7.10.2016  Richard Mabry muses on the military, a medical career, and “medical suspense with heart”

For the past decade Richard Mabry, a retired physician, has been as busy in his second career as a novelist of Christian medical thrillers as he was in his first. Along the way, he’s received rave reviews in Publishers WeeklyLibrary Journal and has been nominated for and won a variety of writing awards. He also served as vice-president of the American Christian Fiction Writers. His medical thrillers have won the Selah Award of the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference, and have been finalists for ACFW’s Carol Award, Romantic Times’ Inspirational Book of the Year, and the Inspirational Reader’s Choice Award. Recently, he signed a three-novel deal with new Christian publisher, Gilead. This week he talks with us about his path to publishing.

LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Where did you grow up, and how did it influence your writing?

RICHARD MABRY: Other than about three years spent overseas at Uncle Sam’s “suggestion,” I’ve lived in Texas all my life. I didn’t go far from my hometown in north Texas for my pre-medical education, my medical degree, and my specialty training. So I know this area of Texas quite well.

How did that affect my writing? When my characters want something to drink with their meal, it’s iced tea or Dr Pepper. I haven’t had them barbecue a brisket in their back yard yet, but that’s probably coming up. The fictitious towns I create as settings are like the ones I grew up in or went to school or where I live now. Some people call this, “writing what you know.” I call it, “Avoid research wherever possible.”

Did you come from a family of storytellers? What books and authors did you grow up reading?

I don’t think I ever heard my parents or their siblings tell stories, although my grandmother occasionally regaled me with tales of the past—some of them probably true, like her relationship to the Indian chief Quanah Parker.

Like so many kids of my generation I enjoyed Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Gulliver’s Travels, and the like. I don’t think these influenced me to write, but I did learn to recognize good writing.

You were a captain in the Air Force (thank you for your service) and spent thirty-six years as a physician, but it seems like the inspiration for you to become a writer was the passing of your first wife. Can you tell us about your first book, The Tender Scar?

Thanks for your comment about my service—I was proud to serve. And though I had written numerous textbooks and professional papers as a physician, I never envisioned myself as a writer.

My wife of forty years and I were planning our retirement when she suffered a fatal stroke. To express my feelings (and avoid dumping them on my children), I wrote them in the form of journal entries. Eventually I had a thick stack of these pages, and a friend suggested they’d make a book that was useful for others who suffered the same loss. Unfortunately, it was soon evident that I had no idea how to do this. I eventually attended a writing conference where I not only learned the fundamentals I needed for that activity, but was challenged by two well-known writers to try my hand at fiction.

I couldn’t ignore a challenge like that. After I got a contract for publication of The Tender Scar: Life after the Death of a SpouseI set about writing fiction. After four years and four novels that garnered forty rejections, I got my first fiction contract. My tenth such novel, Medical Judgmentwas released in May, so I guess I’ve learned a bit as I went along.

Then came a fiction career, but I understand you tried writing in a couple of different genres at first, and they didn’t seem to connect with editors until you started writing medical suspense. What can you tell us about that?

At first I had no idea how to draw readers into my work. I suppose my earliest efforts were what might be called contemporary fiction, but my wife (my first reader) kept asking what was at stake—and I couldn’t answer. I added romance, but with negative results. At the suggestion of my then-agent, I even tried writing cozy mysteries, but even I didn’t like them. Then I decided on medical thrillers with a bit of romance—what I call “medical suspense with heart”—and these were a hit with editors (and later with readers). So I’ve stuck with that genre since.

I read recently on your Facebook page that it has been ten years since The Tender Scar was published, and you’ve been giving some thought about writing another nonfiction book, maybe a guide to rebuilding a life, maybe with a blended family, for example. Do you have any thoughts to share in that area?

The publisher of The Tender Scar broached the subject of revising the book after a decade, but as I thought it over I realized that the material was written while I was still hurting from my loss. If I rewrote it, the emotion could be lost. Rather, I’ve asked the publisher to leave the original material intact. However, I’ve written an additional chapter that will be included in the second edition of The Tender Scar. It’s titled, “Married…Again,” and deals with some of the problems (and joys) of a blended family.

You’ve written before that you still attend writing conferences and get a lot out of them. As a matter of fact, you’re an active member of the ACFW chapter in Dallas, a.k.a. The Ready Writers. It’s like a Who’s Who of Christian fiction. Do you feel that this kind of interaction helps your writing?

I learned a great deal from other writers as I attended various conferences, and I’ll always be in their debt. Eventually I found that I’d learned enough about the craft of writing and the business of publishing to share this with others who are climbing the same ladder I did some years ago. It’s a way of giving back. Of course, as usually happens, when I prepare a talk I find things that I’d either forgotten or didn’t know. So the sharing works both ways.

You have a new novel out, Medical Judgment. For our readers not familiar with this book, would you tell them what it’s about?

Medical Judgment deals with the problems faced by a young female doctor who has been widowed. Now someone is out to hurt—or possibly kill—her. The two men who try to help her during this time are a recovering alcoholic detective and her husband’s friend whose attention is too intense for comfort.

In addition to the medical aspects of the story, I draw on some of the emotions I experienced when I was left “single again” after the death of my first wife. And when the reader gets close to the end, they’ll find that this one is different from any of my previous novels.

What advice would you have for aspiring authors?

Learn the craft, and never stop learning! Don’t give in to the temptation to self-publish just because you don’t get a contract with your first book. Editor friends of mine tell me that books are like waffles—the first one or two usually get discarded. If you do eventually self-publish, have a plan for marketing, because that’s at least half of the process of being a writer.

What’s your writing process like?

One of the first books on writing that I read (and I have a whole shelf of them now) was James Scott Bell’s Plot and Structure. I still follow his LOCK methodology, so I make sure I have a Lead, an Opponent (or Opposition), Conflict, and a Knockout Ending. With these in mind, I craft a one sentence “hook” plus a short summary that can serve as back cover copy. The next thing I do is to populate the book, making character sketches for each person and detailing everything from their physical description to the kind of car they drive. Finally, I line out what the beginning, middle, and end incidents will be that catch the attention of the reader. After that, I’m ready to write. And, yes, I’m a “pantser,” not outlining everything before I start (although it sounds like it), but writing by the “seat of my pants.” Donald Westlake called this “push fiction,” saying that if he didn’t know what would happen next, the reader wouldn’t either.

What’s next for Richard Mabry?

The publisher of Medical Judgment is shutting down their fiction line, so that is my last novel with them. However, I’ve been fortunate enough to sign on with a new publisher run by experienced people. Gilead Publishers will release my next book, Cardiac Event, in January. The book after that, Guarded Prognosis, is about half-written already. And I hope to release an audio version of my holiday novella, Silent Night, Deadly Night, sometime about Thanksgiving.

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