10 Questions with Jeffrey Wilson
Well, certainly, as a surgeon, I’m no stranger to the creepiness of a large hospital late at night. After a five year residency in General Surgery and a two year fellowship in Vascular, I have spent way too many nights in the hospital, and I can tell you it is a creepy damn place, even for those of us that work there, much less for the poor patients who lay awake, scared of all that is going on around them. Fear of the unknown is the worst kind of fear, and that is what the average person’s time in the hospital is full of. As scary as that is already—with the unknown and pain and anxiety—imagine adding on top of that something truly evil and supernatural. That’s what I tried to do in DONORS. Of course, my background in medicine helped write the hospital and medical scenes with an additional level of realism and authority, but this story is very character driven and I did my best not to tie it up in too much science and jargon which contributed little to the story and character arc. I hope I left the reader with enough realism to make the supernatural elements even more frightening.
2. Do you outline prior to writing your story, or do you work out the plot as you write?
Definitely while I write. I have a great deal of admiration for authors who work out all the details in advance, but it just never really works for me. I am currently working on a project which I am co-writing with my friend and one of my favorite authors Brian Andrews (THE CALYPSO DIRECTIVE) and he is one of those very detailed authors. He outlines every single chapter. I have so much respect for his ability to work that way, but for me I lose some of the energy that comes from allowing the story to unfold as I work, and it shows when I do that. It sounds kind of Hokey, but as a very character driven story teller, I need my characters to tell me what they would do next, and if I outline a great deal, I lose that. It’s like I put them in some sort of box in my mind and they can’t get out to whisper to me like I need. Rarely do I have any idea how my stories end until I am within fifty pages or less of the ending.
3. Has becoming a published author changed your life in any way?
Well, it certainly has it pros and cons, but make no mistake, the pros win out. None of us would write if we didn’t want our work to be read and enjoyed. Publishing your work validates you, for sure, and helps you build the confidence that you are doing something right. When you start getting messages from your readers and feedback from your fans, it is really eye opening. You become a writer instead of someone who would like to be a writer. And working with professional editors makes your writing much better moving forward. You learn so much from that experience that you avoid some of those pitfalls next time (though not always, my editors would tell you.)
On the flip side—and this is a great trade off, so I’m not complaining—you find yourself with a lot less time to write, as crazy as that sounds. Nowadays, I find myself struggling to regain lost momentum on whatever project I’m working on. Whenever I get going, there always seems to be edits to review on the next book release or re-writes my agent is requesting on something she is shopping for me. There are radio, internet, and magazine interviews. All of this is fun, but it pulls you back into a book you have finished and it takes time, for me anyway, to get my head back into the new world I’m trying to create on my laptop.
I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
4. Is there an overall theme to your writing?
I never really thought about that, but it’s a great question. There are certainly themes that recur in my books, though always in new and different context. I find that my work deals frequently with loss and the pain associated with it. Several of my books have a military backdrop, though to date none are classic style military thrillers. There is a frequent theme of family, where characters have or may lose loved ones and are struggling to save them from some evil—either outside or from within. As you know, my work so far has always had strong supernatural themes. I like to take a more classic genre like military thriller, or in the case of THE DONORS, a medical thriller, and then weave a strong supernatural element through the story. I find that using the supernatural allows you to create worlds and circumstances for your characters that bring out the best and the worst in them. It gives you sort of an accelerated character arc.
5. What made you start writing?
Jeez, that’s tough. I’ve written my whole life, so it is really impossible to tell you that. When I just a kid, I would write out detailed new stories for my favorite TV shows, like Star Trek or whatever. I published my first short story when I was 14 (not as impressive as my son Connor’s accomplishment of publishing his first book at age 11 and becoming the youngest traditionally published fiction writer in America, but what can you do?) and have written stories ever since. As you know, I have had a rather eclectic life—working in a vast variety of careers from actor to firefighter to jet pilot to Naval officer to Dive instructor to Vascular Surgeon back to Naval officer and then working with Naval Special Warfare. But writing has always been the constant. I have written and sometimes published short stories my entire life. I had dreamed of writing a novel, but honestly just never thought I had the attention span.
Now it seems like all of those experiences were just seeds to grow the vast fields from which I can harvest new characters and stories. I wrote my first novel while deployed and was shocked to find that novels are actually much easier to write then short stories. It is so much easier to develop your characters and make them come to life without the confines of a word limit. In fact, even after all those years, I now find it a real challenge to write short fiction well.
6. Who is your favorite writer?
Connor Wilson, of course (www.thegiantpencil.com). Connor is my son, so I’m very biased, but he writes with a freshness and an easy honesty that is awesome. He also has an incredible imagination.
If you exclude relatives, then it’s toughter. I have rather eclectic tastes in my reading so it kind of depends on the day. I grew up devouring everything Stephen King wrote and his ability to make characters so real they leave the pages and sit beside you is the inspiration for becoming the very character driven storyteller that I am now. I used to love Edgar Allen Poe as a kid, and would read his stuff under my covers with a flashlight when I was supposed to be asleep—usually scaring the crap out of myself in the process. I am also a fan of the thriller genre, and loved Robert Ludlum in the day. I am a fan of the late Vince Flynn’s incredible storytelling ability.
More recently I have become a fan of Joe Hill. I love the work of Benjamin Kane Ethridge and think that he is a rising star in the horror genre. In the thriller genre I am fan of Brian Andrews as well as Lee Child’s Jack Reacher character.
The list goes on and on and definitely includes the writers in my answer to your question about military fiction down below.
7. What current writing projects are you working on?
Well, as you know FADE TO BLACK came out this past summer as my third novel with JournalStone. I’m in love with that book, because it has a lot of very personal elements in it. I wrote the book while deployed far-forward near the Syrian border in Iraq, and it deals with a lot of the fears associated with leaving a family behind while in harm’s way. My favorite book is always the one I’m working on at that moment, but FADE TO BLACK will always be special to me. I finished my fourth supernatural thriller JULIAN’S NUMBERS a few months ago and recently completed the edits for my agent who is shopping that book now. I LITERALLY just finished my fifth novel , WAR TORN, which is in review by my agent as we speak. It is a departure for me, having only very light supernatural elements. Instead it is a story of a crisis of faith for a young man and his family after suffering the loss of his best friend while deployed in Afghanistan. As I mentioned earlier, I am currently working on a new book that is a more classic, military/spy thriller which I am co-writing with Brian Andrews. The details of that book are, as you might imagine, highly classified for now.
8. How do you use social media to promote your writing?
Not nearly as often or as well as I should. I have a website (www.jeffreywilsonfiction.com) where I post updates and information about appearances etc. On that site I have an “author’s Desk” section where I share my thoughts with no where near the frequency that I should. I don’t use Facebook or twitter, though I know I’m supposed to. I do okay with interviews like this, but I am not comfortable with the web based media self promotion. I know it’s probably important, but I suck at it. Instead I just hope for the best, let my publicist do her thing to set up media interviews and appearances, and then focus on the next book.
9. What is your favorite military novel?
It would be impossible to pick just one. As a military combat veteran, I like a lot of realism in my military fiction, so I thoroughly enjoy Tom Young’s work. THE RENEGADES was awesome as were the follow up books in the series SILENT ENEMY and THE MULLAH’S STORY. I haven’t read THE WARRIORS yet, but it’s on my list. I really enjoyed Stephen Coonts’ Jake Grafton series beginning with THE FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER.
Brad Taylor, a former Army Special Forces Operator, writes with just the kind of realism I love, so anything by him. Interesting, as I look over my list here, all three of these authors are current or former military men with real war time experience.
10. If you could invite five people to a dinner party (alive or dead, real or fictional) who would you invite?
I couldn’t limit it to just five… I would need more seats at my table and I would invite all the brothers I lost on August 6th, 2011 in Afghanistan as well as the few who we lost in the years leading up to that tragic day. Wendy and I would cook all day and it would be the reunion of the century with my friends and their widows and children.
2. Do you outline prior to writing your story, or do you work out the plot as you write?
Definitely while I write. I have a great deal of admiration for authors who work out all the details in advance, but it just never really works for me. I am currently working on a project which I am co-writing with my friend and one of my favorite authors Brian Andrews (THE CALYPSO DIRECTIVE) and he is one of those very detailed authors. He outlines every single chapter. I have so much respect for his ability to work that way, but for me I lose some of the energy that comes from allowing the story to unfold as I work, and it shows when I do that. It sounds kind of Hokey, but as a very character driven story teller, I need my characters to tell me what they would do next, and if I outline a great deal, I lose that. It’s like I put them in some sort of box in my mind and they can’t get out to whisper to me like I need. Rarely do I have any idea how my stories end until I am within fifty pages or less of the ending.
3. Has becoming a published author changed your life in any way?
Well, it certainly has it pros and cons, but make no mistake, the pros win out. None of us would write if we didn’t want our work to be read and enjoyed. Publishing your work validates you, for sure, and helps you build the confidence that you are doing something right. When you start getting messages from your readers and feedback from your fans, it is really eye opening. You become a writer instead of someone who would like to be a writer. And working with professional editors makes your writing much better moving forward. You learn so much from that experience that you avoid some of those pitfalls next time (though not always, my editors would tell you.)
On the flip side—and this is a great trade off, so I’m not complaining—you find yourself with a lot less time to write, as crazy as that sounds. Nowadays, I find myself struggling to regain lost momentum on whatever project I’m working on. Whenever I get going, there always seems to be edits to review on the next book release or re-writes my agent is requesting on something she is shopping for me. There are radio, internet, and magazine interviews. All of this is fun, but it pulls you back into a book you have finished and it takes time, for me anyway, to get my head back into the new world I’m trying to create on my laptop.
I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
4. Is there an overall theme to your writing?
I never really thought about that, but it’s a great question. There are certainly themes that recur in my books, though always in new and different context. I find that my work deals frequently with loss and the pain associated with it. Several of my books have a military backdrop, though to date none are classic style military thrillers. There is a frequent theme of family, where characters have or may lose loved ones and are struggling to save them from some evil—either outside or from within. As you know, my work so far has always had strong supernatural themes. I like to take a more classic genre like military thriller, or in the case of THE DONORS, a medical thriller, and then weave a strong supernatural element through the story. I find that using the supernatural allows you to create worlds and circumstances for your characters that bring out the best and the worst in them. It gives you sort of an accelerated character arc.
5. What made you start writing?
Jeez, that’s tough. I’ve written my whole life, so it is really impossible to tell you that. When I just a kid, I would write out detailed new stories for my favorite TV shows, like Star Trek or whatever. I published my first short story when I was 14 (not as impressive as my son Connor’s accomplishment of publishing his first book at age 11 and becoming the youngest traditionally published fiction writer in America, but what can you do?) and have written stories ever since. As you know, I have had a rather eclectic life—working in a vast variety of careers from actor to firefighter to jet pilot to Naval officer to Dive instructor to Vascular Surgeon back to Naval officer and then working with Naval Special Warfare. But writing has always been the constant. I have written and sometimes published short stories my entire life. I had dreamed of writing a novel, but honestly just never thought I had the attention span.
Now it seems like all of those experiences were just seeds to grow the vast fields from which I can harvest new characters and stories. I wrote my first novel while deployed and was shocked to find that novels are actually much easier to write then short stories. It is so much easier to develop your characters and make them come to life without the confines of a word limit. In fact, even after all those years, I now find it a real challenge to write short fiction well.
6. Who is your favorite writer?
Connor Wilson, of course (www.thegiantpencil.com). Connor is my son, so I’m very biased, but he writes with a freshness and an easy honesty that is awesome. He also has an incredible imagination.
If you exclude relatives, then it’s toughter. I have rather eclectic tastes in my reading so it kind of depends on the day. I grew up devouring everything Stephen King wrote and his ability to make characters so real they leave the pages and sit beside you is the inspiration for becoming the very character driven storyteller that I am now. I used to love Edgar Allen Poe as a kid, and would read his stuff under my covers with a flashlight when I was supposed to be asleep—usually scaring the crap out of myself in the process. I am also a fan of the thriller genre, and loved Robert Ludlum in the day. I am a fan of the late Vince Flynn’s incredible storytelling ability.
More recently I have become a fan of Joe Hill. I love the work of Benjamin Kane Ethridge and think that he is a rising star in the horror genre. In the thriller genre I am fan of Brian Andrews as well as Lee Child’s Jack Reacher character.
The list goes on and on and definitely includes the writers in my answer to your question about military fiction down below.
7. What current writing projects are you working on?
Well, as you know FADE TO BLACK came out this past summer as my third novel with JournalStone. I’m in love with that book, because it has a lot of very personal elements in it. I wrote the book while deployed far-forward near the Syrian border in Iraq, and it deals with a lot of the fears associated with leaving a family behind while in harm’s way. My favorite book is always the one I’m working on at that moment, but FADE TO BLACK will always be special to me. I finished my fourth supernatural thriller JULIAN’S NUMBERS a few months ago and recently completed the edits for my agent who is shopping that book now. I LITERALLY just finished my fifth novel , WAR TORN, which is in review by my agent as we speak. It is a departure for me, having only very light supernatural elements. Instead it is a story of a crisis of faith for a young man and his family after suffering the loss of his best friend while deployed in Afghanistan. As I mentioned earlier, I am currently working on a new book that is a more classic, military/spy thriller which I am co-writing with Brian Andrews. The details of that book are, as you might imagine, highly classified for now.
8. How do you use social media to promote your writing?
Not nearly as often or as well as I should. I have a website (www.jeffreywilsonfiction.com) where I post updates and information about appearances etc. On that site I have an “author’s Desk” section where I share my thoughts with no where near the frequency that I should. I don’t use Facebook or twitter, though I know I’m supposed to. I do okay with interviews like this, but I am not comfortable with the web based media self promotion. I know it’s probably important, but I suck at it. Instead I just hope for the best, let my publicist do her thing to set up media interviews and appearances, and then focus on the next book.
9. What is your favorite military novel?
It would be impossible to pick just one. As a military combat veteran, I like a lot of realism in my military fiction, so I thoroughly enjoy Tom Young’s work. THE RENEGADES was awesome as were the follow up books in the series SILENT ENEMY and THE MULLAH’S STORY. I haven’t read THE WARRIORS yet, but it’s on my list. I really enjoyed Stephen Coonts’ Jake Grafton series beginning with THE FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER.
Brad Taylor, a former Army Special Forces Operator, writes with just the kind of realism I love, so anything by him. Interesting, as I look over my list here, all three of these authors are current or former military men with real war time experience.
10. If you could invite five people to a dinner party (alive or dead, real or fictional) who would you invite?
I couldn’t limit it to just five… I would need more seats at my table and I would invite all the brothers I lost on August 6th, 2011 in Afghanistan as well as the few who we lost in the years leading up to that tragic day. Wendy and I would cook all day and it would be the reunion of the century with my friends and their widows and children.
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