem what's the premise what's the what's the thing that drives the plot next it's so the story is about redemption and the third character is a it's a south korean immigrant immigrant family the family there was two teenage boys the mom and dad got killed in a car wreck so they got put in this foster home and they got they both got abused and one of the brothers killed himself and the other guy saul is the korean guy that he's the third homeless guy and he's very quiet he's he's a nice guy and they don't know his backstory um but what happens is this is like the whole book is about a path to redemption very much in the theme of the humans of new york the way these stories just kind of grip pew um because i think it's interesting to see like these very these tragic stories of of people that were doing very well in life and then they just fell off the cliff into pretty much substance abuse and in this case they're all alcoholics um and so uh jimmy which is the doorman he's kind of the the catalyst of the other two guys to get their act together because they're all friends and they want to help.

38:42And these series of events come together where I had a New York Times reporter. It's a great story, right? The homeless guy inherits a couple million bucks in a penthouse apartment. It's a great story. And they're trying to find him. They don't even know where to find this guy, Jimmy. But they find him and then the reporter comes and Donnie, the guy with the son in the wheelchair, he's like, look, I'll handle. And the other thing is too that's fucked up is Jimmy finds a Labrador puppy in the garbage. Someone threw him out in Penn Station, and he raises his puppy, and he names this dog Hope. And this nasty woman from animal control gets a complaint, and she comes to Penn Station and rips the dog out of this guy.

39:27The dog is Jimmy's life, and she freaking takes the dog away from him. And he goes quiet for a week, doesn't talk to anybody. But then he finds out he inherits his money. The New York Times reporter comes, and Jimmy doesn't want to talk to anybody. Donnie goes, hey, I'll get him to talk, but I need you to do me a favor. I want to find out about my son and all this, and I want to find out about my friend Saul. So can you go in the database and tell me, give a report on these guys? So then he finds out about all his friends, And they go to the law office where the lawyer is handling this state. And Jimmy takes Donnie, his buddy.

40:12And then at that point, they decide to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. And it's from there, they're on this very clear path to redemption. And it all takes place over Christmas in New York. And so it has a great happy ending. I mean, it is a great movie. Yeah. So, but wait, how does, like in the arc of the hero, the problems are supposed to get worse and worse and worse as you meet, you know, more and more allies and so on. Like how does Jimmy's problems get worse once he inherits? Well, his problem, you kind of learn in reverse. You, you know, first it's very funny. One of my favorite books by John Steinbeck is called Tortilla Flats.

40:55And it's very, it gave me the inspiration behind this book because, you know, it was about a hobo in Monterey that inherits two houses from his aunt. And all of a sudden he's got all these problems. Like his buddies are bumming off of him. And he was a mooch himself. And now he's like, oh, wait, you know, I have a house. I have responsibility. It just changes things. But it's a very funny book because these guys are drunk. And, you know, there's all these scenes where Jimmy's a huge history buff. And like these Mormon kids come to New York and they're trying to like convert him. and he just gives them like a, just a dressing down of a history lesson on the failings of the Mormon church and how bullshit it is.

41:34But there's all, it's a funny book because these guys are just getting shit-faced every day and it's a new comedy of errors and just like life in Penn Station, all the weird stuff that goes on underground, how the police department control the amount of homeless. They don't, they have a certain number. It's like the magic number they can't have anymore. It just tips the scales. But then you learn. Is that true? I don't think so, but I made it up. So you kind of go backwards and learn about these. Eventually you come to know like they're tragic stories and then it just sucks you in. And then it's the path to redemption.

42:13Like that's kind of the rising action to the resolution is where you realize that in Donnie and Jimmy's case, Jimmy has a daughter. Donnie has his son and his wife, ex-wife that divorced him now. But they think that, oh, no one will want me back. My son doesn't want me. I'm ashamed. And then they find out that, no, these people actually do really care. There is that element of human forgiveness. And that's what I think makes the story beautiful is it's this kind of this redemption story. But there's no like crazy plot twist. There's these like reveals where you find out, holy shit, like the Saul's character.

42:53You just have no idea what happened to him. And then his two friends find out like, holy shit, this guy was like sexually abused and his brother killed himself. And he ran away and then became homeless. I see. So you just kind of keep the action happening with like the cliffhangers are realistic new reveals that could bring them down or could shed new light. and that keeps propelling the character forward. It's kind of dealing with each new reveal. Yeah, and then the ending is, they kind of have this happy ending where they get invited to Christmas dinner. I think I just told the whole book. That's okay.

43:32It's going to be a while before this is published. But I had fun writing that. And that's for me. I'm just practicing to be a better novelist because I feel like I've got the nonfiction down. i've had a ton of practice i like it i enjoy it i can write a book in 60 days like and i could probably write a thriller now in 90 days because it's just yeah you got to just grind it out i feel like i had a particular approach to non-fiction where i would write in a very storytelling style non-fiction so i would i would write basically almost like an illiterate it was like narrative non-fiction so i'd write in a literary style my non-fiction experiences yeah because i don't need to plot them.

44:14I'm the plot. I know the plot. I had the failing and I survived and whatever. And again, like I practiced in the 90s, I used to write 3000 words a day, pretty much for the entire 90s. And I wrote four novels, all of them completely unpublishable, but rightly so. And if you save them, you should load them up into GPT and have them like... I know I should. Unfortunately, it's so long ago, I certainly did not save them. but I mean I would I was thrown out of graduate school because that's all I was doing was writing fiction instead of studying computer science and then I was printing up you know I would send to 20 publishers so I'd print up like 8 ,000 pages on the school printers and people are like who's someone owes us money for all this paper and like there was a huge scandal but I didn't get good I mean I think I got to be a good writer out of that experience but I wasn't like a novelist out of that experience i was just a good writer and i'd like to try writing a thriller and this is the process right so john and i will write it we'll have we'll read it each other then we send it to a group of we each have about four or five novelists that we send it to they read it um or they're maybe a novelist or they're just a they're an avid fan of the genre so we have this group that we each send it to.

45:34They give us notes. And then we go, okay, yeah, we got to rewrite this. Then our editor, like a really good, uh, and Spire, which is at Random House. She's amazing. She's like, guys got to pick up the pace, like got to move it along, like chop this, chop that. And we're just like, oh man, it's like so much extra work, but it's a lot more work than a nonfiction book. It's just like rewritten probably three or four times before you have a finished manuscript. And so it is a process. And I'm sure that, you know, maybe, I'm probably sure Brad Thor does something similar. He has people read it. Even he's reached out to me before and asked me like military technical stuff.

46:14But I'm sure he's got readers that give him feedback. And that's super valuable because you having like thriller fans or novels, whatever the genres that are really into it they know what they like and and they're a harsh critic and it makes the book so much better do you think like with with the rise of like tiktok and and you know scroll media you know with instagram facebook twitter tiktok do you think fewer people in the future are going to be interested in reading thrillers i think i think the core I mean, look at it this way. I think that the core stories are going to... People like good content.

47:03And people consume content differently, right? Like my youngest son is... He doesn't like reading, but he loves audio, right? And that's like a... I think they call that a form of dyslexia, which to me, it's kind of bullshit. It's just he learns differently than other people. But people like listen to audiobooks. Some like to read, some like to watch shows. So I think as long as, you know, the people always crave content, like really good stories. And it's just now we're in an incredible time where we can easily, with these tools, especially with artificial intelligence, turn these stories into multiple formats.

47:44Written, audio. Like I watched, I went to Cannes Lions this year. It's a media advertising conference. and I just lucked out and got an invite to OpenAI all-day event. And they were showing me, the OpenAI team was showing these artists and how they were using these tools. And I saw a guy that cloned David Attenberry's, I think that's his name, the British guy that narrated Planet Earth, cloned his voice with a voice clone, created these kind of furry monsters and made this whole Pixar movie himself, one guy. I'll send it to you. It's called Critters. You can find it on YouTube. Critters with a Z.

48:27I'll send you the link. I was blown away. All with AI. And I'm like, okay, look, you and I know how difficult and time consuming it is to read a book to audio. Well, now 15 seconds, I can clone James Altucher's voice and have it read the book. and maybe I clone a few other well-known figures and slightly alter the voice, but it's like, you know, all of a sudden you have all these guest appearances in the book, like in different voices, like reading the intro. You know, it's crazy. And it just makes it, the technology is you can transform your content into so many different mediums. And I think that's the exciting thing.

49:09And I don't think that's going away. I think that's here to stay. But yeah, we'll pay for books, you know, be a thing. I think it'll just be a novelty. It's like classic cars. People will always be into it, but it'll just get, you know, become this like weird niche. There is a kind of written content though, which never goes away, which is of course news content. So you run soft rep, S-O-F-R-E-E-P.com, which is a site about military news, military culture, foreign policy news, and so on. and what kind of content does well there? So you have millions of visitors, but what sort of content always seems to do the best?

49:47I was just reviewing our best stuff. So anytime we do content around ranger training, Navy SEAL training, what's it like? How do you make it through? Those do well. History posts, I did it. I used ChatGPT to help me write a kind of like, what if Nazi Germany won World War II? Like, what would it truly look like? And then I was using AI like analysts, like, hey, what would Churchill think it looks like? What would Admiral McRaven think it looks like? So you get these different perspectives and you kind of stitch it into this really cool storyline. That stuff does well. I wrote also a piece that did really well about, I know enough about what's happening inside Russia to give a really good prompt to GPT4 and say, okay, what would civil war in Russia look like?

50:44Who are the characters? Who are the main protagonists? What would happen? How would it affect China? What would be China's concerns? What would be the EU and America's concerns? So you get this really in-depth research, and then I can just edit it and package it. And that story held the number one spot for, I think, two weeks on Safra. And what will you think happened? Like, you know, given the recent events with this, you know, almost coup, which which, by the way, if that coup kept going, if the Wagner group kept going, they would have taken over Moscow. I think so. Yeah. And that's Putin's.

51:22That's his big problem right now. I think, you know, it definitely showed, like, weakness. And that's something in Russia that gets you killed or out of power very quickly. So that's Putin's biggest issue right now. I think his only saving grace is that you have Jenny Guy, the Wagner leader. He is loyal and a friend of Putin. His main issues were with the Minister of Defense and some other characters. the point is Putin is in big trouble like there's weakness clear display of weakness this Wagner group the leader's still running around and Wagner's all yeah where is he like he didn't go to Belarus no he's in St.

52:11Petersburg the last reports he was in St. Petersburg like why doesn't Putin just like pick him up because you gotta realize that Wagner is probably more sophisticated and technically capable than the Russian military. All of Russia's influence in Africa is controlled by Wagner. But wasn't the Wagner group disappointed in this guy that he didn't keep pursuing the coup? They feel like he was sort of paid off. Yeah, well, that's the thing. There was a deal cut. Now we know that there was this three-hour in-person negotiation between Wagner, you have Jenny, the leader of Wagner, and his main lieutenants and putin and his crew like they made it they cut a deal i don't know nobody knows what that is but it's um it's clear that wagner has a lot of power um the russian military is is is worn out their defense tech one thing that was shocking to me is like i knew it was bad but not as bad as i clearly was displayed on the battlefield like their russian defense tech is terrible.

53:14The Ukrainians have insane defense technology from the Americans and the British. They have a better armed force. They're way more motivated. And now what was kind of keeping Russia in the fight in Ukraine was Wagner. And now Wagner's gone for now. Like what's happening there? Nobody knows yet. And so I think this could be the end of Putin and it could be the end of Russia as we know it. I think it could fragment into different states. But again, though, he was suppressed for the moment. And again, the Wagner group might have also trouble staying together, given that a lot of people were disappointed that he didn't follow through.

53:56Yeah, but it's still all playing out behind the scenes. And a great movie to watch is The Death of Stalin, right? The way that things happen in Russia, It's very top heavy, right? There's not a lot of middle management. It's all these big oligarchs and, you know, these power, making these power plays and these deals. So I think it's still happening. Meanwhile, you know, Putin is, Russia's under heavy sanctions. They're losing the war in Ukraine. They've already kind of lost the war of public opinion. And now you saw where Erdogan in Turkey was like, thumbs up for Sweden joining NATO. And he was like, I think he sees weakness.

54:37And that's why he's like, okay, I better warm up to the Americans because this isn't going Putin's way. And I think we're going to see something similar with the Chinese as well. And they've got to be very concerned because that's like who's next if it's not Putin. The other issue is, look, I'm an independent. I'm shocked that the best America can do is two guys like Biden and Trump. Like, is that the best that we have to offer? But we really don't, you know, Biden is clearly not in a very good mental state. Like, he's got clear issues. And we don't have strong leadership in the U.S. to kind of end the war.

55:23And it's going to take a very strong leader to kind of go to the table with the Russians, whoever it ends up being, Putin or somebody else. And we don't have strong leadership in the EU. And so you end up with this, what was our Vietnam, right? It's kind of what Ukraine has turned into for Russia. It's just like nobody can make sense of it all. Nobody in Russia wants to fight. And it's just like a disaster. So I think it could just drag on. And that's the sad thing. So I don't think there's a clear ending in sight. I do think it will end in favor of Ukraine but but now I'm you know I used to call it okay well Russia will take that eastern territory and the Donbass region and and the war will end and both sides will be unhappy which is typically how a good negotiation negotiation ends everybody gives something but in this case I don't I think this is it Putin is in really big trouble and it's like a big, there's a lot of unknowns, but I think, you know, Ukraine could get it all back, even Crimea at this point, depending on what happens.

56:34And let's talk about China. Do you think, I mean, a few years ago, I was convinced China was going to invade Taiwan any day, but now it's not so clear to me. You know, I was just having dinner with a friend from business school from Hong Kong. And we ought to talk about this. I think Taiwan is similar to Hong Kong, is that the Chinese are already in control. The native language is Mandarin. They've got so much Chinese culture. Their intelligence, like their version of the CIA, is for sure heavy influence in Taiwan. And I think they've already kind of got the puppet strings. And this whole invasion is just like, yeah, whatever.

57:24And they'll just wait it out. They're like, yeah, Taiwan's ours. We don't need to invade because we kind of already exert all this influence. And I think a lot of it is just kind of smoke and mirrors. But I think China is clearly in control of Taiwan. Maybe they don't have control of certain industries. Like the big concern is the microchips, right? but China is clearly in a driver's seat in Taiwan. I mean, most Americans couldn't even point out where Taiwan is on the map. Right. I don't think I can, actually. And so, yeah, I'm not, I don't even think about that anymore. I think it's just more like political grandstanding.

58:07I just watched the Schwarzenegger documentary, which is really good. And there's a scene in there where he's the governor of California and he's made a deal behind the scenes and then they storm out of the office and the Democrats screaming at him, like, I'm never going to do this for you. They've already made the deal. And Arnold's like, yeah, this is just kind of, he had a term for it, but it's all just kind of bullshit, political grandstanding, just to show the people that they're like doing something. But in reality, they already cut the deal behind closed doors. So I think a lot of that happens on this global stage.

58:37So again, you know, Brandon, you're involved in so many things, like ranging from military career, the soft rep, the military news website, thrillers, books. games, movies. What's the next thing you're working on? Blind Fear has just been published, came out yesterday. Everybody should go buy it. If you like Jack Reacher, if you like all those types of thrillers, this is that on steroids, literally. So, well, he's not on steroids, but this is that plus military. What's the exact next thing you're going to be working on? Not the nonfiction book. What's the next fiction thing you're going to be working on?

59:12I think I'm going to finish that Penn Station novel and try and get it published. That is a great idea. Yeah. I'd love to be a test reader of that. Yeah, no, I would love to have you read it. And I'm sure you'd have great feedback as someone that's lived in New York for a long time. Yeah, like did you do research and did you spend some time as homeless in Penn Station just to see? No, I thought about it, but I spent a lot of time in Penn Station observing, like as a sniper would. I'm just kind of like taking notes and watching, you know, the police work and the homeless. And I remember there's even a part in the book where I remember I was in Penn Station and I saw a guy try and set up a music stand and the other homeless were like, no, they kind of shushed him away because it's like that's their territory.

59:57And in my novel, they actually, the three characters, they rent out their space for a cut of this guy's. He plays blues guitar and they get 30 % of his profits. So they kind of like rent out the little real estate and it keeps them in, in booze, you know, and they actually, they can make around 30 K a year in this like with the, with renting their little space to the blues guitarist. And they basically just perpetually drunk. Like it keeps them, they make enough money to buy enough food and alcohol. That's funny. Well, first off, good luck on blind fear. I always love your thriller books. I don't have to say that.

1:00:39People know I love them. I want to see all your books as movies. I want to go to the movie for a lot of these. Because I'm just curious what a good movie director will make things look like. And I'm looking forward to this next book, the Penn Station Homeless book. Do you have a title for that one? Just called Penn Station. I love it. I like the simplicity. Penn Station. The subtitle is just a chronicle of hope and resilience in New York City. Also, I have a signing. Any of your Altature listeners are in New York. On the 26th, which is Wednesday, I'm doing a signing at Mysterious Books in Tribeca.

1:01:20So I would love to see any of your fans there. I'd love to sign books. Anything I can do for your audience that's extra. Okay, so July 26th, which is like in a week or so. Go to the Mysterious website, Mysterious Books in Tribeca. They've got the event. cool well good luck with all this stuff once again thanks for the tips at some point i got to hold myself accountable to at some point i'm going to write a thriller novel i have like again a premise but i've just got to sit down and and think about it yeah and i'd love to help you and and check out the you'd be amazed at what what gpt can generate like i idea yeah that was good that was good advice i am going to throw in a premise and see what it says yeah all right sir I will talk to you soon.

1:02:07Okay. Thanks, James. I'll be out hounding you for a chess lesson soon. Excellent. Anytime. Okay. See you, brother.