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Michael Connelly: How to Write Unforgettable Characters | How I Write - How I Write | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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Michael Connelly: How to Write Unforgettable Characters | How I Write

How I Write

Wed Mar 11 2026

Summary

How I Write – Michael Connelly: How to Write Unforgettable Characters

Host: David Perell
Guest: Michael Connelly (Crime novelist: Harry Bosch, Lincoln Lawyer)
Date: March 11, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, David Perell sits down with bestselling crime novelist Michael Connelly to deconstruct Connelly’s writing practice, the meta-mechanics of creating vivid characters, and how place, detail, and character interplay to produce unforgettable stories. Connelly shares insights gathered over 30 years and 100 million books sold, offering practical advice for writers and exploring the craft’s deeper philosophical questions.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power of Detail in Storytelling

Observation over Note-Taking: Connelly spends time with real detectives, lawyers, and judges, observing them without taking notes to avoid freezing authentic behavior.
“I never take out a notebook… I just try to watch for what I call telling details.” (02:02, B)
Momentum and Selective Detail: Too many details slow a story; focus on a few that create the most vivid, essential impression.
“A key thing, maybe the key thing is momentum, you know, and a lot of details create speed bumps.” (03:39, B)
Example: The groove in a detective’s glasses, formed by clenching them during crime scene investigations, conveys more than a long description ever could.
“That was kind of like all I needed to say about this guy.” (04:18, B)

2. Rewriting: Where the Magic Happens

Revision Process: Each morning begins with rewriting the previous day’s work, both digitally and on paper.
“I start every morning by rewriting what I did the day before.” (05:57, B)
Marking Up with Pencil: After printing, Connelly uses personal shorthand in the margins (“RW” for rewrite, “NSG” for not so good—a critique borrowed from his mother).
(07:04, B)
Finding the Best Details: The search for telling detail often happens in later drafts rather than the initial writing phase.
“In rewriting… I think this is a better detail, or I expand a detail… I’m emerged into a full story.” (05:05, B)

3. The Role of Truth and Research in Fiction

First-Hand Knowledge: Journalistic background gives him enough foundation to write freely, only checking specific facts later.
“I covered courts and I covered crime for about 14 years… I always want to be writing.” (08:13, B)
Research Network: Relies on a cadre of experts (detectives, lawyers, judges) and a researcher for concise answers, keeping his writing flow uninterrupted.
“I have a researcher… but I would rather be writing.” (08:51, B)

4. The Writing Routine

Early Mornings: Writes before dawn, aiming for “6 to 11 every morning”.
“The safest time is mornings. That’s where you’re going to get less interruptions.” (10:04, B)
Balancing Writing & TV Work: Spends afternoons on set or in interviews, but mornings are sacred for writing.
(10:44, B)

5. Character, Character, Character

Central Focus: Everything—plot, setting, detail—serves character.
“For me it’s character, character, character.” (11:03, A)
Reality and Resonance: Strives to make fictional characters feel real by embedding them in authentic settings, using real-world details and contemporary events.
“If the best way to sell this character that doesn’t exist to a reader… is to plant that character’s feet in as real a world as possible.” (11:39, B)

6. Writing Los Angeles as a Living Character

Unique Inspiration: LA’s diversity and constant evolution provide endless material.
“In each book I start out with the goal of ending up in a neighborhood I’ve never been in, fiction wise.” (12:48, B)
Crime and Geography: LA’s highways, hills, and social stratification create unique narrative opportunities and “palpable friction”.
“LA is the city of second chances. But not all second chances pay off.” (15:12, B)

7. Lessons from Raymond Chandler

Chandler’s Influence: Chandler’s atmospheric descriptions of LA inspire Connelly’s sense of detail and character.
“I read [Little Sister, Ch. 13] when I start a book … it has nothing to do with plot… but … some of those descriptions are right on right now.” (16:33, B)
Details Convey Character: The narrator’s observations often reveal as much about the character as the city itself.
“It’s about him… and he’s an outsider looking in.” (18:07, B)

8. Different Characters, Different Lenses

Perspective: Each protagonist is a lens for seeing LA differently—by gender, age, role, or insider/outsider status.
“I have the lens that is like a female’s view… My true outsider … is Mickey Haller, the Lincoln lawyer.” (18:49, B)

9. Dialogue as Character

Distinct Voices: Diction and the rhythm of speech are primary vehicles for character—sometimes what isn’t said matters most.
“Dialog is the most important part of character.” (20:54, B)
Economy of Expression: Harry Bosch, for instance, is defined by how little he speaks (“he nods a lot”).
“My editor would just keep a running count of how many times he nods.” (21:24, B)

10. On Conflict and Momentum

Vonnegut’s Rule: Every character should want something on every page, even if it’s small.
“Kurt Vonnegut… said… make sure on every page, every character wants something, even if it’s only a glass of water.” (24:13, B)
Relatable Struggles: Small, everyday conflicts (traffic, bureaucracy) ground the high stakes of crime fiction.
“Most of my readers… have never solved a murder… so you got to connect with them… traffic, bureaucracy.” (25:41, B)

11. Place as Character

Triggering Memory and Depth: Geography cues memory and internal backstory—moving through LA often prompts reflection for characters.
“You… want your characters to be moving forward and backward… you can do that a lot with geography.” (28:18, B)
Murder as Societal Investigation: Crime becomes a lens to explore the city’s social fabric.
“A murder is basically a framework for you to investigate something in society… through an investigation of a murder.” (29:28, B)

12. Finding Story Momentum

What Sparks a Story: Usually an idea he wants to explore—a social force, a new technology, a moral question.
“I need an idea I want to explore.” (31:52, B)
Recent Example: Using AI as the catalyst for a courtroom thriller, “putting AI on trial”.
(31:52, B)

13. Dialogue: Making the Fake Real

Cut it in Half: Realistic-sounding dialogue is concise.
“Almost as soon as you write it, you go back and cut it in half.” (41:27, B)
Trusting the Reader: Subtext and nuance are often more powerful than explicit statements.
“I eminently trust my readers… especially in dialogue.” (43:53, B)
Conflict through Subtlety: Dialogue can be about one thing on the surface but hold deeper conflict beneath.
“I love doing conversations that are on face about this, but they're really about that.” (43:53, B)

14. Heroes and Villains

Hero Over Villain: Connelly is more fascinated by what makes a hero and the cost of confronting darkness, rather than exploring the villain’s motives.
“I’m really interested in heroes and what makes them heroes and what sacrifices they make…” (47:20, B)
Conflict and Moral Cost: The darkness encountered in crime-fighting can threaten the character’s own moral center.
“If you go into that, some of it’s going to get into you. And a lot of the books are about what do you do with that…” (49:10, B)

15. On Starting a Book: Hooks and Triggers

Not Always Immediate: Early in his career, he felt pressure to introduce big story triggers quickly. With experience, he’s more willing to let character and situation develop organically.
“To me, it’s like a slingshot… Now I don’t even think about it.” (52:20, B)

16. Transitioning to TV and Film

Difference in Tools:
- TV/film: Action and visuals (“what you’re doing”)
- Novels: Depth and interiority (“what you’re thinking”) “Books are always going to be deeper… you have that component of internal thought.” (57:28, B)
Challenges of Adaptation: TV’s need to visualize every aspect can conflict with a novelist’s trust in the reader’s imagination.
“I put enough telling details… for them to build Harry Bosch in their head… Then 20 years later, I said, this is exactly what he looks like.” (58:35, B)
Writer’s Room Camaraderie: TV writing brought back the fun and collaborative dynamic he missed from his journalism days.
“It was fun because it reminded me a lot of my newspaper days… writing room… camaraderie and water cooler…” (60:55, B)

17. Character Names with Meaning

Metaphor and Resonance: Names should never be arbitrary—look for metaphorical resonance (example: Harry Bosch named for Hieronymus Bosch, with LA as a “modern day Garden of Earthly Delights”).
“Don’t just slough off the name, think about it. Names as metaphors are great…” (36:03, B)

18. The Changing Craft & Industry

Audiobooks and Attention: While traditional reading demands focus, audiobooks introduce multitasking, possibly changing how stories are absorbed.
“As long as there are people… holding a book, it’s hard to do anything else.” (70:21, B)

19. Teaching Writing: The Core Principle

Always Be Writing: Continuous practice (“write every day, even if only for 15 minutes”) is the foundational advice that shaped Connelly and would be the cornerstone of his course.
“I’m definitely always be writing type of guy… you’ll always be in the tunnel, you know, the story swirling around you…” (66:22, B)

Memorable Quotes & Timestamps

On Detail:
“Instead of five details, you pick the one that says something about the situation, the character.” – Michael Connelly (03:46, B)
On Character:
“Everything seems to be in service of character.” – Michael Connelly (11:13, B)
On Research and Momentum:
“I always want to be writing… Always be writing.” – Michael Connelly (08:13, B)
On Dialogue:
“Dialog is the most important part of character.” – Michael Connelly (20:54, B)
On Conflict:
“Make sure on every page, every character wants something, even if it’s only a glass of water.” – Quoted from Kurt Vonnegut (24:13, B)
On Heroism:
“I’m really interested in heroes and what makes them heroes and what sacrifices they make…” (47:20, B)
On Writing Routine:
“Write every day, even if it’s only for 15 minutes.” – Harry Crews, quoted by Michael Connelly (67:10, B)

Suggested Listening Timestamps

02:00 – Finding and using “telling details”
05:00 – Connelly’s rewriting process: daily routines and practices
11:00 – The centrality of character in fiction
14:50 – What makes LA unique for crime fiction
16:33 – Raymond Chandler’s influence and details as character
24:13 – The necessity of conflict on every page
41:27 – Making dialogue realistic
47:20 – Focus on heroism over villainy
57:28 – The difference between telling stories on the page and on the screen
66:22 – Advice for aspiring writers

Conclusion

Michael Connelly’s approach to crime fiction is anchored in deep character, vivid detail, and relentless writing momentum. Rejecting distractions and over-planning, he trusts both his instincts and his readers, returning always to the fundamentals: keep writing, go deeper into character, let setting shape the story, and distill every line to its essence. For writers and readers alike, this conversation is a masterclass in how unforgettable stories are built—one telling detail at a time.

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Transcript

A (0:00)

Michael Connelly is a crime novelist who's famous for series like Harry Bosch and the Lincoln Lawyer. And combined his series have sold more than 100 million books. But then also they've become TV shows on Netflix, on MGM, and Amazon prime, where he's not just writing, but he's the executive producer. His fingerprints are all over the work. So want to ask him about it? How do you dream up vivid characters? How do you write about a city, a town or a place? And if you're somebody, you want to write, you want to come up with stories. Stories. You want to imagine worlds and put them onto the page, well, you're in the right place. You wouldn't believe it, but how I write costs a fortune to run. And it's thanks to Mercury that I can even do it. They're the sponsor of this episode in a banking platform that I've been using for the past four years to run my own business. When I started how I write, I expected finances to be an absolute nightmare. I got team members in four different countries. I had things to think about, like currency exchange and taxes and expenses, and. And I was just dreading it. But honestly, banking has maybe been the easiest part. I can't remember running into a single problem, and it's because I've been using Mercury. I switched over from other, more traditional banks because Mercury is so well designed. It's easy to get started, it's easy to use, while also feeling totally legit and secure. And Mercury gives me all the tools to run a global company, like virtual cards, unlimited users, and the ability to customize each user's access level to exactly what they should see. And you know what, if anything goes wrong, if I have any sort of challenge, I can always talk to their support team, which is super responsive and actually helpful, which is pretty rare these days. And all that is why I can't imagine banking any other way. Mercer is a fintech company, not an FDIC insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Column A members fdic. All right, back to the episode. I want to hear about detail. What do you focus on when it comes to details bringing stories to life? And what is it that writers get wrong?

B (1:59)

I spend a lot of time with the kind of people I write about, whether they're detectives or lawyers, judges and so forth. And I never take out a notebook. I don't want anyone to kind of be frozen by seeing me writing down something they said or did. So it's really, you know, observation. And I. I just try to watch for What I call telling details. And they can be verbal, they can be in a story, someone talking about what they do, or very specifically about a case, an experience they had. But it can also just be something I observe about them physically or in their workplace, in their car, even. You just look for these details that, if you can get, you know, it opens up a window of imagination for you, for your viewer. I mean, it does for you as well as the writer. But you're. I'm always conscious of what's the reader going through, how is their imagination turning? And it turns on details. And so you always got to be. Be available for that. Your second part, what did writers get wrong? Well, everybody's unique. But I know as a writer and reader, I don't like to be hit with too much detail over details. I think in writing and reading, a key thing, maybe the key thing is momentum, you know, and a lot of details create speed bumps.

B (24:13)

Well, I would say one of the best pieces of advice I ever read, I didn't get this personally, obviously came from Kurt Vonnegut, whose Books I loved. And then he was asked once in an interview, what's the best piece of advice you can give a writer? And he said, make sure on every page, every character wants something, even if it's only a glass of water. And that, to me, is the distilled essence of writing. And that's conflict. It's what you want. And, you know, and so I often do that. I look at a page and say, do I have Kurt's advice covered here? Does everybody want something? And it's really important, you know, to have that. And I was more religious about it in the early days. You know, I. You know, I. I had Bosch as a smoker, and it's a society where you're, again, not supposed to smoke. So, like, he always wanted a cigarette, but he couldn't have one. That was my little way of making sure there was conflict on every page, you know, and. And again, that shows something about character that a. In the first place, he is a smoker, and it shows that he's kind of stepped outside of traditional or standard society, and he's looking in. So there's all kinds of ways that you can use conflict to deliver character. And I'm lucky that in a crime novel, there's building conflict. You know, I have to find a murderer. I have to get my client and not guilty. You know, so you have these big things, and you. You build in all kinds of layers of small ones, and bureaucracy is a huge one, because you're also looking for conflicts that your reader can relate to. You know, most of my readers, probably 99.9%, have never solved the murder, but they're reading a book about a guy trying to solve a murder. So you got to connect with them, with stuff they do know, and that's, you know, the bureaucrats that don't help Harry Bosch because they just don't have to. That kind of stuff, you put in stuff. Traffic. The traffic I dealt with today, you put in stuff that everybody can relate to while you're delivering the big conflict, which is something they probably have no idea about.

B (36:03)

Good question. I mean, you start with this idea that your primary purpose, almost your sole purpose, is deliver character to your reader. So never miss a chance to say something about character. Have everybody on every page want something that says something about character. So don't like, just slough off the name, think about it. Names as metaphors are great, especially if it's a metaphor that matches what you're trying to do. And I mentioned one of Chandler's essays where he said, the detective has to pierce all levels of society. So when I was writing my first published novel, the Harry Bosch novel, in the first draft, his name was Pierce. No first name, just Pierce. And then I can't even remember why this happened, but something happened that reminded me of Hiran, Ms. Bosch, the 15th century painter who I had studied in college, not by my choice. I took a humanities class and the teacher, the professor, was fascinated by Bosch. So therefore we studied Bosch for about a month. And this was pre Internet, where it's very easy to find his work and study it if you want. But he was very obscure when I studied him. I'd never heard of him until I took that class, and I never heard anyone mention him afterwards. So I was going along, all right, with the name Pierce. And that was a good call. I mean, a good name. I think it would have some deeper meaning. But something reminded me about Bosch, Hieronymus Bosch. And I decided to use that name because I knew it would be intriguing. It wasn't like you could just type that name into the Internet. That book came out in 1992. And so I knew people would either have known the paint, known of the painter, and gotten the admittedly strained metaphor I was going for, and that is that, you know, Bosch's most famous painting is called the Garden of Earthly Delights. And I was kind of going for the metaphor that LA was the modern day Garden of Earthly Delights. And so I knew some people might get that and then there'd be people that Wouldn't get it. And they'd be intrigued about where does that name come from? And so I thought it was, quote unquote, a win win situation in terms of a character name.

B (54:26)

I can only answer that by saying where I'm at in relationship to my overall writing and to the people who read my books and where I am in the world. So we've talked a little bit that I have these television shows going that are based on my books, and they're based on my books, but they influence me back. You know, I'm involved In the shows, I read the scripts, I write some of the scripts. And TV usually has a shorter time to lock your viewer in. And they call it the teaser. And it's usually six pages of script at the most, where whatever's going on in that episode, the slingshot's been let go. And, and so in this book I wrote, I, I wrote two chapters that are really nothing about the plot, but they're, they're like an anecdotal story based on the true story that a detective told me about how they, how he solved the case. And I thought it was, you know, brilliant, but not, it could not sustain the whole novel. It was an anecdote. And so I decided to start this book, two chapters with that anecdote. And it has nothing to do with the rest of the book, but it, you know, and, and Harry goes through this little case, helps somebody solve a murder, and then he drives home and, and Mickey Haller, his half brother, who's a lawyer, is waiting for him and he gives him a piece of news that, that starts our story. And the piece of news is not enough to say that's a slingshot. It leads to him being intrigued and looking into a case from his past, his far back pass. And so he starts looking into a story, a death that happened 60 years ago, knowing full well, I mean, I'm challenging myself here, knowing full well that whoever did this is probably dead, happened 60 years ago. And so when you're telling a reader that he's not going to corner some bad guy and there might be gun battles and all that, it's, you know, you're really, I'm really gambling that I've earned what I've just said, that the reader's going to stick with me because he's pursuing a case that, where he wants to find an answer, but he probably won't find a real person alive.