Gary Bonn's Blog - Posts Tagged "action-adventure"
Hive Mind Interview with Firedance
How did you come to write Hive Mind? Where did the story come from?
It came out of the blue. My son, Christy, was playing a online community game (UFOAI) that was asking for help. Neither of us are programmers, so I offered to write short stories immersed in the game. Christy did a huge amount of research while I developed story lines and characters. The community loved them and a book developed … then two more.
It’s quite a departure from your Y/A novels. Do you think you’ll return to that genre or is your imagination dragging you to new vistas as we speak?
I would probably have stuck to Y/A had I not been a member of Firedance. Some of the other writers there challenged me to try other genres. As a result I have a pile of manuscripts from humorous fantasy to post-apocalyptic speculative fiction.
How much of your own background influences what you write? Is it homage or therapy?
That reminds me of an editor returning a manuscript and telling me to get therapy before writing another book.
All writers draw from their experience and personality, they are part of the medium. My experiences of working with the mentally ill and teenagers in family therapy certainly helped when I wrote “Expect Civilian Casualties” and “The Evil and the Fear” as did my experience of living as a hunter-gatherer.
You can draw on other people’s experience too. I’ve had friends and relatives immerse me in the culture of Cambridge University (from the perspective of a student) – and have drawn on that for another book.
You have distinctly magical or paranormal elements in your books. Would you prefer to live in a world with magic?
That’s very hard to answer without confusing myself and everyone else. I think there’s more than enough magic around as it is. It depends on how you look at things. Some people may find life bleak and mundane; others may never cease to be in awe of the wonders they live among. I swap between the two.
What did you enjoy most about this book?
Grief … which book were we talking about? Ah yes, Hive Mind. That’s easy. Collaboration with my son – we had such fun.
He had an enormous input. We developed the threads, arcs, acts, planned the narrative tools and every last scene together. He also did a fair quantity of the writing. He learned a huge amount about how books are constructed. It was the most enjoyable creative collaboration in my life. A remarkable achievement for us was the development of invisible threads – each book is a complete novel but if you read two in sequence you find another complete story – likewise if you read all three.
Part of his involvement was “reading aloud” (a great way of editing). He read out everything I wrote while I watched his expressions and looked for the frowns and hesitations of misunderstanding etc. He would put on heavy Yorkshire/German/Welsh/Russian and other accents inappropriate to the characters. It was hard to concentrate and I had to throw balls of paper at him until he stopped (not very effective – we were on Skype).
What drew you to your MC? What qualities do they possess that made them fun to write – and even better fun to read?
In Hive Mind there are five main characters. Jeanette dominates. She’s a caring, overstressed fighter-pilot. She’s also a mother caught in a war – with her children on the front line.
That her struggle became the central theme of the story was a surprise. The story was mainly aimed at young men; you’d expect them to want the male characters to be the focus. However, they loved it and loved Jeanette. It’s hard not to fall in love with her – we all need a Jeanette in our lives.
What’s most difficult about being a writer?
Writing – or finding time to do anything else. It either eludes you, or takes over everything and is utterly exhausting.
Due to having five first-person views Hive Mind was unusually complicated. Managing the time line was the least of the problems. By far the greatest was developing each person, how they related to each other, how these relationships changed and making them all feel and sound different. The best-selling writer Stephen Godden was superb in coaching me through the last.
What’s next for you, Gary. What are you working on now?
I have a backlog of books to edit, but I’m really pleased with the series I’ve just completed (Rude Awakening). It’s set (loosely) in Cambridge University and the main character, Juliet is heaven to work with. I love her caring but blood-axe approach to life. I also love her relationships with her best friend and her strange mother. Juliet falls in love with a man she feels is absolutely the opposite to her dream partner – and that’s been hilarious.
A wonderful memory is that of a book-signing in the Paddock at Emmanuel. I was surrounded by students and baby moorhens.
Some of the students had Kindle copies so I signed Muffy College, Cambridge bookmarks – the humour wasn’t lost on them.
I must stop writing. I have more books waiting for publication – and they all need attention. Don’t let me write another!
One last word...
Hive Mind is to be published September 2015 – it will be free as a Kindle download on the 11th and 12th.
Free parallel chapters can be found here: http://garybonn.com/scifi/
It came out of the blue. My son, Christy, was playing a online community game (UFOAI) that was asking for help. Neither of us are programmers, so I offered to write short stories immersed in the game. Christy did a huge amount of research while I developed story lines and characters. The community loved them and a book developed … then two more.
It’s quite a departure from your Y/A novels. Do you think you’ll return to that genre or is your imagination dragging you to new vistas as we speak?
I would probably have stuck to Y/A had I not been a member of Firedance. Some of the other writers there challenged me to try other genres. As a result I have a pile of manuscripts from humorous fantasy to post-apocalyptic speculative fiction.
How much of your own background influences what you write? Is it homage or therapy?
That reminds me of an editor returning a manuscript and telling me to get therapy before writing another book.
All writers draw from their experience and personality, they are part of the medium. My experiences of working with the mentally ill and teenagers in family therapy certainly helped when I wrote “Expect Civilian Casualties” and “The Evil and the Fear” as did my experience of living as a hunter-gatherer.
You can draw on other people’s experience too. I’ve had friends and relatives immerse me in the culture of Cambridge University (from the perspective of a student) – and have drawn on that for another book.
You have distinctly magical or paranormal elements in your books. Would you prefer to live in a world with magic?
That’s very hard to answer without confusing myself and everyone else. I think there’s more than enough magic around as it is. It depends on how you look at things. Some people may find life bleak and mundane; others may never cease to be in awe of the wonders they live among. I swap between the two.
What did you enjoy most about this book?
Grief … which book were we talking about? Ah yes, Hive Mind. That’s easy. Collaboration with my son – we had such fun.
He had an enormous input. We developed the threads, arcs, acts, planned the narrative tools and every last scene together. He also did a fair quantity of the writing. He learned a huge amount about how books are constructed. It was the most enjoyable creative collaboration in my life. A remarkable achievement for us was the development of invisible threads – each book is a complete novel but if you read two in sequence you find another complete story – likewise if you read all three.
Part of his involvement was “reading aloud” (a great way of editing). He read out everything I wrote while I watched his expressions and looked for the frowns and hesitations of misunderstanding etc. He would put on heavy Yorkshire/German/Welsh/Russian and other accents inappropriate to the characters. It was hard to concentrate and I had to throw balls of paper at him until he stopped (not very effective – we were on Skype).
What drew you to your MC? What qualities do they possess that made them fun to write – and even better fun to read?
In Hive Mind there are five main characters. Jeanette dominates. She’s a caring, overstressed fighter-pilot. She’s also a mother caught in a war – with her children on the front line.
That her struggle became the central theme of the story was a surprise. The story was mainly aimed at young men; you’d expect them to want the male characters to be the focus. However, they loved it and loved Jeanette. It’s hard not to fall in love with her – we all need a Jeanette in our lives.
What’s most difficult about being a writer?
Writing – or finding time to do anything else. It either eludes you, or takes over everything and is utterly exhausting.
Due to having five first-person views Hive Mind was unusually complicated. Managing the time line was the least of the problems. By far the greatest was developing each person, how they related to each other, how these relationships changed and making them all feel and sound different. The best-selling writer Stephen Godden was superb in coaching me through the last.
What’s next for you, Gary. What are you working on now?
I have a backlog of books to edit, but I’m really pleased with the series I’ve just completed (Rude Awakening). It’s set (loosely) in Cambridge University and the main character, Juliet is heaven to work with. I love her caring but blood-axe approach to life. I also love her relationships with her best friend and her strange mother. Juliet falls in love with a man she feels is absolutely the opposite to her dream partner – and that’s been hilarious.
A wonderful memory is that of a book-signing in the Paddock at Emmanuel. I was surrounded by students and baby moorhens.
Some of the students had Kindle copies so I signed Muffy College, Cambridge bookmarks – the humour wasn’t lost on them.
I must stop writing. I have more books waiting for publication – and they all need attention. Don’t let me write another!
One last word...
Hive Mind is to be published September 2015 – it will be free as a Kindle download on the 11th and 12th.
Free parallel chapters can be found here: http://garybonn.com/scifi/
