Monk Books

It Ain’t Easy Being the Assistant to a Great Detective…

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Natalie talks about what it’s like working for Adrian Monk in my latest "Natalie Blog" on the USA Network’s MONK site. Here’s an excerpt:

I’ve been reading a lot of mystery novels lately — Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe, Spenser, stuff like that — trying to get a handle on this whole "being a detective" thing.

Based on those books, and my experience working with Monk,
here’s what I’ve learned: Whatever makes someone brilliant at solving
murders is going to make life a living hell for everyone around them.

That’s especially true with Monk. You can’t truly grasp the
magnitude of his anxieties and phobias unless you experience them every
single day and, God help me, I do.

How NOT To Get a Freelance Assignment, II

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I got this follow-up email from the guy who wanted me to pass along his "15 page episode" to the producers of MONK.

At great risk to her own life Queen Esther sought an audience with the king. He could have easily had her head chopped off but decided to listen to her. Not only did the king have Mordecai, enemy of the Jews, killed, but in doing so, he probably prevented his own murder. Esther’s actions were not based on her own ego but on the compassion she held for her people, the Jewish nation.

Although I could not hope to touch her majestic slippers, I tried to approach the network towers to suggest a new episodic teleplay, only to be told that I was arogant (sic). It was out of my compassion for my five kids and wife that I would even dare to dream. Not interested in becoming a network writer, I only wanted to make a little money to pay some of my mortgage and groceries. Now, how egotistical is that. As far as distinguishing between reruns and newly aired shows, I was at fault. But shouldn’t they be of the same caliber? I am a consumer. Don’t I have a right to voice my opinion? Not all the episodic teleplays can be stellar.
I just thought mine could be considered. But in order to do that, I would have to be talking with one would needed to be more like the king who was willing to listen.

How NOT To Get a Freelance Assignment

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I got this email today:

I know Tom Scarpling wrote the last episode of Monk, Mr. Monk and the Kid, which aired on Friday last. I was well dissapointed in it. It failed to show any real cleverness on Mr. Monk’s part. I don’t mean to be critical. I don’t watch the show all that much, only when I can come home from working 69 hours a week!
The acting was great, the human experience intriguing and endearing. But the sagacity and creativity was wanting.

I still have the 15 page episode which might shed  new light on Monk’s abilities. I have written two novels already. I am not a  professional but I can’t believe that true talent and creativity are relegated  only to the experienced.

I’ll alert the MONK writing staff to stop whatever they are doing until your "15 page episode" arrives. I’m sure there’s a lot they can learn from it.

"True talent and creativity" are not relegated only to the experienced — but experience, and a smidgen of knowledge, might have taught you that there’s no such thing as a "15 page episode." Hour-long, episodic teleplays are roughly 58 pages. Experience might also have taught you that telling the creators, producers, and writers of a show that you,  whose only connection to the program is infrequent viewing, can "shed new light" on their characters is outrageously arrogrant and probably not likely to win their favor.   Oh, one other thing…the episode you saw last Friday was a rerun from last season. A little research  doesn’t hurt, either.

UPDATE:  After I posted this message, something he wrote still nagged at me:  "I still have the 15 page episode," as if it was something I should be familiar with.  So I did a quick scan of the emails I’ve received over the last year to see if I have heard from this man before. Sure enough, I got an email from him last month:

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Mr. Monk and the Fan Letter

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I got the following email about my book MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

I have finished reading your book. I was really excited to read it since I enjoy reading mysteries as much as watching them. I was disappointed to discover that despite the number of people who read it for you before you published it, there are still mistakes in the book.  For example, I read this on page two:

"If that’s the price of genius, them I’m glad I’m not one of them."

I winced when I read that. I believe the "them" should be a "then" instead.  Then, on page ninety-two:

"Mr. Monk came out of the kitchen with a glass of milk."

Reality check. Monk would not be with a glass of milk. He’s afraid of milk. One of his top 10 phobias if I remember correctly. What would he be doing with a glass of milk? The milk is never gone into further detail to explain why he would be with a glass of milk and not  freaking out at the same time.

That’s it for technical errors. On page one-eighty-eight Monk starts going through confidential case files for homicide, and lists the  culprits as if reading from a shopping list. Even for Monk, that is just too much. That embarasses the police department. It sounded cheap and tactless. It wasn’t necessary to stick that in there.  Otherwise, I thought your book was good. I’m looking forward to the
next one.  I hope there won’t be any mistakes in it.

Best Regards,

XYZ

P.S. My mother also read your book. She thought it could do without Natalie going on and on about Firefighter Joe as if it were a tacky romance paperback novel. In addition, Julie was a real brat.

I’m assuming the author of the note is a kid, so I went easy on her. I wrote back that the milk error escaped both me and MONK creator Andy Breckman and that occasionally some typographical errors slip by even the sharpest of authors and copyeditors. I didn’t comment on her other objections. I warned her that since I am human and so are my editors, there will probably be some mistakes in the next book, too, but that I’m hoping she will remain vigilant and catch them for us.

Mr. Monk and the Flattering Blog Post

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Dunnyman’s Castle gave MR. MONK GOES TO THE FIREHOUSE a very flattering review. What he liked best about it was that it was written from Natalie’s POV:

… now this character makes more sense than ever. We know
she’s a widow, and that she has to work pretty hard to keep things
together for her and her daughter. What you don’t know from the show,
is how much of her own issues with losing her husband she sees
reflected in Monk’s own demons. It’s quite touching to see how she
reveals more and more of those troubles while relating to Monk’s own
issues in a way the Sharona Fleming character never could. (If the
decision to change characters was based solely on money, bad move guys,
if you had the Natalie character on the back burner and realized you
could do a lot more with her, then kudos on a job well done.) I
challenge anyone who flat out says that the Sharona character was
better to read this book, and see if you still feel that way.

I’m glad that readers have responded so warmly to Natalie’s voice in the book. That was the biggest risk I took.

Mr. Monk and the Creative Process

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Writer Jack Bernstein does a great job describing what it’s like breaking a story with the writing staff of MONK.

I arrived in Newark on a Sunday evening at 6 p.m., having weathered the
embarrassment of going through security with my inflatable writing
partner. I had been given the choice of staying in a hotel in Manhattan
or Summit, N.J. It was a no-brainer. Soon after checking in to my
deluxe micro-suite at the Summit Super 12, I got a phone call from Monk
Executive Producer Andy Breckman. Andy told me that
they were going to start at 11 a.m. Monday morning and was that a
problem? I told him if he wanted to start that early, I guess I could
do it…

…The creative process is difficult to describe, mostly because I don’t
really understand it. I think I’d have better luck understanding a
lecture on biomolecular kinetics from a beaver, but honestly, where
would you find a beaver that understands biomolecular kinetics? I mean,
really understands? So basically, the creative process consists of all
of us shouting out ideas for the story until Andy scratches his head
and says, "That might work" and writes it down. Your initial reaction,
of course, is to think, "Really? You actually think that would work?"
Which translates to, "Yeah, I think it would work, too."

Jack is a very funny writer. He and I worked together many years ago on a short-lived series called DEADLY GAMES. That was an odd show. The scripts were hilarious but the episodes were never as good as what was on the page thanks to bad casting (the star, whose name I have forgotten, was wooden), bad directing and a pitifully low production values.