Buffalo’s NPR station, WBFO, chats with Gina Fava about The Sculptor

WHAT GETS INTO MY HEAD?

I sat down recently with Mike Desmond at Buffalo’s NPR station, WBFO, to discuss my suspense thrillers,  THE SCULPTOR, and THE RACE, and a mixed bag of other things, such as:

1. Joyriding a gondola in Venice
2. The influence of counter-terrorism studies on my writing
3. Whether I let my kids read my books
4. Why one of my bad ass villain’s reminds me of the guy who built my deck
5. Why I set the mysteries in Rome, Italy

Here’s the link to the podcast: http://news.wbfo.org/post/author-gina-fava-sculpts-new-novel

After listening, you might be wondering where to pick up a copy of one of my books. Just click on the cover to buy it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think…

 

THE RACE “Shuffle off to Buffalo” Hometown Book Launch

 

 

Gina Fava releases her debut suspense novel,

The Race: A HELL Ranger Thriller,

in print edition, in her hometown, Buffalo, NY.

Fava will read an excerpt from THE RACE, followed by a Q&A and book signing Thursday evening.

The event, at Talking Leaves Books, 3158 Main Street, Buffalo, NY, is open to the public.

To reserve an advance copy, contact Talking Leaves at 716-837-8554.

For more info, visit http://www.GinaFava.com/

Hope to see you there!

Writing Strong Female Characters

Look who’s back!  Thriller and sci-fi author Steven M. Moore is my guest blogger today, and he’s offering advice on portraying strong female characters in your writing.  Whether you are a male or female writer and/or reader, please consider the points Steve makes here, because they certainly apply to both perspectives.  And female readers, Steve would really like to hear from you especially.

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Female characters, four years later…

I’ve been writing full speed now, trying to satisfy Ashley Scott and my muses.  Who’s Ashley Scott?  For those who have read The Midas Bomb and Angels Need Not Apply, Ms. Scott is a DHS agent and analyst and a good friend of NYPD detectives Chen and Castilblanco.  She thought it was time to receive top billing and my muses agreed.  She will appear in my new novel The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan, which she and the muses are tasering me to finish (about 60% complete now—I can’t wait to see how it ends!).

I wrote the post “Female Characters” four years ago (http://stevenmmoore.com/?p=224).  Based on my own experience with just three novels (eight now—yep, I’ve been doing this for a while), I gave some advice about portraying strong female characters in your writing if you’re a male writer.  My thesis:  It’s tough, but you have to do it.  You stand to lose half your potential audience if you don’t.  I won’t repeat any more of that advice here (writers and readers might enjoy reading that old post), but I’ll make some comments about what’s gone on since then.

For those in the know, strong female characters are as much a part of my writing as sci-fi and suspense.  Dao-Ming Chen blossomed in Angels; Kalidas Metropolis and Jay Sandoval foiled a conspiracy in Full Medical; Sirena was more than a match for Rupert Snyder aka Vladimir Kalinin in Evil Agenda; Caitlin Murphy and Asako O’Brien kicked butt in Soldiers of God; and Jenny Wong played a pivotal role in Survivors of the Chaos and Sing a Samba Galactica.  In my YA novel The Secret Lab, Shashibala Garcia tamed Mr. Paws, the mathematical cat, and thwarted his evil master, and she was only twelve!

Readers, especially female readers, have the final word about whether I’m any good at portraying female characters.  I find the human female as strange as any other human male does, often thinking that we’re separate species that just happen to play together to perpetuate the human race.  As a consequence, I have always challenged myself to write about the “divine feminine,” albeit less directly than Dan Brown.  You can tell me if I’ve succeeded in giving an accurate portrayal—I’m still learning.

Stereotypes abound when male authors write about female characters.  Here experience counts.  I can’t imagine how anyone can be a marriage counselor without ever being married, especially a priest (historically priests have given both men and women terrible marital advice), so a care-free man about town (more likely, an introverted ostrich with his head in the sand) who has never married has one strike against him when he sits down to write.  As I said four years ago, I’ve been lucky to know, admire, and love some strong women in my time.  That experience counts and allows you to avoid the media and pop culture portraits of women that are often two-dimensional stereotypes, especially when the writer or screenwriter belongs to a different culture.  I’m aghast at some of TV’s sitcoms, for example, and their portrayal of women.

Some of that experience is lacking when the male writer has no female siblings.  For eighteen years of my life, my main experience with women was the apple-pie relationship with my mother.  I had one brother and no sisters.  My knowledge of the divine feminine was minimal when I wrote my first novel at thirteen.  That contributed to its inferior quality that made me chuck it when I left for college (the plot wasn’t bad, though—something akin to the movie City of Angels).  Like many pubescent teenage boys, my ideal woman could be found in the centerfold of Playboy (my apologies to all women except those who have seen the Matthew McConaughey movie or read Fifty Shades—you have no right to complain about Playboy).   I think this would have been different if I’d had a sister (don’t look for Freudian meaning there).

Male writers have to get beyond women as sex objects if they’re attempting to write about women.  Even if they write erotica or romance novels or cross-genre novels involving erotica or romance (historical-fiction-vampire-romance?), they will have a tough time if they can’t get beyond this.  Of course, both males and females treat each other as sex objects at different times, but the male-female relationship is much more complicated than this.  Moreover, a lot of fiction, beyond that already mentioned, doesn’t even need any sexual tension.  Hollywood is notorious for ruining good stories with their insistence on adding a female part to be the protagonist’s love interest, or vice versa.

There is very little sex in my books, for example, much less than you might find on cable TV.  There is often sexual tension.  I’ve progressed in my view of women and can chuckle when recalling that thirteen-year-old and his first novel.  My characters, men or women, aren’t asexual—they’re just normal.  And by normal, I’m thinking normal as we should define it today—heterosexual people and all their LGBT friends.  (Don’t have any?  Your loss!).  Kalidas Metropolis, one of my finest characters in my opinion, is a lesbian who sings arias from Carmen while in the shower (she’s in Full Medical and Evil Agenda).  I don’t think I made her into a stereotype, but readers might think otherwise.  There’s also a teen’s search for sexual identity in The Secret Lab—yeah, parents, your teen can have sexual angst.  It’s all part of life.

Here’s the key, I think, when writing about male or female characters:  their sexuality is part of their personality.  A writer should focus on the personalities.  Of course, many characters are finely annealed alloys of several real people whom the author has observed.  I don’t see how you can write without being a people-watcher, in fact.  Anyone can include female characters in a novel.  The author who has trouble with them hasn’t studied enough women in real life.  The movie As Good as It Gets where Jack Nicholson portrayed an OCD romance writer who couldn’t relate well to anyone, especially women, was hard for me to understand.  How could this guy be a successful writer?

That doesn’t mean the writer has to describe everything about a woman, including her personality, to the nth degree.  For physical description, give some clues and let the reader fill in the details.  To get inside her mind, give some clues too—imagine yourself in there as an observer—then let the reader fill in the details.  Sounds kinky and a bit schizoid, I know, but a writer has to do it.  You have to do it for any character!  It’s kind of fun imagining how a female character thinks or reacts to certain situations, a bit like being an amateur psychologist in the abstract.  Maybe all marriage counselors should have some writing experience?  Or, should all writers be amateur psychologists?

And so it goes….

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Readers, what are your thoughts?  Writing from the perspective of the opposite sex is tricky; many writers have succeeded, others…not so much.  Any suggestions for novels where the character came alive, or fizzled, because the author just didn’t master the trick?

Many thanks to author, Steven M. Moore, for his contribution.  Be sure to check out his web page for information on his latest project and to order any of his thriller and sci-fi books, including his new release, Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand!  Also, check out my interview with Steve from a few weeks back to learn more.

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Also, if you’d like to guest blog on Gina Fava’s Blog, please contact me via my website. 

Gallivanting Around Town Today

I can’t seem to sit still this week!  Two wonderful colleagues and friends were kind enough to host me on their blogs:

• Steven M. Moore Here I chat about endangered languages and the fun that writers can have with language and dialogue.
• J. H. Bográn Here I share some thoughts on writing and reading True Crime books.

I hope you’ll visit these hardworking authors, as they have many great novels to share.

Quotes, Oh Wonderful Quotes

Today, I’m thrilled to have my friend and colleague, J. H. Bográn, offering us a guest post here on Gina Fava’s Blog.  I’ll be posting on his blog later this week, so please be sure to pop over for a look.

 

J. H. Bográn, born and raised in Honduras, is the son of a journalist. He ironically prefers to write fiction rather than fact. José’s genre of choice is thrillers, but he likes to throw in a twist of romance into the mix. His works include novels and short stories in both English and Spanish. He’s a member of the International Thriller Writers where he also serves as the Thriller Roundtable Coordinator.

 

And then there are quotes. Those words that you hear or learn from other people that make you say: “Damn, I wish I thought of that!”

Some of them are bits of wonderful wisdom, others are down plain comedic, but what they all have in common is that they stick with you. A few of them help define you, make you tick and you hold them close to your heart and soul.

These pearls can come from anybody: a movie, a book, even your next-door neighbor.

I put together a list of some of them. I mean nothing by them except to have some fun, so don’t think you they define me. Still, you will get to know a little bit more of me. Perhaps a bit more than I should let on, but I’m willing to risk it for my friend Gina.

“Why call me a pirate? Because you see me going about in a little galley? If I could arm myself like you, like you I would be an emperor.”

Diomedes the Pirate to Alexander the Great.

Well, I always find the above intriguing. Another take on just about the same subject comes from a sleeper spy in the 2002 James Bond epic Die Another Day: “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

“For the kill with the skill to survive”

Eye of the Tiger – Survivor

To kill with the skill to survive, man! I write thrillers, one of my main characters is a hired assassin. That line above pretty much sums up his personality and his profession!

Now, the next one is to satisfy the little-argumentative-me. Most people claim “It’s not personal, it’s business,” comes from The Godfather. That in itself is true. However, most people fail to see that the concept is a lie at the beginning of the book. Michael Corleone sets the record straight toward the end:

“Tom, don’t let anybody kid you. It’s all personal, every bit of business. Every piece of shit every man has to eat every day of his life is personal. They call it business. OK. But it’s personal as hell. You know where I learned that from? The Don. My old man. The Godfather. If a bolt of lightning hit a friend of his the old man would take it personal. He took my going into the Marines personal. That’s what makes him great. The Great Don. He takes everything personal Like God. He knows every feather that falls from the tail of a sparrow or however the hell it goes? Right? And you know something? Accidents don’t happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.”

Mario Puzo – The Godfather

The fact that Spanish is my native language but decided to write in English is perhaps the main reason why the next one resonates so much with me:

“Just because I talk with an accent doesn’t mean I think with an accent.”

Alberto Aragon – A Walk in the Clouds (1995)

Here’s a personal favorite quote that I have at the ready when I encounter atheists. It also works with gamblers, and you know, people addicted to bet against the odds:

“Even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose.”
Blaise Pascal

The next one comes from one of my all-time favorite rock bands: Queen. I think I’ve even tweeted about it some time. The entire song is wonderful, but this line in particular has such a punch it is hard to miss.

“Super powers always fighting
But Mona Lisa just keeps on smiling
It’s a miracle”

The Miracle – Queen

The last quote is probably the most ironic of them all:

“I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Website at: www https://www.amazon.com/author/jhbogran

Blog: http://www.thetaleweaver.blogspt.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jhbogran

Twitter: @JHBogran

Places where I got the quotes: http://www.quotationspage.com, http://www.imdb.com, http://www.en.wikipedia.org, http://www.metrolyrics.com

Ten Interview Questions for The Next Big Thing

To donate to the American Red Cross relief effort, people can visit www.redcross.org ,call 1-800 HELPNOW, or text the word REDCROSS to 90999to make a $10 donation.

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My friend and colleague, J.H. Bográn tagged me with these interview questions last week.  Who am I to pass up a blog hop?  But don’t think he can just tag me from out of the blue and get away with it–keep an eye out for a J.H. Bográn guest post right here later in November.

Okay, I have fulfilled my civic duty and exercised my informed right to VOTE on this fine Election Day. I have my coffee.  My computer’s fully charged. Now, let’s have some fun with these questions…

What is the working title of your book?

My suspense thriller is The Sculptor, where the hunt is on for the serial killer who sculpts and plasters female grad students in Rome.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

In college, I studied in Rome, Italy just as the US was entering the first Persian Gulf War.  Tensions ran high for Americans in a foreign country, and many of the scenes I wrote depicted the peril–bomb scares, abductions, armed guards on every street corner, etc.  This tension formed the backdrop to the romance element in the book, a close interpretation of how I met my husband, also a student in Rome at the time.  The villain is a mix of Hannibal Lector and American Psycho, and my Art in Rome professor.

What genre does your book fall under?
I’d call it a suspense thriller–a mystery, with elements of action, suspense, romance, and peril that keeps you reading into the wee hours to find out what happens next.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

If Bradley Cooper agrees to play the male lead, I’d speed-read Acting for Dummies a few times and then cast myself as the protagonist.  Won’t cast the villain now, that would reveal too much.  The genius, Kevin Spacey, needs to play some role.  And, Jimmy Fallon.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Graduate student Mara Silvestri, targeted by Rome’s serial killer, The Sculptor, must uncover the family secret that draws him to her before she winds up the prized masterpiece in his collection.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I’m currently seeking a literary agent, but I’m open to both avenues of publishing.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I outlined it in a couple weeks, produced the first draft in about three or four months, revised and polished it in another three or four months.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

The story is comparable to Thomas Harris’ Silence of the Lambs, or maybe The Relic by Preston and Child, and somewhat akin to a Lisa Gardner novel or a Harlan Coben mystery.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

Real life experiences inspired the book, but then again, what book isn’t inspired by life?

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Rome, Venice, the Alps, and Tuscany. (Location, location, location, right?)  Romance, bro-mance, terror, wine, art, plot twists, characters you want to hang with, and a dog.

The new tags are:

Steven M. Moore

C.J. West

August McLaughlin

Steve Ulfelder

Thomas Rydder

And here are the rules:

* Give credit to the person / blog that tagged you
* Post the rules for the blog hop
*Answer these ten questions about your current WIP (Work In Progress) on your blog
*Tag five other writers/bloggers and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.

The Eightfold Way of Writing to Keep Readers Happy

What are the DOs and DON’Ts of novel writing? Today, thriller and sci-fi author Steven M. Moore is my guest blogger, and he should know them.   After all, among his many other works, he’s just released the third book in his “The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.”   Here he offers us his Eightfold Way of reader-oriented DON’Ts that writers can use to keep readers feeling satisfied.

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The Eightfold Way

The media has become fixated on spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Higgs boson (the so-called “God particle,” a name that would surely make Mr. Higgs cringe).  The Higgs mechanism (i.e. the spontaneous symmetry breaking) is necessary to give mass to some of the vector bosons in the electroweak or weak and electromagnetic interaction theory.  Forgotten in all this media hoopla is the theory that led to the idea of quarks and gluons, the Eightfold Way of symmetries popularized by Mr. Gell-Mann.  (Note that I refrain from using the term “discovered.”  In theoretical physics, the math is “out there.”  You just have to figure out what math matches up to the experimental data.  Experimental physics is where “discoveries” are made.)

Now that I’ve had some fun imagining your eyes glazing over as if you’d just had tequila mixed with sleeping pills, let me say that this post is not about physics.  (My eyes are glazed too, because the above is hardcore physics and I’ve been sipping my Jameson’s while writing like a madman.)  The Eightfold Way I consider here is the shining path that leads you to a finished novel that someone might want to read. It’s my distillation of rules for writing a novel—a distillation that is not the quality of a fine Irish whiskey, but I’ve put some thought to it and would like to share (I’d like to share the Jameson’s too, but the internet hasn’t discovered e-drinking yet).

What are the rules for successful novel writing?  There are many and everybody has his or her own list.  All writers are not equal—what works for one might not for the other.  Moreover, since I’m not David Baldacci or Stephen King, you might think that I’m being a bit presumptuous—I am not a successful novelist.  I might be considered prolific, but, by my own standards, I’m not successful—I would certainly like to have more readers.  Nevertheless, I’m an avid reader.  Since I’m also a novelist, when I read a novel, I read with a critical eye, especially in my capacity as a reviewer.    Readers rule, especially nowadays when there’s a plethora of novels available just waiting to be read.  My Eightfold Way is reader-oriented.  It’s a list of DON’Ts if the writer wants to keep his readers happy.  Are you ready?

(1) Don’t just write about what you know.  In fact, the adage “Write about what you know” is completely off base.  I don’t know who said it initially, but he or she clearly wanted to eliminate the competition.  Here’s the scoop:  If you have no imagination, you shouldn’t be a novelist.  I’m not just talking about sci-fi, either, where this rule is obvious.  If you’re writing a romantic novel about vampire love or a thriller about finding a serial killer, I bet you have no direct experience in either (not $10k—how about one of my eBooks?).  Your imagination has to rule your writing.  Moreover, what you imagine has to be put into words that move and still make sense to the reader.

(2) Don’t confuse your readers on time, place, or point-of-view (POV).  The action in my novel The Midas Bomb, for example, covers only a week.  I had the timeline laid out, of course, but I soon realized that the reader could be confused by the rapid succession of events, especially since flashbacks are mixed in.  Consequently, the day and time are a subheading to each chapter.  (One reviewer expressed appreciation for this, so I know I made the right choice.)  For POV, I’m not a purist.  Switches within a chapter are OK as long as they’re clear—for example, at the beginning of a new chapter section.  However, it’s a little weird when Susie knows what Bob is thinking, unless Susie is a mind reader.  Bottom line here: don’t make your reader say, “Huh?”

(3) Don’t write overly explicit and excessive character description.  I hate it as a reviewer; I avoid it like the plague as a novelist.  Leave something for the reader’s imagination.  If you’re too excessive, you might contradict the image he already has in his mind.  Your character might have a dragon tattoo, but it’s unimportant to the reader if it’s unimportant to the plot.  Minimalist writing should be your goal.  Of course, you have to be clever enough to provide some logical but misleading clues in a mystery, for example, or the reader will have no fun.  The key to description is that old slutty Goldilocks—you want just enough, no more, no less.

(4) Don’t be verbose or erudite, especially in dialog.  Many experts call Herman Melville’s Moby Dick the greatest American novel.  I don’t think so.  It’s number two on my list of “worst books in the English language” primarily because it’s an overly detailed manual on how to turn whale’s blubber into lamp oil.  If anything, Greenpeace should ban it.  In fact, most of the books in my list suffer from verbosity and eruditeness.  One reader talked about the pages and pages in Giants of the Earth describing the motion of grass (maybe that’s where the phrase “boring as watching grass grow” came from?).  The 70+ page speech in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is another turn-off.  The pages and pages of description of sea flora and fauna in 20,000 Leagues under the Sea is a huge turn-off.  You get the idea.

I reviewed a book recently where the author obeyed his grammar checker to the nth degree and omitted all contractions in his dialog.  Oops!  Contractions are an important part of natural dialog; the latter should always reflect everyday speech.  Anything else sounds pompous.  Of course, you might want your character to sound pompous, but handle with care.  Street jive is the other extreme, of course.  The trick is to entertain your readers, not bore them or annoy them.

To me, verbosity also includes an overuse of adjectives and adverbs.  That’s the minimalist thing again.  Consider:  “You’re a cad!” she said angrily.  The “angrily” is unnecessary as are most variants of “said.”  These latter are wraith-like words that a speed-reader passes over.  Of course, artistic license allows you to spring a surprise.  Consider:  “You’re a cad!” she said with a wink.  Now the adverbial phrase “with a wink” expresses possible flirting instead of the obvious anger.  It’s no longer superfluous.

(5)  Don’t dwell on minutia.  That’s the minimalist idea yet again.  Moby and 20,000 Leagues again come to mind.  Assume the reader already has a good idea about how to brush his teeth, for example—I’m reminded of those websites where one watches someone go through their day.  Boring!  I have better ways to spend my time.  If a character goes from point X to point Y, the reader doesn’t need to know what happened between X and Y, unless it’s essential to the plot (he sits on a butterfly and changes the space-time continuum?).

(6)  Don’t be cute.  The TV series Lost had many followers, but most people were turned off by the convoluted pseudo-spiritual ending and the many flash-forwards were confusing, to say the least.  The writers were too cute.  I’ve seen this happen in novels I review.  I might be old-fashioned, but I avoid flash-forwards entirely.  Garcia-Marquez in one of his novellas, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, gets cute and announces the ending right up front, then spends the rest of the novella telling the reader how that came to pass.  He gets away with it—he’s a Nobel prize winner, after all.  Generally speaking, though, you won’t.  [Note:  Gina Fava, an ardent Lostee, respectfully disagrees with this point about the use of flash-forwards.  The use of flashbacks, flash-forwards, and flash-sideways (a Lost thing) may be artfully entertaining, but do proceed with caution as they may lead to a degree of confusion.]

LOST’s Numbers of Significance
(half-baked, literally)

(7)  Don’t use clichéd plots.  Yeah, I know, there are only so many different story types, but I’ve read about too many twins separated at birth, too many aliens that seem like mafiosos, a plethora of amnesia victims running from bad guys, hordes of star-crossed lovers with families that don’t understand, and so forth.  In particular, if I can map your story into one of Shakespeare’s plays by any stretch of my own fertile imagination, I’m suspicious.  Clichés also reduced my enjoyment of the Star Wars trilogy—too many plot elements were lifted straight from Asimov and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ work.

If I were an agent (thank goodness I’m not), the last thing I would want to read in a query is “My book is like….”  (I did tell agents that my young adult novel The Secret Lab is NOT Harry Potter in space, but that’s different—I like Harry and friends, but every YA agent in the world was looking for the next Harry.)  Use that imagination.  If your novel’s plot seems clichéd, at least throw some plot twists in that wake up your reader.  As a reviewer, I love a reversed cliché.  (Unlikely heroes fall into this category—remember the tailor who “killed six with one blow”?)

(8)  Don’t name your characters without some serious consideration.  In January’s Writer’s Digest, Elizabeth Sims in the article “Namedropping” lists many good ideas about how you should choose a character’s name.  Like Ms. Sims, I take character naming very seriously as a writer.  As a reader and reviewer, I cringe at some authors’ choices.  Jeff Smith isn’t a Latino, Jane Brown isn’t Chinese, and so forth.  Again, think of your reader.  He or she will be upset if all your names sound like they’re taken from a first-grade reader.  Moreover, the appropriate name for a character must somehow fit that character’s personality.  Some best-selling writers violate this rule—a pox on their house, I say, or on their editor’s, at least.

What’s not in this list?  Many details.  That’s the easy answer.  All the grammatical details, for example (rules upon rules about split infinitives, ending a sentence with a preposition, etc).  Rules about not switching from third to first person (tell that to Patterson) or excessive use of the passive voice.  Rules about appropriate punctuation (tell that to Garcia-Marquez in Autumn of the Patriarch, at least in the Spanish version, or Joyce in Finnegan’s Wake).  I care less about these rules.  Rules are meant to be broken and writers often do so, even famous ones (should I say, especially famous ones?).

Nonetheless, my Eightfold Way contains what I consider essential that you NOT do as a novelist.  I might still find your novel entertaining if you break one of my rules, but I might not.  I probably should change my phrasing to “worst books in the English language that so-called experts say are great”—there are many indie books out there that are not worth your time because they break many of these rules.  Same goes for some best-sellers that have passed through the legacy publishing gauntlet.  The “so-called experts” will be reluctant to give the “great” grade in this case, especially counting their bias against indie books.  You, the reader, on the other hand, are very lucky.  There are many “great books” out there, both legacy and indie, in many different genres—you just need to find them and enjoy them.

However, just as Einstein might have a problem receiving tenure in today’s tough academic environment, writing a novel well does not guarantee that you will have readers.  Name recognition is the key.  That can be achieved through publicity and marketing.  If you have the budget, contract with an agency that will help you in these areas.  Moreover, it helps to have not just one book but several.  Einstein’s theory of special relativity alone would have eventually made him famous, but when you consider everything else he published in 1905, not to mention his magnum opus, the general theory of relativity, you just knew the guy wasn’t a Johnny-come-lately.  He was a prolific scientist—as a reader, look for prolific writers, and, as a writer, be prolific.

In libris libertas….

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Many thanks to author, Steven M. Moore, for his contribution.  Be sure to check out his web page for information on his latest project and to order any of his thriller and sci-fi books.  Also, check out my interview with Steve from a few weeks back to learn more.

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Also, if you’d like to guest blog on Gina Fava’s Blog,

please contact me via my website. 

Gina Fava Interview AND Obama/Romney Debate

2 things today:

1.  Presidential Debate Tonight

2.  Author Steven M. Moore Interviews Gina Fava

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About the debate…

Click on the American Flag to learn more about How Presidential Debates Work

No matter your political affiliation, tune in tonight for the Presidential Debate between President Barack Obama and Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney at 9pm, because if you vote uninformed, then you have no right to complain!

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About the interview…

Visiting a Winery in Montalcino, Italy (research, I swear!)

The other day, I popped over for an interview with friend and colleague, Steven M. Moore.  You may remember that I interviewed him last week, and I published his interview here.  Well, Steve was kind enough to return the favor.  Here’s the link to Steve’s Blog where he shares with his readers what makes Gina Fava tick, and where you can learn more about his latest works.

Here’s the interview in its entirety:

Interview with thriller author Gina Fava…

 As a special treat today, I offer you an interview with fellow thriller author Gina Fava. A Buffalo, NY native, Gina lives in New England with her husband, Jamie, and their two children. A writer of award-winning short stories, Gina Fava is working to publish two novels, The Race and The Sculptor, both suspense thrillers based in Rome, Italy. She’s currently writing her next thrillers in both series. She travels to Italy often to research first-hand the red wines that her characters imbibe. An active member of MWA, ITW, and SinC, Gina’s a thrill-seeking bridge jumper, a Formula One racing fanatic, and a nut for blogging about skeletal recomposition. You can learn more about Gina at her website. Thank you, Gina.

 

1) Why, how, and when did you start writing?

 

I started writing to entertain myself in grade school. In high school, Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot blew me away, and his Night Shift short stories prompted me to write to entertain family and friends. It wasn’t until I returned from studying abroad in Italy that I sent my short stories and feature articles out to the rest of the world. I think I needed to experience life a bit before I realized that I had novels clamoring to get out too.

 

2) What is your biggest problem with the writing process. How do you tackle it?

 

Characterization. I love my characters from inception, but it takes some development in their infant stages until I grow close enough to them to appreciate their true personalities.

 

3) Do you feel writing is something you need to do or want to do?

 

Both. Being a writer is a part of who I am.

 

4) Have your personal experiences (or situations) influenced you creatively? If so, how?

 

Yes, in one way or another, my personal experiences always infiltrate the pages of whatever I’m writing. But never more so than in my novel, The Sculptor, in which the main character meets her love interest in much the same way that I met my husband, while studying abroad in Italy, only without the serial killer (that we’re aware of).

 

5) How much of your creative ability do you think is innate and how much is learned?

 

I think everyone is born with a kernel of some innate talent. It’s how one chooses to cultivate it that decides whether it will pop or not.

 

6) What is the last book you read? What are you reading now?

 

Blue Covenant, by Maude Barlow was the last book I read, an excellent resource on the water crisis and water rights. I’m reading Preston and Child’s Still Life with Crows right now. I love anything by Preston and Child.

 

7) Whose writing inspires you the most and why?

 

Stephen King. His characters resonate for me. His style is like comfort food for my soul. Dean Koontz’s description is akin to poetry for me. Their fiction makes me strive to be a better writer. And, King’s On Writing, inspires me to figure out how. [Note from Steve: King’s On Writing is recommended for authors of all levels and all genres.]

 

8) Do you have a favorite genre?

 

Thrillers (especially suspense, historical, horror, and sci-fi thrillers).

 

9) Should writers read in their genre? Should they be avid readers?

 

Writers should always be avid readers, and reading outside their genre helps a writer to see life from a different perspective, which will ultimately give their own writing more depth.

 

10) How do you find your plots?

 

Dreams; headlines; twists on history; what-if extrapolations on real life; my husband’s genius spin on something he learned.

 

11) Are your characters based on real people?

 

Many of my characters are inspired by real people. Most represent an amalgam of bizarre and ordinary attributes peppered with gumption.

 

12) How do you name your characters?

 

I’ve always been enamored with interesting names, real and fictional (like Odd Thomas, Val Kilmer, or Benjarvis Green-Ellis.) I keep a journal of international names and unique words and mash them together until they fit a character’s personality and also reveal something about them. [Note from Steve: Odd Thomas is a famous Dean Koontz character; Mr. Kilmer is the actor who played Jim Morrison, among other roles; and Mr. Green-Ellis was a New England Patriots’ player—now with the Cincinnati Bengals.]

 

13) Which comes first, plot or characters?

 

Every story is different. My ideas start with either a unique character with something to say, or a twisted situation that needs resolution. Eventually, both meet up on page one.

 

14) Any comments about writing dialogue?

 

I love writing dialogue; it’s the flesh of every good story. I strive to convey volumes while using as few words as possible. My tendency is to spill my guts, but the lawyer in me is always trying to reign it in. What ends up in a scene is somewhere in the middle.

 

15) How do you handle POV?

 

 

 

Handling POV is just a matter of discipline. It’s like staying in one lane of a 4-lane highway. At times, you want to change lanes or even catch yourself veering into another lane, but you should never do it without signaling first because you’ll crash.

 

16) Do you find background material for (research) your books? If so, how?

 

Research for me involves Googling key terms and finding books, news articles, and blog posts on the relevant subject matter, and more often than not, I’ll learn something more that gives my original idea more bang for its buck.

 

Sometimes interviews are better than any written resource–a chat with an Army Ranger, or a drive-along with a police officer can provide invaluable insights.

 

Also, I return to Italy often (where my books are often based) and visit first-hand the best places to plant a bomb, abduct a victim, or taint wine.

 

Douglas Preston taught me a great lesson at Thrillerfest a couple of years back: Get into your character’s skin before you write the scene. So, I’ve shot the same guns at a shooting range; I’ve skied off the same Alpine cliffs; and I’ve toured the same wineries that my characters have poisoned. Research gives writing that proverbial edge.

 

[Note from Steve: Douglas Preston is part of the thriller writing team of Preston and Child mentioned earlier…an interesting collaboration, to be sure.]

 

17) Do you use an agent?

 

I’m actively seeking one.

 

18) Do you self-publish or traditionally publish?

 

I’m actively pursuing both.

 

19) What are your most effective marketing techniques?

 

Blogging; Twitter; Facebook; GoodReads; attending writer conferences and workshops; active membership in SinC, ITW, and MWA; attending book signings and launches of fellow authors; guest speaking at cultural events; reading excerpts at open mic events; etc.

 

20) Do you release trade paperbacks or eBooks?

 

I’m open to both.

 

21) What do you think of publishing services like Amazon, Smashwords, etc?

 

I’ve actively evaluating all publishing options.

 

22) What is your favorite place to eat-out?

 

Alden Park–excellent martinis and lettuce wraps.

 

23) What is your favorite drink?

 

It’s a tie between a lemon drop shot and Pinot Grigio Santa Margherita. [Note from Steve: I’ll second the Santa Margherita, especially in Boston’s North End or New York’s Little Italy–or in Italy, of course.]

 

24) What other interests do you have besides writing?

 

Traveling, movies, skiing, reading, political news, attending hockey and basketball games, etc.

 

25) What was the last movie you went to see?

 

Magic Mike

 

26) What would I find in your refrigerator right now?

 

Homemade pasta sauce; homemade chicken soup; homemade apple pie; open-faced pickle/Swiss cheese/rye bread sandwiches (just finished re-watching Girl With the Dragon Tattoo).

 

27) If you could trade places with someone for a week, famous or not famous, living or dead, real or fictional, with whom would it be?

 

At the moment, Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge. Her life intrigues me, and she can always chat with the Queen in her robe and slippers.

 

28) What is your favorite (song) and why? Piece of music?

 

“What a Wonderful World,” the Israel Kamakawiwo’ole Hawaiian ukulele version. Because life is too short and far too wondrous not to appreciate it. [Note from Steve: Good advice for us all!]

 

In libris libertas….

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Thank you so much, Steve, for the kind and generous interview. I appreciate your friendship, and, like your readers, I’m a fan of your writing advice as well as your talent. And to all of your readers, it’s great to meet all of you!

Is there a question you would have asked Gina Fava?  Is there a question you’d like to put to either debate candidate this evening?  Let me know!

Author Interview with Steven Moore

Author Interview

In support of my fellow authors, I enjoy sharing author interviews with my blog readers.  Phalanges is the author Q/A section of Gina Fava’s Blog.  Here I seek to peel back the layers on up-and-coming and established authors to reveal what makes them tick, and also get to the heart of some of their literary creations. 

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I had the pleasure of meeting author Steve Moore recently, who’s had great success writing sci-fi thrillers, short stories, and book reviews.  He also has an active blog where he comments on current events and posts opinions about writing and the publishing business from the perspective of an indie author.  He had a previous life as a physicist.  He was born in California and spent time in Colombia before settling in the Northeast.  His wife and he now live in New Jersey.

Steve Moore is a talented author, and a kind hearted, funny bloke that I’m very happy to share with the awesome readers of Gina Fava’s Blog.  You can also find Steve on FaceBook, LinkedIn, GoodReads, Bookpleasures, and eFiction. Visit him at his website http://stevenmmoore.com.

20 QUESTIONS FOR STEVE MOORE

 1.      Why, how, and when did you start writing?

My motivation has always been that I love to write.  I wrote my first novel during the summer I turned 13.  It was terrible.  The plot was similar to the one in the movie City of Angels, although the male/female protagonists were inverted.  I’ve been writing ever since.  Along the way, day jobs needed to feed my family and put kids through college took priority, but now I’m writing full-time—and having a great time!

2.      Where do you get your ideas?

 It’s a bit like that scene where Dumbledore pulls the silver threads out of head.  The stories are in there—I just have to write them down for other people to enjoy.  I’ve been plotting them for years but never seem to have the time to write it all down.

3.      Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

My biggest problem is POV.  I tend to shift it a lot and often forget to indicate that with a change in chapter or separators like ***.  Coupled with a change from 3^rd to 1^st person (e.g. in Evil Agenda), I have to be careful that I don’t leave the reader confused.  If you mean the biggest chore, it’s editing and marketing.  I’m good at the first but don’t like it and I’m terrible at the second—and don’t like it.

4.      How do you name your characters?

 Very carefully.  Authors often don’t pay enough attention to this.  It’s hard to think of John Smith as a Latino, for example, or Susy Brown as Russian.  Naming characters sometimes borders on stereotyping, so you must be careful.  My suggestion is to choose them as carefully as you would choose the name of your son or daughter.  After all, you have more information about your character’s personality to work with than your new infant!  I’d make the same comment about choosing titles.  You want something catchy that relates to your plot or characters.  One word can say it all—for example, James Michener’s Hawaii.

5.  Who designed the cover of your book?  How did you find them?

My latest covers were designed by graphic artist Sara Carrick.  She is an excellent artist just starting out with Carrick Publishing.

6.  How do you approach reviewers?

With a bouquet of roses or a glass of Jameson’s?  I don’t have enough reviews, I know it, but I don’t know how to interest more people in reviewing my books.  I will gift any eBook available on Amazon or Smashwords to anyone who wants to write an honest review, up to a certain limit, of course (I’ve never hit that limit).  I also write reviews regularly and try to focus on indie authors, but authors are slow to reciprocate.  Maybe too many authors and not enough reviewers?

7.  How do you research your books? Have you ever traveled for your research?  Where?

Books I’ve written that take place in the near future (e.g. The Midas Bomb) often require background material for settings and characters; books that take place in the far future less so (e.g. Sing a Samba Galactica).  But even the ones in the far future require a reasonable extrapolation from what we know today (sci-fi has to be more “reasonable” than fantasy, of course).  For Full Medical, for example, I checked out everything known about human cloning at the time, did a bit of reasonable extrapolation, and wrote it into the text.  Often your best thrillers are characterized by the reader not knowing where facts stop and fiction begins.

 

I’ve traveled a lot and I’m a people watcher.  The range of human behavior from country to country fascinates me.  Learning that a cousin died in 9/11 turned me against fundamentalist behavior of all kinds.  I have several novels that involve counter-terrorism and Soldiers of God treats all forms of fundamentalist thinking.  I wouldn’t call this research exactly, but life experiences.  The two mix.

In Evil Agenda, for example, I hop around the world, but I challenge anyone who doesn’t know me to figure out what places I really experienced and what places I researched.  Angels Need Not Apply, the sequel to The Midas Bomb, is partially set in Mexico, although I’ve only been there for a physics conference, yet the settings reflect some of the “local color” I experienced while living in Colombia.

8.  Which book/chapter/scene was your favorite one to write?  Why?

 The Midas Bomb was fun to write because in it I introduced NYPD detectives Chen and Castilblanco and the villain Vladimir Kalinin.  I’ve returned to them in following books.  The words flew onto the screen for Midas (because the plot is less complicated than Soldiers?).  The last scene in the soon-to-be-released Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand! moved even this old curmudgeon (this is the third book in the trilogy that started with Survivors of the Chaos).

9.  Laptop, desktop, or paper?

Laptop, but curiously enough, the final step in my editing is to print out the whole MS and do an old-fashioned edit.  It always looks different on paper.  Moreover, because I only release in eBook format now, I don’t feel guilty about killing trees.  (I often wonder what all those toxics from discarded eReaders will do to the environment, though.)

10.  Where and when do you prefer to do your writing?

For ideas that I jot down, anywhere (often on napkins in a coffee house, for example).  For the writing, I need absolute quiet in my study.

11.  Is there any particular author or book that influenced you, and what is it that really struck you about the work?

By the time I finished Junior High, I had read many of the “classic” dystopian sci-fi and many other sci-fi novels, all of James Bond, and a few of the “banned books” (Fanny Hill, Catcher in the Rye, Tom Jones, etc).  In High School, besides the required and boring assignments like Silas Marner, Giants in the Earth, and Jane Eyre, I had conquered the “classic classics” like Brave New World, 1984, and Darkness at Noon.  I can’t pick just one writer but, by now, I know a few that really turn me off!

12.  Do you use an agent?

No, and I suppose I should say why.  First, they’re not bad people, but they serve the Big Six publishers for the most part, who only want to put their money on the sure horse.  After hundreds of rejections to many manuscripts and a few agents who sat on a MS without doing anything (not willing to tell me about whom they approached, probably meaning no one), I gave up on agents.  Now I consider that anyone standing between a writer and his readers is superfluous because of the digital revolution in publishing.

13.  Do you self-publish, traditionally publish, or are you a hybrid?

I self-publish (exclusively eBooks now, originally trade paperbacks), for many of the same reasons as above.  Another reason is absolute control (yeah, I’m a control freak).

14.  What are your most effective marketing techniques?

There doesn’t seem to be a silver bullet here.  I’m not very good at marketing, but I think I’m doing what everyone recommends (website, interviews, reviews, social networking, etc).  I’ve been doing it long enough that I’ve decided that making a big splash with one of my books is a bit like winning the lottery.  There’s so much competition out there that it’s difficult to make a book rise above the noisy background.  (Maybe an author needs to write mommy porn like what’s in the Fifty Shades trilogy?)

15.  What project are you working on now?

I just finished Cumbia and sent it off to the formatter (the cover is included below). Cumbia will be released sometime in October. I’m 90% through writing The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan where character Ashley Scott, DHS agent from The Midas Bomb and Angels Need Not Apply, receives star billing.  In the works are a collection of sci-fi stories, another Chen and Castilblanco book, and a sequel to Evil Agenda.

16.      Deserted on an island, who are 3 people, famous or not famous, living or dead, real or fictional, with whom you’d share sun block?

I’d choose Genghis Khan, Hannibal, and Sofia Vergara.  The first two fellows are dead so they don’t need sun block.  Even if they weren’t dead, they’d kill each other, and I’d have Sofia all to myself, with all the sun block.  Just sayin’….

17.      Is there a movie that you preferred over the book version?

Some movies come close, but in general Hollywood does an abysmal job, unless they change the book so much that the movie is almost a different story.  The Bourne series, starring Matt Damon, is an example, where the name and memory loss are about the only thing in common with the book.  I, Robot, starring Will Smith, is another.

18.      Favorite TV show, ever?

Easily The Twilight Zone.  That series and most of the installments in the original Star Trek used real sci-fi writers, not Hollywood amateurs.  When Star Trek: The Next Generation started running, I sure could tell the difference.  The writers for Lost, for example, were just too cutesy with their flashbacks and flashforwards—terrible!

19.  Do you have any advice to give to aspiring authors?

I do not over-intellectualize the production process.  I try to keep it simple:  Tell the damned story.  – Tom Clancy.  Corollary:  That production process can be simplified by removing as much as possible between you and your readers.

20.  Is there anything that you would like to say to your readers?

 Read, read, read.  Follow your favorite writers but try some new ones, including indie authors.  (You’ll get more bang for the buck from the latter.)  Corollary:  Don’t be a cheapskate.  If you pay for the book and read it, don’t return it.  The author loses money and you acquire some bad karma.

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Any more questions for Steve Moore?  Check out his website at: http://stevenmmoore.com.

Message for authors and interested others: Contact Gina Fava at GinaFava1@gmail.com for more information on how to secure an author interview.