Author Interview: Stephen B Pearl
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Today I am delighted to interview acclaimed Canadian fantasy, science fiction and romance writer, Stephen B Pearl.
Hello Mr. Pearl.
Hi, and please call me Stephen. When people say Mr. Pearl I keep thinking my father is sneaking up behind me.
I can relate. Okay Stephen. I guess the first question I want to ask is about your Paranormal Romance / Adventure, Worlds Apart. Why did you set it in England?
I needed a place that had truly pre-historic monuments and a strong mystical reputation. I also am quite fond of England, especially the town of Bakewell in Derbyshire where my wife grew up. Because my mother in law still lives in Bakewell I’ve visited it often. As such I’d already done much of my homework for using it as a location. I know where Bakewell Autoparts and Pet Supplies is and other details that lend the writing a sense of realism. The town is also close to the Nine Ladies stone circle, which suited my book perfectly for reasons explained in the text.
Two of your other titles, Tinker’s Plague and Nukekubi, utilise real world settings. Is this a trend in your work?
Not really an intentional one. I do like the dynamic of anchoring a story in a real place lending it a feel that maybe this could be happening. I love that aspect of the The Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher and the Weird Stone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner. I more or less fell into it. As I did in the Alternative Earth sections of Worlds Apart, I will make a world out of whole cloth if it is appropriate to the book. However, if I can incorporate elements of our world into my writing I will. I think people like to be made to wonder a little if elements of a story might in some way be true or in the case of a book set in the future, like Tinker’s Plague, that the story could happen.
In Worlds Apart, you use religious bigotry to drive much of the action. What role does spirituality play in your life?
I am a devout Pagan following a Neo-Egyptian path. I’m also an archetypest. What that means is that I think there are only a few divine forces, but they have many names and each name takes on a flavour from those who use it. These labels ultimately all come back to the same force. The number of these forces, or rays, is a topic open for discussion, but if you examine any pantheon you can see exemplars of each.
Because of this belief I don’t get hung up trying to tell someone they are on the wrong path because to deny the gods of another would be to deny my own. I simply use the Egyptian Gods and Goddesses to codify the universal forces because I resonate better with them that any other.
As long as a person strives to show tolerance and respect to all, and not hurt others or the world unnecessarily, then I figure they are on a good path. Handsome is as handsome does.
So, to answer the actual question. My spirituality influences all aspects of my life. It helped me form the ideal I strive to emulate and calls on me to try and be better. In my writing I try to give a bit of what Tolkien (a devout Christian) gave to me by supplying archetypes people can aspire to.
In Worlds Apart, Markus, your other world wizard, lives in a world where magic is an applied science. If it were possible, do you think our world would benefit or decline from having magic as powerful as you show in your alternative Earth?
I think it would give a new set of problems while solving a bunch. In Markus’s world some individuals, like Markus, have a huge amount of personal power. The individual is more emphasized and social controls, of a necessity, would have to be looser. A cop with a stun wand is going to be rather hesitant about trying to bring down a suspect who could toss them into orbit with a thought.
It would be interesting to see how magic at the level on Markus’s world would play out.
The way I’ve written it in Worlds Apart magic behaves in a consistent manner. Isaac Bonewits in his book Real Magic put forward the argument that magic is in fact a science. I took that thought and jacked the power level to make it more interesting.
Did you intend for Worlds Apart to be such a social commentary or did it just evolve that way in the writing?
I say this often. I intend for all my books to entertain from the start. That is the duty of fiction, to entertain. After that if it can educate or inspire it may transcend from good to great, but the foundation of entertainment must be there first. That said, I do tend to deal with social issues. Tinker’s Plague deals with environmental degradation and economic inequities. Nukekubi showcased a lot about Pagan issues and cultural conflicts. Worlds Apart deals with religious intolerance and government stupidity.
Conflict grows out of issues and I feel if the issues are grounded in reality it adds spice to the conflict. So I have an incentive to pick issues that cut close to the real world then expand on them in the fiction. So half and half is the most honest answer I can give.
I will say this. I actively try to avoid preaching to or at people. The story comes first; any issue will be in service to the conflict for that reason. No one is paying for my opinion.
So, how do you bring out Pagan beliefs in your books?
This varies from book to book. In Slaves of Love I practically ignore religion all together.
In Tinker’s Plague I paint the world as a religious mosaic with all sorts of faiths getting cameos, mostly in profanity.
Nukekubi and Worlds Apart tend to be more demonstrably spiritual because they are dealing with mystical matters and the two tend to be connected. That said it is always in service to the character and the plot.
Ray from Nukekubi just happens to be Pagan because the Pagan faiths are more accepting of magical practices and he is a wizard.
Alcina is a Wiccan priestess because it allowed me to use the false preconceptions many hold against Wicca to create conflict in the story.
What inspired you to write in the first place?
As with most worthwhile endeavours I did it to impress a girl. A hot little number with the bluest eyes you could ever imagine and an English accent that sent a shudder up my spine. Nice thing is, while I don’t really hear the accent anymore, she still has those eyes and I love her more deeply now than that youth ever could have imagined. I wrote an absolutely horrible fantasy novel with her as the damsel in distress, yeah right; I honestly think Joy could scold a dragon into good behaviour. In any case the book is awful and will never see print, but it showed me I could do it. Years later my writing has grown to a point where others want to read it.
So let’s move on to a bit about how you write. What do you think makes a good story?
Everything. Not overly helpful I know. As I see it stories are more woven than built. Character leans on and reflects setting; setting is the result of the actions of characters. The conflict must grow logically from the circumstances of the book. If a plague was released today there would be an effective quarantine, hazmat teems a whole organized response. If it happens in a post-apocalyptic setting those go by the wayside. Taking action must be in the characters’ nature and the action they take must grow naturally from their nature. Jim Kirk isn’t going to pass up the chance to save the pretty woman; it’s not going to happen because it isn’t in his nature.
What is your work style? Do you plan it out on a story ark dive right in, how do you write?
My process is more like Role Playing Gaming than anything else. I set up the world first. Then I populate it with characters that have the right personality to take the actions I need and the skill set to be effective. After that I’ll throw the characters into situations while I record what happens. Often the first few pages, that the audience never sees, are garbage. It takes a little while for the characters to come to life and start directing their own actions. After that I just play Game Master, setting the scene and tossing up challenges and my characters take control.
Going in I’ll know where I’m starting and where I want to finish, though that can change, and I’ll have an idea about some scenes I want to do along the way.
This is how I work, other folk work to a plan and it’s great for them. People need to find their own method and not let other people tell them there is only one way to do things.
What is the biggest thing to avoid when it comes to writing for you?
Forcing a character. If I make a character do something against their nature I’ll get along ten or twelve pages and the whole process stalls. Character action grows from character nature.
Another one would be making people too good. Darkness adds spice. My editor for Worlds Apart and Nukekubi, Karen Dales, may the gods bless her red ink stained fingers she helped me a lot, and I bumped heads on this a couple of times. I have one of my Wiccan characters who is a bigot. Plane and simple, he has other sterling qualities, but he doesn’t like Christians. She wanted me to expunge that element and I refused. The reason being is I wanted to show that there is good and bad in all groups and by having him make outrageous statements it let me have other members of his coven shine by correcting him. It also made him a fuller character with issues of his own.
At another point Karen objected to Markus being rather arrogant. Markus is the male lead in Worlds Apart. I again refused to change the line because Markus on his world is a wizard. His personal power, if directed properly, could level a fair sized town in minutes. He’s a nice guy over all, but he’s not a man to mess with. This has led him to being a little cocky sometimes. Of course he gets deflated on occasion too. Again the flaws make him more human and interesting.
What were the challenges (research, literary, psychological, and logistical) in bringing your work to life?
Which book?
Research: I’ve written a lot of things fairly close to home. Ray, my male lead in Nukekubi, is a lifeguard by profession. I was a lifeguard for more years than I care to think about. The sustainable energy technologies in Tinker’s Plague were drawn from my long term hobby of sustainable energy. As I stated above I’ve often visited Bakewell in Derbyshire which is the main setting for Worlds Apart. I made things a little easier on myself, but I still did a lot of research for all of my books.
Literary: I happen to be severely dyslexic. As I type this rough draft word is making it look like a rainbow of coloured squiggly lines. I fight for each sentence and edit, edit, edit. This is the hardest element for me. I have a gift for storytelling, a very good oral vocabulary, and, if I say so myself, a fair mind. However, for me the nuances of spelling, and to a lesser extent grammar, are a struggle. Of course, knowing this I work very hard to see that it is not reflected in the finished product.
Psychological: Because of how I write I have been in tears as I typed. Remembering what it was like to be called a “Stupid stupid boy,” by the abusive school teacher when I was little so I could bring that to the character of Andy in Tinker’s Sea, a book I am currently trying to place, and make that pain come to life. Drawing forward the exhilaration you feel when you compete with death itself and win more life for the person you set out to save. It is a rush to set your skill and training against death and win. In the end we never triumph but to keep the score even for another day that is a power trip that kicking a ball between a couple of posts just can’t match. So it can be a challenge to go to these places, but one that is well worth it.
Logistical: This is a pain in the backside when one writes in the real world. I lucked out with Tinker’s Plague because the Guelph area was perfectly suited to the story I wanted to tell. With Tinker’s Sea I was forced to write around the geography a lot more. Sadly, with Nukekubi half of the wooded gully I used for one of the scenes no longer exists. It was my playground as a child.
For Worlds Apart there were some issues regarding location and not knowing what the upper floors of some of the buildings were like, but I worked around them.
When writing in a made up world you have a lot more latitude for where you place things though being married to a geologist I have to justify my mountain ranges and lakes with plate tectonics and ancient glaciers. But what ya gonna do?
Can you give us a quick run down of your available works?
Well, the laundry list is below.
Tinker’s Plague: A post-apocalyptic, science fiction, medical and political thriller, Available in paperback from the author. (The publisher went out of business)
Slaves of Love: e-book: A futuristic detective story of love and madness. ISBN: 978-1-9269839-04-2
The Hollow Curse: e-book: A centuries spanning tale of love and obsession. ISBN: 978-1-897532-53-9 Available from Club Lighthouse Publishing: www.clublighthousepublishing.com
Nukekubi: A paranormal, detective novel, ISBN 978-0-9867633-6-6 – eISBN. 978-0-9867633-7-3
Worlds Apart: A paranormal Romance, ISBN eISBN Available in paperback and e-book formats from Dark Dragon Publishing: www.darkdragonpublishing.com
War of the Worlds 2030: Dark, Military SF, Romance, ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781629290492 | Print ISBN: 9781629290508 Available in paperback and e-book formats from Damnation Books: www.damnationbooks.com
I suggest going to my website: www.stephenpearl.com for more information. You’ll find reviews, free first chapters and a host of information on each book. To go into more detail than I have here would become space prohibitive.
To wrap things up, can you give any advice to people who want to write?
Get out while you can. It is not what you think and it will devour you. If you are already addicted, and it is an addiction, write the story you want to write. Don’t worry about the in thing because by the time you’ve written to meet the trend the trend will be over. Write what you want edit edit edit and get others to critique your work. Be open to guidance and if you make it big toss a quarter in my cup. I have a feeling sitting on a park bench with my recorder and a hat will be my retirement plan.
If you are ready to have your work torn apart and tossed back in your lap so you can put it back together better, stronger faster than it was then check out: www.critters.org
Do you want to say anything in closing?
Thanks for reading and I hope my books appeal to you. Keep smiling.
Thank you so much, Stephen for this in-depth interview and I’m sure our members have found it extremely informative and enjoyable.
Contact information for Stephen B. Pearl
Website: www.stephenpearl.com
Blog: http://stephenpearl.blogspot.ca
YouTube reading: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlMDmlb-Los@
You Tube channel: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC14QVfS9kiuc6sK7P3-yOmg/videos?view=0&flow=grid
Face Book: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/StephenBPearl
Polka Dot Banner: http://www.polkadotbanner.com/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=528
