Write Great, Scott
"Rule of Thumb read like the longest, fullest, and most legit Choose My Own Adventure ever
Blog post 1: Writer's process blog tour
So, my friend Brian Rathbone recruited me to write one of these "Writer's Process blog tour" posts and I decided it was high time to write my own blog. This is going to be a bit short by those standards, but I hope it is an interesting experiment. Here are the four points:
1) What am I working on?
At the moment, I'm writing my third book in the "Balance of Power" trilogy - the sci-fi version, so to speak. Brian's readers will recognize that series title, but I hope to make it my own with "Rule of Thumb", "Empire of Fire" and the soon to be released "Heart of Stone."
2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?
The biggest difference between myself and other "near-future sci-fi" writers that I've seen and read is that I like to write in the first person. For example, my first book, Rule of Thumb, is told from the perspective of Adrien Faulk - the protagonist. I feel it puts readers right into the action, BUT they also don't know things if Adrien doesn't know them. Sometimes, this leads to a great sense of surprise during the big reveals.
3) Why do I write what I do?
Science fiction has always been my favorite genre of literature. I cut my teeth on Asimov and Philip K. Dick and then really fell in love with the genre thanks to great 1990s writers like Michael Crichton and Timothy Zahn. I love that in the future, things can be as good (or as bad) as you imagine and with sci-fi you can add some legitimacy by underpinning your flights of fancy with real scientific principles.
4) How does your writing process work?
I'm a huge fan of the Outline. I wrote Rule of Thumb over the course of several years, but always sticking to my original outline. For Empire of Fire, I set out an outline one month and then finished the piece in November 2013 for National Novel Writing Month.
So, who's up next? Check out Britt Ringel over at This Corner of the Universe!