Interview With A King Sized Author

For my first interview we'll be sitting down with an author whom needs no introduction, but will receive one anyway. The Mr. King.
You may have seen him at Barnes & Noble book signings, surround by fans and stacks of his work.
You probably saw him at the LTUE convention hob-nobbing with the likes of Orson Scott Card and Brandon Sanderson. 
And if you were there in April at the largest Comic Con EVER you should  have seen him at his booth and on panels. He was hard to miss, right between all the professional cosplay girls and the crowded pre-release video game trailer - well before the Star Wars and Back to the Future booths.
If you missed your chance, he'll be doing it again at the groundbreaking premier Fantasy Con in July.
I consider myself extremely lucky to call him a close personal friend and to able to say we've played D&D together in his basement, my basement, even in conference rooms of the software giant Adobe.
It is my great pleasure to introduce my pen-to-page mentor, Jason King.
Who did you think I as talking about?

These two titles are available now, and he has at least 3 more books currently in the works as sequels to both.

At what age did you first start making up stories and putting them down on paper?

I wrote and illustrated my first books when I was five. I still have one of them. It was my stylish answer to Go-Bots, a cardboard hardback called Ror-Bots.
 
What was the title of your first (or favorite) work, or name of your main character, or plot synopsis?

My first feature length written work was a screenplay I wrote when I was sixteen called Descent. It’s a crime noir featuring a really smart, cool, and insane villain named Victor Reese. I’d like to update it and adapt into a novel someday.

Who is an author, or perhaps character, that inspires you? How so?

Brandon Sanderson of course. I love his work, and feel that I have a claim on him because he is a local author and a member of my faith……and because I have him trapped in my basement.

What keeps you motivated? How do you keep the words flowing when writers' block is more like writers' Hoover Dam?

Passion keeps me motivated. I don’t usually get writer’s block. My struggle is with depression. When I have a bout of it, I lose my desire to write even if I have plenty of ideas. Passion for the art helps me overcome that, and deadlines.

Do you believe in killing your characters and/or sparing your villains from the horrible death readers think they deserve?

My villains usually get their comeuppance, but often their defeat costs the life of one of my heroes. 

How much of you do you inject into your characters?

I try to avoid it, but it inevitably happens, never intentionally. It depends on the character. 

When you get that first inkling of a story idea, how do you polish it by developing characters, setting, plot, etc?

I day dream about it, listen to music, write down notes. Sometimes I outline. 

Is there a classic work (book, film, music, etc.) from which you can extrapolate your own original story? For example, Beowulf, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Think in terms of Stephen King basing his Dark Tower series from Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.
(This goes beyond the realm of mere fan fiction)

This will show just how uncultured I am, but I’d love to take the plot of Final Fantasy 6 and write it as a novel. It has a story that is too rich for a simple videogame.

Do you have a magnum opus? 

Not yet. Although Valcoria may become that. 

Do the good guys wear black? Do they always win?

In the long run, good always triumphs over evil in my stories. Do I have antiheroes? Is that what you mean? Sometimes, but they usually turn into full heroes by the end. I am very much about my heroes growing and becoming better people.

How do you deal with over-exuberant fans?

I would smile at them while calling security. Just kidding. I think you can harness their enthusiasm by turning them into evangelists for your work. Reward them and make them president of your fan club or something. From my experience as an over-exuberant fan, nothing is cooler than a friendly, down to earth author.

Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

An additional bit of info to speak to the value of his guidance, his 10 year old son just published his first book!



  

Nine Hells

It lives!

As you may have noticed, I've been away awhile. But I have not been idle.

I have spent the past couple weekends dabbling and dithering in my neglected Nerdatorium.
I was away from my deviantArt account for several months, but I've recently reactivated and spent hours building my favorites album. In so doing, the muses smiled upon me and many new ideas were born out of the inspiring genius of other artists' works. I never lack for ideas when browsing good art!

As I continue to flesh out my new notions and ponderings (and get the artists' permission to share their work here) I will post more and more. In the meantime hopefully this will satiate you *cough* Nils *cough*

This was a story idea that took root about a week ago, but I didn't know where it was going to go until earlier today. I was thinking of using it as a more urban, East Coast counterpart to my western-themed zombie apocalypse story, Dead Reckoning, but the timelines didn't go so well together. That one is not-so-near future; whereas, Nine Hells hits much closer to the present.

It begins July 1, 2017. The contagion escapes the facility and infects the immediate area within 24 hours.
The surrounding areas follow the day after.
Day 3, which just so happens to be the 4th of July, the ill begin to inundate under-staffed metropolitan hospitals. The first deaths occur that morning.

Day 5, the sickness reaches the far corners of America and takes root. The news makes mention of the earliest fatalities and advises those feeling persistent symptoms to seek medical attention. It's far too late for that.

By Friday, July 7th, people in the major urban centers are dropping dead. Many die at home, or in their cars headed to the already full hospitals.
Saturday, one week since Outbreak, the CDC declares a nationwide state of emergency and halts air travel indefinitely.

July 9th, a day that comes to be known as Bloody Sunday, corpses arise and begin to feast on the living.

Monday, July 10th, the first double-digit day since Outbreak, the world has gone all to hell. The infection made it to every other populated continent before air traffic was grounded. The end isn't nigh...it's already here!

Fantasy Name Generators

I don't know how I haven't stumbled across it before, but today I found FantasyNameGenerators.com and I'm immensely impressed with what it has to offer. The options are almost overwhelming and nearly limitless.

And a very cool feature is that on the off chance you can't find something to inspire you, you can easily drop suggestions to the site author.

There is even a feature for artistically-inclined visitors to submit artwork for use with the multitude of generators.

Do yourself a favor and check it out. From one nerd to another, I promise you won't be disappointed.

Once Upon A Time

Feeling stuck, stumped, blocked, and/or utterly lost? Don't worry. It happens to all of us from time to time.

Try this. Here is a fill-in-the-blank lead in.

"Long ago and far away in a place called _name_ there was a _thing/person_ named _name_ who was _emotion/state of being_ because _cause_.

In order to _action: change, make, undo, etc_ the _thing/person_ had to _action_. But where to begin?
This _thing/person_ named _name_ had very little _possession: strength, knowledge, etc_ and even less/no _possession: money, friends, time, etc_. What _name_ did have was _possession: ingenuity, courage, etc_. And so it was, with _pronoun_ _possesion_, _name_ set out to _action_."

And you're off and running.

I would love to hear what you do with it, so add a comment below and let's see what you came up with.

Of course my mind naturally goes to a fantasy setting, but you can substitute a ship (Icarus) or planet (Helion) for sci-fi, a town (Pennyford) or county (East Humblewick) for steampunk, really whatever suits your fancy. The subject can be a boy, girl, dragon, droid, or other sentient object.  

Play to Your Strengths, Strengthen Your Weaknesses

I've recently traded a few emails with Nate, host of the WorldBuilding School, and perhaps I might be writing a guest post in the near future.

I've posted about the amazing tutorials of his before, and guess what, here they are again!

Tonight as I flipped through other posts and links I found the 7 Key Skills to Build Your World. Up until reading them I considered myself rather versed in various realms of worldbuilding. Now I kinda question that :)

My degree is a blend of social science and history, and I was no slouch in geography and earth science. But I'm a far cry from knowing all there is to know.

Economy and [physical] science are by far my weakest points. I get the general concepts of cartography, but I don't practice the skill itself nearly as much as I'd like to. I know next to nothing about zoology. I can tell you that predatory animals typically have binocular vision and some form of taking down their prey - fangs, claws, venom, etc. Prey animals usually have their eyes on the side, rather than the front of the head, to provide a wider view of things that could creep up on them. They employ escape measures of escape, like speed or burrowing, or camouflage and mimicry to trick and confuse predators. That's it! I have scraped the bottom of my zoological knowledge.

My point is, polish the things you know you don't know so well. But don't completely ignore the things you think you know because studying them further is still bound to yield surprises.

Man About Town

Back in September I posted about Cityographer and the city and village generators on Inkwell Ideas, which provide great visuals. Then today I found these other city generators:

Crystal Ball city generator - this gives a great deal of detail and allows a lot of customization. 

Red Dragon Inn town generator  - a text based generator that includes a calculator for the populace, tradecraft, and even inn names.

Chaotic Shiny medieval city generator and map generator - these are a little sparse, as they're text based, but what it lacks in visuals it makes up for in description. There are several other place generators from terrain to market and tavern.

Myth Weavers town generator - specifically geared towards D&D 3.5 this gives half a dozen options to customize size, military presence, and form of government as well as a few others.

Greyscalegorilla City Kit - this goes well beyond the medieval hamlet with an immensely powerful and customizable cityscape generator. For the price, it certainly delivers on an urban oasis that Godzilla would love to stomp flat.

LTUE 2014 Review

[picture me making the explosion gestures next to my head]
Yeah, it's like that.

I cannot show enough appreciation to my mentor Jason King for including me on such a spectacular event. As I understand with cons, the last day is a haphazard quagmire of people trying to get stuff in at the last minute and all the good panelists are gone. Not so in this case.

Arrival consisted of Jason, Jon, and I munching chocolate donuts and staring at our 8.5 x 11 schedules trying to decide which panels we wanted to hit. It was not an easy decision. Eventually I ended up going to a couple myself as the other fellas stood in line for book signing and/or manned the publisher's table. It reminded me of being a gung-ho college freshman perusing the course catalog and deciding which classes were worthy enough of cutting into eating/sleeping/studying time. It really was a "kid in a candy store" moment, but in this case the candy was free (to me) and it was going to teach me secrets to making my own candy and getting paid to do so.

Rather than take the easy route of sitting in on things I already thought I knew, I decided to make it worth the free pass and actually learn something. The panels I went to were: Writing Solid Dialogue, Keynote with Orson Scott Card, Writing Hard Science Fiction, Writing Without an Outline, and Why You Should Write Short Fiction and How It Can Help Launch You as a Novelist. I would love to include the names of all panelists involved, but that's as of yet not loaded on the LTUE website.

Suffice it to say, I learned a lot, met some great folks, formed a very viable new contact in the publishing world (I'm talking about you James Wymore), and overall made wonderful use of a Saturday I otherwise would have wasted.

So to any and all others out there, DON'T get discouraged and quit, DON'T say to yourself "this will never work. Who am I, one among millions?" DO make contacts and friends. GO. TO. CONS! Even if you don't get face time with authors - such was not the case for me, I chatted with 5 - it is worth the gas, time, and everything else.

FORGET WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW. TAKE & USE WHAT YOU LEARN. AND GIVE BACK.

One of the panels I sat in on involved a discussion of profiling/interviewing/getting to know your characters deeply and intimately. They will essentially be your family for many many months. The only downfall of the panel was that the speaker couldn't name a character profile to use. That's not to say that there is only one out there. Her advice was "Google it." It works. I have posted before several such links.
I am hoping to organize a smattering of world and character building posts for CuriosityQuills.com. Tune in next time for whatever my imagination happens to spit out. Be sure to write.