Ask the Author: R.J. Dearden
Answered Questions (6)
R.J. Dearden
I had the idea for "The Realignment Case" on a trip to Geneva on a totally unofficial tour of the United Nations with a friend. I passed by sleeping diplomats, hushed meetings and rearranged the country tags in the black conference room. Did you know UN employees don't pay any tax - at all? So I started imagining what would happen if I invented my own secret organisation in Geneva, what sort of people would work there and what they would get up to? How if they had a powerful tool, what they might do with that power? In my mind, "The Department" is a mix of the UN, Cern and FIFA. Like one of those organisations it is riddled with corruption, like another, it is full of good intentions, and like another, it is stuffed full of brilliant scientists.
R.J. Dearden
I have an idea, sometimes just a thought "wouldn't that be cool?" and then start trying to think what characters would fit into that story. When they become 'real' the idea suddenly starts becoming an organic project and the original idea changes or bends to the character's will or inner dynamics. This is the beautiful part ... seeing a scene in your mind's eye and then making it real, enriching it with detail and then layering in suspense and plot.
R.J. Dearden
I'm working on a sci-fi dystopian novel called "The Grubber". It's set in 2065.
R.J. Dearden
Join a writers' group. Read your work aloud. Take criticism. Work on your characters. Then work on your characters some more. And write whenever the opportunity presents itself. Whilst you're doing all this, be always thinking how you can surprise your reader. And never talk, talk, talk your project away. Some writers spend so much time talking about what they're writing it's not surprising so little makes it down onto paper. Be tightlipped about your current work unless in the security of your writers' group ... or are in the presence of a top publishing house who are waiving their cheque book in the air. It's ok to talk then.
R.J. Dearden
Seeing a project through from start to finish and knowing the reader is thrilled by it. Creating characters who have depth and are three dimensional, who have flaws and redeeming values. Surprising yourself by starting out with one plan but writing it totally differently because the characters reacted in unexpected ways.
R.J. Dearden
There's no such thing as "writer's block" ... I mean I've never seen it as a condition in a medical journal. Not a pretty analogy but think of the so called blockage as "writer's constipation." You just need to eat a tin or two of the proverbial prunes until ...ahem .. the problem is flushed out of your system. Try getting in a car and driving down the motorway with a voice recorder on and talk into that until you have workshopped a problem away. Also, if you can't write it's probably because your characters aren't talking to you which means (sorry) they're not good characters. So go back to your characterisation until they won't shut up. You'll find the characters do the heavy lifting from this point on, relieving the pressure from you the writer. Of course all this is nuts but hey ho ... many writers will know what I'm talking about.
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