Dearest Readers,
I'm ready to go on my honeymoon. The wedding was awesome and I expect the honeymoon to be a great topper. But we'll get to that when I get back.
In the meantime, I wanted to make sure I posted the interview I had with Dave Farland. He was gracious, entertaining, full of great info, and his new book Nightingale seems like it's already poised to be a hit. Our chat follows:
Me: Thank you so much for spending some time on PicLitSavvy. I know you
must be very busy with your new book.
Dave: No worries. I'm delighted to be here!
Me: Nightingale is the first in your new YA series. Tell us a little
about it.
Dave: It's the story of a young man named Bron, abandoned at birth and raised in foster care, rejected at home after home, who begins to discover at the age of 16 that he isn't even human. Instead, he's from a species very similar to humans who have coexisted with us for hundreds of thousands of years.
As he begins to discover what he really is, he suddenly becomes central to a struggle between his parents that has incredibly far-reaching consequences.
Me: Is this an open-ended series are do you plan on a certain number of
books?
I plan a certain number of books. I've come to believe over the years that a "open-ended" story generally suffers for not having a goal in mind, a definitive climax, and is thus weaker than it could be. So I'm aiming for four novels with this series, no more, no less.
Me: The character of Bron is a foster child and you paint his world with
such heartbreak. Then he gets adopted by, of all things, a high school drama
teacher who—trying not to give too much away—shows Bron just how “unique” he
really is. Do you have any experience with foster children or the theater?
Dave: My wife was raised in foster care, so she provided a lot of information. Dare I say it, she was the inspiration for Bron? Beyond that, we've taken in exchange students quite a bit, so we've had nearly thirty students in the past ten years. Nearly all of them are in high-school.
Me: Do you do a lot of research before you start to write?
Dave: Yes. Very often, I will spend more time researching a novel than writing it. For my first book, I read a hundred books on science, philosophy and poetry to write just one novel. With my most recent book prior to NIGHTINGALE, IN THE COMPANY OF ANGELS, I spent a couple of years researching, but just one year of writing.
Me: Your career spans over twenty years now with dozens of projects to
your credit, like video game books, the Star Wars books, short stories,
stand-alone novels. What types of projects still get you excited after so
many years in the story-telling business?
Dave: All of them! I love writing. I love studying. I love doing something new. I just wrote a screenplay for the Runelords movie, for example. I'd love to get that made. I've recently been hired to create a MMORPG, so I get to devise an entire world and its magic systems. I feel like a kid in a candy shop.
Me: You’re using Nightingale to launch your own publishing company, East
India Press, and you’re issuing both eBook and print versions of your new
novel. Why did you want to publish this book yourself and what have some of
the challenges been in adapting your career to a digital format?
Dave: The publishing world is a mess. The publishers are losing money, so they're offering authors terrible deals--deals that I won't even consider. While most of the publishers are offering bad deals, some of them even appear to be crooked.
Agents that I've admired for decades are now responding by starting their own publishing companies, a move that creates a conflict of interest with their authors. This is both illegal and a terrible business practice, yet some of the top agents in the world are jumping in with both feet.
So authors, if they're smart, realize that they need to walk away from these deal. That means that we need to publish ourselves. But over three million e-books are to be published this year. So the markets will be flooded.
Thus, the real issue before any author is, "How do I get noticed in the new electronic format?"
We decided that quality work--a great book with over a hundred illustrations and its own sound track, among other things--is part of the equation.
But promoting the work in new media--through social networks, for example--is just as important.
Me: The enhanced ebook edition has author’s notes and a soundtrack. What
are some other things you see coming down the pike for eBooks in the future?
I think each project will cry out for its own individual treatment. For example, I can imagine that many books might lend themselves to film clips. I don't think that I want to throw video games into the middle of a book in most cases--it would be too distracting for the reader--but I certainly think that there is plenty of room for musical interludes. I like to write songs to put in my stories.
Actually, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. Let's just say that I can think of some cool ways to create multimedia experiences that would make the novel more effective. In other words, I want to use multimedia to "enhance" the story, not slow it down or compete with it.
Me: Finally, I know you’ve been working on producing a movie version for
your Runelords series. How are you progressing?
Dave: The press releases will begin flying in a couple of weeks. Let's just say that we're ready to begin pitching in Hollywood. I'm really optimistic. I have a lot of fans in very high places in Hollywood, so I believe that we'll get a great film made. I know that the script is great, because I wrote it myself.
Me: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat on PicLitSavvy and good
luck with Nightingale.
Dave: Thank you, once again!
