What do a college rock radio station, a 12-year-old detective, and a stand-up comic bassett hound have in common? John Madormo, assistant professor of broadcast communication, and general manager of WONC-FM.
For just over 36 years, Madormo has managed WONC-FM, winning over 20 awards during his tenure. But though he may be known for his broadcast communication career, he is also a children’s author, having written four books in the “Charlie Collier: Snoop for Hire” series.
The Charlie Collier series started in 2008, from a screenplay he had written titled “Paulie Perkins, P.I.,” the story of a 12-year-old private investigator solving cases for his classmates. The economic situation in 2008 meant that studios were looking for works based on published works known to the public.
“I said OK, if they want the derivative form, I’ll create the derivative form. So, I took that 110-page screenplay and I transformed it into a 250-page novel. And that was how Charlie Collier was born,” Madormo said. “It was born out of a failed screenplay.”
That novel was “The Homemade Stuffing Caper,” where the simple task of finding a lost parrot leads to something. Mirroring the plot, this novel was the start of something more.
During the recessions of 1974 and 2008, Madormo managed to pull through where others might have given up, landing a production job at WGN, and turning a failed screenplay into a successful book, respectively.
“I think if you believe in yourself and you believe that you have the skills, the talents to succeed you’ve got to ride yourself. And you have to just kind of keep going and put blinders on and not worry about anything else,” he said.
The process of forming a novel involves multiple steps. As he described it, “I would come up with about five ideas, and I would bounce all five of them off her (his editor), and then she would tell me which one she thought was the best one. And then I would do that.”
Madormo has three pieces of advice when writing a novel. One: set aside some time in the day, sit down, and tell yourself that you are going to write for 15 minutes. “Even if you are staring at the computer, and nothing’s happening…, you’ve done your 15 minutes.” He added that you should increase the amount of time every few weeks in order to form a habit.
The second tip describes an important part of a story. “The other thing is one of the most important things about telling a story is that there is conflict.” He added, “somebody wants something and they’re having a hard time getting it, and that kind of is telling a story because you want to be able to throw in obstacles so there’s constant conflict.”
The third piece of advice applies to those trying to balance writing while maintaining a full-time job and teaches a lesson about making small sacrifices in order to succeed. “I usually write at lunchtime each day; I’ll walk over to the Nichols Library, the library in downtown Naperville, and that’s my lunch hour so I don’t take lunch I just eat at my desk after that.
“And at night before bed I’ll spend that last hour trying to write so you know you have a full-time job to do and you must do it. So, you have to find other times that are available and so what I did was I gave up the lunch hour and I gave up my late hours.”
This is the last year at North Central College for Madormo, as he is retiring from teaching. A new book is on the way in a few months, separate from the Charlie Collier series, “Rutherford: Canine Comic.” It’s a story about a basset hound who wants to be a family watchdog, but he has to do comedy instead.
It’s possible Rutherford will become a new series, but Madormo says “I might go back and do another Charlie. You know, I don’t know what I’ll do, but I do know that is one of the things I’ll do in retirement. I’ll continue to write, so I’ll stay busy.”
