Matthew Fitzsimmons' DC-Based Thriller, 'The Slate,' Rings True

Bestselling author, Matthew FitzSimmons, stops by to discuss his latest novel, a political thriller titled The Slate. Set in Washington, D.C., the story follows Agatha Cardiff, the former chief of staff for Congressman Paul Paxton, who was previously entangled in a cover-up of a salacious scandal that left her leaving her entire political career. Fast forward 20 years later, she’s back in town and the same people involved in the scandal are now in positions of greater power. For FitzSimmons, having a female protagonist gave him the challenge of writing from a woman’s point of view. He said, “Anytime you’re, sort of, stepping away from who you are, you’ve got to do the work… I think one of the things that I did was I showed it to women that I trust. If I say something stupid, if I get something wrong… I want to it hear from you. I want to hear it from readers. So, you can’t hurt my feelings, you protect me. Like, help me not be an idiot!” Additionally, FitzSimmons, who currently lives in D.C., preferred a female lead who was similar to the women he knew in the city. He remarked, “…very early on I could see Agatha. I know women like Agatha in Washington, D.C… smart, capable, shrewd, political operators, who do the heavy lifting, who know how to get things done… that was, sort of, my inspiration for the character, was women that I actually know here in D.C., and I know the jobs that they do and I know how dedicated they are at what they do…”

As far as his writing process, FitzSimmons says his style is somewhere between a plotter and a pantser. “…I think of myself sort of in the middle. I call myself a road tripper in that, I know where I’m starting from and I know where I’m going. I know where the ending is and I have the highways I’m going to take, but if as I’m on those highways I see an exit sign that says, ‘Biggest Ball of Yarn in North America,’ I’m getting off the highway. Oh, we gotta go see what’s over there.’ So I give myself latitude to detour.” When it comes to editing, he has found that editing as he’s writing really slows down his writing progression. “[Now] I’ll do light editing, I’ll go back and look at things… I’ve tried to like, ‘Let’s just go. Let’s edit after you get your arms around the whole thing rather than edit when you’ve only got this much of it to look at.’ I think that’s made me a better writer. It’s making me a less crazy writer…”