{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Behind the Book Cover","title":"Why a Criminal Defense Attorney Chose Fiction Over a Legal Book with Ron Chapman","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2095,"description":"Criminal defense attorneys aren't typically known for writing philosophical Holocaust novels. Then again, Ron Chapman isn’t your typical criminal defense attorney.\n\nPublished under the pen name R. William Chapman, Empyrean is a true departure from Ron’s two nonfiction books.\n\nFight the Feds and Truth and Persuasion may have Ron build his authority but Empyrean, which will be arriving this fall, helped build his soul.\n\nRon spent two years on Empyrean, writing roughly 300,000 words to land on a final 78,000. He calls himself a \"pantser,\" Stephen King's term for a writer who lets characters decide what happens rather than working from an outline. One of the main characters, he told me, has become part of how he thinks through his own days.\n\nAs a criminal defense attorney, Ron has found that fiction gives him an outlet nonfiction and legal work never did, a way to work through the frustrations of his job and his time as a marine on paper instead of carrying them silently.\n\nWe get into why he turned away from traditional publishing in order to keep creative control, why agents kept asking him to make the book \"the next Hunger Games\" and why he thinks authority today comes from letting people see your actual flaws rather than polishing a bio. He also explains that he’s using a different author name for Empyrean so that it can stand on its own, disconnected from his identity as a lawyer.\n\nIn this episode:\nWhy Ron chose the Holocaust as a subject, and how a childhood visit to a concentration camp shaped the project\nThe reason he's publishing Empyrean under a pen name instead of his own\nWhy he turned away from traditional publishing to retain full creative control over the book\nHis case for why raw honesty, not polished marketing, is what actually builds trust with an audience\nWhy he believes the short feedback loop of platforms like Substack is bad for serious writing, and why the slow grind of writing still matters\nWant to know more about my company? Legacy Launch Pad...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/UCEB2n_nvgUQzlnfTs-39SC2dlssng3NDLqkGEuUaBM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8xYjhj/ZDM5N2VjMzUxZmQ4/NWE5NDQ1ODEwZGI0/YWE5Ny5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}