10 Questions with Ronald Malfi
1. In Floating Staircase, the protagonist is a writer of dark fiction. Is he based on anybody that you know?
I assume that question is asked somewhat facetiously? As with all my characters, Travis Glasgow may exhibit certain traits that I have cobbled together from people I know or even myself, but I think that for the most part he is his own unique character. I never use any real person, myself included, for the basis of any fictional character. Very often the character comes into my head before I even have the full storyline, so they’re coming at me through the ether as fully formed human beings. An interesting side note, though—in an early draft of Floating Staircase, I wrote myself in as a character Travis meets at the end of the book at a writers’ convention. Since the book was already an exercise in metafiction, I thought such a nod was sort of cool, but my editor nixed it unceremoniously. Probably a wise decision on her part.
2. How has the digital revolution and the emergence of ebooks affected you as a writer?
As a writer, I think they’ve helped with exposure, and for the past year or so, ebooks have comprised about fifty percent of my overall sales. I suspect that number will rise in the future. They’re easily accessible and, for the most part, cheaper than physical books, though with some exceptions. I occasionally speak at conventions or to groups of writers, and ebooks allow for me to give them unlimited free downloads of a particular work we might discuss, whereas prior to ebooks this would have required my publisher to ship out hundreds of free books to these events: a costly enterprise.
As a reader, however, I haven’t embraced the technology. I’m not tech-savvy at all, and am put off by things like e-readers and iPads and the like. This means that if an author I enjoy chooses to release their work solely in ebook form, then I miss out. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the truth of it. I can’t fathom any enjoyment coming from reading off some electronic gadget. Gadgetry takes me out of the storyteller’s world, thus gadgetizing the book. There is nothing warm or cozy about an illuminated electronic tablet to me. In fact, there’s something wholly ironic about it. Also, it’s bad enough I have to stare at a computer screen while I work.
3. What is your favorite ghost short story and/or novel?
This is an impossible question, as there are so many. Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw is probably the best example of ghosts in literature. You will learn everything necessary to write a wonderful ghost story just by studying that tale. Its power is in its understatement, which I believe is the hallmark of a successful ghost story. And by “successful,” I mean frightening. Although not necessary a ghost story per se, Peter Straub’s The Throat contains some excellent passages about a ghost that are really quite chilling. His novels Julia and the aptly named Ghost Story also jump to mind. Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House is, of course, another standard and a great example of the subgenre. A wonderful short piece is “The Two Sams,” by Glen Hirshberg. I’m sure I could think of a hundred more if I sat here long enough.
4. Tell us more about Little Girls due out in 2015 from Kensington.
It’s about a woman who returns to her childhood home to settle her father’s estate after his death. She brings her husband and young daughter along with her, and the daughter befriends another young girl who lives next door. Secrets both old and new are uncovered, which surround the father’s death as well as the girl next door. It’s got a very modern gothic feel, I think. I’m also very pleased with the understated nature of the whole story—how much of what I’m saying as an author is in what I choose to leave unsaid. I’ve also stretched the idea of what a ghost story—or a ghost in general—really can be, so this is unique in that regard. I think the novel could fit just as neatly in the thriller/suspense genre as it could in the horror genre, and I’m curious to see how the book will be received. I’m very excited to be working with Kensington on this novel, too.
5. What advice do you have for beginning writers?
You must write and you must read. Every day. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation are your tools, so learn how to use them and don’t assume some editor with clean up your sloppiness. They won’t.
6. How did you come up with the concept for Floating Staircase?
How does one come up with any concept? I don’t know. I wrote a very early draft, at the time titled Rooms of Glass, back when I was in college. It was a bloated monster with a million different subplots, many of which did not intersect. So the manuscript sat untouched for many years before I revisited it and began the slow and excruciating process of rewriting it. I hadn’t intended on rewriting that novel—it was one of my early ones, something I just assumed was an exercise in simply completing the task of writing to better hone my craft, and never expected to revisit it one day—but then I had an inspiration about the story something like a decade later. I can’t recall now what it was, though I know the title and the image of the wooden staircase rising out of a lake were two strong influences in rethinking it. I also knew I wanted to experiment with one of my favorite tropes, the unreliable narrator. This plays into why I had the protagonist be a writer—is there anyone less reliable than a writer of fiction? Even to ourselves? Also, one of the original unanchored subplots was similarly revisited and rewritten as my latest novel, Cradle Lake. I must have been firmly seated above a fountainhead of inspiration back then.
7. What made you start writing?
My drive to create. I was always creative as a child—always drawing pictures, writing stories, playing music. When I was about ten or eleven I began to commit a couple hours every day to writing stories, which was just another outlet for me at the time. But over the years, I became more and more serious about it, and that drive has never left me.
8. Do you believe in ghosts?
No.
9. If you could choose an actor to play Travis Glasgow in a movie adaptation of Floating Staircase, who would you choose?
I’m awful at answering these types of questions. I see Travis as a sort of Everyman, albeit a somewhat delusional, self-involved, and furtive Everyman. I guess it’s hard to come up with an actor because I’ve already created this guy into a real-life creature, and to ascribe an actor to him, I think, would rob him of who he is in my head. I know some authors do that a lot—they always “cast” their characters as they write their books—but this is something I never do. It never occurs to me.
10. If you could pick one other author to collaborate with on a novel or story, living or dead, who would it be?
I wouldn’t wish my obsessive compulsive nature on anyone, living or dead! I don’t think I could ever truly collaborate with someone; I’m too possessive of my work, too patriarchal about it. In fact, I’m always surprised when I see my friends co-authoring books—that sort of relationship is a bit beyond my comprehension when it comes to writing. It’s like letting someone else raise your kids. I almost envy the lightheartedness of it—and is that even a good word for it?—but I don’t think I could do it. Yet if I were forced to, I would probably have to choose someone who wrote in a completely different style and genre than I do, just to see what sort of concoction we could come up with. Maybe team up with Nora Roberts and write a western. How’s that sound?
I assume that question is asked somewhat facetiously? As with all my characters, Travis Glasgow may exhibit certain traits that I have cobbled together from people I know or even myself, but I think that for the most part he is his own unique character. I never use any real person, myself included, for the basis of any fictional character. Very often the character comes into my head before I even have the full storyline, so they’re coming at me through the ether as fully formed human beings. An interesting side note, though—in an early draft of Floating Staircase, I wrote myself in as a character Travis meets at the end of the book at a writers’ convention. Since the book was already an exercise in metafiction, I thought such a nod was sort of cool, but my editor nixed it unceremoniously. Probably a wise decision on her part.
2. How has the digital revolution and the emergence of ebooks affected you as a writer?
As a writer, I think they’ve helped with exposure, and for the past year or so, ebooks have comprised about fifty percent of my overall sales. I suspect that number will rise in the future. They’re easily accessible and, for the most part, cheaper than physical books, though with some exceptions. I occasionally speak at conventions or to groups of writers, and ebooks allow for me to give them unlimited free downloads of a particular work we might discuss, whereas prior to ebooks this would have required my publisher to ship out hundreds of free books to these events: a costly enterprise.
As a reader, however, I haven’t embraced the technology. I’m not tech-savvy at all, and am put off by things like e-readers and iPads and the like. This means that if an author I enjoy chooses to release their work solely in ebook form, then I miss out. It’s unfortunate, but that’s the truth of it. I can’t fathom any enjoyment coming from reading off some electronic gadget. Gadgetry takes me out of the storyteller’s world, thus gadgetizing the book. There is nothing warm or cozy about an illuminated electronic tablet to me. In fact, there’s something wholly ironic about it. Also, it’s bad enough I have to stare at a computer screen while I work.
3. What is your favorite ghost short story and/or novel?
This is an impossible question, as there are so many. Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw is probably the best example of ghosts in literature. You will learn everything necessary to write a wonderful ghost story just by studying that tale. Its power is in its understatement, which I believe is the hallmark of a successful ghost story. And by “successful,” I mean frightening. Although not necessary a ghost story per se, Peter Straub’s The Throat contains some excellent passages about a ghost that are really quite chilling. His novels Julia and the aptly named Ghost Story also jump to mind. Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House is, of course, another standard and a great example of the subgenre. A wonderful short piece is “The Two Sams,” by Glen Hirshberg. I’m sure I could think of a hundred more if I sat here long enough.
4. Tell us more about Little Girls due out in 2015 from Kensington.
It’s about a woman who returns to her childhood home to settle her father’s estate after his death. She brings her husband and young daughter along with her, and the daughter befriends another young girl who lives next door. Secrets both old and new are uncovered, which surround the father’s death as well as the girl next door. It’s got a very modern gothic feel, I think. I’m also very pleased with the understated nature of the whole story—how much of what I’m saying as an author is in what I choose to leave unsaid. I’ve also stretched the idea of what a ghost story—or a ghost in general—really can be, so this is unique in that regard. I think the novel could fit just as neatly in the thriller/suspense genre as it could in the horror genre, and I’m curious to see how the book will be received. I’m very excited to be working with Kensington on this novel, too.
5. What advice do you have for beginning writers?
You must write and you must read. Every day. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation are your tools, so learn how to use them and don’t assume some editor with clean up your sloppiness. They won’t.
6. How did you come up with the concept for Floating Staircase?
How does one come up with any concept? I don’t know. I wrote a very early draft, at the time titled Rooms of Glass, back when I was in college. It was a bloated monster with a million different subplots, many of which did not intersect. So the manuscript sat untouched for many years before I revisited it and began the slow and excruciating process of rewriting it. I hadn’t intended on rewriting that novel—it was one of my early ones, something I just assumed was an exercise in simply completing the task of writing to better hone my craft, and never expected to revisit it one day—but then I had an inspiration about the story something like a decade later. I can’t recall now what it was, though I know the title and the image of the wooden staircase rising out of a lake were two strong influences in rethinking it. I also knew I wanted to experiment with one of my favorite tropes, the unreliable narrator. This plays into why I had the protagonist be a writer—is there anyone less reliable than a writer of fiction? Even to ourselves? Also, one of the original unanchored subplots was similarly revisited and rewritten as my latest novel, Cradle Lake. I must have been firmly seated above a fountainhead of inspiration back then.
7. What made you start writing?
My drive to create. I was always creative as a child—always drawing pictures, writing stories, playing music. When I was about ten or eleven I began to commit a couple hours every day to writing stories, which was just another outlet for me at the time. But over the years, I became more and more serious about it, and that drive has never left me.
8. Do you believe in ghosts?
No.
9. If you could choose an actor to play Travis Glasgow in a movie adaptation of Floating Staircase, who would you choose?
I’m awful at answering these types of questions. I see Travis as a sort of Everyman, albeit a somewhat delusional, self-involved, and furtive Everyman. I guess it’s hard to come up with an actor because I’ve already created this guy into a real-life creature, and to ascribe an actor to him, I think, would rob him of who he is in my head. I know some authors do that a lot—they always “cast” their characters as they write their books—but this is something I never do. It never occurs to me.
10. If you could pick one other author to collaborate with on a novel or story, living or dead, who would it be?
I wouldn’t wish my obsessive compulsive nature on anyone, living or dead! I don’t think I could ever truly collaborate with someone; I’m too possessive of my work, too patriarchal about it. In fact, I’m always surprised when I see my friends co-authoring books—that sort of relationship is a bit beyond my comprehension when it comes to writing. It’s like letting someone else raise your kids. I almost envy the lightheartedness of it—and is that even a good word for it?—but I don’t think I could do it. Yet if I were forced to, I would probably have to choose someone who wrote in a completely different style and genre than I do, just to see what sort of concoction we could come up with. Maybe team up with Nora Roberts and write a western. How’s that sound?
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