Had a blast chatting with @GenerousEd on the UnnervingMag podcast. We talked about dreams, burning your darlings, and how a kid reading Herbert, Hutson and King grew up to write The Attic Tragedy.
Check it out below. Then go follow the podcast here.
I had a blast hanging with Kaaron Warren and Aaron Dries in Kaaron’s gorgeous book room, to discuss my debut novelette, The Attic Tragedy. Check out the videos of the reading and in conversation below.
Had a great time being grilled by Suzy Turner over at her blog. This turned out to be a much more personal interview than I was expecting (or, frankly, intending), and is all the better because of it. Thank you, Suzy!
Check out the interview here. Then go follow Suzy on Twitter at @suzy_turner.
Stoked to be included in this year’s Australian SF Snapshot. This is a fantastic, long-running archival project and it’s an honour to be involved.
Check out the interview here. Then go read all the rest of their awesome interviews at austsfsnapshot.wordpress.com.
I once read an interview with crime writer James Ellroy, who spoke bluntly when asked if his characters were flesh and blood. He said it was disingenuous for writers to say they had no control over their creations. The choices about their behaviour, their actions and reactions, did not arise independently – each was an artistic decision, made by him.
The Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin holds a similar, albeit more extreme position, describing the tendency of some authors to impute independent agency to their characters as ‘magical thinking’ – a politely belittling alternative to calling it ‘bullshit’. To Sorkin, there is no character beyond the words on the page. Characters do not ‘live’ beyond the individual choices that he, as author, makes for them; the specific traits or behaviours or actions that he chooses to show. If a character likes to drink warm lemonade, or is a hoarder with an obsession for dog-eared National Geographics, it is because room temperature soda and thrift store magazine collections are intrinsic to some dramatic purpose of Sorkin’s design. They exist on the page, in service to the story.
In this model of the author–character relationship, the author is a god, the character a figure made of clay into which the illusion of life is breathed.
Some part of me (the part that doesn’t balk at hard-boiled materialism) knows they are right. I know it. And yet—
Read the full article over at the Horror Tree. Then go follow them on Twitter at @HorrorTree.