Editor’s note: This interview was conducted via phone by our Junior High/Senior High Non-Fiction Chair, Jennie Rothschild. We’d like to thank her for her time in putting this together!
I was lucky enough to talk to Martin Sandler on the phone about his winning book, The Whydah. Below is a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
In the Whydah, you debunk a lot of pirate mythology. Whatâs the hardest part about writing nonfiction about a topic where most of your readers have a very strong pop culture image in their mind that doesnât bear a lot of relation to the reality of the situation?
Actually, itâs something I enjoy doing, you just have to be careful that youâre not doing it just to be a wise guy with a smirk on your face. Iâve always felt that nonfiction is so much more exciting than fiction if itâs done right.
I think Iâve done a lot of books that are just as good if not better than The Whydah but the attention itâs grabbed is amazing, because people just love pirates and Iâm afraid they love a lot of the myths about pirates. I talked to a really good pirate historian at one point and weâre talking about walking the the plank and he says âMarty, you think theyâre going to grab a piece of lumber out at sea while the ship is rocking and everything and theyâre going to nail it on and theyâre going to go through all that trouble for someone they want to gid rid of? No theyâll throw âem overboard!â
To me, breaking down myths, I have to do it in such a way that itâs part of the story, not me just  being a wise guy but I always find it being an exciting part of the story if itâs legitimate. If you find something thatâs a long held belief that really isnât true–and thereâs a lot of those–then I always go for it. Thereâs a place here, the Cape Cod Beer Works–the woman there who runs it is an incredible person and she opens up this huge facility for public speaking. On National Speak Like A Pirate Day I was asked to give a talk and Iâm afraid I just walked in and said âNo, they didnât say âAvast ye mateysâ, no they did not have parrots on their shoulders, no they did not have eye patches, but that doesnât mean they werenât some of the most interesting characters that ever lived.â
What is your research process like and what is your favorite part about doing research?
Itâs all about the research for me it. It really and truly is all about the research. If after 88 or 89  books, if I canât write them well then I should throw my pen away. I do much more research than I do writing. I am very disorganized in my personal life, but I am so organized [with my research]. I work with 5×8 cards and everything I read, or every interview I make, or the notes I make, or everything I take off the net that in any way I think is going to be of interest or that Iâm going to use, I print it out and then I paste it on a 5×8 card. When Iâm done I have this huge stack of 5×8 cards and then I organize the 5×8 cards into chapters and then within the chapters I organize them into a sequence and, if I do it right, it should write itself. Itâs, to me, like a big detective story and that’s what I love about it. Iâm doing a book called 1919: The Year That Changed America right now and one of the sections is that women get the vote and itâs an extraordinary story. Thereâs so much that I didnât know and I learn so much about it.
But also, you gotta be lucky. I think one of my favorite books, and one of the most successful books Iâve written, is a book called The Resolute, about the search for the Northwest Passage. Itâs about a ship that was abandoned by this drunken commander and then, on its own, sailed twelve hundred miles and then it winds up saving the crew of the people who found the Northwest Passage and eventually, it winds up being broken up and thatâs the desk in the Oval Office today and thatâs a hell of a story. I knew there was a story there, I just couldnât find the elements. I was giving a keynote address at Mystic Seaport and when I was signing autographs at the end a guy came up to me and said, âHi, Iâm the curator of this place.â Just as a throw-away question I said âYou wouldnât have ever heard of a ship called The Resolute would you?â And he said to me, âIâve been waiting 20 years for someone to ask me that question.â I said âWhy?â âBecause Iâve been keeping a scrapbook on that.â Thank God he didnât want to write a book, you know? And he shared thatâŚ.
Image courtesy of Cape Cod Magazine.
Youâve written almost 90 books, so Iâm guessing you donât have a problem thinking of ideas for a new book but how do you narrow it down to pick your next topic?
I get many, many, many ideas for a book while Iâm researching another book. One of the questions I get a lot when Iâm doing other speeches is âHow many researchers do you have working for you?â and I always answer âYouâre looking at himâ. And the reason for that, thereâs a few reasons really: one, I get my ideas very often when Iâm researching another book and somebody working for me, no matter how good they are, theyâre never going to see that. Two, very often when Iâm researching and I find something and I think âOh my God I didnât know that!â and it turns the direction that Iâm taking that book in a whole different way and again, somebody else isnât going to do that. Three, to be truthful, Iâm a control freak.
For example, that book about The Resolute. I got that idea for that book when I was doing a book called Trapped in Ice, and as I was researching that book I kept seeing little hints about once there was this enormous British discovery ship and it got abandoned and it sailed on its own for 1200 miles and a whaling captain from  New London found it and it turned out to be one of the most important ships and they made a desk and the whole bit and I said âOh my God!â I kept looking and looking and looking and looking until finally, as I told you, at Mystic Seaport and other places I found enough to do a really great story on it.
In many ways thatâs how I get my ideas and sometimes I just wrack my brain. I do two books at a time most of the time and I am a nut because if Iâm not overworked and if I donât have too many ideas, I get very, very unhappy. Right now The Whydah is out, the Apollo 8 book will come out in a couple of months, and I am very close to finishing 1919. Iâve been working on a book about shipwrecks and what we learn from them and once I get to about halfway through that ship book, Iâm going to get very nervous if I donât have another one going.
There are many unknowns in Bellamyâs story, which you point out really well in the text, but when finding holes or finding conflicting stories about something, how do you decide which version you think is the most likely?
Itâs difficult. The hardest, hardest thing for me is that in doing my research, I go to five different really  good sources, the five best sources, to look up something and I get five different versions. Itâs something as simple as a date, or something less simple, such as who really was responsible, or the whole damn story and, just as you pose, who do you believe? Sometimes I take the weasley way out and I say âsources varyâ and I quote a couple. Iâve  found thatâs the most honest and maybe the most exciting way to do it. âHistorians varyâ or âhistorians are unsure some believe thatâ and I tell that and some believe⌠and I leave it to the readers to decide. Itâs kinda weasley but maybe thatâs the only way. Most of the time, I let it be known what I believe. But itâs the right question– thatâs the hardest for me. The two hardest things in writing nonfiction, if youâre going to do it right: One is putting yourself back in the times and because times are very, very different. The other one is just what you said. When you have two great historians and theyâre saying opposite things about the same thing and I want to yell out âWhatâs true?!â Itâs hard. Itâs very hard.
Thank you for your time!