In today's Cavalcade of Devious, Dark Writing Minds is a feller by the name of Allan Leverone. Good man. One hell of a writer. (and dammit! I gotta say, except for certain amount of hair missing, he reminds me visually of some one. Jes' can't remember the dude's name!)
But Allan is one of those writers who excels in the dark reaches of the mind. Sink into one of his stories and you sink into an ocean of dark mood. Or abject horror! Really, you gotta love a writer who brings out your suppressed emotions and hidden fears and exposes them fully and unabashedly for all to see.
I'm always curious to hear another writer's views on the nuts and bolts of his profession/obsession. For many of us it actually is more of an obsession than a profession. How a writer writes, and thinks about writing, is instructive to me. As, I suspect, it might be to a large number of bloggers who tune in occasionally and read this blog.
So without wasting another word, let's get to it. And keep an eye out for question number five and his answer. That one hit home for me.
1.
All right, up front and to the point: you write
dark mystery and dark horror. But which one is closest to your heart? And tell
us why.
I like to write books and stories
where the protagonist faces challenges above and beyond what he feels capable
of overcoming, and then see how he responds. When he does, I throw more stuff
in the way. It’s the classic genre fiction recipe. Once you start down that
road, the difference between mystery and horror becomes much less than you
might think. It’s a difference of degree, more than anything else.
Horror, mystery, cozy mystery,
noir, they all contain many of the same components. Generally speaking, the
body count – and the gore component - might be higher, say, in a horror novel
than a cozy mystery, but at their hearts, the genres share many similarities.
Closest to my heart? For me, it
all boils down to whatever I’m working on at the moment. I’m currently in the
editing phase of a thriller set at the end of the Cold War titled PARALLAX VIEW,
so right now I love thrillers the most. If you had asked me this question six
months ago, when I had just released the second of two consecutive supernatural
suspense novels, my answer would probably have been horror.
I’m a genre writer through and through.
I have nothing against literary fiction, but I write books I would want to
read, and I’ve been reading King, Poe, Child, Block, Westlake
and other genre masters for as long as I can remember.
2.
It seems like a lot of horror folds into the
plot the supernatural. Is that because the supernatural represents the
mysterious unknown that surrounds us? Or does it speak more about the dark
fears inhabiting all of us in our subconscious?
The monster under the bed. Or in
the closet. Who hasn’t gone to bed at night and heard a noise you couldn’t
identify, and pictured a fanged monster shambling down the hall, gibbering and
bloodthirsty? I hope it’s not just me.
I think the fear of the unknown
is ingrained in all of us, and it goes back to the earliest days of our species,
when we huddled in caves trying to keep the night and its dangers away with
little more than fire and superstition. The supernatural element in horror
fiction puts us back in bed with that monster shambling down the hall; it
brings us right back to our ancient roots, where every snap of a twig outside
that cave entrance represented the possibility of violence and death.
If you think about the modern
world, the horrors we face are things we understand to some degree, even if we
abhor them. Kidnappers, rapists, pedophiles – they might be the worst of the
worst, but their offenses can be studied and quantified. With the supernatural,
an element of uncertainty is added into the mix. How can the revenant be
overcome? Is it even possible?
3.
You inhabit a field that is literately bursting
at the seams with others who write in a similar fashion. How do you separate
yourself . . . make your own distinctive style . . . and promote yourself?
That’s a question every writer
not named Lee Child or Steve Berry or Stephen King probably struggles with. I
know I sure do.
A few years ago I attended
Thrillerfest, held annually in July in New York City.
A big part of Thrillerfest is the Craftfest portion, where readers, aspiring
writers, and fans can attend workshops given by some of the biggest names in
the thriller genre. I was fortunate enough to attend one given by Lee Child,
and he said one thing I’ll never forget (it’s been awhile, so I’m paraphrasing
here): everything’s been done, and probably by a better writer than you.
At first glance, that’s a pretty
deflating thought. If everything’s been done, why bother?
But the point he was making is
just the opposite. Don’t try to be the next Lee Child or the next Elmore
Leonard or the next Dean Koontz. Be the first Allan Leverone, be the first B.R.
Stateham. Write what appeals to you and tell absolutely the best story you
possibly can. After that, it’s out of your hands.
When you think about it in those
terms, it’s kind of liberating. I’m obsessive about editing and rewriting, but
once I’ve put the book out in front of people, their reaction to it is out of
my control. Some will like it, hopefully, and some won’t, but as long as you
can look yourself in the mirror and not have regrets about the tale you told,
that should be good enough.
As far as promoting goes, if I
knew the answer to that question I would be selling a hell of a lot more books
than I am! But writing novels is a marathon, not a sprint, the rare overnight
successes notwithstanding. My goal has always been, and still is, to write the
best books I can and build a solid core of readers, then hopefully expand that
core with each succeeding book.
4.
What pleasures are there in writing for you? Do
you find yourself sitting back and admiring a sentence, or a paragraph, or an
entire book that you've just written? And how long does that pleasure vibrate
within you?
I was lucky enough to interview
the legendary Lawrence Block on my blog a few months ago, and one of the things
I asked him was whether there were any characters or any books he would go back
in time and change if he could. He said, “I’m embarrassingly fond of my own
work, so they’re all my favorites. And no, I wouldn’t change any of them.”
If that attitude’s good enough
for Lawrence Block, I see no reason to feel any differently. While I’m writing,
if I can pound out something I feel works really well, I might sit back and
enjoy the moment, but I revise a lot, almost compulsively, so rather than
feeling self-satisfied, I’m usually filed with doubt and convinced what I’m
trying to say could be said much better if I’d only get my shit together.
It’s been said that writing is
revising, or something to that effect, so by the time my work is ready to go
out in to the world, I’ve usually been working on it for so long that I’m sick
of it and ready to move on to something else. It’s more a feeling of hopeful
relief than anything else.
5.
Tell us about the business side of writing. How
difficult is it to break into the bank vault called publishing success? Is
there a thread of luck involved? Is talent the prevailing requirement to
succeed? Are there any short cuts a novice might use to strengthen their
chances of success?
Another great question, and another
one I’m probably not qualified to answer.
First, the easy part: There are
no shortcuts. A writer has to write. It’s like anything else – the more you do
it, the better you’re going to get at it. Fortunately, most writers do it
because they’re almost compelled to. Let’s face it: most of us are never going
to write a New York Times bestseller. Most of us will never be able to support
ourselves solely from our writing. If you’re writing to get rich, you should save
yourself a lot of heartache and just take all of your money and buy lottery
tickets. Your odds of success are much greater.
As far as achieving publishing
success goes, I don’t think anyone would deny there is a thread of luck
involved. Probably more than a thread. More like a rope. Like one of the ones
they use to dock the Queen Mary. One of the things this “publishing revolution”
has taught us is that there are scads of unbelievably talented writers out
there who would never even have gotten a contract with a Big-6 publisher.
That’s not to take anything away
from the folks who have written New
York Times bestsellers. Most of them are talented, and it shows in their work.
But talent alone isn’t enough, you have to be in the right place at the right
time as well. It’s no different than in sports. Tom Brady was an unknown backup
who would likely never have had the opportunity to play were it not for an
injury to Drew Bledsoe, and Brady turned out to be arguably one of the top five
NFL quarterbacks ever.
Talent and timing. My thriller,
THE LONELY MILE, broke into Amazon’s Top 25 overall paid bestseller list back
in February. I like to think I wrote a pretty darned good book, but let’s face
it – StoneHouse Ink and I caught a wave at just the right time. If that hadn’t
happened, the book would probably never have made a ripple.
6.
Tell us about yourself. What was the trip-wire
that was stepped on which compelled you to become a writer? What are you
writing on now? What does the future hold for you?
From the time I first started
reading I was in awe of the people who could write books and stories that held
me in thrall. It seemed almost magical. Hell, it still kind of does. When I
went to college, it was with the intention of majoring in journalism – I wanted
to be a sportswriter. I changed majors after my freshman year, and that was the
end of writing for me, for about the next three decades.
In January of 2006 I got back
into it, with a sports blog at Foxsports.com, and over the next nine or ten
months, started to build up a bit of a following, and was really enjoying
myself. Then I had an epiphany. Blogging about sports was fun, but what I
really wanted to do was write fiction. So one day I just started.
Now I can’t stop. The feeling of
creating worlds and populating them with all these characters, good and bad,
who get into seemingly unresolvable situations, only to pull themselves out
(sometimes) is like no other. Maybe I have a God complex, I don’t know, but I
do know this: I will write until I die. A good day of writing is better than
any drug.
Right now, I’m putting the
finishing touches on a thriller titled PARALLAX VIEW. It takes place in 1987,
at the tail end of the Cold War, and tells the story of CIA
clandestine ops specialist Tracie Tanner, who is tasked with a fairly
straightforward job: deliver a secret communique from Communist Party General
Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Needless to say,
things aren’t as they seem, and before long Tracie Tanner is knee deep in plane
crashes, KGB spies, assassinations and double-crosses. It’s been a lot of fun
to write and I hope it will be well-received.
After that, I’ll probably begin
work on the third entry in my series of supernatural suspense novels that take
place in a fictional little town in Maine
called Paskagankee. Oh yeah, and I want to write a novella to submit to
DarkFuse for their collectible hardcover horror novella series. Maybe write a
couple of short stories.
Gonna be busy, I guess…
Thanks so much for having me. As
writers of separate installments in the DRUNK ON THE MOON series featuring
werewolf/PI Roman Dalton, I feel
like we share a bond that’s even a little deeper than our mutual love for dark
fiction. I appreciate the opportunity to bore introduce myself to your
readers!
