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Csr Discussion Day: The Phantom By Dark

Cia

Entry posted by Cia in CSR- Can't Stop Reading

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So, the tables turn and the interviewer becomes the interviewee! This month the Discussion day is coming a bit early, but that's so Dark can do a live chat! Make sure you come back for the live chat at noon, Alaska time. Just cause that's not the usual zones, so that will be: Pacific 1 PM, Mountain is 2 PM, Central is 3 PM, and Eastern is 4 PM hours. On to the interview!!

 

Single people work more. Are you single?
Yup. Been single since 2008.

 

Who do you like best, Jerry or Tom?
That takes me back. I always rooted for the cat.

 

Do you eat your fruits and vegetables?
Being in a rural Alaskan village, fruits and vegies are a delicacy, so, yes, as much as I can get and as often as my mom sends them.

 

What are you wearing (and no fibbing!)?
Jeans and a t-shirt, normally, unless it’s during school hours, in which case it’s business casual.

 

Are you a person who makes their bed in the morning, or do you not see much point?
Most of the time I make my bed. I trace that back to my first cat, who would burrow beneath the blankets if the bed was left unmade. He also had a penchant for eating shoelaces, so I learned to put my shoes away, too.

 

Chocolate or Vanilla?
Definitely chocolate, the darker the better.

 

What brought you to the site?
I followed a writer to her blog and she had a list of favorite stories, among them DomLuka’s Desert Dropping.

 

Do your characters try to make like bunnies and create ever more convoluted plots for you? Or do you have to coax them out of your characters?
I’ve had characters do both. Ben and Rick from The One I Want just would not leave me alone for the longest time. They still pop back into my head off and on, harping about the ending to their story (they don’t think it’s done). Then there’s Mordred from The Return, who still takes a lot of coaxing. He doesn’t like being the main character. It’s maddening.

 

Name one entity that you feel supported you in your writing endeavors outside of family members.
I’d say the biggest supporter I’ve had in regards to writing is the woman who became my best friend. We first met on writing.com as part of a round-robin type of writing venture. We wrote together for years and it was only in 2009 (?) that I found out she was almost ten years my junior. I was a bit unnerved. Still, we got over that and she’s been my chief cheerleader ever since. Plus, she’s one of the few people brave enough to say “this sucks” when I write crap. Can’t beat that kind of feedback, lol.

 

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
I find action scenes the hardest to write because words rarely seem like enough after watching the scenes in my head. It’s a repeated criticism I continue to struggle with, that the action gets confusing, that readers have a hard time figuring out who’s doing what in a scene.

 

When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I can remember writing my first stories about my GI Joes and my sister’s Barbies back in 5th grade. That’s also the year I wrote some role-plays with my best friend at school (though I didn’t have words for what we were doing then). I used to dream about being a writer. I would fall asleep at night to the stories in my head. Some of them are still clear even after all this time. I played around with role-plays and short stories (though again without really knowing what I was doing) through high school and wrote one novel in college. But in college I discovered Dungeons and Dragons and writing.com, which switched the vast majority of my writing to role-plays because I felt that I was missing some key element in my writing and besides, writing was just a hobby – engineering and the Air Force was my future. Eventually, I told myself, I would grow up and leave it behind. I didn’t, but my family thought I kicked the habit after that one novel I wrote (no, I never submitted it to a publisher). Sometime in 2007-2008, I got back into writing more seriously, found y-gallery, and wrote The One I Want, the first novel that I seriously considered getting published. It won a writing contest on that site (that was back when it was a series of novellas, one of which was titled TOIW). I think looking at the message from the contest moderators was the moment when I first truly considered myself a writer.

 

How did you come up with the title for The Phantom?
This was a story whose name was actually easy to decide on. The whole story revolves around Mark’s interactions with the entity he names the Phantom. It seemed obvious to me.

 

Did the characters or the plot come to you first?
For almost every story I’ve written, the characters came first. My inspiration was a picture and the characters just popped into my head. I asked the owner of the picture and the author of the characters for permission, and The Phantom began. Now the lead-up to that point is rather convoluted, so I’m going to try and make it understandable.

 

First, there was y-gallery, a website designed for sharing pictures (as in what folks drew on paper or computer tablet) for the M/M genre. Pretty soon people figured out how to add fiction to the site. I was getting into online comics at the time and followed a link to a fansite (or “club” as they’re called on Ygal) for the comic I was reading and slowly started exploring the rest of the site.

 

One of the clubs I discovered was for the old comic Spy vs. Spy. I started following an artist who drew fan-art, which she posted into the fan-club. At first, it was the old, original characters, then they evolved to be more human/realistic, and eventually the artist started adding original characters to the mix.

 

Then the club exploded … with her art and with people clamoring to know more about this world she was building (that was based on the old Spy vs. Spy comic). It got to such a point that she formed her own club and moved all her comics there as she started adding fiction to the mix and inviting others to join in.

 

Next thing I knew, there were alternate reality fan-clubs for these characters in different settings. “Bruce” is the spy name for Mark in the origina club, so named from the shark in Finding Nemo. How that came about is something I don’t remember anymore.

 

I enjoyed all the nonsense as it was a break from the very long days I was putting in working full time and going to school part-time. I was taking 9 credit hours at the time, plus my volunteer hours. I spent a lot of time on the train, which left plenty of opportunities in my day to read.

 

So, one day I saw a new club (spin-off of the new original club, do you follow me?) based around this superhero theme. One of the pictures posted was of Bruce and Sheila, intrepid reporters. I was hooked and just had to write a fanfiction to go with the fanart of the original characters that were themselves born from fanart of the original comic.
Capiche?

 

If The Phantom were made into a movie, who do you picture playing each characters part?
I could see Taye Diggs as Bruce, perhaps. He has just the right blend of comedic and seriousness for the part (not to mention being really handsome). He might be too short, though. The guy who played the Hulk has the right look for Sheila, as I envision him, anyway. He was a villain on the latest Star Trek film, one of the Romulans.

 

What sort of coffee would your characters order? Simple coffee, complicated soy-non-fat-extra-espresso-half-caff-nightmare?
I think Bruce only drinks coffee thick enough for a spoon to stand upright, but Sheila probably drinks his blond (with cream). They both drink too much of it to worry about the fru-fru stuff. In fact, I find it difficult to envision Sheila waiting in line for one.

 

What was your favorite part of the story?
My favorite part of the story was finding ways to incorporate as many different references to the fan-clubs and various sci-fi films as I could. That and using the old text-speak. :evil: I know, I date myself, but it was fun trying to stump my readers, knowing that they also followed the same artists and infinity-loop of fan-clubs. There are hidden gems in there for the loyal readers, like a scavenger hunt, not like I do that with any of my other work at all…. :P

 

What are your future projects?
Currently, finishing The Return is my top priority. Next to that, I have waiting a story about teenaged ninjas in an alternate, future Earth, and a space opera featuring a sentient A.I., dragons, and time-travel.

 


Some great answers! Thank you, Dark! Okay, don't forget to leave your questions for Dark or come back for the live interview.

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Cia
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No questions for Dark? I'll start, then!

 

How often do you write? Is it an every day thing, or when you can squeeze in the time?

 

Do you feel your writing has progressed/changed since you wrote The Phantom to your current project, The Return? How?

 

If you were to re-write The Phantom now, would you change anything?

  • Like 1
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K.C.

When do find that your creativity usually strikes you? Washing your hair? Mowing lawn? jogging?  Please tell :P

 

Do you blare music or need it silent to work through the writing process?

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Mann Ramblings

Dark, you have a ton of completed stories here. What are you currently working on? Something new or will you be returning to any of your "On Hold" works?

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Dark

@ Cia, so cheerful so early in the day and then to hit me with questions I have to think about?  :o  Evil.

 

@K.C.  It's okay, I'm here early as well.

 

I'll answer your question first .... Creativity strikes usually when most inconvenient, those times when there's no pad of paper close to hand.  I was told once that most creativity occurs when our bodies are focused on some task it's done hundreds of times, allowing our minds to wander.  It certainly seems to be true for me.  Washing dishes, showering, walking around the community, these are when I get the flashes of inspiration.  I have yet to find a suitable method of capturing these moments for creative fiction.  Most of the time, the relaxation serves as a tool for regaining my mental focus for school work.

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Andy78

What do you use when writing your first drafts?  Do you write everything on PC/laptop, or do you enjoy the feel of pen on paper?

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Dark

How often do you write? Is it an every day thing, or when you can squeeze in the time?

 

I write when I can squeeze in the time.  So much of my day is consumed with writing the non-fiction curriculum for my classes that I don't get too much "fun" time.  I work every day, so when I get some down time, I'm usually too exhausted to do more than allow myself to sink into someone else's world for a few minutes.  Still, I am at my best when writing when I have a time set aside for it.  I used to write on the train and bus during my daily commute, but I haven't been able to have a set schedule since becoming a teacher full-time.

 

Do you feel your writing has progressed/changed since you wrote The Phantom to your current project, The Return? How?

 

My writing has definitely changed.  The Phantom was written as little more than amusement for my friends.  It's not anything I would consider "serious" writing and I'd say there's a definite difference between it and most of my other writing.  The only ones that come close were written for the same group of people:  The Toll of the Troll and Butterflies of Death.

 

If you were to re-write The Phantom now, would you change anything?

 

Sadly, I think I would change some of the things I like the best, like removing some of the text-speak (it's practically obsolete now) and private references.  Ultimately, the goal would have to be making it more acceptable to a wider audience.  That's probably why I've never gone back and edited it.  :P

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Dark

Dark, you have a ton of completed stories here. What are you currently working on? Something new or will you be returning to any of your "On Hold" works?

 

I plan to finish The Return, one of the ones on hold.  It bugs the ever-living crap out of me that I haven't been able to finish it as it is one of my very favorite stories and Mordred is the brainchild of my best friend.  The story is mostly a gift to her, born from something we'd worked on eons ago.  I've attacked the story from many different aspects and main characters, and this one works, even if Mordred is a pain in the behind to work with.  LOL.  I do have scenes written down for the characters and my outline.  There's just no words for the on-going exhaustion I've been fighting since coming out here to Chevak and realizing the magnitude of the job facing me.  I'll get to it, I swear I will, but the going is slow indeed.

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Dark

What do you use when writing your first drafts?  Do you write everything on PC/laptop, or do you enjoy the feel of pen on paper?

 

I prefer to write on paper first, but I have a wrist injury in my dominant hand, so writing becomes painful very quickly, whereas typing I can do for hours at a time with far less discomfort.  Typically these days, I jot down quick notes in my notebook, quotes, parts of scenes, that sort of thing, and then flesh it out on he computer.  So, I guess I write my drafts on my laptop and the paper is mostly for brainstorming.

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Dark

You said many of us know your feelings about vampires. I do not. Care to elaborate?

 

Oh, uh, that is I'm not a fan.  I've been inteviewed before and was asked this, and this particular genre seems to pop up often just in conversation.

 

I did read Interview with a Vampire a few years ago, but found it quite depressing, though it was an interesting read.  I watched the TV show Angel for a season in college, but confess it was really to watch David Boreanez.  :P 

 

Other than that?  Yeah, not so much a vampire fan.  I have no idea what all the craze and hoopla is about.  I don't care for the typical werewolf stuff either, although I think that stems mostly from my loathing of insta-love in the romance genre and for whatever reason, werewolf-fiction is chock-full of it.

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Andy78

You said you would change some of the things you liked best in the story if you were going to rewrite it. 

 

Is there anything that, looking back, you wish you had written in?

 

Were there things that you edited out that you wish you hadn't?

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Dark

Well, it was written as something of a joke, and it's not much more than a first draft.  I suppose I'd write in more descriptions of actions, as there are long passages with only dialogue.  I could wish for Grey Matter's involvement to be less disjointed, or that I'd given Sheila more horror upon having a guy killed right in front of him.  I also wanted more of a love story for Nico...

 

But I left out a lot because I didn't need to explain to the target audience at the time, and because I was using someone else's characters and the constraints upon them by their creators.  I also loved the idea of a story about two friends, rather than a typical romance.  As I explained to Bruce's writer, sure Nico could be attracted to him, but in the "canon" for the series, Bruce was in love with someone else.  I may not have liked it, but I wasn't going to mess with it.  That just felt wrong.

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Ron

When writing, what aspect of it do you find being the easiest for you? What is the hardest?

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Dark

Do you have a character of yours, favorite or not-so-favorite, that you're drawn to more than any other?

 

There is Bryce, who almost took over Wayon's Crossing, but I think the character I love the most who has not had his own story told is Karadur (from the same story).  His is an interesting back story that I've played around with a little, but not been able to put into words.  He was a spoiled, favorite son taken into the priesthood and turned into a killer, who later rose to command not one but two King's Guard and his daughter's Queen's Guard.  He helped destroy Azil's family but falls in love with him, fails in conquering the World of Light and decides to live in the twilight, keeping his love secret and protecting a scrawny street kid who turns out to the the bastard prince.  I love the crazy twists and turns in his long life and really wish I could come up with a way to tell his story like it deserves to be told.

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Dark

Do you blare music or need it silent to work through the writing process?

 

Sorry, missed this one!  :P

 

I generally put on Pandora to whatever mood suits and let it play.  When I get in the zone, nothing around me matters much anyway.  I wrote Ashton's Place in about 3 hours of uninterrupted time.  It took days, by contrast, to write some of the chapters for The Phantom, because something always seemed to happen to either prevent my concentrating or pull me out of it.

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Dark

When writing, what aspect of it do you find being the easiest for you? What is the hardest?

 

I have always loved to write dialogue and I really got to play with this in the Phantom.  Painting a picture of a character through their words or actions is something I feel like I do well.  I've done the 'looking-in-a-mirror-describing-myself thing and felt horrible awkward doing it.  I'm like that in person, too.  Like, I describe my friends and family by who they are, not what they look like, and it comes out this way in my writing as well.  I have often found myself lost for words (however briefly) when asked, "yeah, but what does he(she) look like?"  To me, I guess that part doesn't matter so much, unless it's an unusual feature that sticks out. 

 

It's both a blessing and a curse, because I've had readers do both, on one hand thanking me for leaving room to imagine what somebody looks like and on the other complaining that they never know what anyone looks like.

 

I dunno, it just feels foreign to me to say, "he's 6 ft 2 in and 200 lbs with brown hair and eyes and a mustache."  It's way more comfortable to say "he's about the most laid-back person I know, smiling and throwing jokes around, playing like someone half his age."  So, that's the way I write.

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Dark

If you could pass on one piece of advice to new and aspiring writers what would it be?

 

My advice is to do the one thing I'm failing at doing right now:  make the time.  Find some time during the day to write and just write, even if you throw it out the next day.  It's like I have to tell my struggling readers: if you don't practice reading, you'll never get better.  Great athletes don't get good at their sport without practicing; likewise, writers can't improve if we don't write.

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AC Benus

well, I'm really late to the game... I just found this today, and read every word! Fantastic interview, Cia, and fantastic answers and interaction with your fans, Dark.

 

This is great. I've learned so much about you and your work. 

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