James Patterson: The way he writes, he might as well be printing money

When you co-write a thriller novel with James Patterson, certain rules apply.

Rule No. 1 for collaborating with the world’s best-selling author: Chapters must be short, with detailed descriptions, flashbacks or other digressions strictly forbidden.

(Little, Brown and Company/LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY) - \"Private Berlin\" by James Patterson and Mark Sullivan.

(Joshua Prezant/JOSHUA PREZANT © 2013) - James B. Patterson, American author of thriller novels, largely known for his series about fictional psychologist Alex Cross, the Alex Cross series.

Rule No. 2: The villains, who tend to drive the plots, must be at least as interesting and believable as the heroes, if not significantly more so.

Rule No. 3: If any disagreement arises, it’s Patterson who has the last word — literally and otherwise.

“He’s the boss, and I have no problem with that,” says Mark Sullivan, 54, who has co-written three novels in Patterson’s globe-trotting “Private” series about the intrepid agents of a high-tech investigative firm with offices in various world capitals. The next book in the series, “Private Berlin,” will be published on Monday by Little, Brown. “Jim is the smartest story person — the quickest read, the most insightful critic — I’ve ever been involved with. He has an amazing ability to see flaws in stories, or to come up with a way to take the story to a whole new level. He doesn’t say much, but the stuff he says is just spot-on. I tell my wife, ‘It’s like going to study with Yoda.’ ”

Besides, Sullivan reasons, a writer who has sold 275 million books (including a world record 53 No. 1 bestsellers) has to be doing something right, even if the critics who wax rhapsodic over Lee Child, Walter Mosley, George Pelecanos and Dennis Lehane don’t always agree.

“He knows more about the publishing business than anybody I’ve ever known,” says Sullivan, a former investigative reporter at the San Diego Union-Tribune who has written eight novels on his own, including 2012’s “Rogue.” “There are people who criticize Jim, but I’m an ambitious guy, and I always believed that I could be a big, best-selling writer. I’ve had spurts of that, but not what I wanted. To use the analogy of tennis, I always wanted to play Centre Court at Wimbledon, and one day the world’s top-ranked doubles player called and said, ‘You want to play at Centre Court?’ ”

In a phone interview from his home in Palm Beach, Fla., Patterson bristles at criticism of his collaborative process, which some have suggested amounts to an assembly line in which the supervisor is minimally involved — “the factory and all that crap,” says the 65-year-old author.

“When people actually come up in my office and wander around here, looking at 40 manuscripts lying around, they see that it’s an artist’s studio, and all this stuff about it being a factory goes by the wayside. They see how involved I am in these things, and what a maniac I am. . . . If it’s a factory, it’s a factory where everything is hand-tooled.”

‘This isn’t going to fly’

In most of his collaborations with about a dozen authors, Patterson says he begins the process by making a detailed outline of around 70 pages. After that, the collaborator sets about producing a draft, sending him pages about every two weeks for feedback. Finally, Patterson takes over, producing one to five new drafts until he’s satisfied.