Interview with Hugh Howey, by Chad Huskins

Chad Huskins is the EVVY Award-winning author of the new epic military sci-fi novel Zero Star, available now on Amazon.

If you've spent enough time in the world of self-publishing, it's impossible to miss the story of Hugh Howey.  His Wool series hasn't just skyrocketed him to the top of the game, it's also kind of changed the game.

He is undoubtedly the "Cinderella story" of the self-publishing world.  Here's a fellow that went the non-traditional route.  Rather than listen to the endless sea of rejection letters that await 99% of us, Hugh Howey opted for self-publishing on the Amazon Kindle program, and then watched as the first in his series took off.  Seeing its popularity, he quickly scrambled to write more in the series, and eventually caught the attention of Ridley Scott and Steve Zaillian, who optioned the Wool series for film.

Howey has been understandably busy these days, between his duties as family man and writer, but I recently had a chance to pin him down and ask him a few questions, author to author.

HUSKINS:  Hi, Hugh.  Thanks for joining us here at Realm of Ideas.  First, just let me say that I’ve only just started to read your Wool series, and it is fantastic.  I picked up on it in an article for CNN.  It seems like you’ve had a heck of a year.  Can you tell us a little about what it felt like when it first started changing, what was going on in your and your wife’s head when this success started coming around so suddenly?

HOWEY:  It started in October of 2011. Sales began picking up and reviews started trickling in. At every stage of this wild ride, my wife and I have looked at each other in disbelief. Just when you think things have gotten as nutty as they possibly can, something bigger and crazier happens. So, in one sense, it’s seemed sudden, but really it’s been a very long upward journey full of many neat surprises.

HUSKINS:  Wool is a post-apocalyptic series taking place in the subterranean Silos.  Are you attracted to the post-apocalyptic genre, the themes in The Road and The Walking Dead, or did you have a specific story you were trying to tell and felt that only a post-apocalyptic setting could suffice?

HUGH:  The latter. I had a story I wanted to tell, and it only made sense in a wasteland setting. This isn’t the type of story I read or normally write. It’s just the world that the first short story needed to take place in.

HUSKINS:  Describe your writing process.  Myself, I prefer silence.  Do you listen to music, or write in silence?  Do you have a schedule you try to maintain?

HOWEY:  I prefer silence, also. I write best in the morning, so I get up and start immediately and try to go straight to lunch. I usually break around 10:00 in the morning to check email and post on Facebook and Twitter. My goal is to get a good 4-6 hours of writing or revising in each day. It’s just me and a laptop and my dog.

HUSKINS:  You’re pretty much the “Cinderella story” of the self-publishing world.  Can you describe how this happened?  That is, did you merely put the book up on Amazon Kindle and “wait and see,” and then just get lucky, or were you constantly promoting it on Twitter and Facebook, marketing it and so forth?

HOWEY:  I didn’t promote Wool until after it was already taking off on its own. The best thing you can do to give yourself a shot at success is to keep writing and publishing. The sort of sales you get from tireless marketing are the kind that require more marketing to maintain. In order to have a blockbuster, you need readers telling each other about the work, not you telling enough people that you get a sale or two. I know a lot of writers will disagree with me on this, but I wouldn’t spend a lot of time on marketing until you have five or six novels or a few dozen short stories under your belt. Just write. And don’t expect to make it big, that can be dangerous. Write because you love to, because you have to, not because you want to get rich.

HUSKINS:  When you were first starting with the ideas for Wool and other stories, did you find that your wife, friends and family were supportive of you?  Did anyone think you were crazy for trying your hand at writing and publishing?

HOWEY:  Nobody thought I was crazy. Everyone I encountered had mad respect for me. Writing is a very common aspiration. Very few people stick with it to completion, and so it mostly draws awe from others. It’s similar to the admiration I have for those who stick with a musical instrument or a foreign language until they become proficient. I’ve had nothing but support and encouragement from friends and family. In fact, I started writing primarily to hand my stories to people I knew!

HUSKINS:  I’ve read that you’ve drawn inspiration from some of the “awesome women” in your life.  Besides your wife, what other great women have inspired you?

HOWEY:  My sister and my mother. Both are brilliant women with enormous hearts and mountains of courage. I aspire to be more like them in many ways.

HUSKINS:  You were a yacht captain for a while, and traveled the globe.  Miss it?  Still do it?

HOWEY:  I don’t miss running other people’s yachts. It’s a lot of work and it takes you away from family. My dream now is to get back on a sailboat of my own and take it around the world. I think within a decade that I’ll be on my way.  (NOTE:  Since we had this discussion, Hugh has done just that.)

HUSKINS:  What else do you do with your time besides writing and family time?  Have any hobbies that keep you occupied?

HOWEY:  I love to take pictures, especially of people. My dog keeps me busy with long walks and fetching sticks (that would be me fetching the sticks, mostly). My wife and I really enjoy our time together reading or watching a film. We’re very boring people.

HUSKINS:  What are you reading now?

HOWEY:  The latest Jon Ronson book. This man is a genius. He’s hilarious, and I love the way he strings words together. I highly recommend all of his books.

HUSKINS:  Lots of writers and artists have that “watershed moment” when they decided they wanted to write and create.  For me, it was reading Sphere by Michael Crichton when I was like 15.  It kind of planted the seed, which grew into a burning desire.  Was there a book that did that for you?

HOWEY:  Ender’s Game. I was 12, and it was when I knew I wanted to be a writer. The fact that Card was a fellow North Carolinian made that dream seem attainable.

HUSKINS:  Wool has been optioned for film by Ridley Scott, the man behind the original Alien, Gladiator, Blade Runner and numerous other epics.  Tell us how that came about, and what was it like?  Did you get a phone call from an agent, e-mail?

HOWEY:  My agent sent Wool around Hollywood. One of the people who got a copy and loved it was Steve Zaillian, one of the top screenplay writers in the business. He loved it enough to send it along to Ridley, who also fell in love with the story. This duo bought the option in conjunction with 20^th Century Fox. They are set to produce, though I doubt either of them will write or helm the work. They have a lot in the pipeline.

I did receive an email from Ridley. He was busy with the release of Prometheus at the time, but was extremely complimentary of the book. It’s amazing that someone of his stature sat down and read something I wrote from cover to cover. That’s humbling.

HUSKINS:  Did you or your family ever have a big celebratory moment for all of these achievements?

HOWEY:  We’ve had a lot of little celebratory moments. Mostly meals out. My way of celebrating is to go get pizza and maybe splurge for a beer. Or go eat somewhere with a view of the water.

HUSKINS:  Thanks for chatting, Hugh.  But before you go, we have to ask you for any piece of advice you can give to writers out there, or artists of any kind for that matter.

HOWEY:  If you love creating, then do it. Art should be an outlet for everything except our desire to get rich. You’ll go mad with that as your motivation. If you view it as a hobby, but one you take seriously enough to generate the highest quality output possible, then the sky is the limit. But that’s just me. There are a million other ways to handle being an artist, and I’m sure most of those alternatives are superior to my way.

(To find out more about Hugh Howey, visit his website www.hughhowey.com.  To find his fabulous Wool series, go here: http://www.amazon.com/Wool-Omnibus-Edition-ebook/dp/B0071XO8RA/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1354623922&sr=1-2&keywords=wool.

Find me on Facebook, and on Twitter @ChadRyanHuskins

Kickstarter project is LIVE NOW!

Hi guys.  So, we went live today!  Woohoo!  If you want to donate $25 to the project (and get a signed copy when it's all finished), visit the link here!

DRITH'S CITYSCAPES AND LANDSCAPES

Hey guys!  Check out the first spec work being done by artist Aadrian Suy on Drith's cityscapes and landscapes.  Our world is a Roman-esque steampunk world.

And just as an update, there have been a LOT of balls in the air on this project, but it's all finally starting to come together.  We're looking for a summer release, and I'll be announcing the exact release day at the beginning of next month.  Thanks for your support!

For more artwork, click here.  For the official synopsis, click here.

CREATING THE COMPLEX WORLD OF DRITH

Showing you guys the latest that we've been working on.  What you're seeing is artwork from UK artist Jack Baker, and American artists Micah Champion and Adriaan Suy.  Lady of Drith is a YA/crossover novel that we're calling "Roman-style steampunk," which seeks to transcend the expectations of the genre by looking at politics, the complex roles of women, and, of course, a little magic and gunslinging action.

Lord Hiss

"Lord Hiss" is the remnant of a grotesquery, now trapped forever in his mechanized suit, and forced to do battle in the gladiatorial events of the Den of Beasts.

A Drithean Senator

Like Rome, the politics in Lady of Drith play an important role in the storytelling.

Drith: Official Synopsis

At the center of a vast civilization lies Drith, a city that has harnessed the power of steam, electricity, and magic.  For centuries, the city’s Major Houses have fought a bloody struggle for control over Drith.

Drea Kalder is the last of her noble House.  Her father murdered, her mother the victim of suicide, she has no one left to turn to when all seems lost except her best friend Thryis.

When Drea is adopted as a ward by the influential House Syphen, it seems the storm might have passed.  But her problems have only just begun, for she and Thryis soon discover that House Syphen is a den of vipers, and may have been behind the fall of her family all along.

Drea enters a cauldron of intrigue, one that pits her and Thryis against the darkest secrets hidden within Drith itself—mages, secret societies, and one magic-wielding gunslinger known only as Lady Blackveil.

The bullets fly and the blades are quick, as Drea Kalder begins to piece together what’s happened to her.  And soon, she seeks something that no woman in Drith has ever sought before: Control.

Pet Peeves in Fiction Writing (Part 1: Prophecies)

When it comes to reading fiction or watching some nice fiction on TV, there are few things that make me more frustrated than hearing about a prophecy.  Prophecies tend to crop up all over fiction, especially if there is any level of fantasy involved, often to the detriment of the overall story.

Do not confuse prophecy with foreshadowing.  Foreshadowing is one of the oldest and most effective tools in storytelling, and when done best it is subtle, an item or sentence introduced in a way that fits so perfectly into the back of the reader's/viewer's mind that it goes entirely unnoticed on the conscious level, and, like a bomb perfectly planted, detonates to create a more perfect explosion at the foundation of the audience's understanding, releasing a slew of revelations and reinterpretations of the story they've just experienced.

Prophecy is different.  Prophecy just says what's going to happen.  There's no mystery (not really), and no work necessary on the part of the writer to actually build a character up.  Prophecy just tells you that this character is amazing (i.e. the Chosen One).  It tells you, "Hey, watch this guy, he's really going to be something."  And that breaks one of the critical rules of storytelling: show, don't tell.

In short, prophecy is lazy.  Most of the time.

The way I see it, there are generally two kinds of prophecies: the good one and the bad one.  The Good Prophecy is a foretelling of some darkness that is coming, but there is hope that a hero will emerge, usually with some defining birthmark and a trusty Sword of Truth, and he will cast down the Dark One.  The Bad Prophecy kind of starts by telling of a Dark One first, someone who will rise up and cover the whole world in a thousand-year darkness--in this case, we may not be told about the hero, but we know the story can't just end with a thousand-year darkness, so we (the audience) are left thinking, "Okay, so, who's gonna stop this from happening?"

The next chapter, or scene in the movie, is usually an introduction to the hero.  (You know what comes next.  If you don't, just refer to the prophecy, which explained everything.)

In either case, the writer has essentially already told you what's going to happen.  You're waiting for the hero with the right birthmark to show up, and you know that, no matter what happens to him, he will make it and defeat the Dark One.  There's no guessing, no suspense, no maybes or surprises, he's just going to make it.

Also, do you like spoilers?  I don't.  So, if you're like me (and I think most people hate spoilers), and you don't like people telling you the end of a story and every detail in between, then why the hell would you want some soothsayer in the movie telling you what's going to happen?

Here's how it goes, and stop me when this sounds familiar:  You hear about an interesting movie, you go with your friends to see it, maybe pay for your girlfriend or kids to get in, you go sit down, listen to some fortuneteller on the screen tell you all about a prophecy of a "white-haired man, dark of skin, with eyes blue as the sea" who will come and vanquish all evil...and then you watch exactly that happen.  It's no different than just having read this paragraph with me telling you, only now you owe me $10 for admission, $20 if you paid for someone else to get in, $35 if you paid for food and drinks while reading it, and $40 if you read this paragraph in 3D (I have to charge you for the glasses).

In other words, you pay to watch someone's prophecy unfold.  You paid for the movie and the spoiler in one go.

What's worse about the prophecy, no matter if it's a Good one or Bad one, is that it makes it so that the character doesn't even have to try.  He (or she) is just going to make it.  No matter what.  They couldn't fail if they tried, because the prophecy says they won't.  This, in my opinion, invariably leads to an underdeveloped character, and characters that are not at all real or complex.

Now, I have to say right now that if you don't like real or complex characters, such as those in George R. R. Martin's superb Song of Ice and Fire series, then prophecy probably seems okay to you.

"But Chad," you're probably saying, "Martin does use prophecy in his writing!"  To this, I say, "Not really."  By that, I mean he uses mostly what I would call foreshadowing, and if there is a prophecy it's usually so twisted that no one could make hide nor hair out of it (think of what Daenarys saw in the House of the Undying, those images were so strange they might've been anything, but it turns out she did see a couple of important events foretold).  George R. R. Martin is the exception that proves the rule, that rare voice that shows how prophecy ought to be done if you're going to do it at all (again, if you enjoy surprises, no spoilers, and complex characters that might become evil or good or, as real people become, somewhere in between).

Prophecy eliminates a character's ability to be multifacted beings, as real people are, and instead pigeonholes them, makes them either this or that, and, worst of all, it tells us the end.

So, to recap, if you don't mind spoilers, and if you don't mind simplistic, predictable characters (and I'm not insulting you if you do, for there is no accounting for taste), then this article probable makes no sense to you.  This next bit may make even less senses, so...here we go!

Another problem is when so much importance is placed on a prophecy that there's no way the story can live up to it.  For this reason, prophecies often become so convoluted that they rarely even make sense.  Watch the last two seasons of Battlestar Galactica, and you'll know what I'm talking about.  So much importance placed on a prophecy about a child in an opera house...and then it went nowhere.  I mean, absolutley nowhere.  The whole prophecy just led up to the kid walking into the flight command center (which was an opera house in the visions for...ya know...reasons), and...that's it.  That's like if you had a dream about being a kid running through an abandoned warehouse and sticking a stick through a keyhole in an old decrepit door, and somehow that foretells you sticking the gas nozzle into your car tomorrow.  Yeah, that prophecy was that mundane.

The last thing I will say is that I understand the argument of the archetypal hero.  I know that it's classic, that it's been repeated down through the ages and blah blah blah, I've heard it all.  I'm not saying you have to hate it, I'm saying great stories, such as the Original Star Wars Trilogy, was told entirely without prophecy, and look how amazing it was.  Then watch the Prequel Trilogy, with all its Chosen One talk, and...yyyyyyeah.

(to be continued in Pet Peeves in Fiction Writing (Part 2: Super Quippy Dialogue, AKA the NCIS Dilemma)

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