Interview Yourself

This isn't one of those 'pretend you're famous' preparation interviews. When my sister and I were kids, finding a tape recorder and a microphone was a good way to kill time. We'd do interviews, pretending we were Oprah or Michael Jackson or Aretha Franklin (which I'm now seeing a hilarious pattern of no white people on the list-- who needs inclusion?). This isn't what I mean. I've gone into developing characters through character interviews, but this is also not quite what I mean either. What interviews DO have in common here is a deeper understanding of the subject. Often, despite having all this luxury in our head space, are myopic if not completely blind when it comes to the ideas, styles, voice we drawn on.  Sometimes it takes many stories or books to notice a pattern in what we are drawn to.

I'm going to start with a list of questions to myself, answer them, then give you a way to alter them to make them fit your own style. A game, if you will-- one you can't really lose. Or as Oprah might say, you get a win, you get a win, everybody gets a win!

1) Why do you write in third person perspective?

2) Why do you lean towards dark fantasy?

3) Why do you use humor in your stories?

4) What's with all of the imperfection of Gods themes?

5) How you decide scene order?

6) What inspires you to write?

7) Why fantasy?

1) Why do you write in third person perspective? (Why do you write in your preferred perspective?)

• In my blogs, in my messages, first person is everywhere. The first draw of 3rd person is, apart from dialogue, the ability to empathize with someone else for a change. There's this claim that 3rd person is not as intimate as 1st but I strongly disagree. I believe that first builds only the empathetic experience of that one character, showing clear favor for their impressions. To me, depth is found in spreading out that intimacy with each character. I don't mean head-hopping around so much as creating distinction. In third person, the characters are blue, green, and red, for example. Even if you switch who is in first, the reader is still reading, I, I and I. Oddly enough, some readers are actually able to create a bond without the forced empathy of being limited to that headspace. Third person can still favor the voice or preference of a certain character, but when you want to utilize a larger cast of characters, first person may actually water down any attempt to cast a wider net, to create depth for many characters. Without seeming as if I'm vilifying first person, it can certainly be done with great skill, especially when the character is a mystery to themselves. I even did a short story in first so that the woman telling the story could recount a time in her life she deeply regrets. However, my preference for third person also allows me to direct a larger cast, the omniscient narration allowing the reader to decide which perspectives they want to empathize with.
• BONUS QUESTION: What sort of stories might make you tell it from another perspective than what you prefer?

2) Why do you lean towards dark fantasy? (Why do you lean towards the current genre you're in?)

•  Few of my stories ever start out in a dark place. Most of them start in the superficial sunny places where you usually meet the strangers that sometimes become your best friends. I don't write grimdark stories with the intent to keep people locked in depression or gore or the worst of humanity, but for me, finding the bright spots in life is often about making terrible mistakes, trials of morality, but owning them. I'm not a fan of 'realism' where the ending leaves you empty and unfulfilled. It's so overdone that I'm almost numb to that approach. Even if the story was amazing, a bad ending will almost guarantee I'll never bring it up to anyone. I want a story, if not to feel good, to leave you with the feeling that the world, the remaining characters, are still making the best of it. Yes, some areas are rather dark and grim in my current stories, but just like a room without shadows is visually flat, a fantasy too bright and optimistic falls flat. I'm not looking to really escape my life in a book, nor be included, but I like when a book can make me whisper 'someone gets me'. Some of us don't find comfort in the bright and shiny, can't even trust it's not hiding something even darker. Fantasy is still a sort of escape, but I can forget my troubles reading a manual for a toaster too. I don't find it edgy or gritty to throw in a bad ending. I'm not looking for the happily ever after, but the dark and grim trends are not what I'm after. I stop caring about the characters when I suspect they're just going to die anyway. So while I lean towards dark plots, I see it as a familiarity to overcome, not to expect.
• BONUS QUESTION: What other genres might fit your curiosity?

3) Why do you use humor in your stories? (If not humor, another distinct distraction.)

•  Humor. Sometimes universal, sometimes wildly inappropriate, we all laugh for different reasons. Have you ever been bombing at being interesting in a serious conversation, pulled the stick out of your ass, threw caution to the wind, and just hit someone with humor? Humor is a risk. From an inside joke to a crowd pleaser, you often have no clue if it will hit the spot or fall flat. For me, humor is always worth the risk. Sometimes I want it to be a little shocking or inappropriate, mood-killing or distracting. Just like the difference between a good magician and a bad one can be in the timing and the skill, comedy's ability to misdirect and create unpredictability is alluring. I believe it not only creates an instant reaction, but leaves a moment of vulnerability, either in the reader or the writer that brings you closer to the story. And yes, might completely put some people off of it. Humor is what I call my fool-proof friend finder. Never be friends with anyone who can't laugh at your jokes. They get it or they don't and that's that. It's the most honest way to find your audience.
• BONUS QUESTION: What did the Zen Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor? Make me one... with everything!

4) What's with all of the imperfection of Gods themes? (What theme do you keep revisiting?)

•  Religion was a struggle. Despite an upbringing that never enforced it, a friend in elementary school introduced me to it and I struggled with the questions of logic. I get why people gravitate towards it. Enhancing the meaning of life sometimes means reaching well beyond it, but I didn't find the comfort in it that some do. I didn't find answers or logic or direction or purpose. It wasn't the current theologies that interested me the most when I started looking for why humans created so many stories to explain the unknown. It was the defunct mythologies tapping on polytheism that fascinated me the most. The separation of Gods into elements, emotions and even desires became a deep excursion into modern concepts of psychology and understanding the human brain. Janus, the picture of comedy and tragedy, bipolar, a face towards the past and the future. Aphrodite was not simply the goddess of love and beauty, but the arbiter of lust, envy, why men started wars over women. The gods, simple in name, delved into much deeper facets of human decision, trends, not only meddling in human affairs with the same level of pettiness and fallibility, but as fascinated and drawn to humankind as humans were to them. Gods were manifestations of our best and worst attributes and there is a resonance to the idea that gods might have been created simply to satisfy the human ego, that any being having more power than the rest of us might fancy themselves a god. Just as some people find comfort in religion, I find something comforting in imagining more than I will ever know, learning more but never completely understanding others or even myself. But it's gonna be one hell of a ride for as long as it lasts.
• BONUS QUESTIONS: What themes linger undone in your writing just yet? Are they parallel or completely different?

5) How you decide scene order? (This probably goes for every writer without rewording.)

•  I ask myself this because it's an extremely difficult one that I constantly ask myself again. Is it organic or planned? Yes. The 'or' is a lie. Depending on the complexity of a story, it may need a great deal of foreshadowing, flashbacks, perspective memories, main characters, coffee, and tissues to cry into (not because of emotional scenes, but just sheer frustration when I bite off more than I can chew). The simpler answer is the story decides. The characters are tools to that end and I may need pieces of their life, experiences or skillset to push forward the answers leading to the main plot. I often start out with one, maybe two characters these days, but they are not always the main characters. It's a fine line I walk since some readers expect a sort of naive insta-bond. Don't know if you've played games like Dragon Age, but I rarely regarded the character I controlled so much as the stories of the characters around me, sometimes bonding with 'side characters' more than my own or even the selected love interest. The writer cannot control how the reader feels about a character, making it necessary to build up even side characters with compelling lives, even if their part is always on the edges. Scene order is mostly decided by how it adds dimension to the story. If you're going to be flat with sides, it better be funny...
• BONUS: 8 Bit Theater. You're welcome.

He's a really nice guy though.

6) What inspires you to write? (Again, no general rewording needed.)

• Introspection. Blogs are mostly in first person, but I have this deep fascination with understanding what people might think of themselves. Fantasy is a place where I can create any number of unknowns to explore, but I find the idea of character growth through struggle appealing regardless of genre. I need a place for my ideas to go because having them isn't enough. I want to teach and entertain. I want to find not just an audience, but maybe even some like minds. I want to grow as a storyteller. I want stories to enhance my creative spirit, my drawing/art, my inner landscape. It's probably easier to ask what doesn't inspire me to write since being uncomfortable or even repulsed doesn't stop my curiosity (although I have hard limits like most people).
• BONUS QUESTION: Okay, so what DOESN'T inspire you?

7) Why fantasy? (Why write in your current genre of choice?)

• The simplest answer is curiosity. Even when I feel I have something to teach, I'm also reaching out to see if someone can catch where it isn't airtight. Fantasy is a vast playground so it's hardly a place where I see any limits in sight. It tells you nothing about the mood, the expectation, the discovery. Murder mystery comes with a certain expectation there, but fantasy can be anything from a light-hearted romance involving mythical races or a bloody battle between two brothers. It can be the traditional fairies, elves, dwarves, trolls, ogres, unicorns, gods, kingdoms, dragons, etc. or it can be a human assaulted by what amounts to nothing more than supernatural harassment, delusions and hallucinations. Ghosts, vampire, werewolves, knights, mermaids, sirens, golems... You get the picture. It can be any number of beloved tropes or a completely deviant concept, set in our world or another entirely. Steampunk, urban, high, low, dark, romance, erotica... the subgenres themselves are staggering. Is it limiting to be a fantasy writer? You're only really as restricted as your expectations. Fantasy is truly a genre for everyone if you care to navigate it.
• BONUS QUESTION: What is your least favorite genre and why don't you try it anyway?

Point is, interview yourself. Every so often, treat your own headspace as a place just as fascinating as the characters that tumble out of it. Humble yourself to your circumstances and experiences, your reasons for pursuing it. I know I didn't answer some of the bonus questions, but I meant for those to be your chance to look into your answers a little farther.  I talk plenty about myself, but I guess I could try to answer them if pressed. For now, call it me being extra. I do that...

Think about your answers, see what it can do for your perspective. Keep writing!