Writers Chair - Darrell Berry

In this compelling episode of In the Writer’s Chair, host Lana McAra sits down with retired Army officer turned author Darrell Berry. Darrell shares his journey from a 22-year military career to writing his gripping mystery novel, Early This Morning, which explores the complexities of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" era.

Darrell discusses how he transitioned from an avid reader to a published novelist, his process for weaving real-world military intelligence experience into fiction, and his current adventures adapting his work for the screen and researching a new mystery while driving for Lyft.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• The Transition from Soldier to Storyteller: How Darrell turned decades of service into a compelling narrative.
• The "Seed" of a Story: How the discrepancies and injustices of military policy during the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" era inspired a high-stakes mystery.
• Inside Early This Morning: A look at the plot involving secret missions, biological agents, and a group of soldiers deemed "expendable" by the Pentagon.
• Writing Craft & Process: Darrell’s advice on why you should "just sit down and do it," even if you only have a rudimentary outline.
• New Horizons: The challenges of adapting a novel into a screenplay and why Darrell is considering the world of audiobooks.
• Character Research from the Driver’s Seat: How Darrell uses his time as a Lyft driver to develop a fascinating "character base" for his next project.

About Our Guest:

Darrell Berry is a retired Army officer with over 22 years of service in both the enlisted and officer ranks. Drawing on his background in medical intelligence, Darrell writes mysteries that are both technically accurate and emotionally resonant. His debut novel, Early This Morning, is available now.

Connect with Darrell:

• Website: dberrybooks.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

In the Writer's Chair. Candid conversations about the writing life with Lana McCara and Vandela Publishing.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Welcome to In the Writer's Chair, where we pull up a chair to talk about writing craft, the writing life, and what's possible for writers right now. I'm your host, Lana McCara, and today I'm delighted to welcome to our podcast, Daryl Barry. Daryl is a retired Army officer with over 22 years of service. He served in the enlisted ranks as well as officer ranks during the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Time for Gaze in the Military. His book, Early This Morning, a Mystery Novel, is about that era. And you can visit his website at www.dary books.com. Welcome, Daryl.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Thank you. It's nice to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

So what caused you to dive in with a novel?

SPEAKER_02 1:09

I was first of all, I'm an avid reader and I love mysteries. And I'd been toying with the idea about writing a book for quite a while, and I was just about ready to get out of the military. So I just I would write a few things down and put it on the shelf, and then write a few things down and put it on the shelf. And then anyway, I got out of the military and I decided I need to just sit down and write this if I'm going to. And so about three months later, I'd had it finished. But it was a start and go type of situation. And then I published it myself initially, and that was an experience. And then after I published it again, I put it up on the shelf and I was encouraged by friends to have it published by a publisher. And I found Atmosphere Press, which was an absolutely wonderful group over there, and I and they published it nearly a year well last May. And I was very pleased with that. But anyway, it was a long way to answer your question. But it was just that I thought I I might have something that would be interested to read in a mystery format and gave it a try.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Yeah, I love mysteries. I write mysteries too. Yeah, so this really interests me. So what was the seed idea for the mystery itself that sparked the whole thing starting? Where was that seed idea?

SPEAKER_02 2:29

When I first came in the military, there was not don't ask, don't tell. It was just against the law to begin the military, period. That's it. You just got thrown out if you found out about it. Then don't ask, don't tell came along, and it was a stopgap measure, I guess you would say, between being totally illegal and I'm not for sure what. But the deal was a gay person supervisor could not ask them if they were gay, and the gay person could not tell the supervisor if they were gay. But during that period of time, from about night, oh let's see, I guess it's around 94, 1994 to 2011, there were a lot of people kicked out of the military. Even though Don't Ask, Don't Tell, they were still kicked out for various reasons they were found out about or whatever. Which was very unfortunate because they weren't given always an honorable discharge. Now, after Don't Ask, Don't Tell, they brought a lot of those folks back as far as a discharge and redid it to an honorable. But anyway, so during the period of time that I was serving, I just thought it was a horrible discrepancy to have people wanting to be in the military, but yet it was they were they really couldn't be out in the open. And so that, and on besides that, I knew a lot of people that did not want gays in the military, thought that that was a horrible situation. Usually these people were not in the military themselves, but anyway, so I don't know exactly how I came upon that, but all those factors were I was thinking about it one time, and I decided this might make a a kind of a good mystery because so many people either don't want them to come in or want to get rid of them. That was a big deal just to get rid of gay men and women. And uh only because they were gay, not because they were because their usually were their production was incredible, and they were very good officers and enlisted personnel. But that was I don't know, that was all happening at that time, and I just thought it might be make for a good mystery.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

So what type of mystery is it? Is a police procedural, a cozy, or something else?

SPEAKER_02 4:40

It starts most mysteries. When you start reading them, you're not really sure how they're going to end. With mine, you get an idea, not necessarily how it's going to end, but what's going to happen at the end of it. And this what happens is there's some generals in the Pentagon and some congressmen that are in cahoots. They've been they want to get rid of gays in the military. And this has been a mission of theirs for a long time. What happens is uh a mission comes down, and it's a legitimate mission, and that is that there's a country that's producing biological agents. And so they want to send people over to this country, secret mission, send them over there to see if they're producing these agents in large enough quantities to weaponize. So the the mission is legit. The problem is when they're doing all their planning, the people that they send most likely will not return because of these highly contagious uh pathogens that they're going to be spying on. So this one general in particular says, How about let's secretly spy on some gays and lesbians, bring them all together, train them up, and send them on this mission. Hopefully, we'll find out all this intelligence that we need. And oh, by the way, if they all die, so what? They're expendable. So that's what starts to happen. They start gathering people up, training them, and the folks that they're putting together for this mission, the platoon, or really a company, starts looking around and think, wait a minute, I know that guy, or I've seen this guy, or and they start figuring out that hey, this is a company of gays and lesbians. How odd! And you know, a lot then there's a lot of turmoil there with what's going on, why are we all gays and lesbians, except for one person. One one individual is not. And I don't want to give too much away, so I'm not gonna talk about him too much. He's referred to as a mechanic. So, anyway, there although they're very fearful about what's gonna happen, and they know this is a secret mission, and they know what their mission is, everyone's goes on it. No questions asked. Good soldiers. We're gonna we're gonna head on out and do what we're supposed to do. And they do, and they go over, and then that's when the real uh mystery starts, because things happen not like we think they're gonna, and I don't want to give too much away, but it suffices to say that they don't all die. But there's some prize surprises for the general and his cohorts that are trying to get rid of them.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Who's who's the person solving the crime?

SPEAKER_02 7:36

It's his name is Trent. He's a lieutenant colonel, and he is the commander of the unit. He's the protagonist, he's the commander. There's several important people in there, but he is the one that that everything sort of spins around. And then there's a General Wells uh that is the is the one general that's trying to put all the stuff together and and whatnot.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Okay, okay. When you came, when you did this set this up, did you have to do a lot of research?

SPEAKER_02 8:10

I not really, because I worked in I worked in the Intel field and specifically in medical intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

So I had to be very careful that I did not use anything at all that was in the least bit secret, because all that is top secret stuff. Yeah, so I I like to say this loud and clear. There's nothing secret in the book. But but I did use my experience working in medical intelligence, and everything in the book, of course, is open source. But there are countries all over the world that are trying to develop biological weapons. That's out there. Um, so that that part was uh but I did use, yes, I I drew back on my military career a lot for that. I certainly did. And and then also I did research on some places like in Washington, D.C., I wanted things to be really accurate. The over Tiva, which is the country that the town that these people go to, I didn't that was all made up. But when I would refer to things back in Washington, DC, I wanted to be accurate. And but I and the people in the book, I get this asked so so many times, and I don't blame people, I would ask too. But they're all they're all made up. Yes, I've used bits and pieces of personalities from people that I know that I knew in the past to create the characters. But I've even had some people say, I know who you wrote about. That was me, or that was somebody that said, No, sorry, it's not. Yeah, it's all made up. And I'm not in the and many people say, Oh, you're tripping. Nope, I'm not the main character.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

My sister used to read all my books and see if she was in there.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

She would try and find herself.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Yes. I think it's neat that people do that.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yeah. So when you're plotting out your mystery, do you just sit down and start writing, or do you have a plan or a chart, or how do you do that?

SPEAKER_02 10:17

I start before I started on the book, I did a lot, I did a fair amount of research on just how to write a book and things like that. And I made an outline. First, I made a few decisions. I it was going to be third person, and what type of book was. I I'm I started with an outline, but a very rudimentary outline. It was not real detailed. But that was very helpful. And of course, and the outline changed too from time to time. But really, what I tell a lot of people is what I ended up doing after thinking about it and saying I'm gonna do it, I tell folks just sit down and do it, just start writing. Just start writing, even if you don't have an outline. Because once I felt once you started writing, if you don't have an outline or don't know what to do, things start coming together. I feel. So my bottom line is just do it. But I think it's very helpful to have an outline.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Oh, yeah, yeah. Especially because mysteries can become very comp complicated, and the details of it are really important as to how they fit together and the timings and all this.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

Yeah, so there have even if you do it on the fly, you might need to take some notes on the side just to be able to remember when to enter the door. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Yes, taking notes. I did that a lot. I don't absolutely. I I agree wholeheartedly, yeah. Yeah. I would be taking notes on airplanes, just freehand notes and stuff, and then bring it back and try to put it all together.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'm gonna take about 30 seconds to thank our sponsor, Vendela Publishing. Vandela Publishing is a traditional publisher with an untraditional model. Vandela keeps no royalties and they hold no rights. The author contain always has all the rights, and they have 100% creative control. So Vandela develops their authors into career authors. A career author is an author that puts out books on a regular basis, doesn't have to be every year, but every so often they put out a book and they build a body of work and they connect with their readers and they grow their presence as an author. And Vendela supports their authors in that way. So check out the website. Vendela is Via's and Victor E-N-D-E-L-A Publishing.com. Daryl, this is uh really fascinating. So have you had a desire to write books all your life?

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Not all my life, but certainly much of my life. I would say from my like 30s on. And like I say, I'm an avid reader, but I was always so busy in the military and whatnot. But I yes, I had wanted to write for quite a while. I did, yes. And I always but I always I was lazy or something, I guess, because I always found an excuse. That's why I finally just had to talk myself and say, look, you're sitting down, buddy, and writing. Which is you know exactly what happened.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

It's what it takes, isn't it? Because we can always go and mow the lawn. We can always decide I just want to watch this movie or whatever. And days go by and weeks go by, and next thing you know, years have gone by without actually doing it.

unknown 13:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

And I hear so many people say that too, that have never written a book, but they say that and and ask me about it, and I just think you gotta do it. Actually, I'm I'm now working on a screenplay. I'm adapting the book to a screenplay. Okay. And but that is writing the book was fun. Sometimes it got frustrating, but basically it was it was fun. I enjoyed it for the most part. The screenplay, oh my gosh. I've I've tried to buy look at listen to lectures, buy books on screenplay. That's a whole nother ball game, but I'm giving it a shot.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yes, we recently interviewed a screenplay writer. Her name is Jamie Engle. So if you want to go back and look at previous episodes, she's won awards for writing screenplays. And my hat's off to her because I took a class in it one time, and I better I've decided I'm just gonna stick with novels because I've written 50, I've written 50 books, and at this point my brain is wired a certain way. Yeah, and I don't think I'm gonna break the mold. I don't want to. I love writing novels, so I thought if I do get one made into a screenplay, I'll probably just hire a screenwriter instead to I'm leading in that direction. There are so many different nuances because it looks simple. One page per minute, so maybe 120 pages instead of 300 or whatever. But how the how they handle the see the places where it's gonna be, and they know all these things about how what production takes and what they're looking for, what these producers and these studios are looking for, and they know how to put that in. Where we don't know it's a different world, it's like a different universe, like being on Mars.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

It really is. It really is, yeah, yeah. And I find myself when I was trying to write the screen, when I'm trying to write the screenplay, I'm describing things like I would in a book, and then I'll send it to somebody and they'll critique it rightfully. Say, no, don't write all this stuff that you would put in a book. You just need to say a couple of words or something. Prompt them to yeah. I don't know. It's a challenge. Uh really the next thing I want to do with the book, I think, is make it into audio.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Oh, yeah, that's so important to make it into audio. Yeah. You can read your own book into audio. Uh, there are companies out there that will take uh an author's words and make them sound professional, so you don't have to be a pro to read your own book. You can do it, or you could rent a music studio in your town and go sit in the music studio and read there because they have all that great equipment. Um, but it is totally doable, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

I'm I'm certain I'm considering that because they seem to be so popular now.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Yes, audio books. I read a statistic that said 50% of Amazon's sales are audiobooks.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah. So we're missing out.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

We're gonna write that down right now.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

We're missing out if we don't have it on audio. Yeah, yeah. Missing all that, all those sales.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

You said you wrote 50 books. My gosh, my hat is off to you. I'm thinking about writing a second book.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Well, that's what that's about.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

A lift driver. Another mystery, but a lift driver, and all of his the contacts that he has. As a matter of fact, I started driving for lift every now and then just to get an idea of, and my goodness, it's been fun. I don't do it very often, but I just I do it here or there. There are some characters out there. Oh my gosh. I'm developing a character base before I have a plot. Yeah. But I some really funny and interesting people. But I want it to be meaningful, like I I hope early this morning is meaningful, in that I hope people enjoy the book early this morning. But at the end of the book, I would hope people would look back and wonder, I wonder if this could happen again. The situation with gays in the military. Yeah. Same thing with my second book. I at the end of it, I want to people to, even though I hope it's just a fun mystery, I want people to look back and say, have something meaningful to think about. So I haven't, but I haven't got that far with it yet. Just I'm just developing characters right now.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

I was at the hairdressers. Oh, this has been a few months ago. This just gave me this idea. I was at the hairdressers a few months ago, and this guy comes in and he's wearing scrubs, and his wife was one of the hairdressers, and so he he comes in and then they're laughing, and she says that he is driving for lift on his lunch hour because he likes it. It's like a it's like a vacation getting in lift and getting to talk to all these people.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

It gives him a break from the stress, and uh he was laughing and I love it because I'm more I'm doing a lot of work on family genealogy as well as a screenplay. So I could find myself behind this computer way, way too long. And so sometimes I put it away, get in the car, and go for a couple hours just like this guy with Lyft. And it's just like a shot in the arm because I don't know, it's just fun. I don't do it at night during the middle of the day, and I meet some of the greatest folks, I really do.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah, that's what he said. He said he just enjoys it, and that's a different side of things because I know that some people like, oh, I'm driving for Uber, they're sad sacking about it, but it's all in your mindset, and I think mindset is huge when you're doing something, how you approach it, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

It's everything for me. It really, yeah. Yes, and a lot of something else I'm finding that I may create the book around. When I'm driving for lift, everything most everybody is or nice or whatnot, or if they don't want to talk fine, if they do want to talk fine. But there are times when somebody will get in the car, and they're fine, they don't have too much to say, but for some reason you just can't wait till that ride is finished. I can't put my finger on it. But and I've talked with other lift drivers too, and they say the same thing. Occasionally someone gets at the car and it's your spirit doesn't rest well with them. I don't know how to it's the strangest phenomenon. So I'm thinking that might be how I might an angle I may take for the next book.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Oh, yeah. My mystery spidey sense is going, oh boy.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Yeah. There's so much you could do with it. It's a fascinating topic. And Daryl, you could write 10 lift driver books. Keep the same guy as your main character and who's getting in next. Did you ever see that that reality show about the psychic who drives a he drives like a lift bus in Las Vegas or something, and they have cameras in the car. And so when he's going, he'll say to the people, I'm getting a reading on something, and he'll give them a reading if they're willing, if they're if they agree to it. And it goes into the show. It actually is part of the show. Yeah. He doesn't know who he's going to pick up, just you know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

Very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

There's a book right there for him if he wants to.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

I know the the drives that he has taken. Unless. Yeah, yeah. Really interesting. Daryl, I feel like you have you are on your way. You're on to something here.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

Oh, thank you. I I hope so. And again, I'm looking forward to writing another book as far and not a screenplay, because I was so comfortable with the book. And I think I'm going to be back in my comfort zone.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

If I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Yeah, what do we read? We read books. We read novels. Yeah. Yeah. So we get that mindset about it. And the screen reads. That's very true.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Because I've never written a screen I had never read a screenplay. I read books every day, but I haven't read a screenplay.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 22:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Jamie Engel. She's she does write for other people, but she also shops around the manuscripts. Or the screen. Jamie Engle?

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Is that what you said?

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Jamie. J-A-I M E. Or it might be J-A-I-M-I-E. I can't remember. Engel, E-N-G-L-E, and she is the guest about three episodes or four episodes back. Oh from today. From today. Those listening, she will be way back. But for us here today, she's only a couple of episodes back. Yeah. She's great guy. I've I have actually sent someone, one of my friends, I've sent to her because he wanted to get a screenplay done. So yeah, she's good.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

Super. I'll look that one up and listen to her.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Yeah, yeah. She's a real deal. She's genuine, and you don't have to worry about her being a scammer. She's she's a real person.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Yeah, because there's a lot of that out there too.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

You have to be very careful. They are ready to take your money. I had someone quote $60,000 for a screenwriting. Just to screenwrite the book, not even to sell it. Just to screenwrite it. That is, watch out.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Hold on to your wallet when you're they won't have they won't have to I won't have to worry about that because I don't have $60,000 to give somebody.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Yeah, that was my response too. They can't get blood out of a stone, but even at that.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Exactly. Yeah. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Wow, what a great conversation. So thank you. And when you get your next book done, your lift book, please put us on the list to come back and I certainly will.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

I certainly will. Absolutely. This has really been a joy to talk with you.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Wonderful. Great conversation. And thank you for being with us today. Thanks for pulling up a chair. See you next time.