Have you downloaded your Signature Author Background yet? It's there, just waiting for you! Today we're continuing with Signature Week with an interview with Andrew_Q_Gordon on this month's story "Second Shot". Cia presented Andy with a list of questions which he was kind enough to answer and send back for us to share with you. Who knows, maybe one of these questions is one that you had!
Interviewer: Cia
What brought you to GA?
My writing instructor said I needed to join something where I could get feed back on my writing. Her suggestions were all straight boards, so I decided to look for some place that would be predominately gay fiction.
What inspired you to write Second Shot?
A bet. Until I wrote this, most of my writing was fantasy. Someone suggested I try something contemporary. That led me to finding a story. I'm not sure what prompted it, but the first scene I wrote for this was what became chapter 25. Then I filled in before and after.
This was your first story posted on GA, but was it the first story you ever wrote?
The first story would have been a book that is still on yellow legal pages. I wrote it in college for a creative writing class. It's still there, but it needs so much work I almost don't want to think about it.
You had a ton of feedback while writing your story, did you change anything you had planned for the story based on the feedback you received?
Not really, but sorta yes. Now to explain that. Some of the early reviews were grammatical. Some were stylistic. But the story was mostly written when I started to post it, so suggestion really didn't make it into the story. Sure there were a few tweaks here and there, but nothing substantive.
Do you have a favorite review you received on the story?
The real answer is no. Almost all of them were very positive. I made some good friends from the reviews and to single out any one would be impossible. What I can say is that I do miss the back and forth with readers.
GA
is SO different from almost any other site I've come across. On Amazon or Goodreads if an author responds to a reader - even in a positive way, they run the risk of being attacked. (It's true,). In addition, there while there are a lot of positive reviews, some people go just to be nasty.
On
GA
you get the ability to have a real dialogue with readers. They ask, you answer, other read and chime in. I don't find that else where, and I miss it.
So my favorite reviews were the one that made me think, pushed me to respond, and that showed the reader understood what I was trying to do. Those uniformly made my day.
What was the easiest part of writing your story? The hardest part?
The easiest parts were the soccer scenes and the antique cars. I find that when I really "see" a scene in my head, the words come out easier.
The Hardest ones were when I was going for a certain emotional feel. Trying to tweak the words and action just so make it hard to say – okay, there, it's done. I was always going back and changing this sentence or that.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with your readers about your experience while writing Second Shot?
I learned a tremendous amount about writing and readers. Some times it's better to do less and other times more. What I mean is that not every story needs to have every trope you can thing of. I think I feel into that trap a bit here. People like to see their characters in real life situations, but they also want to 'believe' what they're reading. If you write about a character who lurches from one traumatic event to the next and seems to escape unscathed every time, you end up having to suspend your disbelief at some point. Going forward, I've tried to keep my stories more character driven than events. Time will tell if I succeed.
How did you feel when you finally finished writing Second Shot?
Glad and sad. (I sound like a Dr. Seuss book.) Finally writing "the End" was great. I was ready to start other things, and I needed to get this story out of my head first. But spending time with the characters makes it hard to just walk away. It's why people do sequels and companion stories. I don't want to sound like a nut and suggest they are real inside my head, but well formed characters are up there somewhere because you have to approach each scene with the question, what would {insert character here} do? That really forms an attachment with them.
Did you enjoy returning to the world of Second Shot with your follow up story, The Senior Year? Can you give us an idea when you might come back to it?
Very much so. The idea with Senior year is that it is not so much a story as it is a compilation of events that uses these characters. I once asked readers if they had any interest in reading about the every day lives of their favorite characters. I asked because while I do have sequel in my head for Second Shot, it's no where close to being ready to write. But the characters still have life left in them. So would they be interested in short peeks into their lives. The overwhelming answer was a conditional maybe. There needs to be a plot of some kind, tension, conflict and resolution.
So when I returned to Second for the Senior year, that was the theme, it would follow these characters around for Jason and Peter's senior year. But the harder part was finding tension to create along the way, and then have conflict and resolution. My hope is that I'll walk the fine line between too many events, which makes it unbelievable and not enough which makes it boring.
If you don’t have any plans to return to The Senior Year soon, can you tell us what you do have lined up?
Yes, I have plans to return to the Senior year soon. I'm actually writing more chapters. As for what else – I've got so many different projects in the works, that I can't even begin to name them all. Next up for
GA
once Purpose is over will be something new. That should be staring in a couple weeks. Then Senior will return.
Beyond that I have some anthology stories being published and a free fantasy novella that will be published by the Goodreads MM Romance group.
The sequel to the Last Grand Master will be out soon and I've got two other contemporary stories I want to publish one day. I also plan to get back to the sequel to Second Shot. I have the plot roughed out in my head, but just not ready to put it down.
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