My Writing Life: Lee Child
"Bad pages can be fixed, but no pages can't be."
What book should every writer read?
The singular noun makes that a bit of a trick question, I think. I would say make sure you include a collected Shakespeare, but really it's the other 10,000 books you read that are important. Read, read, read everything, fiction and nonfiction – the only way to be a writer is to be a reader. There are lessons in every book, even – maybe especially – the bad or indifferent ones.
What is the one thing you wish someone had told you before you started your writing career?
That it never gets easier. I thought after two or three books I would have gotten it all figured out. But it's always the same struggle. Someone1 said you never learn how to write novels but with a lot of luck you might learn how to write the one you're working on currently, and I think that person was correct.
Who has been an influential figure in your writing career?
Literally the most influential was Stephen Gallagher – he and I worked side by side in exactly the same job in TV, but one day he suddenly quit to be a writer, and went on to a really solid career as a novelist, screenwriter for film and TV, and radio playwright. He proved to me it could actually happen.
What is the best advice you’ve ever received about your writing?
I remember two somewhat contradictory aphorisms – first, "Do it once and do it right," and second, "Don't get it right – get it written." Combined, they add up to a third saying I like: "Bad pages can be fixed, but no pages can't be."
What was the proudest moment of your writing career?
Organically I'm not really a competitive person, but if I'm placed in a situation where there's a league table or a bestseller list, I feel that if I'm in it, then I want to win it. Back when genre publication followed the old Dick Francis model, with last year's title coming out in paperback the same week the new title came out in hardcover, my proudest moment was the first time I had four simultaneous number ones in hardcover and paperback. in both the US and the UK. I was on a promotion tour in the States when I got the news. I checked into a Denver hotel, and amazingly my room number was 1111.
What is your typical writing day like?
Experience has taught me nothing of value ever happens in the morning, so I start about 1pm, and work five or six hours, until I sense the subtle drop-off in quality that fatigue will bring. I start by re-reading what I wrote the day before, smoothing it out, maybe changing a word or two, maybe adding or deleting commas and so on, and I use that momentum to launch into the next bit. I aim for 1500 words a day. Sometimes 400 seems a big achievement, sometimes I blaze through 4000.
What are you reading right now?
The Invention of Prehistory by Stefanos Geroulanos – nonfiction about how our self-centred interpretation of our origins has distorted our beliefs.
Bookmarker or page-folder?
Oh, bookmarks, absolutely. Can't bear to wilfully damage a book. But not necessarily purpose-built item. I'll use anything. And I leave them in the books afterward, as mementos. Often I'll open a book and find an old boarding card, from whatever plane I read the book on.
Lee Child worked for Granada Television in Manchester for 18 years. He was fired in 1995 at the age of 40 as a result of corporate restructuring. Always a voracious reader, he decided to see an opportunity where others might have seen a crisis and bought six pounds worth of paper and pencils and sat down to write a book, Killing Floor, the first in the Jack Reacher series. He has become one of the world’s bestselling thriller writers; his books have sold over 100 million copies, been made into movies and TV series and he has won multiple awards, including Author of the Year at the 2019 British Book Awards. In 2019 he was appointed CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.
Season 2 of Reacher launches on Amazon Prime today (20 February 2025).
You can read more ‘My Writing Life’ interviews on our RLF Substack.
“You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing.” Gene Wolfe, American novelist.