We are so thrilled to chat with C.E. Tobisman, author of Doubt. Here, C.E. shares a few facts about herself and reveals 5 authors that inspired her writing!
In creating Caroline, I also wanted to create a realistic, relatable hero – a person with real flaws and real neuroses. I wanted to see her prevail despite, or maybe even because of, those flaws and neuroses. To that end, three female characters were my jumping off points:
Lisbeth Salander (Girl With The Dragon Tattoo): I love the brainy, bookish, misfit girl who kicks ass. Also, hacking is a realistic equalizer that can let a woman prevail with her mind, rather than physical might.
Erin Brockovich: I love the underdog female legal professional who prevails in a man’s world despite being up against huge odds.
Xena: All good stories are about redemption and Xena has the best backstory/redemption arc out there (she’s an ex-warlord who’s now trying to bring the karmic scales back into balance by fighting for the greater good). Like Xena, Caroline Auden’s got some huge demons that she needs to put to rest. She’s a hacker with a dark past, but who also has an infallible sense of justice and a desire to remake herself into someone she can respect. She’s a super sensitive, bright woman from a family with major substance abuse and mental illness issues.
Absolutely anything. I read voraciously. I’m obsessed with the election presently for many reasons, including the sexism it has laid bare in our culture. Watching Hillary Clinton run the gauntlet and watching Donald Trump shoot off his mouth in ever more offensive ways has been a spectacle that I just can’t look away from.
When there isn’t an historic presidential election going on, I’m game to read everything from historical fiction (Kristen Hannah’s “Nightingale” was my most recent), to magic realism (Jan-Philipp Sendker’s “Art of Hearing Heartbeats”), to graphic novels (I’m currently obsessed with Greg Rucka’s “Black Majick”), to thrillers (Michael Connelly’s “Black Echo” was my most recent).
The most difficult chapters to write are the ones containing exposition. This is probably true for all thriller writers. You need to weave in backstory and context, but you cannot lose momentum. In the case of DOUBT, I needed the reader to understand the legal context for Caroline’s fight against the biotech company, but I didn’t want to bog down the narrative. My solution was to move quickly through what the reader needed to know, trusting that the reader would understand. Thankfully, it seems to have worked – I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how bright the thriller-reading world seems to be!
I’m a black belt. I started studying martial arts when I was seven years old (I’m now 46), and I’ve studied many styles over many years – most notably, three years with a Shaolin Kung Fu grandmaster who taught out of the boiler room of the old grand dame apartment building he managed at the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco.
I owned a didgeridoo company before going to law school – I made and sold these instruments (a didgeridoo is an Australian aboriginal wind instrument). I play them, too, including at my graduation from UC Berkeley Law School.
1. Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series — every book requires the protagonist to deal with his own demons to prevail. The stories resonate more deeply than a purely plot-driven story.
2. Stephen King – he’s great at setting a mood and painting a quick picture of even his most minor characters.
3. Dean Koontz – he manages to bring a sense of spirituality and big-picture context to even the most taught thrillers. He uses thrillers to edify the reader. It’s a neat trick.
4. Rick Riordan – he’s a master of letting his characters solve one problem only to find themselves facing another, bigger one, which makes it very hard to put down his books.
5. And anyone – including Ernest Hemingway – who writes in short, declarative sentences, and who has advocated the view that less is more, has influenced me, too. I like sparse writing that doesn’t bog down in lengthy description.
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