Ask the Author: Jim Tilley
Answered Questions (11)
Jim Tilley
Funny. Btw, you'll find several typos in the text. The copyeditors missed a bunch and even inadvertently added a back slash. Oh well!
Jim Tilley
Yes, indeed, Merry Christmas.
Jim Tilley
I don't do horror stories; I scrupulously avoid horror books and horror films. Ask someone else--still, please note that this is, as you asked, merely two sentences, thanks to the glory of the semi-colon and what aspired to be an em dash!
Jim Tilley
Years ago, my answer would be back to a children's world, a seat at Hogwarts. But now I appreciate fiction that is much closer to reality, one in which the settings are real. So my down-to-earth answer is simply Cape Cod. As I cross the Sagamore Bridge, it's as if Brigadoon lies on the other side. All summer long it feels that way. I walk, walk, walk, and read, read, read. I take conservation-association walks and am never able to get my fill of halibut, lobster, crab, and scallops. The return trip back to mainland is not one I look forward to.
Jim Tilley
The summer is all but over Since July, I've read The Capital, Peace, The Leavers, Dual Citizens, Big Sky, Lost and Wanted, The Body in Question, Weather Woman, Machines Like Me, Pigs, The Nickel Boys, and We Must Be Brave.
Jim Tilley
Marveling at wind turbines, at whole farms of them, reading articles by people for them and against them. Then thinking more broadly about the environment and inventing a character whose life, viewed from outside, is a conflict between his personally cherishing the environment and his continuing success as a lawyer in defeating environmentalists who bring lawsuits against his big-energy clients. From that starting point, I could imagine how other characters fit into his life, some from the past and some who'd he meet during the course of the novel.
Jim Tilley
By reading. Seeing how other authors handle the key elements of a novel--the narration, the dialogue, scenes, character development, etc.
Jim Tilley
I've just started taking notes for a second novel. That includes a few character sketches and a rough idea, the details still unformed, of story's broad narrative arc.
Jim Tilley
Remember to read your work out loud. Find an empty room and walk around in it reading selections from your manuscript. If they don't sound right, if they bore you because you'd rather skip ahead to a particular narrative or scene or dialogue, then you've learned something. That you must revise, revise, revise. Be willing to throw out most of your writing until you find the stuff that sounds right.
Jim Tilley
It enhances the reading experience. You read differently once you've worked hard at writing something.
Jim Tilley
I go for a long walk to let the mind unblock. I think about a math puzzle, letting number magic take over for a while until word magic returns.
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