Spencer Quinn - A Farewell To Arfs
Joining me for this episode is New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Peter Abrahams (AKA Spencer Quinn). We have a chat about his latest book, A Farewell To Arfs, book #15 in the Chet and Bernie Mystery series. We have a chat about Artificial Intelligence (AI) being part of the story line, as well as how AI may have a positive or negative impact on the book publishing industry. Have a listen to this fun and insightful discussion from one of the best mystery writers of our generation. Enjoy!
Listen to Episode #219 Now:
BIO:
Spencer Quinn is the pen name for Peter Abrahams, the Edgar-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Chet and Bernie mystery series, as well as the #1 New York Times bestselling Bowser and Birdie series for middle-grade readers. He lives on Cape Cod with his wife Diana and dog Pearl.
Transcript:
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Announcer: This is Pet Life Radio.
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Tim Link: Let's talk pets.
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Tim Link: Welcome to Animal Writes on Pet Life Radio.
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Tim Link: This is your host, Tim Link, and I'm so glad you're joining us today.
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Tim Link: We have a super exciting show, one of my all-time favorites, my best bud in France, been a little while, but he's got his latest book out called A Farewell To Arfs, part of the Chet and Bernie Mystery series.
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Tim Link: Of course, we're talking about the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author, Spencer Quinn.
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Tim Link: And we've had Spencer on the show many times because he's always fantastic as far as learning a little bit about the latest in the Chet and Bernie Mystery series, talking about the animals and the mysteries in general, then obviously we never let him off the line without picking his brain about how he masters his craft.
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Tim Link: So it's going to be a fun, fun show.
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Tim Link: Everybody hang tight.
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Tim Link: Welcome back to Animal Writes on Pet Life Radio.
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Tim Link: Joining me now is New York Times and USA Today, a best selling author of the Chet and Bernie Mystery Series.
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Tim Link: We know him as Spencer Quinn.
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Tim Link: Spencer, welcome to the show.
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Spencer Quinn: Thank you, Tim.
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Spencer Quinn: Good to hear you again.
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Tim Link: Yeah, absolutely, my friend.
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Tim Link: I'm glad you're back on.
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Tim Link: I'm super excited to see when the book has come out and learning a little bit more about the latest and greatest of what's going on in the Chet and Bernie Mystery Series.
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Tim Link: And of course, the new book's called A Farewell To Arfs.
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Tim Link: So love it.
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Tim Link: Always love that tongue in cheek in that action there.
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Tim Link: So tell us a little bit about the book and some of the mystery with that giving away the whole whole kit and caboodle.
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Spencer Quinn: Okay.
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Spencer Quinn: Well, first of all, let's start with the title.
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Spencer Quinn: This is the 15th Chet and Bernie novel.
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Spencer Quinn: They can be read in any order.
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Spencer Quinn: People always say, you know, should I start at the beginning?
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Spencer Quinn: The narrator of this series, Chet, the dog, who's not a talking dog, would never ask a question like that, right?
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Spencer Quinn: You can read them in any order.
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Spencer Quinn: So, in the beginning, I thought up the titles myself, and I still think up some of them, but I also get a lot of reader suggestions.
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Spencer Quinn: I have a file that must have 200 or 300 suggestions, and I use some of them.
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Spencer Quinn: And if your suggestion is picked, then on the day the book comes out, you get a signed copy.
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Tim Link: Nice.
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Spencer Quinn: So, I love this title, A Farewell To Arfs, but what I missed, and so I grabbed it.
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Spencer Quinn: It wasn't my idea.
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Spencer Quinn: It was a reader suggestion.
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Spencer Quinn: The obvious thing that I didn't see was it has the word Farewell in it.
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Spencer Quinn: And so, a lot of readers from day one, I was getting emails all in caps.
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Spencer Quinn: Is this the last of Chet and Bernie?
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Spencer Quinn: What do you mean Farewell?
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Spencer Quinn: And I had missed, that's so obvious, but I had missed that.
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Tim Link: I didn't know that.
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Spencer Quinn: I want to say off the top that it is not the last of the Chet and Bernie series.
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Tim Link: Yay.
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Tim Link: Thank you.
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Spencer Quinn: It's the title I like.
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Spencer Quinn: Okay.
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Spencer Quinn: So just I'll circle back to the idea of this series is that these are detective stories in the model that was really invented by Arthur Conan Doyle, where the sidekick of the detective tells the story in the first person.
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Spencer Quinn: Bernie is the detective.
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Spencer Quinn: Chet, well, he's not a sidekick.
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Spencer Quinn: He's an equal partner, but he tells the story in the first person and he's a dog.
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Spencer Quinn: But the most important thing about the series is he's not a talking dog.
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Spencer Quinn: He's not a human wrapped in a dog suit.
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Spencer Quinn: He's as canine as I could make him.
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Spencer Quinn: That makes him, for the purposes of a crime fiction novel, an unreliable narrator because crime fiction mysteries, especially, have a very strict format of lining up a chain of logical clues and drawing a deduction.
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Spencer Quinn: Well, Chet can't do that.
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Spencer Quinn: He isn't good at logical chains and even if he was, if an important clue was about to be revealed, he might sniff a forgotten baloney sandwich behind the piano and he misses it.
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Spencer Quinn: So he's unreliable and when you marry the unreliable narrator to this strict format, all of a sudden you've blown the whole thing up and that just became fascinating to me and it opened up this whole world of things you could do in writing that I never expected to find in this series.
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Spencer Quinn: So as a kind of example, here's the idea of Farewell To Arfs without giving too much away.
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Spencer Quinn: But we have to remember that in the human world, we're so visual and everything's through the sense of sight.
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Spencer Quinn: Well, that's not true with dogs.
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Spencer Quinn: If you know dogs at all, if you've ever watched them behave, their sense of hearing and their sense of smell, these are like two, it's like we only have one little set of radar, just one little antenna.
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Spencer Quinn: Well, they've got three and the visual one isn't even that important at times.
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Spencer Quinn: their sense of smell and hearing are so much more powerful than ours that their perception of the world is very different.
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Spencer Quinn: And so a lot of the Chet and Bernie series is told through those senses because that's how Chet is seen.
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Spencer Quinn: So this is what a common crime these days, and I'm sure you and all your listeners have read about it, are these scams, where a caller pretends to be someone else or you get an email that's pretending to be from somebody else or a text, and basically they want money.
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Spencer Quinn: A new wrinkle in that is that AI, artificial intelligence, is being used to replicate human voices.
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Spencer Quinn: So let's say you're a grandmother and you have a grandson and some bad guys somewhere in Eastern Europe or they could be anywhere, Nigeria or here, get hold of a little snippet of that grandson's voice.
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Spencer Quinn: They can then make it say anything they want.
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Spencer Quinn: They don't have to have the grandson saying exactly, I've been arrested on a DUI, I need $10,000 to get out, grandma, can you help me?
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Spencer Quinn: Here's how to send the money.
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Spencer Quinn: They just need a little thing like Merry Christmas grandma that they got somewhere, right?
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Spencer Quinn: Not so hard to do and then they've got that and they just tell the AI make it say this.
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Spencer Quinn: And so when that caller calls up grandma with the DUI, it sounds, she's not doing anything wrong, she knows her own grandson.
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Spencer Quinn: But here's the thing, everything in artificial intelligence, it's just this agglomeration of human stuff that goes in, an enormous pile of human stuff that goes in and how humans deal with things.
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Spencer Quinn: So I thought to myself, okay, that voice, the grandson voice that's fate, right?
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Spencer Quinn: It's fate in order to fool a human hearing on the other end.
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Spencer Quinn: Well, Chet isn't a human, his hearing is very, very different.
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Spencer Quinn: Would Chet be fooled by a AI voice pretending to be someone else?
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Spencer Quinn: That's where I started A Farewell To Arfs.
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Tim Link: Very nice, very nice.
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Tim Link: A hot topic, it's in the news for sure.
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Tim Link: I'm going to pick your brain a little bit more about the whole AI experience or bad experiences, the good and the bad a little bit later.
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Tim Link: But pulling from an existing thing and tying it into, well, I would say typical, but a Chet and Bernie Mystery.
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Tim Link: You've got your format, I can see, and you've got your starting line.
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Tim Link: How do you blend that in?
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Tim Link: Because as you said, your fans are very, very wise and you have to be very careful of how you position things and there are certain expectations I know that they have of both Chet and Bernie.
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Spencer Quinn: Yes, there are expectations.
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Spencer Quinn: And of course, and you're on to a very good point Tim, because I know the readers, I mean, they make it very clear that they're out there, because Chet's on Facebook and has a blog and everything.
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Spencer Quinn: So I hear, I get a lot of incoming all the time.
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Spencer Quinn: At the same time, these aren't cozies, in the mystery field, we talk about cozies like Agatha Priskey, they're not hard boiled either, they're a combination.
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Spencer Quinn: And I think it makes them actually more realistic, even though it's being narrated by a dog.
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Spencer Quinn: But what I'm trying to get across is that dark things can happen, right?
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Spencer Quinn: And the thing with Chet is that he, and dark things can happen to him, but he resets very quickly to his normal state, and his normal state is one of joy in life.
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Spencer Quinn: And I think that's one of the things the readers have glommed on to, and that's something I will never fool with.
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Spencer Quinn: You know, Chet is not going to fall into some kind of existential depression.
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Spencer Quinn: That's not in the cards at all.
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Spencer Quinn: But in terms of plotting, so look, that's a very important thing.
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Spencer Quinn: The other, I was once at the Tucson Book Festival, and I was on a stage with other writers.
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Spencer Quinn: I'm sure you've seen that kind of thing, two other writers on stools.
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Spencer Quinn: Right.
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Spencer Quinn: And you know, sometimes with a drink in their hands, if it's late in the day and that's bad, that's bad news, and an audience member said, what do you do about writer's block?
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Spencer Quinn: And the other two writers bemoaned this terrible affliction of writer's block.
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Spencer Quinn: But knocking on wood, I said, I've never had it.
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Spencer Quinn: And whoa, is how's that possible?
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Spencer Quinn: Well, if I feel that I'm gonna be confused or I don't know where to go, just before that happens, I step back and I remember the heart of the book, the spirit of the book, the engine that drives it.
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Spencer Quinn: Okay, now you have to have an engine driving your book.
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Spencer Quinn: If you're a writer who doesn't have that, this won't work.
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Spencer Quinn: But if you do, I step back and I think of the engine, the beating heart of the story, what's driving the book, and then some narrative route always suggests itself.
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Spencer Quinn: The beating heart of the Chet and Bernie series is the love between Chet and Bernie.
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Spencer Quinn: And if I feel I'm going to get stuck and every dog owner knows this love, right?
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Spencer Quinn: I don't even like to use the word owner, by the way.
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Spencer Quinn: Every person who has a dog in the family.
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Tim Link: Right.
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Tim Link: A human companion, human companion.
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Tim Link: That's how I refer.
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Spencer Quinn: They're in the family.
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Spencer Quinn: There's no, you know, about it.
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Spencer Quinn: They're a family member who looks a little, who's different, but they're in the family and they know it too, by the way.
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Spencer Quinn: You know, we just had this, you know, we've got Dottie is our dog at home.
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Spencer Quinn: We've had many and she's a half Bernice, half golden.
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Spencer Quinn: She weighs like 90 pounds.
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Spencer Quinn: She's not fierce or anything like that, but she's really big and, you know, forceful.
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Spencer Quinn: And we just had a new baby grandson and he was in the house.
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Spencer Quinn: He was so gentle and protective of him right from the get-go, right from the get-go because it was family, right?
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Spencer Quinn: So things like this, I will never disappoint the reader.
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Spencer Quinn: These are central to the stories, but dark things can still happen.
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Spencer Quinn: But in plotting the book, okay, so I started with what I told you about, you know, the AI and the voice and all that.
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Spencer Quinn: Well, then I have to construct a kind of story that is going to involve that.
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Spencer Quinn: Well, there has to be somebody who is fooled by this, and that whoever that is, is going to be some sympathetic kind of character, right?
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Spencer Quinn: And in this case, I have Bernie's neighbors, the elderly Parsons, these who are recurring characters in the stories, and they have a son who's kind of wayward, right, who's been in prison.
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Spencer Quinn: And so I had all that ready to go.
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Spencer Quinn: The readers, and of course, I touch on that again, but the setup is right there.
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Spencer Quinn: And then you have to have, well, who are the bad guys?
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Spencer Quinn: And how do you get hold of them?
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Spencer Quinn: And that led me into this whole world of some of these high-tech bros, and the kinds of plans they have, and the huge thoughts they have, like going to the moon and living forever.
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Spencer Quinn: These guys are separating from us.
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Spencer Quinn: Have you noticed that?
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Spencer Quinn: And some listeners, there are these guys, they've left us.
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Spencer Quinn: They're dreaming dreams.
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Spencer Quinn: It's not just that they're dreaming these dreams.
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Spencer Quinn: They're doing things to make it happen.
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Spencer Quinn: And there's a dark side to that.
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Spencer Quinn: The book in the context of a mystery narrated by a dog, A Farewell To Arfs, explores all that.
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Tim Link: Two things that just came up in my mind when you're talking about all this is, one, keeping the narrative in place, the constant theme of love and the partnership that Chet and Bernie has.
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Tim Link: Do you have to, in this book and other books, do you have to reference back to that at times, as far as a reminder or is that just constantly drilled in your mind that here's the nugget we're going to build around that nugget?
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Spencer Quinn: Here's the thing, when you're writing, at least for me, I can only speak for me, but when I'm writing, when I'm sitting at the keyboard and I'm writing, I'm halfway into there.
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Spencer Quinn: I'm here, but I'm really partly there.
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Spencer Quinn: So these characters, Chet and Bernie and all the others, are quasi real to me and I don't have to force them to do anything.
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Spencer Quinn: The love between them just comes out in things they do and things Bernie says or doesn't say and just like that.
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Spencer Quinn: So it's always there, but I'm not thinking, oh, now ring that bell.
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Tim Link: Right.
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Spencer Quinn: It rings itself.
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Tim Link: Got it.
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Spencer Quinn: That's what I'm saying.
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Tim Link: I love that.
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Tim Link: When you're talking about being part of the Writers Forum in Tucson, I've been part of those and you don't really know.
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Tim Link: You hope the audience is asking questions.
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Tim Link: That's the first thing.
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Tim Link: If they're not asking questions, you're in trouble.
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Tim Link: Yeah.
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Tim Link: But when you're part of all that, you're comment about never having writers blog.
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Tim Link: I could see that within you.
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Tim Link: I would see the opposite.
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Tim Link: I would imagine, you correct me from wrongness, there are so many ideas and plots and mysteries and things that Chet and Bernie can be getting involved in, that it would be difficult if I was in your shoes, picking which ones I want to talk about next.
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Tim Link: What's relevant, what's hot, what's interesting, what do I know about more so than just trying to figure out, how do I dredge through another book?
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Spencer Quinn: Well, yeah, absolutely.
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Spencer Quinn: I have a number of, I know there's going to be more Chet and Bernie and I know what some are going to be about because there are larger arcs in the whole series, but they can still be read in any order, but it involves some discipline.
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Spencer Quinn: My mom taught me a lot about writing when I was a kid, and one of the things she said was, advance the story.
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Tim Link: Nice.
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Spencer Quinn: Let's say you think of some beautiful scene of swans on a pond at the end of day, and the light is turning their wings purple and all.
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Spencer Quinn: If that isn't advancing the story, no matter how beautiful it is, it's out.
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Spencer Quinn: I'm very, very strict about that.
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Spencer Quinn: So everything has to advance the story.
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Spencer Quinn: So any extraneous thing like that you're talking about, even if it could be useful in some other context, is not going into this book.
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Tim Link: Nice.
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Tim Link: I like that.
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Tim Link: Good, good helpful tidbit.
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Tim Link: You know, I often hear from writers, some of them have been doing it for as long as you have, and some that haven't, they come up with some sort of a unique thing that they like, they want in their book.
00:15:41.060 --> 00:15:44.840
Tim Link: And oftentimes, though, their editor says, you know, it's not relevant.
00:15:44.840 --> 00:15:52.840
Tim Link: And that's one of the things you don't want to hear as a writer is that it's something that puts your blood, sweat and tears in, and they say, yeah, that's not relevant to this whole story.
00:15:52.840 --> 00:16:06.680
Spencer Quinn: What I want to hear from the editor, and I've been very, very lucky in my career, because this mostly happens, is love the book, hear three small suggestions, you know, that I can handle in a few hours.
00:16:06.680 --> 00:16:13.960
Spencer Quinn: And I get that, but I don't let the book go if I have the slightest doubt about anything.
00:16:13.960 --> 00:16:15.960
Spencer Quinn: I remove all doubt.
00:16:16.540 --> 00:16:21.020
Spencer Quinn: Okay, so some writers, they just get so sick, because it's a long slog, right?
00:16:21.020 --> 00:16:21.720
Tim Link: Yeah, it is.
00:16:21.720 --> 00:16:32.740
Spencer Quinn: But some writers just get so sick of it, you know, that they think, okay, I know that this chapter doesn't really work, and this is maybe should be somewhere else, and this character, oh, the backstory's wrong.
00:16:32.740 --> 00:16:39.680
Spencer Quinn: But they say, okay, but my editor's sharp, and I'm just gonna give it to her now, and then we'll work it out in revision.
00:16:39.720 --> 00:16:42.240
Spencer Quinn: I sympathize with these editors.
00:16:42.240 --> 00:16:43.360
Spencer Quinn: They work very hard.
00:16:43.760 --> 00:16:48.600
Spencer Quinn: They work harder than they used to in the old days when I started because there are fewer of them.
00:16:48.600 --> 00:16:55.500
Spencer Quinn: Everything's been paired down, and if I were an editor, I'd want something in a perfect shape.
00:16:55.500 --> 00:17:07.880
Spencer Quinn: So I make it so the surface is so gleaming that there's no place for them to get their chisel in and start seeing what's inside.
00:17:07.880 --> 00:17:10.580
Tim Link: I love it, I love it.
00:17:10.580 --> 00:17:15.040
Tim Link: I will say I love the editors, love my editors, God love them, you're right.
00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:23.220
Tim Link: They put in a lot of good hard work, and they had to walk a fine line sometimes of dealing with the author and dealing with the story.
00:17:23.220 --> 00:17:23.780
Spencer Quinn: Absolutely.
00:17:23.780 --> 00:17:31.600
Tim Link: But I always imagine my wife does a lot, she's a business analyst, does a lot of writing and rewriting from a technical and a business standpoint.
00:17:31.600 --> 00:17:43.300
Tim Link: And she has this, in the olden days, when we used to do things by pen and paper, she had the giant red pen and constantly was marking, okay, that's wrong, that's a typo, that's this is wrong, this doesn't.
00:17:43.300 --> 00:17:47.780
Tim Link: So every time I hear the word editor, that's sort of envision that tells you how old school I am about it.
00:17:47.780 --> 00:17:53.260
Tim Link: I envision that red pen coming out and making changes to everything I've just put down on paper.
00:17:53.260 --> 00:17:53.920
Spencer Quinn: Right.
00:17:53.920 --> 00:18:00.880
Spencer Quinn: Well, of course, now it's all done from track changes and all that part of the process has been speeded up amazingly.
00:18:00.880 --> 00:18:15.720
Spencer Quinn: I mean, I used to have to print out the document and or actually type it in the beginning in a typewriter, in my book and then go to a Kinko's and have it copied and then FedEx it and all that's gone.
00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:18.060
Spencer Quinn: You know, it's that I really like.
00:18:18.060 --> 00:18:19.560
Spencer Quinn: I really appreciate all that.
00:18:19.560 --> 00:18:21.060
Tim Link: Absolutely.
00:18:21.060 --> 00:18:21.340
Spencer Quinn: All right.
00:18:21.340 --> 00:18:22.960
Tim Link: Well, we're going to take a quick commercial break.
00:18:22.960 --> 00:18:28.900
Tim Link: I will come back and continue our chat with Spencer Quinn, talk to him a little bit more about the book, Farewell To Arfs.
00:18:28.900 --> 00:18:30.040
Tim Link: And also want to talk to him.
00:18:30.040 --> 00:18:32.480
Tim Link: He brought it up about this whole AI thing.
00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:33.920
Tim Link: Is it the end of the world or not?
00:18:34.500 --> 00:18:37.280
Tim Link: So everybody hang tight, we'll come back right after this commercial break.
00:18:37.280 --> 00:18:40.080
Tim Link: You're listening to Animal Writes on Pet Life Radio.
00:18:46.508 --> 00:18:52.788
Tim Link: Hi, this is Tim Link, animal communicator and pet expert and host of Animal Writes on Pet Life Radio.
00:18:52.788 --> 00:18:55.548
Tim Link: Have you ever wanted to know what your pet is really thinking?
00:18:55.548 --> 00:18:58.748
Tim Link: Do you want to find out if they truly understand what you're trying to tell them?
00:18:58.748 --> 00:19:02.368
Tim Link: Or wish you could build a better understanding and closer relationship with your pet?
00:19:02.368 --> 00:19:03.588
Tim Link: Well, now you can.
00:19:03.588 --> 00:19:07.288
Tim Link: Learning to communicate with animals is a four-part on-demand workshop.
00:19:07.288 --> 00:19:25.228
Tim Link: In the workshop, you'll learn the essential techniques that are necessary to communicate with animals, including what is animal communication, breathing correctly to achieve the perfect state to communicate with your animals at a deeper level, using guided meditation exercises, a method to communicate with animals, and how to send and receive information from your animals.
00:19:25.228 --> 00:19:35.588
Tim Link: So if you're wanting to learn how to communicate and connect with your animals at a deeper level, visit petliferadio.com/workshop and purchase and download Learning To Communicate With Animals.
00:19:35.588 --> 00:19:37.188
Tim Link: You'll be glad you did.
00:19:45.848 --> 00:19:53.608
Tim Link: PetLifeRadio.com Welcome back to Animal Writes on PetLife Radio.
00:19:54.228 --> 00:19:59.668
Tim Link: Continue our conversation with New York Times and USA Today best-selling author, Spencer Quinn.
00:20:00.088 --> 00:20:06.268
Tim Link: Now, Spencer, when we, when everybody picks a copy of the book, Farewell To Arfs, I know that's a stand alone.
00:20:06.268 --> 00:20:11.308
Tim Link: You can pick this one up, number 15, and then you can go to number four, and you can go to number six.
00:20:11.308 --> 00:20:14.128
Tim Link: They're all out there and you can read them anywhere you want.
00:20:14.128 --> 00:20:25.288
Tim Link: But is there a common theme either from this book or from even the series itself, that once they read through it, is there something that you have as a idea of a takeaway?
00:20:25.288 --> 00:20:30.828
Tim Link: You know, if they got this out of the book or out of the series, then you've done your job as an author.
00:20:30.828 --> 00:20:36.228
Spencer Quinn: Well, boy, you know, there are certain thematic things that are important in the series.
00:20:36.268 --> 00:20:41.288
Spencer Quinn: One is these are really about America, past, present and future.
00:20:41.288 --> 00:20:42.588
Spencer Quinn: That's what they're about.
00:20:42.588 --> 00:20:45.048
Spencer Quinn: They take place almost all in Arizona.
00:20:45.048 --> 00:20:54.968
Spencer Quinn: Bernie, the detective, his family has been there for a long time and used to own a lot of land, and now it's just their one little house where Chet and Bernie live.
00:20:54.968 --> 00:21:08.768
Spencer Quinn: But I know in this book, for example, In A Farewell To Arfs, we find out through this retired journalist named Etta Cohn, who had a column called AZ Desperados from A to Z.
00:21:08.768 --> 00:21:13.668
Spencer Quinn: So that was her crime bulletin, AZ being Arizona.
00:21:13.668 --> 00:21:22.808
Spencer Quinn: But it turns out that she and Bernie's father, who's long dead, died when Bernie was eight, had something going.
00:21:22.808 --> 00:21:29.988
Spencer Quinn: And we've already met Bernie's mom in the series, who's described as a piece of work living with husband number three or four in Florida.
00:21:30.408 --> 00:21:38.528
Spencer Quinn: So the story of Bernie and how he got to be the man he is, because he's a war hero, he has a wounded leg from the war.
00:21:38.528 --> 00:21:48.968
Spencer Quinn: And every time they meet somebody who was in the field of battle with him in the Middle East, these guys show up and they pound him on the back and they just love him.
00:21:48.968 --> 00:21:51.988
Spencer Quinn: But we never find out exactly what he did.
00:21:51.988 --> 00:21:57.888
Spencer Quinn: Whereas a lot of other people meeting him think that he's just some kind of loner and loser.
00:21:58.468 --> 00:22:03.048
Spencer Quinn: But in fact, he's a kind of American male struggling in these days.
00:22:03.048 --> 00:22:11.568
Spencer Quinn: And he's still a kind of paladin figure in a world that is highly complex.
00:22:11.568 --> 00:22:17.808
Spencer Quinn: And so in this book, which is really, I mean, he's dealing with some of these very complex AI people.
00:22:17.808 --> 00:22:21.488
Spencer Quinn: There's a character named Milo Morster.
00:22:21.488 --> 00:22:25.288
Spencer Quinn: And if his name reminds you of Elon Musk, I'm sure it's an accident.
00:22:26.208 --> 00:22:46.448
Spencer Quinn: But people like this who are these big dreamers who, in fact, this when Chet and Bernie show up at Milo's space center out in the desert, Milo is very friendly because he thinks that they're there because he's running a contest to find a dog descended to the moon, right?
00:22:46.448 --> 00:22:48.568
Spencer Quinn: And that's not what they're there at all for.
00:22:48.568 --> 00:22:58.488
Spencer Quinn: But it's that kind of complexity that I really, so I'm going to say that it really is about, I mean, it's about what novels should be about American novels and that's this country.
00:22:58.488 --> 00:22:59.108
Tim Link: Yeah.
00:22:59.108 --> 00:23:09.368
Tim Link: Well, I love the fact that you always, in the series, you always formulate Chet and Bernie, Bernie in particular, like you'd mentioned, that we learn a little bit more about him.
00:23:09.368 --> 00:23:10.528
Tim Link: So that never goes away.
00:23:10.528 --> 00:23:15.588
Tim Link: So I keep going back to this golden nugget with this wraparound.
00:23:15.588 --> 00:23:19.668
Tim Link: So you have this great mystery, this great topic, this great thing that we're dealing with.
00:23:19.668 --> 00:23:24.288
Tim Link: And by the way, we still have Chet and Bernie, and we're going to learn a little bit more about Bernie.
00:23:24.288 --> 00:23:25.908
Tim Link: So that never goes away.
00:23:25.908 --> 00:23:31.288
Tim Link: So it's not just, okay, hey, as a reminder, here's Chet and Bernie, and by the way, here's their next adventure.
00:23:31.288 --> 00:23:32.288
Tim Link: Yeah, we get that.
00:23:32.288 --> 00:23:36.508
Tim Link: But on the other hand, we learn a little bit more tidbits about what's going on in their world.
00:23:36.508 --> 00:23:39.508
Tim Link: And I always love that about how you put together this series.
00:23:39.508 --> 00:23:40.368
Spencer Quinn: Thank you.
00:23:40.368 --> 00:23:41.068
Spencer Quinn: Thank you.
00:23:41.368 --> 00:23:47.928
Spencer Quinn: I would say that what I hadn't mentioned, and I think it's the most important thing, actually, and isn't that always the way.
00:23:49.128 --> 00:23:51.208
Spencer Quinn: You hang up the phone and you forget what you're...
00:23:51.208 --> 00:23:59.268
Spencer Quinn: But I think the most important thing, and that readers who don't know the series will see right away, is the voice of Chet, who's telling the story.
00:23:59.268 --> 00:24:03.128
Spencer Quinn: He has a unique voice, and that's what...
00:24:03.128 --> 00:24:08.628
Spencer Quinn: I mean, I hear from readers all the time who've fallen in love with that voice.
00:24:08.628 --> 00:24:14.748
Spencer Quinn: And they even send me these little Chetisms, sayings of Chet and stuff like that.
00:24:14.848 --> 00:24:17.388
Spencer Quinn: And then he means this.
00:24:17.388 --> 00:24:22.888
Spencer Quinn: I mean, it's humbling, but it's almost like he's a companion of them, too.
00:24:22.888 --> 00:24:25.828
Spencer Quinn: Yeah, you know, he's an imaginary figure.
00:24:25.828 --> 00:24:26.908
Tim Link: Well, absolutely.
00:24:26.908 --> 00:24:28.208
Tim Link: I mean, you can...
00:24:28.208 --> 00:24:35.008
Tim Link: The way it's written with Chet and Bernie, you know, we're reading this in print, but yet we visualize it.
00:24:35.008 --> 00:24:36.708
Tim Link: I think it's very important for an author to do.
00:24:36.708 --> 00:24:46.128
Tim Link: We have now my concept of how Bernie looks and acts and things may be slightly different than what you had originally put down or the next fan had put down.
00:24:46.128 --> 00:24:47.188
Tim Link: But we have an idea.
00:24:47.188 --> 00:24:50.568
Tim Link: We grow comfortable with who we believe they are.
00:24:50.908 --> 00:24:53.928
Tim Link: And like you mentioned earlier, this is part of your family.
00:24:53.928 --> 00:24:57.328
Tim Link: You know, it's not hard for you to write about them because they're part of your family.
00:24:57.328 --> 00:25:03.188
Tim Link: So you have a vision and a story that you want to move forward to tell about Chet and Bernie.
00:25:03.188 --> 00:25:04.408
Spencer Quinn: Absolutely.
00:25:04.408 --> 00:25:09.188
Spencer Quinn: And I'm very fortunate that I just love writing this voice.
00:25:09.188 --> 00:25:16.428
Spencer Quinn: When I sit down and I'm writing Chet, I shift into it and I'm delighted to be in his head.
00:25:16.428 --> 00:25:30.548
Spencer Quinn: So I don't know if you yourself, Tim, but some of the listeners who read some series, fiction, mystery series, and they love the first book in a series and they love the second and the third one while it's good, but not.
00:25:30.548 --> 00:25:34.028
Spencer Quinn: And then the fourth one, they're actually forcing themselves to finish.
00:25:34.028 --> 00:25:35.168
Spencer Quinn: Well, what happened?
00:25:35.528 --> 00:25:36.788
Spencer Quinn: Well, why?
00:25:36.788 --> 00:25:38.188
Spencer Quinn: It's the same person writing it.
00:25:38.488 --> 00:25:39.128
Spencer Quinn: What happened?
00:25:39.128 --> 00:25:44.448
Spencer Quinn: And the answer is the writer ran out of enthusiasm for the project.
00:25:44.448 --> 00:25:45.328
Spencer Quinn: Yeah.
00:25:45.328 --> 00:25:46.488
Spencer Quinn: You can't fake it.
00:25:46.488 --> 00:25:49.168
Spencer Quinn: The voice of Chet makes me enthusiastic.
00:25:49.168 --> 00:25:49.728
Tim Link: Yeah.
00:25:49.728 --> 00:26:18.168
Tim Link: And I think one of the things for an author that could be very easily fallen into is the fact by time you're, if you're fortunate enough to have a series and you've got the third, the fourth, fifth book, you almost feel compelled at times without pressure from anyone else that I've got to do some different, I've got to write a different type of series or I've got to introduce some new characters because either A, I'm losing touch with my characters or B, the audience must be losing touch.
00:26:18.168 --> 00:26:22.968
Tim Link: When reality, most of the time, I would hazard to guess that the audience, the fans, they want the same people.
00:26:22.968 --> 00:26:26.668
Tim Link: I mean, they're going to write you serious letter or emails.
00:26:26.668 --> 00:26:32.648
Tim Link: If you take all of a sudden Chet and Bernie's not in the book or the neighbors are not in the book, that you're going to get some emails.
00:26:32.828 --> 00:26:34.048
Spencer Quinn: Okay, so there's a big cast.
00:26:34.048 --> 00:26:42.348
Spencer Quinn: I introduce new ones in every book, but there's a big cast of characters way too big to have them all come back into a book.
00:26:42.348 --> 00:26:44.448
Spencer Quinn: Some are canine characters too.
00:26:44.448 --> 00:26:48.028
Spencer Quinn: Here's Shooter who's actually an offspring of Chet.
00:26:48.768 --> 00:26:52.428
Spencer Quinn: Today I got email saying, Shooter, he's not in this one.
00:26:52.428 --> 00:26:55.108
Spencer Quinn: Is he coming back soon?
00:26:55.768 --> 00:26:56.988
Spencer Quinn: I have to do that.
00:26:56.988 --> 00:27:01.248
Spencer Quinn: But I should point out that in terms of my own writing, I actually am.
00:27:01.248 --> 00:27:04.948
Spencer Quinn: I'm writing a whole other series at the same time about a woman named Mrs.
00:27:04.948 --> 00:27:08.208
Spencer Quinn: Plansky, and she's not a dog and it's not told by a dog.
00:27:08.208 --> 00:27:08.888
Spencer Quinn: So Mrs.
00:27:08.888 --> 00:27:11.548
Spencer Quinn: Plansky's Revenge came out last summer.
00:27:11.548 --> 00:27:13.428
Tim Link: Nice, very nice.
00:27:13.428 --> 00:27:17.388
Tim Link: All right, before I left you off the hook, I've been teasing about the whole AI thing.
00:27:17.388 --> 00:27:20.208
Tim Link: And we've heard the pros and the cons.
00:27:20.208 --> 00:27:26.008
Tim Link: We know to invest all of our money in AI now, we have a chance, all these wonderful things.
00:27:26.008 --> 00:27:34.808
Tim Link: But from a publishing standpoint, my take on it at the moment is sort of like maybe 10 years ago, maybe it's been a little bit longer.
00:27:34.808 --> 00:27:44.748
Tim Link: But if you remember when digital books came out, and soon we will have no more bookstores and we won't be printing any more hard copy books because everybody will want digital downloads.
00:27:44.748 --> 00:27:50.188
Tim Link: And then we realize, no, that's not the case because we have, you know, the wonderful books in our hands and we love them.
00:27:50.188 --> 00:27:51.428
Tim Link: Same thing with AI.
00:27:51.428 --> 00:28:05.868
Tim Link: You know, I keep reading about the horror stories that AI is going to infiltrate the publishing industry and we will have AI authors and this will cut into the funds and the ability for authors to write, etc.
00:28:05.868 --> 00:28:14.608
Tim Link: Through your research for this book, A Farewell To Arfs, or just your general knowledge and interest in it, what's your take on that from an author standpoint?
00:28:14.608 --> 00:28:19.748
Tim Link: Is AI the gloom and doom of the now present or is it somewhere in between?
00:28:19.748 --> 00:28:29.948
Spencer Quinn: Well, if you're talking about AI actually writing novel that are good, well, I didn't necessarily say good, but yes, writing novels.
00:28:29.948 --> 00:28:40.488
Spencer Quinn: I think AI right now can write novels that are bad, but I think we're a long way from AI writing novels that are good, a long, long way.
00:28:41.428 --> 00:28:46.748
Spencer Quinn: If this march of AI continues, that'll be one of the very last things.
00:28:46.748 --> 00:28:49.728
Spencer Quinn: You can see AI of the arts.
00:28:49.728 --> 00:28:56.288
Spencer Quinn: I would say that music is much more threatened because it's fundamentally mathematical.
00:28:56.288 --> 00:28:59.708
Spencer Quinn: I mean, music is connected, but this is not.
00:28:59.708 --> 00:29:01.308
Spencer Quinn: This is not.
00:29:01.928 --> 00:29:13.288
Spencer Quinn: To make something original out of AI, using AI to me, I think we're a long, long way and originality from my standpoint is everything in novel writing.
00:29:13.288 --> 00:29:14.908
Spencer Quinn: I'm not gloom and doom on it yet.
00:29:15.348 --> 00:29:16.388
Tim Link: Good, good.
00:29:16.388 --> 00:29:17.028
Tim Link: I'm not either.
00:29:17.028 --> 00:29:20.188
Tim Link: And I can't predict the future nor would I if I could.
00:29:21.388 --> 00:29:28.108
Tim Link: But it's one of those things where I think there's going to be some helpfulness from a publishing standpoint and writing standpoint.
00:29:28.108 --> 00:29:31.128
Tim Link: There's going to be a lot of helpfulness in that.
00:29:31.128 --> 00:29:35.348
Tim Link: There could be some harm if it's not controlled properly or done properly.
00:29:35.348 --> 00:29:43.188
Tim Link: But when reading one of your books or other great authors, your story and your heartbeat comes through the book.
00:29:44.108 --> 00:30:00.268
Tim Link: You can tell the difference between something that was generated by AI now, and I think it's going to be that way in the future because you need a good author who's intimate with the characters and knows their story better than anybody to be able to relay that to the audience.
00:30:00.268 --> 00:30:01.848
Spencer Quinn: Well, I think so.
00:30:01.848 --> 00:30:03.408
Spencer Quinn: There's such a thing as soul.
00:30:04.908 --> 00:30:08.568
Spencer Quinn: I believe in soul and I don't think it can be faked.
00:30:08.568 --> 00:30:09.288
Tim Link: There you go.
00:30:09.288 --> 00:30:09.848
Tim Link: Love it.
00:30:09.848 --> 00:30:11.428
Tim Link: Believe in soul, it can't be faked.
00:30:11.428 --> 00:30:11.728
Tim Link: I love it.
00:30:11.828 --> 00:30:13.908
Tim Link: I think that's another song and another book.
00:30:13.908 --> 00:30:16.328
Tim Link: I think we could write that one together.
00:30:16.328 --> 00:30:17.808
Tim Link: Well, everybody pick up a copy of the book.
00:30:17.808 --> 00:30:21.408
Tim Link: It's the 15th in the series of the Chet and Bernie Mystery series.
00:30:21.408 --> 00:30:25.388
Tim Link: It's called A Farewell To Arfs by our good friend, Spencer Quinn.
00:30:25.388 --> 00:30:34.488
Tim Link: Spencer, tell us a little bit about where can people find out more about you, where you're going to be, how you can tell the other authors that you never get writer's block.
00:30:34.488 --> 00:30:36.068
Tim Link: Where can they find you?
00:30:36.068 --> 00:30:39.168
Spencer Quinn: Well, the tour for A Farewell To Arfs is over.
00:30:39.788 --> 00:30:42.628
Spencer Quinn: I was in across the country, so that's over.
00:30:42.628 --> 00:30:53.028
Spencer Quinn: But Chet's on Facebook, Chet the Dog, and also you can go to peterabrahams.com/spencerquinn and there's everything there about the series.
00:30:53.028 --> 00:30:53.828
Tim Link: Absolutely.
00:30:53.828 --> 00:30:54.408
Tim Link: Fantastic.
00:30:54.408 --> 00:30:59.748
Tim Link: Whereby check out those sites and join up, join the fun, write the next great title.
00:30:59.748 --> 00:31:00.828
Spencer Quinn: Yes, send me a diary.
00:31:00.828 --> 00:31:03.648
Tim Link: Yeah, Return To Barks or something like that.
00:31:03.728 --> 00:31:05.268
Tim Link: It's not a farewell.
00:31:05.268 --> 00:31:06.588
Tim Link: And of course, everybody pick up a copy.
00:31:06.588 --> 00:31:10.808
Tim Link: It's Farewell To Arfs, the 15th in the Chet and Bernie Mystery series.
00:31:10.808 --> 00:31:17.708
Tim Link: Pick them all up and just put them on your desk or your nightstand and mix them all up because you can start with anyone and go to the next one.
00:31:17.708 --> 00:31:18.288
Tim Link: It doesn't matter.
00:31:18.288 --> 00:31:19.708
Spencer Quinn: Send me a photo of that.
00:31:19.708 --> 00:31:20.728
Tim Link: Yeah, there we go.
00:31:20.728 --> 00:31:21.588
Tim Link: Love it.
00:31:21.588 --> 00:31:25.168
Tim Link: Well, Spencer, great to see you and hear from you again.
00:31:25.168 --> 00:31:28.788
Tim Link: We look forward to hearing more about all the activity you got going on.
00:31:28.788 --> 00:31:33.768
Tim Link: And of course, we're looking forward to seeing the 16th in the Chet and Bernie Mystery series.
00:31:33.768 --> 00:31:34.468
Spencer Quinn: Thank you, Tim.
00:31:34.468 --> 00:31:35.668
Spencer Quinn: The pleasure is mine.
00:31:35.668 --> 00:31:36.388
Tim Link: Absolutely.
00:31:36.388 --> 00:31:38.108
Tim Link: Well, yeah, good to see you.
00:31:38.108 --> 00:31:39.728
Tim Link: Good to hear from you.
00:31:39.728 --> 00:31:41.708
Tim Link: Well, we're coming to the end of the show today.
00:31:41.708 --> 00:31:45.228
Tim Link: I want to thank everyone for listening to Animal Writes on Pet Life Radio.
00:31:45.228 --> 00:31:48.628
Tim Link: I want to thank the producers and sponsors for making the show possible.
00:31:48.628 --> 00:31:50.048
Tim Link: Drop us a line.
00:31:50.048 --> 00:32:02.268
Tim Link: If you want to be the next guest, or if you want to hear more from your favorite artist, you can go to petliferadio.com and we will entertain your comments, answer your questions and bring on the people you want to hear from most.
00:32:02.268 --> 00:32:09.388
Tim Link: So till next time, we will write a great story about the animals in your life and who knows, you may be the next guest on Animal Writes on Pet Life Radio.
00:32:09.388 --> 00:32:10.728
Tim Link: Have a great day.
00:32:10.728 --> 00:32:16.748
Announcer: Let's talk pets, every week on demand, only on petliferadio.com.