Episode 43. A Conversation with Hollywood Writer and Crime Novelist Matt Witten

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Through crime shows, we've all watched them. Most of us love them. But have you ever thought about what goes through the brain of the writer who writes for some of your favorite characters? Or what happens when that writer takes his passion, turns into a novelist and write a great book? You get a killer story. Join me as I talk to author and Hollywood writer, Matt Witten.

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on this episode of True Crime and Authors. Welcome to True Crime and Authors podcast, where we bring two passions together. The show that gives new meaning to the old adage, truth is stranger than fiction. Here's your host, David McClam. What's going on everybody? Welcome to the episode of True Crime and Authors. Of course, I'm your man, David McClam.

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Hey, if you guys haven't already, make sure you follow us on all of our social medias. One link to a link tree would get you every link you need pertaining to the show. If you have been following the show or looking at your calendars, you know that it is yet time again for another author interview. And boy, do I have a good one for you today. Let's talk about who our guest is.

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He is a TV writer, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter who has written for many TV shows including House, Pretty Little Liars, Law and Order, CSI Miami, Medium, Jag, Homicide, and Judging Amy. His thriller novel, The Necklace, came out from Oceanview Publishing last year and has been optioned for a film by Leonardo DiCaprio. He wrote four mystery novels that were published by Cignet and he's been nominated for two Eckers and an Emmy.

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Killer Story is his latest novel currently. He is writing a pilot for NBC called 51% and a Hallmark mystery movie. He is a TV writer, crime novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and the author of Killer Story. Let's welcome Matt Whitten. Matt, thank you for coming to the show. Thank you, David. I appreciate the introduction. So man, tell us a little bit more about you that we don't know already.

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Well, what can I tell you? I started out writing when I was six years old. I started writing poetry and I wrote poems about how my baseball team, the Baltimore Orioles, was going to defeat the hated Yankees in the next year. Then I didn't do too much more writing until I was in 10th. I guess I decided I needed to experience life before I wrote anymore. I had a crush on my 10th grade drama teacher. She suggested that I write a play, so I did and it was performed at the local

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United Methodist Church and I got hooked. So I wrote plays for the next 20 years before I switched to novel writing. You know, I just wrote all the time, you know, consistently. I had an undiagnosed disease when I was 18 and I told myself that if it ever got well again, I would remember that writing was at the core of my being and it was something that I should always do. I did get well again two months later.

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pretty much helped to my promise to myself to keep writing, except for one brief period where I applied for law school, where I wasn't making much money. And I said, ah, the heck with this. I'll try law school. Anyway, that's how I started. And then I wrote plays. And then at a certain point in my 30s, I switched to novel writing because I realized how much I loved reading novels. And then I kind of magically got the call to come out to Hollywood. Didn't expect it at all. Wasn't really pushing for it. But I got the call.

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and came out to Hollywood. I've been writing TV for the last 20 years. And then for about the last four of those, I've also been writing novels again. Kind of gone back to, you know, my first love kind of. I guess plays were my first love, but gone back to a deep love of my novel writing. That's me. So Law and Order, did you write for the original Law and Order series? Yes, the mothership as we called it. So unfortunately, I know as you know, we just recently lost Richard Bilzer.

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Do you have any fond memories of him or any stories you'd like to share about him? You know, I didn't know Richard Belzer. People spoke very highly of him personally, who worked with him. My only contact with the law and order SVU people was I had a long talk with the ice tea once. I was writing an episode about criminal activity where you bash into somebody's car on purpose.

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and then you claim that they did it and you get insurance money for it. So that's the kind of hustle people do. So when I was about to write it, the producer said, oh, you should talk to Ice-T because he used to do that. So I called up Ice-T and he was really just very sweet, very kind, you know, talked to me for about an hour. He called it the crack game, you know, where you crack into somebody's car. You know, he told me everything that he used to do and his buddies used to do.

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He just enjoyed talking about it and could kind of hear the twinkle in his eye or something when he was talking. And it was interesting to me in particular because as he described it, he would describe the fun of it and the excitement and the adventure of it, but he would also describe that he has one friend who's doing 30 years in prison because one of the crack game experiences didn't go too well. So within the kind of fun of it, there's also a kind of tragedy to it too.

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So he was really one of those actors on that show that I met or talked to on the phone for an hour. And I thought he was a great guy. So that's my, that's my Ice-T story. Well, it's cool to hear that he's cool. I followed Ice-T's career for years. So yeah, I do know his early days. He was kind of wild. And his autobiography is fabulous. Have you ever read his autobiography? I have not. Oh, really recommend it. There's one thing that I always talk to friends of mine

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Whenever they're quenching about their agents or producers or whatever, I always like to remember what Ice-T said. He said, guys like himself or writers or actors, I'll clean up the language a little bit. He said, we're like the prostitutes. And the producers and the studios and networks, they're the pimps. And he says, because Ice-T used to be a pimp too. So he said, they're the pimps. And Ice-T said, the pimps game is always

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to make the prostitute think that he loves her. That's their game. And that's what the producers do. And the agents do and everything. They try to make us think they love us, but they don't. They just love the money that we bring in. He says, if you're a writer or an actor, we're the hoes and they're the pimps. The producers are the pimps. And it helped me because it helps me to remember.

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never to get too emotionally involved with my agent or think about how that's going at some kind of personal level or the producers. Well, do they like me? If they like me, they'll do this or they'll do that. A lot of writers that I know think that way and I try not to think that way myself. I just try to remember it's a business relationship. You know, we're the hoes, they're the pimps and so be it. So I got that out of Ice-T. Well, congrats to him. He just recently got his Hollywood star on the walk of fame.

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He wasn't meant to be on Law and Order for a long time. His part, according to him, was a big part, maybe one, maybe three episodes, and that was been years. So he's really parlayed that career. Absolutely, I'm sure his residuals are great. Yeah, it's funny, I just happened to be walking in the Hall of Fame last weekend. I walked with a crime writer you may know named Matt Coyle. Okay, yeah.

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Yeah. And he had never been to the walk of fame before. So, so we walked it and I remember seeing Ice-T's star. So that was, that was, I didn't realize it was so recent, but you know, that was cool. So besides Law and Order, you've written for what I consider to be the mothership of crime shows. These crime shows is what spawned off, you know, some of the other ones, as you know, Law and Order is probably one of the longest crime show series running today. It just keeps going. What was it like writing for some of our favorite?

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crime TV shows. Well, I liked writing on Law and Order. It's different from a lot of shows in the sense that now some of these shows are serialized and there's a writers room and all the writers, you know, on staff gather in the room and they break the story together. They figure out the story together. They put it up on the whiteboard on the room and it's very much a group effort. And Law and Order was different because every episode was self-contained.

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So I would write the episode either just on my own or with one fellow writer. And so it was a different kind of experience. I like writer's rooms, especially when, you know, the people are congenial and it's a friendly environment. But I also liked, I liked the long order model of just writing on my own. You know, after we would write the outline, we would turn it into the head writer and the head writer would certainly have input and certainly, you know, give us notes and things to change. But there was that...

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that part of the process where you were kind of on your own. And I kind of enjoyed that. But yeah, working on Law and Order was a lot of fun. It was my first TV job after I came out to LA. I had previously written a freelance episode of homicide when I lived back East. But I just, you know, I came out to LA and I remember I had been there, you know, about a week and I'm sitting in my office at Law and Order and I look out the window and there's five men, little people, you know, really, you know, short guys. And...

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They were sitting on the edge of a pickup of a flatbed truck right outside my window because they were acting that day. And they were all wearing lipstick because they were in makeup. And they were all just sitting out there smoking cigarettes. They were on break. And just I look out my window and I see these five little people smoking cigarettes, wearing lipstick and smoking cigarettes. I just laughed. I said, man, I'm in Hollywood. I'm in Hollywood now. Yeah, you a lot.

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You'd be shocked what you see here. You know, now, you know, you've been a part of Hollywood. You've seen the craziest things you wrote for shows. I have to ask you this, especially now that he's finally gave his response. What did you feel or what did you think, or did you have any thoughts last year about what we are now calling the slap hurt around the world when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock? Um, you know, I think I just basically thought it was, you know, really bad. What Will Smith did.

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I didn't know all the history of it like I know now. I just thought it was a terrible thing to do. You know, you slap a guy, it just seemed like a bad thing. And I guess, you know, at the time, I thought he was trying to protect his wife and maybe he was, but it doesn't seem like a good way to, you know, protect somebody, to slap somebody else. I don't know, the whole thing just seemed really terrible what Will Smith had done. I don't know, how did you feel about it? I mean, I just thought it was just bad, I don't know. I thought it was bad timing.

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I thought, I think, and I've always felt that Will's been controlled a lot by Jada. Um, I tell everybody who asked me that question, if you ever want to know why he did it, if you read Will Smith's book called Will, he tells you about that in the first five to 10 minutes of the book. He says he's always been weak. He's always been pushed around by women because he always felt helpless that he couldn't protect his mom. And as we all know, Jada pretty much has been in love with Tupac for years. And she has no, you know, qualms of telling you that.

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So if you look at that whole tape, I was watching it that year or because my company was up for a couple of awards. Apple TV plus was up for, um, picture of the year. Uh, when they, with Coda, which they actually won, got overshadowed by the slap. I loved Coda. It was the first time that African-Americans, um, produced the show. It was also the first time we had a double African-American host. So there's a lot of history that night that was overshadowed by that one incident.

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Now, as you know, Chris Rock on the 4th of March released Selective Outrage, and he answered about the slap finally at the end. A lot of people was really killing him because they said, well, he should have took the high road. I guess the one part of it he called Jada Pinkett Smith a B when he was telling things. But I'm like, if you look at it, I feel like he was the victim. He didn't ask for it. He doesn't want to be called a victim, which I respect that. But he was the one on the other end of the attack.

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And I think he showed a lot of grace that night not to retaliate, not to have Will Smith arrested because it was asked why didn't Will Smith get arrested. And Will Packard, the producer said, because Rock didn't want that. Rock told us to send the cops away. So to hold it in that long and to wait a whole year, I give Chris Rock all the kudos in the world because I don't know if I could not have retaliated in that situation.

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Yeah, I agree with everything you're saying. I saw the special and I liked what Chris Rock said to Will Smith. I mean, it's pretty harsh, but I think Will Smith deserved it. Yeah, I think it's good that he didn't have Will Smith arrested. I mean, you know better than me, but for one black man to put another black man into the middle of the criminal justice system, I think it would be kind of a pretty complicated thing to be doing. So yeah, I think he handled it well. Yeah.

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And unfortunately, I mean, I don't, you know, we shouldn't have to think about that in color, but it's true. And that was one reason why Chris Rock said he didn't want to do it. He didn't want to be responsible for another black man going to jail at his hands, even though, right, the crime was seen all over the world, you know, so. But I thank you for your perspective on that. You know, being that you're part of Hollywood, I'm sure you saw many crazy things. I always wanted to ask somebody that question that's been in your shoes. Yeah, it was crazy, all right.

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I don't think I saw any, I'm trying to think if I've seen any fist fights in my time in TV or any kind of physical violence. I've seen people get pretty ticked off at each other, but I don't recall that things have gotten physical. So out of all this, what made you become a crime novelist? You know, I would give two answers to that. The first answer would be, I just don't know.

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And the second would be, you know, I've always loved reading crime novels. I grew up reading murder mysteries. I grew up reading Sherlock Holmes and then Agatha Christie. And then in the 80s, it was introduced to Elmore Leonard. And oh my God, I just thought he was the best writer ever. Just such an amazing writer. And so I've always loved reading, you know, murder mysteries and crime novels. For some reason, I always feel like a novel has something missing.

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if nobody gets killed in it. It's like, there's something wrong here. So I just loved reading a bit. At a certain point when I was in my mid to late 30s, I was writing plays at the time, but I came to a decision that my favorite thing to do for entertainment was not so much to go to see a play, but really was to kick back in the evening and read a novel, read a murder mystery, read a crime novel. So I decided that's what I should be writing, if it's what I love.

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reading or having as entertainment. So I should write. So I switched to that and then I kind of, you know, I did that. I wrote four books and crime novels. And then I came out to DV for 20 years. So I kind of got derailed in a good way from my crime novel writing career. But you know, when I got back into it, when I wanted to write novels again, which is naturally what I wanted to write. And at this point, I read thrillers all the time. I read them like candy.

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You know, I just, I just love them. So it just seemed natural that I'd be writing thrillers at this point in my life. So I read about you that you actually do like true crime podcasts. I also read that you started your true crime podcast journey, where many of us did with serial, which is part of the reason why I have a true crime podcast right now, cause that was the biggest true crime podcast of its time. And everybody spawned off of that. What draws you into

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a true crime podcast, what do you feel makes a good true crime podcast? What makes a good true crime podcast? I think it's when you have a main character, you know, like the podcaster who was just, who was really passionate about finding out the truth, about getting justice, about writing a wrong. You know, I think a lot of them will start, you know, the star is just some idealistic main character who's, who has that drive, you know, to find the truth. So that's the, that's the first thing.

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And then the case has to be just something, for whatever reason, strikes a chord. If it's about people that are unjustly convicted of a crime, it's not just that one person. You can see it's like a social problem that other people are experiencing the same thing. Maybe it's about a false confession. And it's like, so it's a great story about one person with a false confession, but it also widens out that you can think about false confessions in general.

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So something with big social implications and a fun mystery. I mean, it's a good question because I'm really thinking about it. It makes me think because I love them, but what is it that I love? And then, yeah, a really good mystery where you're really wondering about it and anything that gets you emotionally attached. You know, if you really care about the victim, whether it's the crime victim or the unjustly accused person, you really care about them. So I guess I would say if it was a sentence, it would be.

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somebody who's passionately trying to right a wrong that you yourself as a viewer are also able to feel passionately about because it's such an outrageous wrong. And because the innocent, you know, victim is just someone that, you know, Oh my God, you really want things to get better for them. I agree. Um, that's what I try to portray. I mean, um, I don't know if you've listened to my show, I'm a little different. I do take individual cases every day, but I'm very passionate about all the cases that I do. Uh, especially when it comes to

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injustice to anyone. Those are the cases I like to do because I think, and the reason I do true crime podcasting is because I think there are stories that needs to be told and there are stories that never need to be forgotten. So I hope that the passion that I have for it comes out in the episodes that you listen to anybody else. But I thank you for that feedback. What's your one of your favorite stories that you've done? I've done many. I think my two right now, one deals with Tyree Nichols, which I just did recently here.

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And the other one dealt with Christopher Dorner. I don't know if you knew who he was, but he was an LA cop that went on a shooting spree, ended up killing himself here because that case, both of those cases are very unjust for two different reasons. But when it comes to the Christopher Dorner case, it does expose a lot of things, the wrongs the LAPD did. But the main point to drive home is what people will do when it comes to their name. Your name is all that we have. And if we...

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lose that or we lose the respect of that to a lot of men, it feels like that we're nobody anymore. Our identity has been stripped. And I don't condone what he did. I think maybe there could have been another way that he could have went about it, but I can understand where he was coming from. And innocent people die. You know, one of the chief of police's daughter and her boyfriend died because he just went on a spree and said, I would kill everybody.

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And the passing part of that is that maybe if you guys would have just played, you know, you guys are all cops, you know how this works. If he's asked you to say sorry, say sorry, lure him in, get him in cups, put him away. But because of that, we have a lot of people that died. So those are two of my favorite ones out of some of the many that I've done. Yeah. I'll definitely listen to that, uh, adorner episode. That's interesting. Yeah. Cool. That's really cool. So Killer Story, your latest book. It was released January 17th of this year, 2023.

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funny enough, the main character in the book is a true crime podcaster. So it looks like she solves a murder. Uh, she does some serious damage along the way. Where did you get the concept for this book from? Oh, I'll tell you, but here's what I wanted to also say about the Christopher Dorner thing was, um, yeah, I think that's another, that can be another appeal of, of true crime podcasts or of crime novels is just to really, you know, get inside, you know, the dark heart of, you know, some of the criminals, you know,

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because we all have that darkness inside ourselves. And so it can be, it's interesting to see it in other people and hear it explored and we get a better view of the dark parts of ourselves. So that's one thing that Christopher Dorner appeals to me. So what did you ask? How did I decide to get into a killer story and write that story? Right, where did you get the idea from the book? Well, I got the idea really, it started

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from, you know, like sometimes when you're writing a novel or a TV show or whatever, it's like when you have two ideas combined at once. Like William Goldman, the famous screenwriter, he said sometimes he'd get an idea for a movie and it would just kind of sit there, you know, for like years and years and years and years. And then he'd get another idea. And then he'd say, oh my God, these two ideas, they kind of connect. And when he got that happening, he said, okay.

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Now I've got it. That's a movie. So I think I had two ideas that connected. And the first idea was about journalism in general, just thinking about how so many newspapers are going bankrupt. Actually two newspapers a week are going bankrupt. And, you know, people that are getting into journalism now, so many of them get laid off. They get laid off at one newspaper, another newspaper, another newspaper. It just happens. You know,

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My idealistic friends in their 20s who were getting into journalism because they have stories to tell. It's a really difficult life. So that really interested me. Why do people in their 20s have that passion, that idealism, that they're going to become journalists? It really impressed me. And how do they deal with it, being journalists in a world where getting clicks can be as important as getting the truth? So for podcasts too, if somebody wants to be a successful podcaster...

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you know, make a lot of money at it, you know, they get a lot of, have to get a lot of clicks, obviously. And so, you know, they might, you know, be tempted to, um, you know, to sensationalize or leave out the truth or, or omit certain important things. So for instance, the not a podcast actually, but a TV series, uh, making a murderer if you ever saw that on Netflix. Yeah. So in that one, like,

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If you watch the six episodes of the series, it convinces you that those two dudes, good chance, they were both innocent. Then that's what I thought. And then after I watched it, I realized I started reading more about the actual case and other people put out podcasts about that series. There were podcasts about the series. And it turned out the guys that did the series, they actually left out all kinds of stuff that made that main character look really guilty.

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because they want to tell a story about the guy being innocent. So they just left everything out that made them seem guilty. And it was like, man, they were totally manipulating me. That was just total nonsense. So I thought that was really interesting. It relates obviously not just to True Crime podcast, but it relates to journalism in general. It's always been if it bleeds, it leads. But now it feels like it's even more so. People will just say anything to get those clicks.

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So I thought that was really interesting. So you put it all into a stew, people getting laid off, really they're maybe being desperate for their career, wanting to do a true crime podcast, maybe having idealism about it, having a story they really wanna tell. So my story, killer story, is about an idealistic journalist who, to save her career, cause she keeps getting laid off, she launches a true crime podcast to investigate the murder.

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of an alt-right YouTuber who she loved as a little sister despite their political differences. Somebody she knew personally back when she was 14 before she became this alt-right YouTuber. She loved her. She knew her in that sense. She starts this podcast and she doesn't always do the right things. She kind of starts out idealistic, but then it becomes about making sure that I can have a hit, save my career.

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uh... save my relationship because my i don't want to have to move because i'll i'll lose my boyfriend because he's moved with me too many times because journalists always have to move to a different city to get a new job so anyway that's what that's what it's about it's about uh... and that's what that's what inspired me the idealism of all the journalists i know in the in their twenties and then all the obstacles the journalists and true crime podcasters and everybody in this field uh... faces they're trying to do their work in in an environment where

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It's just really hard to make money as a journalist. So have you ever seen the show on Apple TV plus called truth be told? I haven't seen that. So your book killer story reminds me a lot of that kind of the same concept. Octavia Spencer is the main star. She's a true crime podcast that decides to investigate a case that she wants to prove a guy to be innocent ends up sticking her nose into a lot of areas. She shouldn't start running a lot of relationships, uh, ends up

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getting what she wants at a price. So this book reminds me of that. Now it's, I think, going into its third season, so it keeps going. So maybe you should check that out, because Killer Story sounds a lot like that in different aspects. Yeah, that sounds great, actually. I will definitely look at it. When you mention it, I feel like I have heard of it. So it's possible I even saw an episode, actually, when you... Anyway, but yeah, I've heard of it, and I'll look for it, for sure. There are a lot of books and...

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Now coming out, we're starring a true crime podcasters. It's the thing. So hopefully my book is in the early, it came out last month and it's selling well, but you know, I want it to be in the early enough wave that it sells well and it doesn't feel special. So what's it like writing a main character who makes pretty questionable decisions? You know, do you worry about what the readers is going to think? Do you worry about them connecting with the character?

27:07
It's a really good question. The main character in this one, Petra, is by far the most flawed main character that I've ever written. That was really different. And writing it, I definitely did a couple drafts, got help from an editor about keeping her the kind of level that I wanted. It's interesting to me because I've gotten such fascinating reviews. I've gotten some people that love the main character.

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love the book. I've gotten some people that hate the main character and hate the book, and I've gotten a lot of reviews, like a lot, from people that really have very mixed feelings about the main character and love the book and love the complexity of it. And so, you know, that's how it goes. Like I really liked Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and my wife...

28:01
You know, couldn't stand it. She just hated that main character, every character in that. I guess there were two main characters. She hated them both. And I, whatever. I loved the book. I don't care. So what was it like writing it? I loved it. You know, I loved Petra all the way through. And even when she was acting really wrong, I guess you could say, you know, most people would say morally wrong. Some of her actions, as you say, very questionable. I just loved her. You know, I forgave her all her flaws.

28:32
You know, because in a lot of ways she was like me. When you write for TV, every TV writer gets laid off at least once. And in my 20-year career, I've been laid off four times, brought up a lot of feelings. So I kind of know where she's at, I think. And so I just loved her. And so I've been thinking about it a lot in the last month. I wonder, I think this is true, but I'm not sure. I wonder if all...

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writers who write morally questionable characters love them just the way I do. Because I mean, you just do. You just get into them and other people might have feelings but I just love them. I'm going to actually a crime writers convention next week in Tucson, Arizona called Left Coast Crime and I'm planning to ask everybody that I meet that has written books like that if they also love the main character.

29:30
Because I bet they did and that's why they're good characters. I think you have to look at it from the character's point of view in order to write to have them be good. You have to get inside their heads and in the process you really are with them. Well, it's often been said that for writers that their characters sometimes is just a lower version of themselves. So it's the tame version of themselves that there's a piece of you in every character you write. Do you feel like that's true? I think that really is true.

29:58
I think that is completely true. And to do, yeah, I think to write the character well, you have to see them in yourself or yourself in them, or just the way you put it, piece of yourself for sure, definitely. Do you like writing for TV better or do you like writing books better? At this point in my life, I like writing books better. I really like it because whatever you're writing just comes from your heart. You're writing your passion. When you're writing TV, you're fulfilling somebody else's vision. And it's fun.

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especially if you'd like to show, like for Law and Order, I would try to write the best Law and Order episode possible. I'd try to write a brilliant, better than Shakespeare. I would really love Briscoe as a character and Sam Waterston as a character and the other actors. I'd be really into it. But it wasn't what I would instinctively be writing myself if I was just writing my own thing. What I would write would be...

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killer story or I would write the necklace. And so just to do that is just really, really special. And I like the freedom of just, yeah, I like the freedom of doing it on my own. I mean, I get a lot of help from people. I give the manuscript to a lot of people. So it's not really on my own, but there's a longer period where it's on my own. Having said all that, TV has a lot to offer also. I really enjoyed a lot of the collaborations.

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has gotten better through the collaborations. And it can really be rewarding, as long as you're able to be humble, which I, you know, I did pretty well, I do pretty well. As long as you're able to be humble and say, yeah, this person's idea really does improve my script, you know, I don't have to protect my ideas or whatever, it makes it better. Then you can really enjoy the process of, oh my God, working with this other writer makes it better.

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and then the notes from the head writer make it better, the notes from the studio are making it better, and these network execs, sometimes writers like to trash network execs, but no, their notes are making it better. And then when the director has some questions, they've got some good questions, I'll adjust the script. And then the actors, they might have questions, and also just seeing them perform, they'll make it better than it might have been. I mean, just than I imagined it, they make it better than I could have imagined it.

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So there's a lot to say for that collaborative process. And it's also fun with TV to know. I used to, you know, when I had to have a show coming on the air, I would sit in my living room with a few friends to watch the episode, and I would think, man, right now, at this same time, millions of people around the country are watching my words. And, you know, that was special. And I also enjoyed making all that money. I mean, that was just a really good feeling.

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I didn't make a lot of money when I was in my 20s and 30s as a playwright. Didn't make a lot of money in my mid-30s until I was 40 or 41 as a novelist. And then suddenly, you know, at the age of like, whatever it was, 42, I'm making all this money. So that was like a really good feeling. You know, it's enabled me now to be writing the novels as I like. I'm actually writing TV still too. In fact, oh, you mentioned in the intro, I'm writing a Hallmark mystery movie.

33:14
that's due on May 1. So I'm doing that too. And I enjoy it, I enjoy it, but that's my long answer. I like them both. Novel writing probably gets the edge right now. Well, when your Hallmark mystery comes out, basically lets me know my wife is a big Hallmark fan of all their content. So she's probably watching every one of the Hallmark mystery shows that's coming out. So we'll be sure to check that out. Thank you, I'll email you. It's amazing how many people I've met that...

33:41
that love the Hallmark shows, love the Hallmark mystery movies. You know, I don't know, people think of it as like their secret pleasure or something like that. I hear that a lot, yeah. So what can you do in a novel that you can't do on TV and what can you do on TV that you can't do in the novel? You know, in general, I would say that, you know, anytime I read a novel and then watch a TV show based on it, that it's based on, or yeah, based on it, or a movie based on it, I always like the novel better, you know.

34:09
I always like the novel better. So that's one thing I'll say. And I think it's because the novels can just go deeper into who the characters are. And that's it. You know, when I'm writing a novel, I could write the internal monologue and I can write their history. And you know, I can get a lot deeper. And I think that's really fun. With TV, it can be more...

34:34
like I don't know like existential I mean it's like right there in front of you it's like right happening just right there that's true in movies too it's just happening there and so that has a certain kind of like visceral excitement that sometimes books maybe don't quite achieve I think that's what that's that's the great thing about uh tv and movies so I would I would say I would say that I would also say that the someone has said something once it really stuck with me which is that

35:03
Like there are three kinds of conflict you can have. One is conflict inside yourself, internal conflict, and another is interpersonal conflict, where you're just conflicting with your wife or whoever it might be. And the other is like societal conflict or social conflict, where it has to do with all of society. And I think where novels have their own special strength might be

35:33
you know, internal conflict, because you can really have that internal monologue. And where TV might have its best strength might be interpersonal, because lots of times when you watch TV it's like two talking heads talking to each other. And movies might have their best strength, you know, with big overall social conflict, because, you know, you can move from one environment to another, and there's a lot of characters in it.

36:00
and it's a bigger scope often. And that's certainly like a gross overgeneralization because all those three genres can have all three forms of conflict. So it's a gross overgeneralization. And one thing I do tell aspiring writers is, if you're thinking about your novel, your TV pilot or your movie that you're writing, think about trying to have your conflicts on all three levels.

36:28
Because if you have your conflicts in all three levels, that's gonna be a really good thing that you're writing. So that's my basic thought about what's best. Novels, you can do it into a monologues, TV, it's just right out there in your face or right in front of you and can be really visceral. So your novel, The Necklace, has been an option by Leonardo DiCaprio of all people for film. Can you tell us what that process was like and do you see Killer Story becoming a film?

36:57
I see Killer Story as a TV show. The novel would be a good six to eight episodes of a series. So I can see it as a Netflix series, as a streaming series. And I can also see another couple of seasons of it. The main crime in Killer Story would certainly take you for six to eight episodes. So my agent is working on that right now. So the necklace was very interesting because...

37:27
I wrote the first draft of the novel, and then I wrote as a screenplay. I wrote the first draft of the screenplay. And writing this screenplay really taught me some things that helped me write the second draft of the novel. Because writing the screenplay, you really have to focus just really hard on the actual dialogue, what they're really going to say. Because you're trying to be rigorous about dialogue when you're writing a novel, but when you're writing...

37:54
screen playing, you're really envisioning an actor really saying those lines, like you're really super rigorous. So that taught me some things that when I went back to write the second draft of the novel, I kind of understood better how my characters talked. So I wrote the second draft of the novel, and that I was getting deeper into the characters' history and their backstory, everything about them, and that helped me write the second draft of the screenplay with that kind of knowledge. So I finished the second draft of both of them.

38:25
fiction agent submitted it to publishers at the same time that my TV and movie agent submitted it to producers. So it was kind of interesting. Both those sales were made within about a week and a half of each other. So that's how that process went. It was different from the usual process where an author writes a book and then a producing company gets a hold of the book, sometimes even before it's published, and then they option it. So this was a slightly different case.

38:54
The benefit to me was, well, there are a lot of benefits. One was that I wound up with a better novel because I'd written the screenplay. And the second was that they bought the screenplay. So I didn't have to worry, oh, were they going to be willing to, you know, hire Matt Witten to write his, you know, the adaptation of Matt Witten's book? I didn't have to worry about it because I'd already done it and they were, you know, very happy with the adaptation. What do you think specifically about the necklace that got Leonardo DiCaprio interested in it?

39:22
I think it's a good story. Briefly, it's a story about a small town waitress from upstate New York who travels to North Dakota to witness the execution of the man who was convicted of killing her young daughter 20 years previously. And during the course of her journey to North Dakota, she finds something that makes her think, oh my God, this guy who's about to be executed on Saturday at 530, maybe he didn't

39:52
and maybe the real killer of my daughter is still out there running free. And so she's got to find out the truth before Saturday at 5.30. It's got that ticking clock and it's got this dedicated, idealistic, main woman character who's not rich by any means. She's really down to her last $600 actually, but she's a hero. She's going to find the truth even if it means she has to find out that everything she's believed for the last 20 years has been a lie.

40:21
You know, she has the courage to find that. You know, that's what they said, appealed to them. What do you want people to take away from Killer Story? What do I want people to take away? I want people to have a good time reading it. I want them to be intrigued by the main character, see what she's experiencing, see when she makes one choice after the other, you know, where she's coming from, what she does. I think it's got a great mystery to it. I don't think that many people are able to predict who the killer is.

40:47
And I think it's about journalism in general. It's about the choices that journalists and everybody makes when our livelihoods are at stake, when our senses of self are at stake, as you said about the Dorner case, when we're trying to do the right thing. So I think I want people to be, I want people to enjoy this story about this young woman, enjoy thinking about journalism, enjoy the mystery.

41:12
I guess the other thing I would add to that is there's one other element of the book that I think is a lot of fun, which is that the victim is an alt-right YouTuber. She goes from being this sweet 14-year-old girl to four years later when she's 18, being this very vicious or radical or right-wing extremist and alt-right person.

41:41
And it's like, how did she get to that? And so the book looks at the mystery of that. How did she get to that? Because if you can solve that mystery, then you can solve the mystery of who killed her. So that's another element of the book that I really enjoyed. But my personal feeling is that the indoctrination of people like that can be, this is my feeling, can be not that dissimilar from the indoctrination to ISIS or any kind of extremist group. So I enjoyed exploring that. So yeah, I think.

42:10
You know, I really like mystery books that have something to them. You know, that's who will enjoy my book also. So in closing, is there anything you'd like to say to your readers and fans? Although that may be listening. Oh, hi. Thanks for being my readers and fans. I really appreciate it. Without you guys, I wouldn't be doing this. So thank you very much for taking the journey with me.

42:35
Well, Matt, I really thank you for taking the time to come on the show. It's been very enlightening. I've been honored to talk to somebody of your caliber and to meet the guy that wrote some of my favorite episodes, I'm sure from all of my favorite crime shows. I wish you nothing but luck and your recent horror movie coming out and your future endeavors, please keep me posted on that and anytime you want to come back on the show, you always have an open invitation to do so.

43:00
Thank you, David. I really enjoyed talking with you. It's a real pleasure. I'll enjoy listening to your other episodes, too. I appreciate it. Thank you very much, Matt. Thank you.

43:12
All right, guys, that was a great Matt Witten. You can get Killer Story and the Necklace on Amazon and on Oceanside Publishing website. I'll also leave you the link down to Matt Witten's personal website, where you can actually see some clips of some of the episodes that he has written on these various shows. Everything else that you need to know about him will also be down there. As well as my website, it will be attached to a profile on this episode of the podcast.

43:42
So once again, we thank Matt for coming on the show. I also hope that you guys are being good and safe out there and always remember, always stay humble and act of kindness can make someone's day. A little love and compassion can go a long way. And this is the podcast where two passions become one. I'll catch you guys on the next one. Thank you for listening to true crime and authors. Don't forget to rate.

44:10
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44:39
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