Betty asked David Wong:

David, you are by and large my favorite author of your genre. The JDATE series has had me crying laughing, while also terrified. I have absolutely fallen in love with Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. I know there was a rumor of this being made into a show/movie, but what has your process been shifting from the world of JDATE to new characters and more World building? When can we expect a sequel?

David Wong Thanks for the kind words. The Suits TV show isn't a rumor, a studio has purchased the TV rights! But whether or not it ever actually gets made into a show is a whole other discussion. It's the same deal with JDATE, in fact - the TV rights are owned and there is always some level of interest, but anyone in the industry can tell you that only a tiny fraction actually make it through. As for the book sequel, I'm writing it now, it's due at the end of next year (it takes me two years to write a book) and will be out several months after I turn it in, assuming we're all still alive then. Then the next John and Dave book is due two years after that (I signed a two-book deal).

But as for the world-building, all I can say is that it starts way in advance; I had the idea for Suits while I was writing Spiders, and just sort of added to it as things occurred to me. The key, if there are any aspiring writers out there, is that I prefer the world fit the characters, instead of vice versa. Like if you start from Zoey's personality and strengths/flaws, then you start to think what kind of setting would clash with that in the most spectacular way. You're crafting the universe around the person, which I think is the opposite of how most people think it works.

But to pick a popular TV show as an example, let's take Breaking Bad. You start with this school teacher who is pushed into crime out of desperation, so then you think, what kind of criminal landscape would he find himself in that would create the most ridiculous/tense situations? And that's how you build it out, starting from Walter White and then creating a fictional New Mexico underworld that clashes with him in the most interesting possible way.

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