Robert Liparulo is also an award-winning author of Comes A Horseman, Germ and the recently-released Deadfall. He has written over a thousand published articles and short stories. He is currently a contributing editor for New Man magazine. His work has appeared in Reader’s Digest, Travel & Leisure, Modern Bride, Consumers Digest, Chief Executive, and The Arizona Daily Star, among other publications. In addition, he previously worked as a celebrity journalist, interviewing Stephen King, Tom Clancy, Charlton Heston, and others for magazines such as Rocky Road, Preview, and L.A. Weekly. He has sold or optioned three screenplays.

As promised, The Christian Manifesto recently had the chance to sit down with Robert to ask some burning questions about his writing style, how his faith informs his work, and what he’s working on now.

First off, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down and answer some questions for us. We’re really excited to talk to you. 

I appreciate your interest.

Tell us a little about yourself, Robert. How did you get your start in writing?

I love writing—any kind of writing. I’ve written magazine articles, screenplays, technical manuals, newsletters, appeals, radio scripts, novels. Mostly, I enjoy writing short stories and novels, because at heart I’m a storyteller. In fifth grade, I wrote an article about the Concorde landing in the Azores Islands, where my dad was stationed. It wound up in an Air Force publication, and I was hooked. A couple years later I read I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, and that’s when I got the bug to write novels.

You’re quickly becoming known for fast-paced thrillers. Comes A Horseman. Germ. And now there’s Deadfall. Can you explain the plot a little for our readers? 

It’s about four friends who head up into the wilds of northern Canada to recharge after a tough year. They run into a group of young punks who are field testing a satellite laser cannon—and terrorizing a small town with it. This group has the dual purpose of testing the weapon and the filming of its destruction so they can use it for a video game they’re developing. The campers collide with this group and have to decide whether to run for their lives or help the townsfolk. I think of it as an update of Deliverance… without the hillbillies.

Ha! That’s a great description! So, how long does it generally take you to put together a novel? Is there a time spent researching material and a time spent writing? Or is it all made up in your head? 

Most of my stories have “brewed” mentally for years before I attempted to capture them on paper. During that time, I’m always researching. When I see something that would fit one of the stories I’m thinking about, I clip it. When I’m ready to write, I go back through my collected research and then go off for a month or so gathering whatever other research I need. As a former investigative journalist, I’m used to researching and actually like it. The writing part can take anywhere from a few months to many months, depending on how developed everything is in my mind and how much preparation I’ve done. It’s getting easier as I write more.

Are there any other authors you feel influence your writing style? What do you think you bring to the genre that is unique? 

My primary influences, I think, are Thomas Perry, Richard Matheson, James Dickie, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Neil Gaiman, Tim Powers, David Morrell, Dickens, C.S. Lewis, and Tolkien. I tend to bring a lot of character development to the thriller genre, which typically is extremely plot-driven. If the reader (and me, as the author) is not completely invested in the characters, what does it matter what happens to them? So, for me character comes first, then plot. I also bring a modern, cinematic sensibility to my writing. I love great, literary prose, but I also enjoy the bullet-fast scenes you find in most movies. The two combined makes for vivid reading… I hope.

You’re a Christian but your writing seems accessible to anyone. How do you see your book being marketed beyond the Christian market? How does your Christian worldview play into your storylines and character development?

We’ve been pretty successful marketing my books to both Christian and mainstream readers. It helps that I write what I like to read: high action, intrigue, suspense… without the things that hurt can hurt your heart as a Christian, when you pick up just any thriller in the mainstream bookstore. I try not to be preachy, so readers who don’t want to be preached to, but want the action and adventure can pick up one of my books and enjoy it. I write to entertain, to give people a fun ride. While doing that, I try to examine human character—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Why do some people make bad—or evil—choices and others do right? By looking at these people, I hope readers will examine their own lives, their own character. Are they who they are because they just woke up one day that way, without having made conscious decisions? Or are they who they are because they actively pursued either good behavior or bad behavior? What were their motives? Are they happy the way they are? Could they be better? I hope my writing in the smallest way turns a mirror on the reader, makes them think about themselves.

Let’s reverse that question now. How has writing informed your faith?

I have a much better understanding of God’s purpose for me than I did before writing novels. I struggled with how much spirituality I should put in my stories. I felt the desire to write to entertain, but I wondered if that’s what God wanted from me. I prayed about it and read a lot about vocations and using one’s gifts. I woke up one morning with the image of a mountain in my head. I felt God telling me, “Is my name on that mountain?” No, not literally. “But am I there?” Yes, of course. “I will be in your stories the way I am in that mountain.” So I don’t try to put Him in my stories; He’s there. I think He’s there more powerfully than if I tried to put Him there my way—by overtly writing Him into my stories. That’s not they way it should be for every writer or every story, but I believe that’s how God wants to work through me.

As you’re writing a character, do you ever find them taking on a life of their own (i.e. Does the character, despite your writing them, end up doing something you had not originally intended them to do?) 

All the time. I’ve learned not to outline very heavily, because a character will inevitably decide to go in a different direction and there goes my outline, out the window. I truly live my characters when I write. I spend time in their heads. I know it sounds weird, but I sort of become them. I find myself responding to things the way they would. In the writing the two young adult books I just finished, my wife immediately picked up that my point of view characters were young (one is 12, the other 15). She said I was acting like a teenager. Oops. But by being so into my characters (or by their being so into me), I write differently, depending on the POV character. That means what they want to do when something happens to them is often as much a surprise to me as it is to readers—I don’t know how they’re going to respond until they do it.

Are there certain things you must worry about as a Christian author that you don’t think you’d have to worry about in the general market? 

I try to be true to what God wants from me. As long as I’m as faithful as I can be, everything else takes care of itself. I may write something another Christian doesn’t appreciate—too much violence, maybe—but as long as I feel that I haven’t violated my relationship with God, I’m okay with not pleasing everyone.

You’re about to start your next novel. Can you tell us a little about it? 

It’s a follow-up to Deadfall —not so much a sequel as a story in which some of the characters from Deadfall  (those who survived) play primary roles. It turns the spotlight on the father of Declan, who is a pretty nasty guy inDeadfall. The dad dabbles in virtual warfare. A lot of it is based on things that are really going on today. Scary stuff.

What advice would you give to an aspiring Christian author? Are there any resources you could suggest? 

Neil Gaiman said it best: “Finish stuff. Get it done.” The single biggest stumbling block I’ve seen for new writers is not finishing. They have five manuscripts in a drawer, all in various stages of completion. Get it done, send it out, start the next one. Rinse and repeat.

I’m a bit of a cynic when it comes to “resources” (except the giftedness within each of us). Too many novice writers keep looking to other things to help them get published—critique groups, workshops, books, whatever. Those things can help, but only in the same way a good steak sauce helps a steak: they’re not the steak. Nothing matters if you can’t find your own motivation, which in turn inspires you to find the time, put in the work, and again finish it. We all find our motivation from different wells; that’s why you won’t find it at seminars or in books. No one can say what motivates you. It all boils down to one thing: How bad do you want it?

Thanks so much for answering our questions. Any final thoughts?  

Thanks for excellent questions. I encourage readers to drop me a line through my website (www.robertliparulo.com). I try to respond to all questions and comments. I’m particularly interested in what people think of the young adult series coming out soon. The first two books (it’s a six-book series) release in July. I wrote them for ten- to seventeen-year-olds, but I think adults will enjoy them to. My Hollywood agents calls the story “Narnia meetsTime Bandits.” A lot of fun.

VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS INTERVIEW DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS AND BELIEFS OF THECHRISTIANMANIFESTO.COM. QUESTIONS ASKED AND ANSWERS PROVIDED SHOULD NOT ASSUME A POSITIONAL STATEMENT OR THEOLOGICAL COMMITMENT ON THE PART OF THIS WEBSITE, ITS WRITERS, OR ITS ADMINISTRATORS.