The Hot Author Report

Interview with Chris DeBrie – Author of Novel ‘Shakespeare Ashes’

Chris DeBrie was born in North Carolina, creating comics and stories as soon as he could hold a pencil. He wrote the millennial love story As Is as a ninth grader, publishing it a decade later. Selective Focus was the result of those homemade comic screenplays. With Shakespeare Ashes, he pulls the reader into the raw thoughts of four very different characters. DeBrie is a fan of photography, learning languages, and clean water. He lives in Virginia.

www.washyourhandsproductions.com
http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-DeBrie/1840916360

Q: It’s rare today to find an author who does nothing but write for a living. Do you have a ‘real’ job other than writing, and if so, what is it? What are some other jobs you’ve had in your life? Have they influenced/inspired your writing?

I have had a day job since I was about fifteen or sixteen, bagging groceries after school. I’m not one of the lucky ones who can depend solely on writing, but I pray that I’m getting there. I’ve pretty much done a bit of everything, work-wise, and I won’t bore you with the list. Let’s just say that, aside from highly-trained jobs like medicine, I can learn almost anything you throw at me. Those experiences and my curiosity have definitely helped in my writing, because anything I want to research, I’ve already got a head start.

Q: What compelled you to write your first book?

That’s the correct word–”compel”. Because I need to write and create almost as much as I need sleep or food. Characters and situations are always swirling in my mind, and I almost have to write it down, whether it’s for public consumption or not. I don’t remember ever not writing.

Q: Do you have a favourite character? Why is he your favourite?

Right now it would be the demigod English from Selective Focus. He’s a so-called bad guy, but he’s really the driving force behind the dozens of characters in that story–the protagonist and antagonist all in one. He’s thousands of years old, very powerful, and angry that his family has betrayed him. Of course, this is just his outlook, because they believe he’s the betrayer. That’s the basis of the story, which will probably take a handful of books to complete. And the people on Earth are pretty much just pawns to English. He’s fun to write about.

Q: The main characters of your stories – do you find that you put a little of yourself into each of them or do you create them to be completely different from you?

Any artist who’s honest will admit that he puts a potent drop of himself into everything. Even if a writer tries to create a character or situation totally different from himself, he still has defined himself by thinking, “this is the opposite of me.”

Q: Is there an established writer you admire and emulate in your own writing? Do you have a writing mentor?

No mentors. I’ve done things the hard way.

Q: When growing up, did you have a favorite author, book series, or book?

There are too many to name. But I was really into Craig Sargent’s The Last Ranger series, a set of adventure books that describes America after a nuclear war. It features a young man who, despite the decaying fabric of society and the might-makes-right attitude that prevails, uses his survival skills to do the right thing. “The last son of a bitch who gave a damn about other people,” as Sargent described him.

It had a teenage boy’s sensibility: Lots of fighting and cursing, a few sex scenes, weapon descriptions, and the inner struggle of someone who has power but is a gentleman in his own rough way. Kind of a post-fallout John Wayne. At the end of the ten-book series, the planet is finally destroyed with a second nuclear strike, and that stunned me as a 17-year-old–that the author went through all of that and then ended it in that manner.

Q: Is there anything you’d go back and do differently now that you have been published, in regards to your writing career?

If I thought about it too much I’d go crazy. So I don’t waste time with “what if” in my life; I save that for the writing. I can live a thousand lives in my stories.

Q: In my experience, some things come quite easily (like creating the setting) and other things aren’t so easy (like deciding on a title). What comes easily to you and what do you find more difficult?

The title actually comes first for me. A phrase that I’ve heard or created won’t leave me, and the story flows from there. I can’t say any part of the process is really difficult, because it’s so much fun to me to edit and play with words, or to change a few lines of dialogue. I described it to someone as similar to a cat’s cradle–you have all these strings that have to be coordinated in unison. The only thing that ever frustrates me about writing is when I’m really flowing, and have to drop it to attend to real life tasks.

Q: Have you ever had a character take over a story and move it in a different direction than you had originally intended? How did you handle it?

I don’t just handle it when characters go off the path; I expect it. I go where they want to go. In the beginning, I tried to control the story and keep it within my original plans. The story always tastes better when I improvise.

Q: It’s one thing to write a book and another to edit it. How do you feel about the editing process? What was it like to edit your book?

Editing is joyous for me. As I said earlier, I love words and language. It’s great to see the whole thing come together–I described it to someone as similar to those cat’s cradles, where you have to pull many strings all at once and very deliberately to make it work.

Q: Now that you are a published author, does it feel differently than you had imagined?

I’ve been preparing for this since I was about fifteen, so it all feels natural.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Fair warning for any potential reader of mine: life is beautiful, but it’s also raw. I write the way boxers look at each other during weigh-in. Whatever the net of my imagination snags, whether it’s out of the muck or from some sublime and spiritual place, be assured I’m going to treat it the same. I like to put a magnifying glass to it, and put my hands on it, like a crime scene investigator.

And if you read my stuff, I won’t let you look away either. That’s no cut on writers who have a lighter touch, because everybody is different. Some people like sugar with their medicine. I’d rather taste the medicine straight. Like most people, I try to avoid pain and discomfort, but sometimes I have to walk right into the pain. Come along. You’re invited.