Jay S. Bell
Welcome to Cottonmouth
What does the US government do with spies and special operators when they pass their expiration date? They retire them to a small town deep in the Piney Woods of East Texas, where they’re certain to cause no trouble.
The Writer’s Dossier 7/8/2025 – The Jay S. Bell interview
DOSSIER: Here at The Writer’s Dossier, we’re guessing that, with a personal background in loss prevention as well as sales, you ran across plenty of people in your professional career that gave you ideas for character personalities. Are there any cases that made you think, that person could be a character in a book!
BELL: What a great question. I like you already.
Actually not a standalone character, but an amalgamation, surely. I started my career as a store detective and worked my way up to a director-level post for a major retailer. In that time, I learned a tremendous amount about the psychology of the offender, as I dealt with the white collar embezzler who stole $500k and the street hood shoplifter who copped a pair of jeans. I think all these interactions have helped me bring a little hint of realism to the characters I create. Not all good guys are always good, and not all bad guys are pure evil.
My second career in sales has taught me one invaluable lesson: Find out what people want. What drives them? What do they want to get out of the deal, the interaction, life, your back pocket, or whatever. This should drive your characters, too. Don’t make them do odd things to fit the plot, make their motivation guide their decisions.
DOSSIER: Aw, shucks. We like you too. You get brownie points for answering your questions in record time.
Crazy Squirrel Kung Fu
DOSSIER: I’m sure your main character in WELCOME TO COTTONMOUTH, Devlin Mahoney, could throw someone out of a department store, as well as be the one being thrown out, right? Which is more likely?
BELL: Hah! That made me laugh. Great question. I think shoplifting may be beneath Devlin, though I suspect he could get thrown out of a department store for other reasons. Popping a guy on the nose for rudeness comes to mind.
I do believe he would be followed closely by every store detective in the building.
Although Devlin has some hand-to-hand skills, he’s not a black belt in anything except Crazy Squirrel Kung Fu. I would not like to be the guy who had to throw him out of a store.
Quirky works
DOSSIER: When you set out to do WELCOME TO COTTONMOUTH, you didn’t want another James Bond, Jack Reacher, or Gray Man-type character. Did you craft some of those tough guy traits and add in the flawed and quirky to get what you were looking for in order to come up with Devlin Mahoney?
BELL: I don’t believe in Superman Incarnated, so I have a problem with my heroes being the smartest, toughest, badassedest, lethalest person in any room. (Copyright on all words I make up.)
Devlin may be a little more quirky than any others I’ve written, though. For him, I started with his quirks and as we got to know one another, I found his strengths.
I can’t throw stones at Reacher or the others. I admit I’ve written some of those real tough hombres in previous works, though I like to think I’ve infused them with a salting of humanizing traits. I’ll tell you this, not a single one of my male leads could figure out an eyeblink code from glancing at a backseat passenger in the rearview mirror, or hotwire any automobile made after 1990 by touching two wires together.
DOSSIER: Copyright granted by authority of The Writer’s Dossier. All rights reserved.
Mounted weapons at the ready
DOSSIER: What’s your writing set up like? Do you have a preferred time or place you write? Do you have a view of a Texas oil field like up in Midland or are you overlooking your horse farm in the hill country?
BELL: Pardner, I hate to break it to you, but I live in modern suburbia. I take my laptop and sit in my writing chair and my view is of my neighbor’s house across the street.
In true Texas fashion, I do have my granddaddy’s double barrel mounted over my desk, and a knife my dad handmade out of a hunk of bar steel and wooden grips. It’s presented on a chopped-out bit of barn wood.
Since my second career in software sales keeps me busy, sometimes my writing space is hotels and airports.
I have some country boy chops from long summers spent with my hillbilly relatives. We picked squash, shot rifles, walked barefoot down a dirt road to the store, picking up empty soda bottles to cash in for, well, more soda. Now, some of the people I met there very definitely infuse some of my characters.
DOSSIER: Note to self, return the Hermes horse saddle purchased for Bell. Send thank you card with an embossed wax seal for doing The Dossier instead.
Bell’s opinion on women
DOSSIER: WELCOME TO COTTONMOUTH also features a strong female character. What do you say to editors/publishers/readers who question whether you can write from a female POV or at least write the character in a believable way?
BELL: I don’t say anything; I let the women speak for themselves. Learned that lesson.
I don’t care what anyone says, women think differently than men. For the most part, they’re smarter. They think things through more carefully. Guys are like, “I’m going to keep hitting this wall with my forehead until it breaks.” Women will say, “Let’s go find a hammer.”
I truly get annoyed when there’s a ticking bomb in the room and a female character says to the male lead, “What do we do now?” as if they’re out of ideas. You ever know a woman to be out of ideas in a given crisis? And, yeah, I could point to some Big Name authors who invariably do this. The hero shows up, and the woman’s brains melt to goo. Just. Not. Likely.
DOSSIER: A wise man you are, sir.
The Last Word
DOSSIER: Is there anything else you’d like to reveal in your Dossier today? (We like headline-making breaking news and it gives our graphics department something to do other than play video games all day.)
BELL: Don’t tell anyone, but Jay S. Bell is a rebranding of my author persona. New publisher, new story, and a break from my early career.
I’m proud of my first eleven novels, so if you want to profile any of those, feel free to look me up on Amazon. Here. Try this link for my previous work.
Oh, and I’m currently writing the sequel to WTC. My title for it is SNAKEBIT, though I expect my editor will change that. 🙂
Get to know Jay on Facebook | Instagram | X | Bookbub | Website and Amazon