Last week, Author Michael Nye was kind enough to submit to an email interview. Michael has published a short story collection, Strategies Against Extinction, and a novel, All The Castles Burned, which I reviewed on Goodreads. Another story collection is slated for publication next year. Today he tells us a little about how to write a book.
All The Castles Burned
Despite its title and the usual sort of books I review, Castles isn’t a fantasy story (ha-ha), but rather a contemporary literal novel about a fish-out-of-water student at an exclusive, private high school navigating suburban life with a strange family and even stranger friends. Reading Castles, I enjoyed observing the secret life of boys, wild, exotic creatures that they are.
Michael Nye, Teacher and Editor
Michael is the Associate Director of Communications at Ohio State University and editor of the literary journal, Story Magazine.We go way back to the Creative Writing Program at Washington University in St. Louis, where Michael was my teacher for Microfiction. (And I sold a story I wrote for that class, so—that should mean something, right?) What better person for some pro tips on how to write a book?
Virtual Author Interview
Since I’ve been blogging about how writers create fictional characters, our interview opens with a few questions on that topic.
Character Creation
Kathy: All The Castles Burned is full of unique, memorable characters. How do you generally develop a fictional character? Was the process for Castles any different? Does short story differ from novel?
Michael: Usually a situation comes to me—a scene, a moment, something like that—and I start wondering “Who would get in such a pickle?” or “Okay, then what?” and a character starts from there. I often am stuck, for a very long time, on a name, which I don’t have an explanation or reason for, and I spend days trying to consider the appropriate name for a person. From there, I often drill down, and think about and free-write on a character with no regard for the story, just trying to get a sense of the person I’m imagining.
With my novel, Owen was always a person who had life experiences similar to mine, so I kept searching for ways to distinguish him from myself. Often, the best way to do that, once my drilldown is complete(-ish) is to have a character interact with another character. How does Owen act with his father? Mother? The headmaster? His teammates? Around girls, a waitress, a shop clerk? I find this really useful because we all take on different roles and personas based on who we are interacting with. I’m trying to nail down a personality when, in fact, our personalities are often fluid.
“We all take on different roles and personas . . .”
With a short story, there is a lot of compression around, I think, a single theme or emotion. Not always, but that requires a focus on a particular quality of a character or a period of time in her/his life. It probably isn’t very different at all, the more I think about it.
Kathy: English major to English major, do you think reader expectations of characters complexity have changed over the past two hundred years? In what ways?
Michael: Oh, I don’t think so. My first thought is of the complexity of characters we see in film and television: Tony and Carmella Soprano, Don Draper, Walter White, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, and so forth, often shown across multiple seasons. Viewers love to see characters who are full of multitudes and rich contradictions.
Because film and television are now our mass entertainment the way radio and books used to be, I thought about those characters first: it’s hard to come up with contemporary characters from fiction that everyone has read. But, regardless of preferred genre or style, every reader wants an immersion of character. I don’t believe that’s gone away. Especially since American audiences embrace the voice of first-person, character-driven novels, I think we seek more complexity, not less.
“I think we seek more complexity, not less.”
Autobiography In a Novel
Kathy: Is All The Castles Burned an autobiographical book, or is it just drawn that way? How annoying is it to be asked about autobiographical elements in your fiction?
Michael: Somewhat? The autobiographical elements of my novel are the father and the school. My father was a chemical technician for a Fortune 500 company who also, unknown to my family, was a thief. And I did attend a private school in Cincinnati for a few years. Other than that, the main parts of the story—an older, dangerous friend, city championships in basketball, a love interest—were all made up.
To be honest, I thought the autobiographical elements would come up more as I was promoting and marketing the novel, and it didn’t. I think the “is this really you?” question gets asked more of female authors rather than male authors. I had mixed feelings about leaning hard on the autobiography of this book, and since it wasn’t pushed hard by me or my publisher, I think those type of questions were never asked. Which is fine. I’m more concerned about the novel being compelling and worth reading rather than the marketing of it.
“I’m more concerned about the novel being compelling and worth reading . . .”
Pro Tips on How to Write a Book
Kathy: What is your writing process? How does the process for fiction differ from nonfiction?
Michael: I wake up at five AM and write for about two hours before going to do my day job. I have long written better in the morning when my home is quiet and still. Frequently, I write by hand, which I find better for focus and concentration, and edit on the computer. I have no idea how many drafts I go through, which varies from story to story, novel to novel, but if I was guessing, I would say “five drafts.” That sounds good. FIVE.
I very rarely write nonfiction, although I wrote a couple of essays around the publication of my novel—the kind of “Essay Promoting Publication” that have become more common nowadays. I feel mixed about them. They’re okay. I have plenty of discarded and incomplete essays on my computer. I suppose I just find writing fiction more interesting than writing nonfiction.
Storytelling as Reader Engagement
Kathy: What does storytelling mean to you?
Michael: Engagement. You know, divorced from the way the word is used in corporate double speak or social media measurements. Engagement to me is when the reader feels active in the story, feels pulled in, in whatever way that might mean: On character, on story, on language. But to feel something, a sense of emotional involvement. I prefer that to “entertainment” which feels a bit too passive, like we are sitting back demanding to be amused. Do I sound like a moron here? I might. Have I even answered your question? I have no idea.
“Engagement . . . is when the reader feels active in the story . . .”
Kathy: You’re not a moron at all. And thank you so much. Good luck with the magazine and the new story collection.
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Updated April 29, 2020: Michael Nye’s new collection of short stories, Until We Have Faces, will be published in July, 2020. Preorder now from your favorite local independent bookseller or online.