Who's ready for another Author Promo? This month we are taking a look at William King. William was asked to pick up to three stories and answer the three questions: What gave you the idea for this story? What was your favorite thing about writing this story? & Please tell us something about this story that is not already in the description. If you would like to do an author promo for the blog, please check out the blog feature opportunities thread.
6 stories · 116 reviews · 109,393 total words
Description: Alex and Matty have been best friends like forever, but all that changes the day that Matty says he's gay!
What gave you the idea for this story?
The idea for the story of Matty and Alex's relationship came from the first chapter originally just a short story about two best friends who reveal to each other that they are gay. As the novel builds and introduces other characters, we meet Jake, an older guy who hits on Alex. There are other things going on in the background concerning Alex's group of school friends, but the main storyline is the interplay between Alex, Jake, and Matty. The book poses, but never resolves, the question as to whether or not three people can love each other and live together as a 'ménage à trois'.
What was your favorite thing about writing this story?
All my stories contain elements of personal experience, I don't think they would be real if they did not. The most extraordinary thing about writing this book, in fact any of my books, is the character development, the way in which the characters take on a life of their own and live. I have confined the story limits by giving attention and detail to the three principle characters, but if that were not the case, any of the characters could be developed, but of course that would tell a different story.
Please tell us something about this story that is not already in the description.
You are told that any story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Broadly speaking this is true, but I tend to blur the edges of this concept, because this story is a cameo from the lives of Alex, Jake, and Matty. It could quite easily continue to tell what happens later between the three of them, the end is purposely left open, a sequel is always possible. This is interesting for me as a writer because it allows me to step back, it gives time for reflection, and that freedom lets the theme for the possible subsequent novel emerge. The continuation of the story presents itself, I don't need to invent it, it's there saying 'write me!'
Description: Amidst the drama and choas of a journey interrupted by dreams and different realities, is a quest to find the one person who can deliver the means to discover the answer which will allow all the pieces of the puzzle to reveal the whole.
What gave you the idea for this story?
A paragraph written by a friend on Facebook inspired the story which is why it is set in Mexico, although that fact is not specifically stated until the end. It's not your usual type of story, although it is strangely enough a romance. Nevertheless, as one reader commented, "it borders on the surreal." Reality, dreams, past and present are blurred at the edges and interwoven into the narration of a journey.
What was your favorite thing about writing this story?
It presented an enormous challenge to me as a writer, how to progress the story so as to encompass three different threads - the journey through a hot dessert landscape, the other reality of the Palace and it's gardens, the boy Demitri from the narrator's past. To do this in such a way so as not to lose the reader completely, but to allow them to guess at what was going on. What were all the pieces that would fit together to reveal the puzzle.
Please tell us something about this story that is not already in the description.
In chapter 7 the narrator arrives at La Terraza Sobre el Mar (The Terrace Over the Sea), it's the chapter title. This is a real location, when I was describing it I was remembering the Café Hafa in Tangier. I relocated it from Morocco to Mexico!
Here's the description from Wikipedia:
"Café Hafa is a cafe in Tangier, Morocco, located along the cliff top overlooking the Bay of Tangier. Opened in 1921, the cafe has retained its 1920s style of decor and through the years has been visited by numerous writers and singers, from Paul Bowles and William S. Burroughs, to The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The cafe is known for its mint tea, a Tangier special brew.
With its simplicity, with its dominance over the Strait of Gibraltar, with its plastic chairs, its tables with tablecloths, with its blue walls, with its trees that grow without concern to none and with charm to which no one can resist, the Café Hafa has built its glory, its history and its reputation that crossed borders and have inspired numerous international writers."
I wouldn't presume to class myself as an 'international writer', but it did inspire me.
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