Carl Vonderau grew up in Cleveland in a religious family that believed God could heal all illness. Maybe that’s why he went to college in California. After majoring in economics and dabbling in classical guitar, he ended up with a career in banking.
Carl has lived and worked internationally and has managed to put his foot in his mouth in several languages. He brought his banking expertise to his debut thriller, Murderabilia, as well as to his recently published novel, Saving Myles.
He has won first place awards from Left Coast Crime, San Diego, American Book Fest, Pencraft, and National Indie Excellence.
Carl is president of the San Diego chapter of Sisters in Crime, a member of Blackbird Writers, and also helps nonprofits through San Diego Social Venture Partners.
Author Carl Vonderau
Jill: Describe your literary background. Did you take classes?
Carl: As a kid, I enjoyed making up stories but did not take literature or creative writing classes in college. I majored in economics. After several years in banking, I enrolled in my first writing courses. I’ve continued with those courses, joined writing groups, and submitted sample pages to agents and editors. Slowly but surely, I’ve become a competent writer.
Jill: Have you written books all your life?
Carl: I used to write poetry and music for guitar and voice. But it wasn’t until my thirties that I took classes and began to write short stories and fictional pieces.
Carl: Crime fiction has always fascinated me by the way it amplifies family and the relationships of my characters. I also love a good plot. Each book has had a different challenge, and each one has stretched me as a writer. My first book, Murderabilia, took many years to write. It was entirely in first person and used some parts of my life—private banking, growing up in a Christian Science family, and my familiarity with some foreign locals like Colombia and Algeria. My second book, Saving Myles, was in third person and contained three points of view—a mother, father, and teenage son. Getting those voices right and individualized was a major challenge. But writing them really helped me grow. My third book is in submission and only contains one voice in third person but contains some unique writing challenges I hadn’t tried before. All three books involve the banking industry. But the book I’ve just started has nothing to do with banking and is set in 1969.
Jill: When did you begin writing mysteries; what inspired you?
Carl: I would say that my books are combinations of thriller and domestic suspense with mystery elements in them. When I first started writing I thought the easiest way to get published would be to write a mystery or thriller. Little did I know. Still, in choosing that type of genre I grew to love what I could do with them. And mystery is really so broad. Much of literary fiction has mystery in it. What I like about it is that mystery combines character development and analytical reasoning.
Jill: Why did you write in first person for your first mystery?
Jill: How do you decide on your characters and killers?
Jill: Have your life experiences crept into your stories?
Carl: Yes. My banking and my travel experiences have greatly influenced my writing. I was a banker for more than 30 years and lived in Chicago, Montreal, and San Diego. I travelled extensively in Latin America and North Africa, and worked in four languages. I set my first three books in the banking world I knew, just different areas of banking. In Murderabilia, the world was private banking for the wealthy. In Saving Myles, it was commercial real estate banking. In the book I’ve just submitted it is in the branch of a large bank. I’ve based my characters on composites of the people I knew and know. Because of my languages, I injected a foreign way of speaking into some of the characters. Even so, I had to research some aspects of each book. I had to learn about photography in Murderabilia. I may be a banker but didn’t know much about money laundering, which is part of Saving Myles. So, I enrolled in an anti-money laundering organization and took courses and went to seminars. Much of laundering uses international trade, which I already knew a great deal about. I also had never worked in the retail branch side of banking. To learn about their daily challenges, I talked with several branch bankers.
Jill: Where does your inspiration for settings come from?
Carl: I love international locales and have tried to put in details that evoke those different worlds. I’ve used settings in San Diego, Algeria, Colombia, Mexico, and Montreal. The best way to absorb the feel of a setting is to go there with a notebook and take lots of pictures. In Tijuana I had friends in the YMCA who helped me find the right locations for Saving Myles. I travelled back to Montreal for the book I just wrote to make sure I got it right. Part of Saving Myles was set in Mexico’s wine country, where I’ve never been. I couldn’t travel there because of the pandemic, so I had to use whatever visual images and knowledge I could glean from TV and the internet. Then I made things up. I’m sure I got some of it wrong…but it’s fiction!
Jill: Have you studied forensics?
Carl: I’ve read some books and talked with a few experts, but forensics is not my strength. I try to limit that aspect as much as I can in any mysteries I write. However, I am knowledgeable about finance, so I do put financial forensics into my books.
Jill: What is the greatest writing challenge?
Carl: Writing the next books fast enough. I am somewhat of a perfectionist, and my books are stand-alones, so I don’t write a book a year. I work very hard on getting the ‘write’ emotions down and coming up with decent prose. My first book I wrote more than 20 times. The second was 10-15, and the third less than 10. So I guess I’m getting better.
Jill: Any pitfalls along the way?
Carl: Sometimes I have a problem with a premise. I wrote 30K words for each of two books that I dropped because they didn’t work. The ending can also be a problem. I write a whole book with an ending in mind, and then it doesn’t work, so I have to change it. But the changes make the books better.
I’ve found that my writing group both makes my books better and slows them down. The people in the group really helped me improve—especially with the interior life of my characters. They also helped me see what scenes worked and didn’t work. But there are drawbacks. It’s very hard to get a lot of pages quickly through a writing group—typically only about 10 pages at a time. The other problem is that the other members can’t see the whole arc of the book because they’ve only seen pieces of it over several months.
Jill: Typical writing schedule?
Carl: I write every day. On weekdays I begin at about 7:15 in the morning. It is not all writing the manuscript. I also write a newsletter and do social media. Plus I‘m currently president of the San Diego chapter of Sisters in Crime and must do work for that organization. I’ve also been active in Social Venture Partners, a nonprofit that consults with other nonprofits. I will usually watch news or read at lunch and then work in the afternoon. I finish on at about 4:30 on the days that I exercise, and at 6:00 for other days. Night time is pure relaxation with my wife. On weekends I usually work 4-6 hours each day.
When I was a banker the hours were long, and in those days, I wrote whenever I had a few minutes, Now I’m a full-time writer and the hours are even longer.
Jill: How do you beat writer’s block, if any?
Carl: I always know the characters and the premise I’m writing about. I usually have a clear idea of the scene I want to write. Plot points are what block me. This is when I’ve written my character into a corner they can’t escape from, or when the book has begun to drag. I can rack my brain and go in circles, but usually the best ideas don’t occur to me then. Sometimes I’ll get a solution when I talk to someone. But often the best way to solve a problem is to let it go. Wash the dishes, exercise, or take a shower. And if it’s really a difficult problem, put it off for the next day. I won’t think of a solution in my sleep, but the next morning it often comes to me. This past week an idea occurred to me on something I’d worried about for weeks when I was in my spin class at the Y. I’m disciplined and focused, but the key to the unusual idea is to just let your mind go free and not force yourself to grind out a solution.
Jill: What keeps you in the chair?
Carl: I like to go to coffee houses to work. Then there is no distraction from TV or what’s going on at home. Just the work in front of me and the noise of people I don’t talk to. The hardest part is starting the day. That’s when I worry that my writing will be lousy. Often it starts out that way and then goes somewhere unexpected. When I follow a good trail, I lose track of the time.
The other thing I do is write first drafts by hand. I have an idea for a scene and the conflict between the characters and let it flow without worrying if there are enough setting detail, gestures, reactions, etc. Sometimes the scene is going so fast my hand can’t keep up with what the characters are saying or doing. That’s a great feeling. If there is a word I can’t think of or something doesn’t work, I ignore the problem and keep moving. Then I try to type it into the computer within 24 hours. That is my first real draft, and I will cut out and fill in pieces. Maybe the scene doesn’t really begin until the second page. Or it ends a page earlier than I’d written. I try not to polish it too much in this first-draft stage. After all, when the book is done, I might have to cut or revise the whole scene.
Jill: How do you organize your plotting – pantster or plotter?
Carl: I do both. My first book was heavily plotted. I had a half page of notes for every scene before I wrote it. I changed it so many times that many of those plotting points were a waste of time. Now I try to have some basic points in my outline but not be wed to them. I’m currently using Plotter to map out scenes and points of view.
Overall, I at least need some concepts of basic points: an inciting scene to launch the narrative, a big change in the middle, subplots that can stop the book from dragging, and a hopeless situation that the protagonist must resolve at the end. Plus some plot twists, of course. Steven James, a best-selling author, said the best twists are not the ones you think of first, but the ones you think of second or third.
I'm mostly being a pantser for the book I’m working on now. It is the first time I’ve written so much this way. Being a pantser frees me from having to get the characters to particular plot points I’ve got my heart set on. I also don’t have to bash my head against a stone to come up with a twist that will make the book more interesting. Just let the characters react in the way that any normal person would. Of course, this carries the risk of pulling me down a rabbit hole.
Jill: Do you have theme goals?
Carl: My general theme for all my books is that a crime forces dysfunctional families to unite to survive. My mantra is: Behind every crime is a family. As I write the book, other themes emerge, particularly if I see an object or an action repeated. That might indicate a problem or a solution that could be worked up into a theme.
Jill: Publishing history?
Carl: It takes a long time to get published. I started 30 years ago. When I moved to San Diego I met Jacquelyn Mitchard at a writers’ conference. She helped me develop and edit the book that became Murderabilia. Jackie recommended me to her agent. We went through revisions for a year and then he told me I should find another agent. That was tough! So, I went to a conference on how to pitch a book to an acquisitions editor or agent. I used that advice in a conference in San Francisco and got an agent with a one-sentence pitch—Michelle Richter. But then there was the problem of finding a publisher. She sent it out to at least 20 of them. Murderabilia was a dark book, so only one was interested—Midnight Ink. They were a good publisher, so we went with them. Three months after we signed the contract, Midnight Ink’s parent company decided to stop publishing mysteries. We stuck with them, and they published the book, but did not give it a lot of support. My next book, Saving Myles, took me three years to write. Again, Michelle pitched to a number of publishers and Oceanview took it. They are considering my third book right now. Will they accept it? Nothing is certain in the publishing world. But I hope they do. They have been excellent to work with.
I’m glad to have the ongoing support of Michelle, my agent. Someone once told me, “A publisher buys a book, and an agent buys an author.”
Jill: How do you promote your books?
Carl: I have a website and am active with Facebook and Instagram. Plus a monthly newsletter in which I describe my writing activities, as well as a financial scandal that occurred somewhere in the world. I am the president of the San Diego chapter of Sisters in Crime, a writing organization with more than 4K members in 60 cities, including a chapter in the UK. I’m also a member of Blackbird Writers, a group of writers who cross-promote their books. I attend and teach at writers’ conferences. And, finally, I love to talk virtually or in person to book clubs! No charge.
Contact me at CarlVonderauAuthor@gmail.com
or through my website, www.carlvonderau.com
if you are interested in me talking to your group.
Jill: Have you attended book tours or writers’ conferences in the UK and other countries?
Carl: I did attend a Left Coast Crime conference in Vancouver a few years ago, but nothing else international. But would love to do more. I’m putting the UK on my bucket list.
Jill: Which genres do you read for pleasure?
Carl: I read extensively both crime books as well as literary ones. I prefer books with plot and a traditional narrative. I don’t read science fiction or fantasy. Those are just too long, and I’m not a fast reader.
Jill: Your most exciting book news this year?
Carl: Saving Myles has won several awards. These include: American Book Fest for Best Mystery/Suspense, PenCraft for best Suspense, and National Indie Excellence for Best Thriller. The Local Author Showcase of San Diego Central Library spotlighted it in March.
Jill: Tips/advice for budding authors?
Carl: The two key talents you need in order to get published have nothing to do with your writing ability. Those are patience and tenacity. You have to keep at it and keep getting better as a writer. The saying is that you get your whole life to publish your first book, and a year to publish your second one. Most beginning writers, including me, have thought their book was ready before it really was. You only get one chance for an editor or publisher to look at it, so make sure it is at its best before you submit. That means, not only writing it, but vetting it through a writer’s group, maybe beta readers, and through a developmental editor. A writer’s critique group will make sure your scenes and characters work. Beta readers and a developmental editor will make sure that the overall structure of your book holds together.
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