R. H. Emmers Interview Published on: 28, Jun 2024

Like Papa Hemingway, I was a newspaper reporter initially and that meant I had to write cleanly and concisely. Later, I became a columnist and found in that job that I could be a funny person. (Who knew?) All of that carried over into my fiction writing. (I hope.) And then I became an investigator, which isn’t that different than being a reporter: you do stuff and then write it up in a report. Anyway, in that job I came to love the action of chasing down a fugitive or fraudster and confronting him. That has had an even greater influence on my fiction writing: There always has to be action.

Some time ago I tried my hand at novel writing. It was total crap and remains thankfully unpublished. But it featured a character named Dahl who became involved in what I was doing as part of my work in crisis communication: I was mostly a fixer, and mostly on the streets rather than writing talking points and so forth. One day I decided to resurrect Dahl in a short story; it grew into a novel. But I needed a different set of circumstances to put him in. So, he became both a fixer and a one-time intelligence guy. (My fascination with that world comes from John LeCarre, particularly the Smiley stories.) And it just seemed logical to have him dealing with other intelligence guys, but in a dark way, which is part of my personality, I guess.

But about Baja and Mexico in general. The Secret History is set in large part in Baja because I love it and spent many years traveling its mountains and deserts. So, some of the scenes are from places I visited, filtered through my imagination and memory. By the way, Cartel violence has made me more or less leery of continuing my Mexican adventures, but I’ve remained fascinated by the workings of that criminal class and their effect on the government of Mexico.

I’m not sure any of my experiences translate directly into what transpires in The Secret History. But what does translate, I hope, is a sense of the darkness and cynicism that those jobs involve (in addition to the fun of chasing down scammers and crooks.)

Basically, when I write a short story, a first sentence appears to me, by some sort of magic, then gets re-written a zillion times and what survives becomes the setting and then the story. (And often that first sentence is weird, but so what?) But “theme?” I don’t really know what that means. I just want to tell a story and if it reveals a theme, then so be it.

In the firm I worked for a basic rule was never lie to a reporter. Sure, we spun things, but we never lied. I was a former journalist, as were most of my compatriots at the firm, so I knew what a turn-off lying could be. I try to follow the no lying rule in terms of the factual basis of setting and the back stories of characters. However, a lot of the setting and back story has to be made up – it is fiction after all; still I try to ground it in reality. The first requirement for me is to tell a good story, and then, as I say, make sure the settings and the back stories are as accurate as possible, or at least as accurate as the story allows.

Mostly, the length of a novel is what’s daunting. Writing a novel can take years, especially because I write slowly when I’m working in that form, I don’t know why. Short stories are an entirely different matter. They come fairly quickly. I’d much rather write short stories. For some strange reason, my imagination comes more freely in a short story. I just wish I could find that same sort of freedom in novel writing. (Maybe one day.)

I simply let them do what they want to do.

As I said earlier, I love Baja (and Mexico) and made many trips there exploring the beaches and ruins and mountains and so forth. Thus, I didn’t really have to make anything up – it’s that kind of place. Well, I take that back. Many of the locations described in The Secret History were made up, but they were based on my own travels, or research, so I hope they have the ring of truth.

Does it really, shine a light on geopolitical issues? Personally, I think that comes about only incidentally, at least in my experience. Basically, I just want to tell a good story. If that illuminates an issue, then so be it. But I know that some writers deliberately set out to write an allegory, for instance Animal Farm or Waiting for the Barbarians. Still, there has to be a good story within the allegory.

Crafting crisis communications, whether in a bankruptcy, an accident, an arrest or whatever, is a whole different world. Such communications have to reinforce particular points, while often telling a story. I guess the same rules apply in fiction writing. But in fiction, you can make up things. And you can’t in crisis work.

The thing about fiction is that it involves imagination, a lot of imagination. A man or woman walks into a room. That’s the beginning of a story. But then what? And there’s the difference. In crisis work, or newspaper reporting, for that matter, you always know what’s next. (Of course, you may spin it, or even leave it out.)

Some years ago I wrote a novel featuring a fixer (which was my role at the crisis firm in a lot of ways) who works for a crisis firm. I tried to weave some of my own experiences into that narrative. The novel was not very good, although I did like the main character, Dahl, so I resurrected him, turned him into a gun-for-hire and a different kind of fixer for The Secret History. Then I had to imagine what he and the other characters get up to.

People keep asking me that, and I have no advice except for just keep writing and eventually you’ll come up with a style. Or you won’t; so then you should probably get into another line of work.

I have no idea whether my portrayal of what intelligence is all about in The Secret History is authentic or not. All we really know about the business is that they’re watching everything (ha-ha!) So, I had to rely on my imagination, based on whatever research could tell me.

Right now, I’m working on a bunch of short stories set in Valley County, a fictional stand-in for where I grew up, Centre County, Pennsylvania. Maybe they’ll make a book; maybe not. As far as another novel goes, it makes me shudder. Maybe I’ll write another one, but on a subject entirely different than The Secret History.

I was rummaging around the ‘Net one day trying to avoid writing and came upon the site. It seemed interesting, and another way to get my name known and my novel sold. I like the notion of the site a lot, although it is hard to keep up with everything and write at the same time.