Journalists make some of the most prolific writers of fiction, so when Derek Catron started releasing books, naturally they ended up on the radar of readers. Releasing his newest book ‘Final Deadline’, Derek shares the inspiration behind his work. Enjoy this week’s Big Five with author Derek Catron.
1. Tell readers about yourself and how you ended up in Central Florida.
My family moved to the Orlando area when I was in high school, and my first job on graduating from the University of Florida was with the Orlando Sentinel. I wound up as their “Daytona” reporter and learned I preferred sea breezes to interstate gridlock. I never went back. I was an investigative reporter, projects editor and, eventually, managing editor at the Daytona Beach News-Journal. Volusia County has now been my home for most of my life, and I count myself blessed. I married here, raised my daughter here and started writing novels when she got too cool to spend time with the old man. It’s all good now; I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, and five books later, while I wouldn’t say I’m any cooler, my daughter likes spending time with me again.
2. As a journalist, you deal in facts. How were you able to make the switch from fact to fiction?
It was hard; the disciplines are so different. Journalism is all about sharing facts, as quickly and clearly as you can. Fiction is about knowing what facts to withhold so you can build tension and narrative momentum while drawing the reader deeper into the story. What is similar is the research to get things right. One of the most valuable lessons I drew from journalism is knowing what I don’t know, a humility I apply in building a fictional world that readers will recognize. For Final Deadline, I recall researching (among many, many other things) what time the sun sets in March in Central Florida, both before and after the start of daylight savings time. I doubt few readers would have noticed if the sun set late in my fictional county. But when you get facts wrong, you risk breaking the spell of reality you’re trying to cast so readers can lose themselves in your world. That’s even more important in historical fiction, when so much is unfamiliar to a modern audience. I couldn’t travel back to 1866 to research Trail Angel and its sequels, but I drove — with my very patient wife — the thousand-mile route between Omaha, Nebraska, and Virginia City, Montana. We even camped out one night in a covered wagon. All so I could have a better sense of the terrain, the look of cottonwood leaves flashing in the sunlight, the smell of the air after a rain.
3. Your work spans several genres. Do you have a favorite and why?
The legend on my website, derekcatron.com, is “Join the adventure.” Life is an adventure, and I want my readers to feel swept away by it. That’s my aim, whether it’s a historical wagon train to find love and a fresh start in the West; a camping trip that turns violent, testing two women’s mettle and bounds of friendship; or an editor’s efforts to protect those closest to him when his newsroom is caught up in forces beyond their control. When I set out to write my first book, I had my late grandparents in mind. Both were avid readers, but they rarely read the same books. I wanted to write something they would have enjoyed sharing. So far, so good.
4. Are there any authors who have inspired you, and if so, who has been the most influential for you as a writer (and of course, why)?
I like a wide range of authors, and I learn from every book I read. Dickens and Hemingway taught me “literature” could also be fun. Larry McMurtry took me to worlds that seemed more real on the page than anything I knew in life. John Grisham showed how to draw white-knuckle tension from settings as mundane as a Sothern courtroom. Laura Lippman proved former journalists could create stories that seemed even more true than the news they once covered. Elmore Leonard said, “skip the boring parts,” and Lee Child demonstrated how to “write the slow parts fast and the fast parts slow.” I’ve probably taken away the most from Stephen King and J.K. Rowling’s character-driven mystery thrillers. If they can trust their readers to appreciate a rip-roaring story that occasionally pauses to breathe life into characters so they are more than plot contrivances, who am I to argue with them?
5. This book is different than your others. Why take readers back to the newsroom?
Final Deadline is wholly fiction. Thankfully, no gunmen ever burst into a newsroom where I worked. But the story is more personal than any other I’ve written. As more and more local newspapers across the country shut down or shrivel to a shell of what they once were, this was a story I couldn’t shake. Local news matters, even when people ignore it much of the time. The stories you read on these pages foster a sense of community by leaving you better informed about the place where you live and the people you call neighbors. This is a uniting influence that we dismiss at our own peril. Yet while it originates from a dark place, the story is ultimately hopeful. Because when I think back on my own journalism career, the stories that mattered most to me were those that asked questions nobody else was asking or brought to light facts no one else had — all with an objective of making, or keeping, our community a better place to live. All good journalists have stories like that. It was a perspective I wanted to share — wrapped in a rollicking story of danger and secrets and love too long denied.
You can find ‘Final Deadline’ in hardback, paperback, and e-book version on Amazon at these links:
Hardback: https://amzn.to/4fDfrJJ
Paperback: https://amzn.to/3ygSZoM
E-book: https://amzn.to/4fnrNFA
