An interview with author Randall Allen Dunn!
Action. Adventure. Infinite Possibility. These are the first words that greet you when you check out Randall Allen Dunn’s website. I met Randall at an Indie Author Day event hosted by Schaumburg Library. Impressed by his work, I finally nabbed him for an interview!
Hi Randall – thanks again for taking the time to be interviewed! Let’s begin with telling us a little bit more about who Randall Allen Dunn is.
When did you know that you wanted to be a writer?
I was encouraged by a 2nd grade teacher for some poems I wrote in class, and I got good responses and laughs from classmates for some stories I wrote in grade school and middle school. I think I was in 6th grade when I knew I wanted to write.
How did you develop the idea for DEN?
I heard a tragic news story about a woman who was stalked and killed by a man she met through online gaming. They said she did all the right things to deflect his advances and keep things from getting dangerous, but sadly, she was still killed. I thought it would be intriguing to have a story in which a girl was made into a game, where someone tried to stalk her and trap her into playing the game in order to escape. I didn’t have a theme in mind when I started, but I quickly landed on the idea of people’s attempts to be perfect – to do all the right things – and be confounded by the fact that bad things still happen to good people, and we need to learn how to deal with that and keep moving through life.
Which characters were the most fun to develop? Which were the most challenging?
I loved creating the villain, Gunther Grater. I wanted a computer nerd villain, but when I pictured that type of villain, I remembered all the nerd baddies from old movies and TV shows, where they were scrawny and wimpy social outcasts who escaped into science or computer studies, then used them for evil purposes. I wanted my villain to be threatening physically as well as intellectually. So I made him tall and fat, but in a beefy way, with gorilla-like arms that could pin or strangle someone with ease. I’m really happy with the way he turned out, especially when he first appears, after Amy Raven muses over the reasons he makes her nervous. When he suddenly appears behind her, the description of his persona cement him as a very scary guy, and you can feel the same fear that Amy feels around him. It was very gratifying to create a more original villain and make him a serious threat.
I also really enjoyed creating the twin archers, Todd and Troy Dugan. Especially when I worked out some of their backstory. I was actually surprised and shocked to discover that they had three girls currently locked up in their tool shed back in Wisconsin. There were a few disturbing revelations like that, that came to me as I worked out details of who these people were and how they had come to this point in life, where they would participate in a manhunt to stalk and capture an innocent girl. So that was difficult, thinking through the backstory and discovering some unsettling things about these characters. Of course, I came up with those unsettling ideas, but I used them because they naturally fit, and they still disturbed me when I chose them and realized how much sense it made. I had an idea that the Dugans had kidnapped other girls in the past, but when I started working out their history, I was shocked to realize those poor girls were still there!
What are your plans long-term for your writing? Do you have additional/different works in mind?
I have a lot of plans, but too little time to write them all out. I’m publishing the sequel to The Red Rider this June, called Red Rider Revolution, and publishing the third novel in 2018. It’s a thriller series about a teenage Red Riding Hood fighting werewolves, kind of like Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Batman.
I’m also starting a children’s fantasy trilogy later this year and a second High Adventure book next year, which is an Indiana Jones-style action-adventure series based in Africa. Later on, I plan to start a spy series and a Twilight Zone-style series.
As a self-published author, I share the challenge of getting the word out on my works. What have you had to do to win broader exposure and branding for your books?
Fortunately, I’ve met some other authors who are very active in promoting one another and they’ve been great at reviewing my work and inviting me to several blogging events with other authors. So I’m gradually finding the right audience, and more and more readers who are really excited about my work.
This question will start off sounding like an old joke – a person walks into a bar (or convention or bookstore) and bumps into Randall Allen Dunn – what would be your elevator pitch to showcase your work?
If you find you don’t have enough time to read, try reading a movie! I write action thrillers that read more like blockbuster action films. Larger-than-life heroes squaring off against diabolical villains and facing deep moral dilemmas. Always action-packed, always fun, always filled with memorable characters and entertaining scenes of action, drama, romance, or comedy, or a little of each.
As an author, it’s sometimes difficult to finally say a product is finished, no matter how many times you review or edit. Is there anything you would go back and change in your stories? Where there ideas you had in mind and then decided NOT to include?
It’s funny how your ideas change when you’re actually writing the story. In The Red Rider, there’s a scene where the main character, Helena, attacks some bad guys in a barn. I originally pictured her approaching them from outside the barn, but when I was writing the scene, I realized it would make no sense for her to position herself there, so I changed it. I have a scene in Den where the bad guys are hunting the heroine, Amy Raven, through a maze, and I pictured it being a suspenseful slow-paced stealth scene. But when I wrote the story, the characters were all running so fast there was no way they could slow down, even in a maze where they weren’t sure where they were going. So it became an all-out action chase instead of a hide-and-seek tiptoe scene. I have a solid blueprint in my mind for what will happen in most scenes of my stories, but it can change instantly when I’m actually writing it out, especially if a character is real enough to make other choices than the ones I planned for them!
I have a 4 year old son, and structuring time around him can be challenging! I’ve lost count of the times he nearly pressed the delete button on something I was working on…how do you find time to write your stories?
Well … I don’t. Lately I’ve been doing so much promoting, while being busy at home with my wife and I both working, raising our kids and trying to limit our trips to the ER for one illness or another, and trying to get my kids to grasp that my writing time is actually important – it just gets hard to make time for it. At my former jobs, I would write during my lunch hour. Now I work from home, and my half hour gives me barely enough time to eat lunch and make any calls or other tasks I need to do before I’m back at work. To get anything done, I have to either stay up later – like between 10pm and midnight or later – or get up early, like 5am, when I can. It doesn’t help that my six-year old son keeps waking himself up at 6am, no matter how late he goes to bed.
Do you have a certain method you use when you write – i.e., a certain room, music, mood, etc., to help get you in the right writing frame of mind?
Sometimes I listen to music, but it usually distracts me. I only use it to tune out other noise, if I’m writing in the same room where someone’s watching TV. But my normal writing method is this: I write out notes of scenes and plot ideas for the story I’ve come up with. As I get more invested in the idea, I listen to movie soundtrack CD’s for music that helps me picture certain scenes of the story. I can mentally map out a lot of the action while I’m driving and listening to the music. When I feel I have enough material that I’m comfortable to start writing the story from the beginning, I jump into it, and I add in scenes that are already written out from my notes, when they come up in the story. When I finish my writing time, I always leave off in the middle of a word, typing enough of it that I’ll remember what the word was. The next time I resume writing, I can continue writing out that sentence as if I never took a break from it, because I’m instantly back in the flow of my previous thoughts.
I write out my first draft, then start on the drudgery of creating backstories for all the major characters, and some details for the minor ones. I have to figure out details of the characters’ history and what dates or events are significant to them, such as their birthday, death of a close relative, their wedding anniversary, etc., so I know exactly how they feel at certain times of the year and how they relate to other characters, who also have significant events that might coincide.
Once that’s finally done, I write the second draft. Having done the backstories, I now have a much clearer and more believable portrayal of the story characters and everything becomes much more concrete. I can then submit the second draft to beta readers for feedback, to tell me about any typos or story problems. I take their feedback, decide what things need to be adjusted and what things can stay the way they are, and then I publish it. This is based on Stephen King’s instructions in On Writing, where he says to write two drafts and a polish.
What are you reading right now?
I’m reading a fellow author’s story draft to give him some feedback. We agreed to help each other out that way, and he gave me outstanding feedback on Den. I’m also reading some library books about how to draw comic book superheroes, for a coloring book I plan to create soon.
Where can readers go to find out more about Randall Allen Dunn?
You can find my books online at places like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords, as well as Goodreads. I’m active on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, and you can follow my Packing Action blog and subscribe to my newsletter at www.RandallAllenDunn.com.
Thanks Randall, for sharing some of your time!
Hi Randall – thanks again for taking the time to be interviewed! Let’s begin with telling us a little bit more about who Randall Allen Dunn is.
When did you know that you wanted to be a writer?
I was encouraged by a 2nd grade teacher for some poems I wrote in class, and I got good responses and laughs from classmates for some stories I wrote in grade school and middle school. I think I was in 6th grade when I knew I wanted to write.
How did you develop the idea for DEN?
I heard a tragic news story about a woman who was stalked and killed by a man she met through online gaming. They said she did all the right things to deflect his advances and keep things from getting dangerous, but sadly, she was still killed. I thought it would be intriguing to have a story in which a girl was made into a game, where someone tried to stalk her and trap her into playing the game in order to escape. I didn’t have a theme in mind when I started, but I quickly landed on the idea of people’s attempts to be perfect – to do all the right things – and be confounded by the fact that bad things still happen to good people, and we need to learn how to deal with that and keep moving through life.
Which characters were the most fun to develop? Which were the most challenging?
I loved creating the villain, Gunther Grater. I wanted a computer nerd villain, but when I pictured that type of villain, I remembered all the nerd baddies from old movies and TV shows, where they were scrawny and wimpy social outcasts who escaped into science or computer studies, then used them for evil purposes. I wanted my villain to be threatening physically as well as intellectually. So I made him tall and fat, but in a beefy way, with gorilla-like arms that could pin or strangle someone with ease. I’m really happy with the way he turned out, especially when he first appears, after Amy Raven muses over the reasons he makes her nervous. When he suddenly appears behind her, the description of his persona cement him as a very scary guy, and you can feel the same fear that Amy feels around him. It was very gratifying to create a more original villain and make him a serious threat.
I also really enjoyed creating the twin archers, Todd and Troy Dugan. Especially when I worked out some of their backstory. I was actually surprised and shocked to discover that they had three girls currently locked up in their tool shed back in Wisconsin. There were a few disturbing revelations like that, that came to me as I worked out details of who these people were and how they had come to this point in life, where they would participate in a manhunt to stalk and capture an innocent girl. So that was difficult, thinking through the backstory and discovering some unsettling things about these characters. Of course, I came up with those unsettling ideas, but I used them because they naturally fit, and they still disturbed me when I chose them and realized how much sense it made. I had an idea that the Dugans had kidnapped other girls in the past, but when I started working out their history, I was shocked to realize those poor girls were still there!
What are your plans long-term for your writing? Do you have additional/different works in mind?
I have a lot of plans, but too little time to write them all out. I’m publishing the sequel to The Red Rider this June, called Red Rider Revolution, and publishing the third novel in 2018. It’s a thriller series about a teenage Red Riding Hood fighting werewolves, kind of like Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Batman.
I’m also starting a children’s fantasy trilogy later this year and a second High Adventure book next year, which is an Indiana Jones-style action-adventure series based in Africa. Later on, I plan to start a spy series and a Twilight Zone-style series.
As a self-published author, I share the challenge of getting the word out on my works. What have you had to do to win broader exposure and branding for your books?
Fortunately, I’ve met some other authors who are very active in promoting one another and they’ve been great at reviewing my work and inviting me to several blogging events with other authors. So I’m gradually finding the right audience, and more and more readers who are really excited about my work.
This question will start off sounding like an old joke – a person walks into a bar (or convention or bookstore) and bumps into Randall Allen Dunn – what would be your elevator pitch to showcase your work?
If you find you don’t have enough time to read, try reading a movie! I write action thrillers that read more like blockbuster action films. Larger-than-life heroes squaring off against diabolical villains and facing deep moral dilemmas. Always action-packed, always fun, always filled with memorable characters and entertaining scenes of action, drama, romance, or comedy, or a little of each.
As an author, it’s sometimes difficult to finally say a product is finished, no matter how many times you review or edit. Is there anything you would go back and change in your stories? Where there ideas you had in mind and then decided NOT to include?
It’s funny how your ideas change when you’re actually writing the story. In The Red Rider, there’s a scene where the main character, Helena, attacks some bad guys in a barn. I originally pictured her approaching them from outside the barn, but when I was writing the scene, I realized it would make no sense for her to position herself there, so I changed it. I have a scene in Den where the bad guys are hunting the heroine, Amy Raven, through a maze, and I pictured it being a suspenseful slow-paced stealth scene. But when I wrote the story, the characters were all running so fast there was no way they could slow down, even in a maze where they weren’t sure where they were going. So it became an all-out action chase instead of a hide-and-seek tiptoe scene. I have a solid blueprint in my mind for what will happen in most scenes of my stories, but it can change instantly when I’m actually writing it out, especially if a character is real enough to make other choices than the ones I planned for them!
I have a 4 year old son, and structuring time around him can be challenging! I’ve lost count of the times he nearly pressed the delete button on something I was working on…how do you find time to write your stories?
Well … I don’t. Lately I’ve been doing so much promoting, while being busy at home with my wife and I both working, raising our kids and trying to limit our trips to the ER for one illness or another, and trying to get my kids to grasp that my writing time is actually important – it just gets hard to make time for it. At my former jobs, I would write during my lunch hour. Now I work from home, and my half hour gives me barely enough time to eat lunch and make any calls or other tasks I need to do before I’m back at work. To get anything done, I have to either stay up later – like between 10pm and midnight or later – or get up early, like 5am, when I can. It doesn’t help that my six-year old son keeps waking himself up at 6am, no matter how late he goes to bed.
Do you have a certain method you use when you write – i.e., a certain room, music, mood, etc., to help get you in the right writing frame of mind?
Sometimes I listen to music, but it usually distracts me. I only use it to tune out other noise, if I’m writing in the same room where someone’s watching TV. But my normal writing method is this: I write out notes of scenes and plot ideas for the story I’ve come up with. As I get more invested in the idea, I listen to movie soundtrack CD’s for music that helps me picture certain scenes of the story. I can mentally map out a lot of the action while I’m driving and listening to the music. When I feel I have enough material that I’m comfortable to start writing the story from the beginning, I jump into it, and I add in scenes that are already written out from my notes, when they come up in the story. When I finish my writing time, I always leave off in the middle of a word, typing enough of it that I’ll remember what the word was. The next time I resume writing, I can continue writing out that sentence as if I never took a break from it, because I’m instantly back in the flow of my previous thoughts.
I write out my first draft, then start on the drudgery of creating backstories for all the major characters, and some details for the minor ones. I have to figure out details of the characters’ history and what dates or events are significant to them, such as their birthday, death of a close relative, their wedding anniversary, etc., so I know exactly how they feel at certain times of the year and how they relate to other characters, who also have significant events that might coincide.
Once that’s finally done, I write the second draft. Having done the backstories, I now have a much clearer and more believable portrayal of the story characters and everything becomes much more concrete. I can then submit the second draft to beta readers for feedback, to tell me about any typos or story problems. I take their feedback, decide what things need to be adjusted and what things can stay the way they are, and then I publish it. This is based on Stephen King’s instructions in On Writing, where he says to write two drafts and a polish.
What are you reading right now?
I’m reading a fellow author’s story draft to give him some feedback. We agreed to help each other out that way, and he gave me outstanding feedback on Den. I’m also reading some library books about how to draw comic book superheroes, for a coloring book I plan to create soon.
Where can readers go to find out more about Randall Allen Dunn?
You can find my books online at places like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords, as well as Goodreads. I’m active on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, and you can follow my Packing Action blog and subscribe to my newsletter at www.RandallAllenDunn.com.
Thanks Randall, for sharing some of your time!
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