James David Jordan Interview

I had the great fortune of sitting down with James David Jordan at the International Christian Retailers Show in Orlando. He was most generous with his time and a truly interesting man to speak with. So sit back and check out our interview.

Susan: Your bio sounds like you’re at the top of your game in the law field, now you write two novels. How did you decide to write fiction?

James: I always wanted to write a book. I was a journalism major undergrad and have always liked to write. I’m a preachers kid, and I think the stories worth writing are spiritual stories. That’s the big issue in life so if you’re going to write, why not write about the big issues in life. But then it was actually kind of funny, I was standing in the hall in our law firm and I was talking to one of lawyers and we started talking about some book and I said, “you know I can do that.” And she said, “sure you can.” I went home that night and started writing a book. I actually started out writing a book that I thought was going to be bible stories. A nonfiction book. But I kept being not being satisfied. I was trying to add to the story and I thought, ‘this isn’t going to work’, so I decided to put this in a novel. That way, I can do whatever I want to the story, but I can still get the message across.

Susan: How long did it take you to write your first book?

James: The first book took six years to write. My kids were small, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t cheat them out of time with Dad. And I didn’t know what I was doing. I wrote a manuscript that I thought was finished. I took it to SMU to one of the creative writing professors. She looked at it and the first thing she wrote in red ink was, ‘you should have come to me before you started writing.’ (Laughing) She slashed it up, but that was what it needed. I thought I knew how to write, but I didn’t know how to write a novel. It’s a craft and you have to learn some of the tricks of the trade and how things are done.

Susan: So then, how did you get published?

James: That’s a pretty good story. It’s one of the few times in life I had a plan and it worked. I spent so long writing the book and it takes forever to get an agent, to go through the query letters, and the time it takes to respond. I decided I’m not willing to wait that long. At that time, I was chairman of our law firm. We’re a fairly significant law firm in Texas and as the chairman, I had relationships with people in the press and I thought if I can just get the book out, I can get some publicity for it. So I self published it with Winepress. My plan was to market it only in Dallas and Fort Worth and if I could show a publisher I could get legs on it, then maybe they’d pick it up. And it happened just like that. The big break was when Crossings book club picked it up. It was only the second self-published book they picked up. They offered it as one of their featured books for summer. Then I met with Tina Jacobson who is my agent, and she got it picked up by Integrity, and they reissued it. After that I wrote something completely different. I wrote the first five chapters of Forsaken. Tina read it. Shopped it around, and got a contract with Broadman and Holman.

Susan: You’re a minister’s son. Often times this leads to becoming a minister. Did you ever consider going into the ministry? And how did you end up in the legal profession?

James: I actually never remember a time when I considered being a minister. My dad’s a really good preacher. He’s a good guy. Everybody loves him. But I just never really considered it. I don’t know if it’s because I saw so much of the life, and just wasn’t interested or what. For some reason, I was always attracted to the business world. I wanted to be a lawyer because I thought law degrees were so flexible. You can do a lot of different things with them career wise. I got an MBA at the same time as I got my law degree which made it even more flexible. I’ve used them all now. I ran a law firm which is a $50 million a year business for eight years. I’ve practiced law for 26 years, and my clients are business clients so having an MBA helped with that. But I’ve never considered being a minister, and I can’t tell you why. This is my ministry in a way. Cause I’ve always felt a little bit bad about not doing it. Lawyers make more money than ministers, and I’ve always felt, did you sell out. But this is my opportunity to do something. I’m not good at witnessing to people. I don’t talk about faith easily. And that’s a very bad thing about me, but I find when I write about it, I can really get into it. And when I have an opportunity to speak to people about the book, then suddenly I can speak about faith. God takes what you’ve got and He works with it.

Susan: Would you tell us about your recent book release, Forsaken?

James: In a nut shell, it’s a unique kind of story wrapped in a Christian action thriller. The relationship between Taylor Pasbury and Simon Mason-she’s not sure what it is and sometimes, he’s not sure what it is-with lots of action going on around that while you’re wondering what’s going on with these two people. The story is about two people who have things in their past life they would like to forget and wish it would just go away, but life will not let it go away. And it’s about how they continue to work through their lives. One of them is a saved Christian and the other one’s sure not a strong Christian that’s for sure. And it’s about how these two people with different backgrounds get together, quickly bond, and work through some of the things in their past.

Susan: How did you come up with the character Taylor Pasbury? Especially considering you’re a man and she’s a woman written in first person. Were there challenges in that.

James: My first book was written in third person, from multiple character’s viewpoints. I like doing that because it gives you so much flexibility. I can’t remember how I decided to write this from Taylor’s perspective, but it’s limiting writing in first person. In a lot of ways I don’t like that constraint but on the other hand it allows you to get into that character’s head and be that character, which is really cool. I wasn’t really sure I could do that, but I knew what kind of character I wanted her to be. It’s spelled out in the first couple of paragraphs of the book. I wanted her to be a woman who knew how to take care of herself, but socially didn’t know how to take care of herself and made bad decisions. A flawed character. I found that once I started writing she just flowed. So I don’t know if there’s a lot of me in her or not. I think I’m a guy’s guy and in a lot of ways she’s a guys girl. She knows how to live in a man’s world, but wants so badly to have that other side of it that she wants and she has so much trouble getting it because she can’t get past her bad decisions. I had to ask my daughter and wife a lot, would a woman do this or would she wear that, and I still do that a lot. Other than that she pretty much flowed. (Pause.) Maybe the real answer is that women are not that different from men. In some ways we’re way different, but when you get down to it everybody wants to be loved, everybody wants to be taken care of. Taylor, who is the ultimate woman you want to be with you if suddenly we were surrounded by terrorists, wants to be taken care of by somebody, and she can’t find it.

Susan: If you read a lot of Christian fiction, Taylor is not what you would see as a typical Christian protagonist. How did you feel about writing this character?

James: I wondered and still wonder if there’s a market for this book. I think there is because it’s a good story, and I think people will read a good story. But are you even sure she’s a Christian?

Susan: I think she believes in God but she isn’t living it at all.

James: Yes, and she’d uncomfortable talking about faith. She has all kinds of problems, but on the other hand she’s a good person. And I wanted her very much to be a good person. So how do you get Christian readers to read about a woman who does all these unchristian things? Isn’t a strong person of faith but she’s the hero? I don’t know. I hope I did it. I’m hoping the book will cross over, and I think the Christian message is a lot more palatable when it’s told by someone who’s not that way. Not necessarily crossing over to the secular market but there are a huge percentage of people who go to church every week who don’t pick up Christian fiction. And I’m trying to make that transition. To get people to read this by just writing a good story.

Susan: In the same vein, Simon the televangelist, has some huge flaws. How do you think he’ll be received?

James: What it all boils down to is that I am bound and determined to write a book about the characters not about the story. I want to have a good story, but I want people to care about the characters. If you don’t develop the characters and give them unique twists and they’re all stereotypes, nobody is going to be interested. In my first book, Something That Lasts, people cared about those characters. I had readers ask the most amazing questions as if these characters were alive, which is the best compliment of all. I just don’t want to write characters that you can predict. Maybe I don’t always succeed in doing that, but, that’s a goal of mine.

Susan: Simon Mason must decide to save his daughter or renounce God. As a parent I’ve pondered the thought if I would be willing to sacrifice everything for God. How do you weigh in on the issue?

James: I think I wrote the story the way I would have done it. Honestly, I don’t think I could watch my kid die. The bible says you’re supposed to love God more than anyone, even your family, and you understand you’re supposed to really really love Him, but when you put it in terms of I’m here and my kids there, if I make this decision he dies, oh my gosh. The martyrs had to do that. They had to look and allow or not allow their children to die. Was it an easier decision back then than it is now? They loved their kids just as much as we do. I wanted people to think about that. The reason the book revolves around that question is that it’s so hard. I’ve thought about that question before and it’s so hard that I thought, there’s a story there. But if you notice most of the book doesn’t deal with that decision. It deals with how Simon copes with making the decision. Either way, he’s toast for the rest of his life. There are a number of times in the book where the characters say it’s an impossible decision. It is. Because either way he decides, he’ll curse himself for the rest of his life.

Susan: Since you created the characters of Forsaken could you tell us which one you most identify with?

James: Taylor. I love that character, and I love her in the next book. I’m very proud to have created that character. My favorite scene is the camp fire scene at the beginning of the book. That’s the scene that explains who Taylor is. The part I like best and I’m sure it’s a surprise to the readers, is when she stands over the guy and executes him.

Susan: How did you decide to have her do that?

James: You know the character and they start going. I wanted her dad to reach into the campfire and grab a burning log to show the reader how far he would go to save his daughter. Then he hits the guy and I’m thinking, just kill him but it just didn’t make sense to kill him. So I just let it happen, and she’s standing over him and he’s trying to crawl away and it just happened.

Susan: Taylor asks the question, are there any good men out there at all? Was this at all a driving force in the novel to show that there are good men, yet even if they are basically good they are still flawed?

James: What I was trying to do there was show that Taylor had difficulty in her relationships with men, because she held them up to her idealized image of her father. As an example, you might remember that she would shake a guy’s hand and write him off immediately if she didn’t like his handshake. Simon was the first man who had “measured up” since her father’s death. Her views also, though, helped (I hope) the reader like her even more, because her judgments tended to be generally accurate. She was looking for a man who really was, at heart, good, and she knew him when she found him.

Susan: Say Forsaken made it to the big screen. Who would see playing Taylor, Simon?

James: For Simon, how about Matt Damon or Leonardo DiCaprio? (Although Simon’s a bit older, but that’s why they call them actors, right? As for Taylor, I don’t have a clue. I’m not up on who the twenty-something athletic female stars are. Maybe Jennifer Garner?

Susan: Would you share with us what you are working on now?

James: I just finished writing the sequel to Forsaken, which will come out in the fall of 2009. It’s a great, fun read that begins with a suspicious suicide that puts Taylor’s life in jeopardy. Taylor’s mother, who ran out on Taylor and her Dad when Taylor was nine, plays a pivotal role. I won’t tell you how it plays out, but I can say that by the end I think readers will have a better understanding of why we humans are sometimes willing to make the most selfless sacrifices for one another. That, in turn, provides insight into Jesus’s sacrifice for us.

Susan: Has being a published novelist differed from your expectations?

James: Generally, it has been the greatest experience of my professional life. Like most authors, I underestimated the difficulty of getting the word out about a book. There are so many books released each year that it is difficult to push through the clutter and make readers aware of any particular book unless you’re someone like John Grisham. I work hard at it, though.

Susan: When you sit down to read for pleasure what authors do you choose?

James: A variety. Right now I’m re- reading Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, because I never want to forget what it’s like to tell a story in a simple, straightforward style. I enjoyed, for example, Life of Pi and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Both are examples of entertaining stories told by creative writers.

Susan: What authors have inspired your writing career?

James: Hemingway (write it directly, simply); Tolstoy (remember, it’s the characters that people care about; the plot is a vehicle to allow readers to know them); Dostoevsky (people aren’t perfect, and characters shouldn’t be either); Nicholas Sparks (as Sesame Street would say, which of these doesn’t belong? — But Sparks isn’t afraid to tell a straightforward story that people want to read, and tell it in a way that acknowledges that the typical person in America is interested, at some level, in issues of faith).

Susan: Any advice for aspiring novelists?

Get training. Writing is a craft, and there are tricks of the trade. I didn’t know what I didn’t know about writing until I got professional help.

Susan: What interview question have you never been asked but expected to answer?

Question never asked: What is it with you and the Texas Rangers baseball team? They keep getting mentioned in your books. (See my first novel, Something That Lasts) Answer: I love baseball, and I live in Dallas. Go Rangers!