Spend Tuesday Evening With Justin Scott––

Novelist and Mystery Writer Tweaks Treasure Island

By Dottie Evans

It might not be a bad idea this weekend to dust off that family copy of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, and reread a few chapters in preparation for a talk scheduled on Tuesday, March 16, at 7 pm at the Booth Library.

Newtown’s resident adventure writer Justin Scott has promised to dedicate the first 20 minutes of his presentation exploring the genius of the 19th Century British author to study how plot and character turned Treasure Island into a classic for all ages.

It is hoped the speaker will also reveal the methods behind his own craft, which he has used successfully during three decades of writing thrillers and mystery novels.

The title of Mr Scott’s library talk is, “Treasure Island: Clueless Narrator, Charming Villain, Bodies Galore…So What’s New?”

Jim Hawkins is clueless? Long John Silver is charming?

There’s mutiny and murder aplenty, as Justin Scott talks about his own contemporary adventure novel also titled Treasure Island, published in 1994. It was begun, he said, as an exercise in plot development, but he became so engrossed that he ended up re-writing Stevenson’s story, changing the names and places to fit modern circumstances but keeping the plot theme intact.

 “It was like going back to school. I had a ball because since you knew what was going to happen next, you could just go with it,” Mr Scott said during an interview February 26.

Some parts of the classic were too perfect to change, however, such as the closing words. The last line in Justin Scott’s version is the same as in Stevenson’s story, and they belong to the parrot.

“Pieces of Eight, Pieces of Eight.”

The Writer On Thrillers

In the course of his writing career, Mr Scott said he has experienced the full range of creative ups and downs. Sometimes plot and characters seem to have a life of their own, moving forward together according to plan. Other times, the process is neither seamless nor smooth. The action gets bogged down, or a character fails to develop.

“Typically, a book is made up of a beginning and an end, with a muddle in the middle where all sorts of unexpected things can happen. When you see a character veering off in the wrong direction, you can’t just ignore your outline and say, ‘I’ll take care of that when I get to it.’”

Mastering action scenes and writing tightly were skills he hoped to learn by studying Robert Louis Stevenson.

“He was an incredible master of suspense. He had perfected the art of omission. He never told you too much at the end of each chapter, so you were always eager to read on.”

Leading the reader on to turn the next page is a trademark of Justin Scott’s style. He also seems to enjoy delving into a historical time frame and as he said, “slipping his own characters in between the cracks.”

“A friend once commented it was more like my characters emerged from the cracks all by themselves,” he said.

Among his many books published here and abroad are A Pride of Royals, The Shipkiller, Normandie Triangle, Rampage, and The Nine Dragons. Earlier novels, Deal Me Out and Lend Me A Hand were published under the pseudonym, J.S. Blazer.  

Mr Scott has completed three Ben Abbott mystery novels, Stonedust, Hardscape, and Frostline, and he will discuss Frostline (2003) at the library Tuesday night. He is working on a fourth Ben Abbott Series mystery titled McMansion.

“A rapacious developer is found dead under his bulldozer,” Mr Scott said with a delicious grin.

 

The Writer In His Lair

Justin Scott, the son of parents who both wrote for a living, grew up in Bayport, on the South Shore of Long Island. He studied English and history at Harpur College, a small liberal arts college in Binghamton, N.Y., where he received a BA and an MA, and he claims to have come late to the novel-writing profession.

His first job was writing for an industry magazine titled Hog Farm Management, an assignment he took on because he “thought it would be a good idea to be at the typewriter every day.”

But he soon became frustrated with trade topics since his special interest was history, “and I found out I didn’t like going to the office every day.”

After renting in Newtown for a while, he purchased his home tucked back into the woods off Parmalee Hill Road in 1979.

“That was well before Newtown’s big building boom really got underway” he said, adding he fell in love with the town in part because its rural qualities reminded him of where he grew up.

“If you look at a map, Newtown is really only 30 miles [across Long Island Sound] as the crow flies.”

The setting for the Ben Abbott mysteries is blatantly Newtown transformed into Newbury, a small Connecticut town where there is a Ram Pasture, a General Store, and a flagpole, and even a weekly newspaper titled The Newbury Clarion published by Scooter McKay. Sound vaguely familiar?

Mr Scott said that the McMansions he describes overrunning Newbury, like those he observes now filling up farmland and forests around Newtown, did not begin to show up until after the recession of the early 1990s.

“I sometimes wonder why it took so long,” he commented wryly.

His wife, Amber Edwards, is an award-winning filmmaker who has made five PBS documentaries and is also Senior Producer of New Jersey Public Television’s “State of the Arts.” She is a contributing correspondent to WBGO Public Radio in Newark. In her spare time she performs a musical show with her partner, Newtown resident Patrick Brady, music director of Broadway’s The Producers. She is co-chair of the Tableau Vivant Committee for the Newtown Tercentennial and serves on the nascent Newtown Arts Alliance.

Asked about his writing method, Mr Scott said he used a typewriter until seven years ago. Now he uses the computer and admits to liking the instant accessibility of information on the Internet, but he often finds himself looking at the weather or checking out CNN, rather than sticking to the task.

“It can be a huge distraction. It takes a new kind of discipline.”

“I use to hole up with all my historical background material spread out around me, and while reading up, I would be absorbing a lot of other background.”  All good stuff for future stories.

“When you’re just looking up bald facts on the Internet it’s not the same. I ask myself, ‘Am I really thinking while I’m doing this?’ I know it’s not the same creative process.”

It could be a problem, he decided.