David Morrell

When I was doing the Slycast, I never in a million years would have thought that.

uh, prior to starting that podcast that I would talk to, you know, David Morrell who, you know, wrote, wrote the novel first blood.

Like it's, it's surreal when you have the ability to do that.

So, uh, it's cool.

What's your story? Yeah.

Well, Karen and I have been married for 30 years, and I have been a lifelong, voracious reader, particularly in this genre, growing up with, you know, in the 80s with Ludlam and Forsythe and Dave Morrell and obviously Tom Clancy and Vince Flynn.

And...

I've always just just, you know, I've read nonfiction books about this world and.

So many writers are thinking about that, you know.

Take notes, Bill.

Yeah, I mean, I've known David Morrell for like 40 years and, you know, gone through this whole saga with him.

And he did write one book called And he realized, I've always loved this story because it's an empty writer's trick.

Then came another character, another fighter, another man who represented survival, John Rambo.

In 1982, Stallone starred in First Blood, based on David Morrell's novel.

Rambo was very different from Rocky.

Rocky wanted to prove himself.

I don't know.

But in the novelization of that, David Morrell in the intro said, in my book, First Blood, John Rambo dies.

In the movie, he doesn't.

this is a sequel to the movie.

Wow.

So then, do you know who David Morrell is? Mm-hmm.

OK, so David and I became friends in 2010.

That's

It's just, it's a good reminder that what's one of the things I really appreciate about the, the writing sphere that we're in is by and large, there are very few assholes.

Most people are incredibly generous with their time and attention and are just really awesome.

Like it is incredible to get to meet people like David Morrell, like Raymond Benson, like just, it's so cool because it's, Like, I'm sure you experience the same thing when you've been reading the books forever and then you actually meet the person.

And the phrase is don't meet your heroes, as poor Thomas kind of learns.

thing.

Because in the book, David Morrell's novel of 1972, it's set in Kentucky around about, I don't know, September-ish? Because people are talking about how sweaty they are and all that sort of stuff.

Yeah, I don't think anybody was sweating when they were filming this movie, though.

No, because it was filmed in, well, it was supposed to be, was it Washington State, but filmed in Canada, and it looks absolutely freezing.

No, he probably needs loads of carbs because he does a lot of walking, so he needs a lot more energy or something.

Well, exactly.

As I say, in the novel, in David Morrell's novel, he's been, as I say, he's been kicked out of town and he's just... he's just drifting like I say just like a Jack Reacher he's got a sleeping bag and not much much else and then he's obviously got the famous famous knife which when people talk about famous film weapons people think about the lightsaber think about the pulse rifle maybe Conan's sword people don't realise that that knife that Rambo knife that looks like a bowie knife with a serrated edge and a hollow handle that was created specifically for the film That didn't exist before.

That was, oh, he was a master knife designer.

The heart of fiction is conflict.

Novelist David Morrell says, Without conflict, no plot can be interesting.

Without conflict, you don't have a plot.

That's David Morrell.

Every successful novel in every genre is about conflict.

Saul Stein calls conflict, quote, the engine of fiction, and Donald Moss, the literary agent, calls it the first principle of plot construction.