Volume 5, Issue 3 – June, 2002
Suzanne Brockmann: SEAL-ed with a Kiss
Can a former rock singer and daughter of the Sixties who hates being ordered around find happiness in the middle Navy SEa, Air and Land (SEAL) Hell Week? If her name is Suzanne Brockmann, she can. Brockmann’s decision to build a romance series around “Tall, Dark and Dangerous” Navy SEALs in the mid-1990s catapulted her to best-seller status and garnered her just about every major romance award around — including a matched pair of RITAs in 2000.
A long-range planner as determined and methodical as her SEAL heroes, Brockmann likes to push the envelope of romantic conventions. Her books often feature enlisted leading men and “multiple choice” romances that serve to counterpoint each other and the nerve-wracking, nail-biting action of Brockmann’s suspenseful plots. Recent books in Brockmann’s Troubleshooter point to an even broader scope — one which embraces counter-terrorism, the FBI and a few choice crooks. At the same time, Brockmann confided at a recent Washington Romance Writers conference, she looks forward to a series of new releases that hark back to her earliest days as a romance writer.
Crescent Blues: One of the most interesting aspects of your new release, Out of Control, and the other books in your Troubleshooters series is the number and variety of romances that develop over the course of each book. In Out of Control, for example, you give us the main romance between Savannah Von Hopf and Ken “Wild Card” Karmody, the subplot with Jones and Molly Anderson, and the World War II romance between Savannah’s grandmother and Heinrich Von Hopf. What prompted you to go in the direction of these multi-layered romances?
Suzanne Brockmann: I guess I’ve always been interested in stories that are layered together, with all these people who eventually intersect and individual lives that come together, usually at the conclusion of the book. Putting a book like that together is kind of like doing a puzzle. I think it comes from trying to put together books that resemble what we see on TV series.
I’m a big fan of shows like West Wing with all these characters throughout. I’m a fan of Toby (Richard Schiff) from West Wing. He’s my favorite character, but I have friends who are really into Sam (Rob Lowe) or Josh (Bradley Whitford). Because there are so many characters, there is someone for everyone to like.
I approach my books in a similar way. I don’t expect everybody to like Savannah and Ken the best. I expect you to like them. (I hope you like them!) But there’s Jones and Molly. Theirs is a different story with a different texture. They’re different characters at different places in their lives.
There’s also the flashback story that I like to put into these books, because I’m really interested in World War II, and it’s my big chance to tell some of these fabulous stories in a contemporary book.
I think of it in terms of multiple choice hero and heroine. You can pick your favorite. It doesn’t bother me that you found Jones and Molly to be the most compelling couple in the book, because I don’t expect everybody to react the same way. I did get a lot of mail from people who really loved Kenny. It surprised them that they liked him so much, because he didn’t seem like hero material. But he really won a lot of people over. All different kinds of people are reading these books, and I hope to touch at least some part of them with some character in the book. Everybody’s different.
Do you consciously search out stories from World War II to augment the main stories in your Troubleshooters series?
At this point, I wouldn’t say I actively search them out, because I read I read every book in the library on World War II when I was 11, and those very young brain cells retained all that information. So I know so many fabulous and little known stories about that era.
The thing that really gets me is that they were heroes on so many levels. There were heroes at home doing the tiniest acts of courage and heroism. Then there were these huge, massive, save-the-battleship acts of heroism. They’re all stories worth telling.
I have a list of World War II subplots that I would like to work into a book, but I’m running up against time. My method of operation with these books has been to include an elderly character who experienced these events, and that generation is dying off. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to do that. I don’t really know how to solve that problem, but I’m working on it. It’s cooking in my head — to see where I’m going to go with this — because I’d like to see it continue..
You mentioned that you’d like to see the series continue indefinitely.
Absolutely.
But you also mentioned the danger of falling into a niche. Do Max and Jones in Out of Control represent the beginnings of the team you plan for future novels?
Absolutely. Absolutely. I’ve done quite a bit of work setting up the F.B.I. counter-terrorist team. (That’s Max’s unit.) And then there’s the civilian group I’m going to be forming over the course of the next few books. There’s Jones. You’re going to see him again.
I wondered about that when you mentioned the “criminal component” of the group in your question and answer session. You also mentioned liking to torture your heroes. Hmm, “Max Bhagat,” that sounds like a Middle Eastern name…
Actually, it’s Indian.
So he fits right into the middle of the scenario. I can see some good prospects for conflict in the offing. But before we get into future projects, let’s backtrack a little. A lot of people really liked Ken in Out of Control. But you said yesterday that you were surprised that there was an interest in enlisted heroes
This goes back years to when I first started writing the “Tall, Dark and Dangerous” books. Writing series romance, I was under the impression that a hero should be an officer, going on my mis-assumption (if there is such a word) that readers would want to have the traditional, corporate C.E.O. hero — the W.A.S.P.
The “Cinderella Complex.”
The prince, yeah. I think that’s not true. At the same time, I’m a little ashamed of myself, because I was trying to break away from that too with my first book in that series, Prince Joe.
The hero is a blue-collar guy from New Jersey. He starts out as enlisted; he becomes an officer in the course of his career. But he’s named “Joe.” There it is, right there. He’s not your standard romance hero. His name isn’t “Chance
In a sense, I was undermining what I was trying to do by having this more realistic, average — average in the sense that he wasn’t born into money — blue collar guy. I was trying to get rid of all the clichés of the romance hero. Yet, at the same time, I fell victim to what I thought readers’ expectations would be by having officers as heroes. But I learned very quickly that people were interested in reading about enlisted guys. It was going to work.
What do you think that says about the personal and professional development of the women who read romances?
I think it says a lot about diversity. I think that the romance reading public is really open to a lot of possibilities.
I think that publishers limit themselves by making restrictions in terms of race. I was told at one point that I should change my cop hero’s sidekick, because he was Asian American. “Why don’t you make him something else so that he can be a hero?” The message was: “We don’t want any Asian-American heroes.” Or: “That’s not going to sell, so we’re not going to write that book.” But I said, “No, this guy’s Asian American, and I want him in my book.”
I think the readers are looking for it. I think that they’ve been open all along. African American romances — I think there’s a huge market for that. And I think there’s a huge market for a non-segregated world, which is more realistic, more like our real world. We should be writing about all the people who love women, not just the rich, white ones. The readers want to read it. They are really ready for something a little bit different too.
How has writing the “Tall, Dark and Dangerous” series and the “Troubleshooters” series involved you, the daughter of the ‘Sixties, in the culture of the military?
It’s been a crash course. There’s still so much that I need to learn. I’m learning all the time. It’s kind of like on the job training. But there are some things that I just struggle to understand, that I find really hard to comprehend.
I am a writer, because I want to be my own boss. I don’t want anyone giving me an order. I want to control my own life and shape my own destiny. That’s not what the military is, as I understand it. You go in and follow the rules.
I also think of the corporate world as completely alien to the way I live my life right now. And I don’t understand the corporate world either.
There are so many rules in the Navy. To try to make sense of how it works in rates and ranks, and when do you get leave, and what is it called, and why don’t you call it vacation — just learning the lingo has been interesting and an ongoing process. I’m not 11 anymore, and those brain cells don’t retain like they used to.
Given that it is such an enormous process to research and write about an alien culture, what inspired you to begin writing about Navy SEALs?
I had written a number of books for Silhouette Intimate Moments, and I was looking for a mini-series hook. I noticed that readers really like mini-series. At the time, my goal was to increase my readership. I had purposely started out in series romance, because I had wanted to establish a name for myself, and that seemed to me the smartest and best way to do it. (I was always looking for ways to sell my books.)
I noted that mini-series sold very well. My plan was to write a romance mini-series that included series romance hooks — things like secret babies, marriages of convenience, that kind of stuff. I was really looking to expand my series romance readership. I pretty much knew right off the start that I didn’t want to write a mini-series that had to do with a family (you know, the MacConahey Brothers or the So-and-So Cousins), because you can only have so many of them. It’s a finite series. You can pull one or two illegitimate brothers out of the back, but that’s about it. Then the series ends, and you have to start over. I wanted to have an open-ended series.
Rachel Lee was doing her Conard County series at the time — I think she’s still doing it — and that was really successful. But it was a case of she’s already done a [locale], and she’s done it very well. I didn’t want to copy her.
So I told all my friends that I was looking for a mini-series hook — especially my non-writer friends. Everybody was thinking and brainstorming. “Any ideas that you have,” I said, “No matter how stupid — aliens from Mars… Well, good, keep thinking.”
My friend Eric called me one day and said, “I’ve found your mini-series hook. There’s an article…” I don’t remember if it was Time or Newsweek. But it was on Navy SEAL Hell Week.
I ran to the library, and I was sitting there between the stacks, cross-legged on the floor, reading this article on the training that the Navy SEALs go through, and I knew he was right. It was my mini-series hook, because these guys are closer than brothers. They die for each other. They live for each other. They protect each other. They work in seven- or eight-man groups. I could bring people in. This is the military — I could transfer them into the team!
It seemed perfect, and as I did more research, I knew, without a doubt, that this was where I wanted to go.
What kind of response to the series have you received from people who are in or associated with the military?
I have gotten a huge response. I have a great many readers who are actually in the military. I have a huge number of readers who are military wives. Former military — they are really, solidly, back there and very supportive.
They’re very helpful too in terms of: “Well, you got that wrong.” They’ll point out the little mistakes, and I’m always very eager to be corrected. In fact, Prince Joe was just reissued, and we got to go through it and fix some — I call them “typos” — small mistakes. I think I called the SEALs “special forces,” but they’re “special operations.” They’re two very different things. At the time I thought, this is all the same thing. You know, special is special. A [Navy] wife explained the difference.
When you’re researching something that you know nothing about, you don’t know what you don’t know. Things like “dress whites” [the Navy’s formal business uniform]. In The Unsung Hero, I have the scene at the very end where Tom, the hero, is wearing dress whites, and the heroine is in the tree house where she hung out as a child. She can see into his bedroom window, and she makes a comment to him after they get together again that she was spying on him — and isn’t she nasty. (She’s had this good girl image for too long.) Then she tells him: “You’re wearing red underpants.”
My Navy SEAL friend said, “Not with dress whites, he wasn’t.”
Ah! I didn’t even think about that, because I’ve never worn dress whites. I very seldom wear white pants myself. Being a woman, I tend to wear black. Slimming colors. But I had to laugh. Talk about things that you don’t even think about that you don’t know!
Not only can you see if someone is wearing colored underwear under dress whites, you can see where they end.
The guys need to wear boxers, because there you are in dress whites. I’m sure there’s a lot that I still have to learn. Like I said, it’s a work in progress.
On your Web site and in your talk yesterday, you mentioned three things that seem to have a strong influence on your novels: scriptwriting, music, and your fan experience with shows like Star Trek. How did each of these elements contribute to the writer you are today?
I think that having been a fan, I understand what drives fans. All my life I’ve had a really accurate read on popular culture. I can listen to a song once and know that it’s going to be a number one hit. It’s something that I’ve always been able to do. If I like a TV show, it’s not going to get cancelled — which has been a very good thing for me, because it’s a bummer to like a show that’s going to be cancelled.
I recognized that in myself. I noticed it and paid attention to it. So when I’m writing the books, I’m also writing for Susan, the fan, in terms of what would please me as a reader. I think that has paid off. I really do believe that I have a good sense of what will incite a response in the reader, because I know what would make me emote as a fan.
I think that my music background has prepared me for the celebrity of success. I spent years singing in a band, being out in the lights, being on stage. I was the girl in the “guy band,” which was an interesting thing to be. To be “one of the guys” helps a lot in understanding men and the way men speak and the way men think. I was always the woman sitting with the men and accepted into the club, because I know how to run a sound system, and I was willing to lift my share of the equipment. I was an equal. I made sure they knew I was an equal.
[That experience in music] has been helpful on both levels, because I have to admit I enjoy the celebrity. I like coming to conferences like [the annual conference sponsored by] Romantic Times. I enjoy talking to people. I really do.
With my life as a romance novelist, I can go to these places and be famous. Then I can come home and go to the grocery store if I want to, and nobody will recognize me. I really do feel like I have the best of both worlds as far as that goes.
Do you think you might ever use your experiences in the band in one of your future novels?
You know, the very first book I wrote had a rock star hero, but it never sold, because it had a rock star hero, and in romance that’s a big no-no. But I had always heard, “Write what you know.” And I know the world of rock-n-roll — or I knew what it was like in the Eighties or early Nineties. I don’t know. I have no immediate plans [to use that knowledge in a book].
Did you use a stage name, or did you use Suzanne Brockman?
Yep.
What was the band?
The band in Boston started as Fazzone, which was a very strange inside joke. Then we changed our name to Sensible Shoes. We played the Boston area with all original songs. I wrote songs. I wrote music. I fronted the band.
We worked very hard, but we were kids — I was 19 years old. We were waiting to be discovered, and we just kind of waited. We played clubs, but it didn’t happen like it does in the movies. The record producer didn’t go: “These kids are going to be the next great thing.” It didn’t happen, and we didn’t know enough — I didn’t know enough — to go out there and grab it by the throat, which is something I learned to do in my writing career. Don’t sit around waiting, go out there and get it, which is part of the learning process of life.
What about scriptwriting? Did it give you pointers on dialogue? On plotting?
Absolutely. It also helped me in terms of pacing. In fact, the number one writing rule that I follow… You know writing rules are meant to be broken. I really do believe that. Except for this one. It’s a rule I picked up from William Goldman,
You don’t have the people driving up to the bar. You start the scene with the glasses clinking and go right into the conversation, because in a screenplay, you don’t have time. It’s writing that is so structured. There are so many rules to writing a screenplay. When I started writing them, you really were encouraged to keep your screenplays down to under… One hundred twenty pages would be pushing it. That’s about a two-hour screenplay. The rules have changed a bit, but it’s really hard to tell a story in 120 pages. You cannot waste any time at all.
I took all those things that I learned about writing screenplays and applied them to writing novels, and it really paid off. The pacing in my books is right on. I also say that when I’m writing a book, I’m really writing the novelization of a movie by Suzanne Brockmann playing in my head. I see the books and visualize them so clearly, and I think readers like that. I think it translates well.
Let’s get back into some romance stuff. You just came from a panel discussing The Flame and the Flower, Devilish and the alpha male. You write about dominant males. Where do you put your men in the continuum of romance heroes?
It’s so hard to label something. Really, the guys aren’t completely alpha. Most people tend not to be just one thing. There are so many little bits of other things in there. If you want to take it in the broad sense of the alpha male being a leader, being an overachiever, someone who gets the job done, who is aggressive and has a goal that he is determined to reach, then, yeah, my guys are definitely alpha males. But I think that’s what you’re going to find in the military, especially with Navy SEALs, because the whole idea of a SEAL is the best of the best.
People don’t go [airily]: “Oh, I think I want to become a Navy SEAL.” It’s something that they’ve wanted for a long time. It’s something that they’ve burned for. That’s a really unique kind of person. I think it does fit into the alpha category. Even though you might have a guy with those characteristics who is soft-spoken, he’s got that inner core of steel that really makes him an alpha in a pinch or any time of stress or danger.
So yeah, they’re alpha guys. I think they’re modern though, because part of the whole SEAL thing is to be very intelligent. You need to be smart to be a SEAL. These are guys who think.
You’ve mentioned how important values and beliefs are to creating characters. How do you integrate values and beliefs into your SEALs and other characters?
I think that there are certain similar beliefs and values that most SEALs have. I think that most SEALs value adventure and high risk. These are guys who probably spend their vacations mountain climbing or doing activities that are risky. There are similarities there.
Things like beliefs are things we learned when we’re children most of the time. Beliefs change all through your life. Everybody has beliefs about everything. Beliefs can be limiting to us as well as help us to achieve things. And beliefs aren’t always true, so we have to adjust our beliefs.
So whenever I’m creating any character at all, I’m really looking at all these things. What happened to them as they were growing up that made them believe that they have the ability to succeed at things that most people fail? Think about the number of SEALs who sign up for BUD/S. Eighty to 90 percent of the class drop out. These are the big, strong, tough guys who make it as far as getting accepted into the BUD/S program, and most of them drop out. What is it about the guys who finish the program? What makes them different? It’s not all the same thing.
For instance, in Out of Control, Wild Card believed that when people told him he was going to fail, he wasn’t going to fail. So having instructors who picked him out of the crowd and really tried to make him quit was the best thing that could’ve happened to him. As long as they were saying, “You’re gonna last another four hours, tops,” he was in it until the end, because he got that challenge thrown in his face.
Other guys have other beliefs that would make them act differently in a similar situation. There are guys, who if you told them they were going to fail, they would fail, because they’ve learned it’s true, and it controls them.
So when I’m creating characters, I’m looking at all these little things that they believe that rule their lives — that rule all our lives, although we don’t necessarily know it.
One of the things that comes across really, really well when you speak live is your sense of humor. Where does that go in the books?
[Laughs.] I think that the way it translates into my writing is that my characters have senses of humor. They don’t take themselves so seriously, and they’re able to cope with the choices they have to make, and the tough situations they get thrown into by being able to laugh about it or to know that someday they are going to be able to laugh about it. Things that they think that might be inappropriate — that’s where the humor comes out.
An editor I’ve been working with for a number of years really thought that when I went to single title [romances] that I would be writing romantic comedy. In fact, my first single title book has a cover that’s far more appropriate for a comedy. It’s bright pink, and it’s a book about a recovering substance abuser. [Laughs.] It’s not a funny book, and I think that surprised both of us. But that’s the book that come out, and the drama is what I really, really want to be writing.
So the humor and the drama balance.
I think that as long as you have characters who have senses of humor, who don’t take themselves too seriously, that’s a good way to create that balance. I don’t know. I’ve had one editor describe Over the Edge as, “Reading it was like being locked in a windowless room.” And she loved it.
I got emails from people. “Suze, I’m really worried about you. You must be going through an awful lot of turmoil right now, because this book was so exhausting.” It was about the Holocaust, and it had someone who was in the early stages of Alzheimers. All this really dark stuff, and the hostages on the plane…
It was actually very interesting, because I was going through a really tough time. I spent most of my time writing that book in the winter, and I kept opening the windows, because I couldn’t stand having the windows closed. I was feeling really shut in. As writers, what’s going on in our lives does effect what we write.
So the serious books are out there, but the comedy is not crying to be written.
Some books are lighter than others. I personally opted, after 9/11, to make the book that’s at the publisher’s right now lighter than others.
You mean Into the Night — the book that takes place in Afghanistan?
The prologue [included in the back pages of Out of Control] takes place in Afghanistan. The bulk of the book takes place in the Navy base in Coronado. There are terrorists in the book, and there’s a threat, but it’s not as oppressive as Over the Edge, and I did that on purpose. I think it’s lighter, maybe funnier. I’m trying. [Laughs.] We’ll see how it comes out.
I didn’t realize how dark Over the Edge was until somebody sent that list [of all the dark stuff]. I was like: “Sorry. Geez, that was dark, wasn’t it.”
Well, you did have to open a window to clear it out. In your books, one of the things that comes across very clearly is the irony of the situations. In Out of Control, Little Miss Perfect does the one thing guaranteed to make the man she’s had a crush on for years hate her for life. In Prince Joe, the only guy in the whole world who can impersonate an effete princeling is this blue collar guy from New Jersey.
One theme that I really like to use a lot is “What you see is not always what you get.” Perceptions, especially in the sense of first look, are not always right. The whole theme of facades. You think you know this guy, but do you really?
People intentionally set out to deceive others. Maybe “deceive” is a harsh word, but that’s really what they’re doing. All throughout life you see people who don’t want to reveal their inner selves, for whatever reason, for whatever beliefs and values that they have. They let other people believe the assumptions they make and never correct them. It’s done a lot, and I’m intrigued by the masks we all wear.
Do you have any writing rituals?
Simply to do it every single day
Even when you’re on the road?
No. That I don’t do. I give myself time off. But there are no days off when I’m at home, and I must write a certain number of pages a day.
As a self-confessed fan, do you ever base the physical descriptions of your characters on real people, either from the entertainment industry or elsewhere?
More often, I’ll use actors that I like, because I can see them playing the part. I do enjoy George Clooney. And since I do tend to think I’m writing a screenplay in my head, I tend to cast the books with actors and actresses in the public eye. Those tend to be the people that I use as my models.
Care to give any hints about who’s who? You say “George Clooney” right up front in Out of Control.
I tend to throw it in. Everyone asks me, “Who’s Sam Starrett?” I don’t have a guy for him, interestingly enough. He’s a unique character that I see very clearly in my head, and it’s really hard to cast him. I haven’t been able to.
But I like to have readers cast the books themselves. [For example] I saw the admiral in The Admiral’s Bride so clearly as Mel Gibson, and I had people write to me: “Ew! Ew! I hate Mel Gibson.” Oh no! Don’t tell me that!
Any advice to new writers that you’d like to share? What do you wish you had been told when you started out in the writing business?
The best advice I could’ve gotten was: do not attempt to control the things that you cannot control. As a control freak, I came into this business trying to figure out what do I have control over and what don’t I have control over. I tried make it fit into my little scientific, analytical view of the way the world should be, and there was so much that I really had no control over. I found myself smacked, face down, again and again by things that I couldn’t control. I was always being blind-sided by things that I thought I had under control. And if I had just said, “I can control my writing, and that’s it; let me focus on that,” that would’ve been much better.
Anything you’d like to add?
I have some books coming out that I originally sold to Meteor Publishing, who published my very first book, and then went out of business. [Laughs.] My first book was their last book. It was a crash course in reality.
The book about the rock star?
No, no, that book has never been published. It has never seen the light of day.
For several years now, I’ve been trying to get Harlequin/Silhouette to re-issue all three of the books that I sold to Meteor. One was published. It was called Future Perfect. It’s about a bed and breakfast in New England. This book has been out of print for quite some time. Two never saw the light of day: Letters to Kelly and Love Scenes.
It was like being pregnant for nine years. Seriously! They were going to be published. They were books. They had been bought. The rights reverted to me, and I’ve been trying to get them published. I brought it up to Harlequin/Silhouette a couple of years ago, and they kept saying: “We’ll get back to you. We’ll get back to you.” For two years. And they finally got back to me, and they bought them.
Letters to Kelly is coming out as a Silhouette Intimate Moments in February 2003. I’m really psyched about that. It’s a book I wrote pretty early in my career, but it’s one I’ve always loved, so it will be fun to see it in print. Regarding Love Scenes, it’s not written in stone, but there’s talk about it coming out as a Silhouette Desire in March 2003. I’m really psyched about that. It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to have a series romance come out, and I’d like to keep that audience happy. I feel a great deal of loyalty to my series romance fans, who basically made my career.
Jean Marie Ward
In addition to editing Crescent Blues, Jean Marie Ward writes for a number of Web-based and print magazines, including Science Fiction Weekly. She is the author of Illumina: the Art of Jean Pierre Targete (Paper Tiger) and several short stories, including “Most Dead Bodies in a Confined Space” in Strange Pleasures 2 (Prime Books). Her first novel, With Nine You Get Vanyr, written with Teri Smith, was published by Samhain Publishing in 2007.
Click here to learn more about Suzanne Brockmann.