Author Crosstalk

A few months ago, I also had the privilege of interviewing the thoughtful and insightful Cameron McVey, a fellow author whose work I admire. We discussed everything from narrative challenges to what the future holds for storytelling. Below is the full interview. We delve into the intricacies of writing, our personal inspirations, and much more—it’s a conversation I’m excited for you to read. I hope you enjoy!

-Many times, people will ask how a writer goes about writing. What is your favorite working setup and ambience that helps you perfect your stories?

Currently, I write in our living room while I sit in a comfy chair. Up until a couple of months ago, I sat on one end of the couch. I recently moved so my space is entirely different now. Years ago, I used to write on my bed. I’ve written in the local library. In fact, it was at that library that I wrote my first full-length book. It was a memoir. It was bad. But when I finished it I knew I wanted to be a writer. I knew I wasn’t going to stop writing. Back when I started writing full-time in 2011 we lived in a small cabin, I wrote in a loft space in which I couldn’t stand up. I’ve written parts of books – key parts – when I’ve been on the road in hotels, rental cabins and so on. My point is I didn’t ever want to get too locked into any one place, any one setting. Part of the joy of the writing life for me is being able to take my laptop and write wherever I am.

Having said that, there are a couple of elements that help me write. Coffee is very necessary. Early morning is key. I’m up somewhere between 3 – 3:30 AM, This is a schedule I’ve been following for about eight years now. It developed when I had a wonky work schedule (off some days, on for 16 hours on other days). I tried writing at different times of day on different days. That didn’t work. I needed consistency. The only window that was open every day of the week was early, early in the morning. So, I started doing that and quickly grew to love it. I’ve been writing in the twilight ever since. I’m writing this right now at 5:06AM.

-I’ve had readers say they “can’t believe what goes on in my head,” wondering how story ideas arise. Sometimes my ideas are so random it’s hard to say where they’ve originated. What is it that brings your stories to mind?

A thousand different things and nothing in particular. Sometimes it’s a turn of phrase – something a coworker or my wife says or something I overhear while buying groceries. Also, scenes or tropes from movies and TV shows often get my writer’s brain revved up. I just read a short news article about the death of Marty Kroft. If you are of a certain age you know his and his brother Sid’s work. H.R. Pufnstuf, Land of the Lost and many others. Those two were known as the Kings of Saturday Morning. The article about his passing referenced Land of the Lost which holds a special place in my heart. As a work, it has its flaws, no doubt. But the basic premise of the series – a variation of the Lost World trope – stuck with me as I grew up. Sleestaks! Pylons! Cha-ka! I’ve always wanted someone to make a good, adult, serious version of that setting. There have been a few attempts over the years but nothing that’s captured the same magic of that show, in my opinion. I clicked from the article about Marty Kroft to the wikipedia page about Land of the Lost and then said to myself, “Maybe it’s time I wrote something like this. I need to stop waiting on someone else to make it and put out my own version.” I spent the next twenty minutes roughing out the basic set up for a novel/screenplay/teleplay.

That, of course, speaks to the most important point – write down the ideas when they come to you. Don’t wait. Don’t tell yourself you’ll write it down later. Write it down, record it, video it – do whatever you can to capture that idea so it doesn’t slip from your mind never to come back.

Another aspect of the idea generation process that has become more prominent for me these past few years is what I call the synthetic element of writing. Synthetic as in synthesis as in the combining of common/already done more than once elements into something new. When I’m in the moment writing the stories down, I don’t know where they are coming from. But when I go back over to review/edit that day’s work I can often pick out a turn of phrase or scene structure or twist of plot that is somewhat kind of like something I remembered from a while back or saw or read a couple of weeks ago. Sometimes the words used in news articles (ceasefire, invasion, right to privacy, etc.) leak into my writing. An invasion of privacy, computer hacking news story, for example, becomes an alien invasion and so on. It’s fun to reverse engineer scenes and turns of phrase to see if I can identify a recent input that my unconscious mind has spit back out in a different form.

-I’ve found that most people are familiar with the term “writer’s block.” I’ve had some struggles with that myself and wondered if you’ve ever gotten stuck with a story that is just being difficult. What do you do then – perhaps put it away and work on something else for a while?

I tend to go in the other direction. Not writer’s block but writer’s flood. I tend to generate too many possibilities for any given story I’m working on. Recently, I’ve been writing the third book in my vampire series. I’ve very deliberately been welding the tropes from “War of the Worlds” and “Dracula” by H.G. Wells and Bram Stoker respectively into one series. Those classic works came out the same year (1898). When I stumbled across that detail a few years back, my writer’s brain wouldn’t let it go. It’s been a challenge to find the right balance of tone and action as I merge those two basic stories. They are both about invasion, each in their own way, so that’s what I’ve used as my connector. I found myself halfway through the rough draft of the third book writing plot twist scene after plot twist scene. Characters were revealing long held secrets. Information was being dumped that changed the tenor of plot elements in the first two books. Every day I’d come up with another cool idea and after ten days of this I looked at the rough draft and said, “I have no idea where this is going.” So, I had to go back, read through the whole thing and reframe the story so that the changes I added made sense. They do now. But there was a time when I felt like I was wading through too much plot.

That phrase – too much plot – I heard while listening to the audio version of the MCU book by Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales and Gavin Edwards. In the chapter about the making of the first Iron Man movie, the writer and director toss around dozens of different ideas before realizing that the version of the film they had at that point had, yup, too much plot. That phrase jumped out at me because I’ve experienced that countless times while writing. There are just so many possibilities, so many directions in which I could take the story. When I get overwhelmed that way I fall back on the guide of “character is action; action is character.” To me that means there is no real separation between plot and character. What the character does is who the character is. If the events and/or choices I’ve come up with don’t align with the character then I toss them out – no matter how cool or unique or well-written they are. That’s hard sometimes. But you’ve got to do it. Readers sense inauthentic plot devices quicker than a shark smells blood in the water. Trust your characters. They know what to do.

And, yes, go get another cup of coffee. Sometimes just standing up and walking around for a bit clears my head and I know what I need to do to make a scene work. Never underestimate the power of getting up and walking around.

-I was very interested in the way you structured your book, “First Encounters,” as an on-going interview session. I also liked how you dealt with the psychology of the protagonist arguing against her paranoia being dismissed out of hand. How did your concept of the established relationship between humans and an alien civilization evolve into a recasting by the protagonist of that first contact to show the aliens as the “other” to be feared?

Like the Lost World trope, the First Contact trope is one that has been done hundreds of different times in hundreds if not thousands of different ways. Contact between humans and aliens is the most common form of that trope. That usually takes the form of an invasion – cue big explosions and even bigger fight scenes. I wanted to do something different. You mention “What if?” questions in the opening of your Traveler series. My approach to First Encounters was more along the lines of “What Else?” I wanted to explore what else could be done with first contact between humans and aliens. One of the details that I played with is when the contact happens. Most first contact stories have a dramatic moment, one that’s very publicly known or known by many shortly thereafter. I did something different in First Encounters. I said “What if the aliens had been in contact with us for a long period of time and we simply didn’t realize it?” I then followed that twist with “What if the Aliens lied to us?” Once I had those elements in my head, it quickly led to having an investigator character. Given our current media environment I envisioned that character as something like a future true crime podcaster. Of course, the “crime” she is investigating is what the hell is really going on with these supposedly nice and helpful aliens? In order to give that investigation some juice, I portrayed the investigator character as being perceived as paranoid by the rest of society. “Why are you looking this galactic gift horse in the mouth? Why are you questioning what everybody knows is true?” I find those set ups intriguing. It’s akin to the red pill or blue pill choice made famous in The Matrix. Do you want to know the real truth or do you want to stick with the comfortable lie?

-What would you like readers to know that will draw them to “First Encounters”? What do you think is most unique about this story?

You’ve already mentioned the ongoing interview structure of the book. I found that to be both a challenging and rewarding way to write that particular story. I think it presents the story and the two main characters in an intriguing and intimate manner. In addition, there is an accepted truth that the main character, Saha Montuse, questions. She can’t turn a blind eye. She can’t settle for the comfortable lie. Her investigation takes her to unexpected places. Where she ends up is not where she thought she was going. First Encounters is about how Saha deals with this unpredicted outcome.

-Fill in the blank, “Writing has made me a better…”

First off, my memory is better. Before I started writing, I had a decent, slightly above average memory. A few years after writing long-form stories with multiple characters, dozens of different settings and complicated plots, my memory is pretty darn good. I kill at trivia.

In the bigger picture, I find myself being more curious about and more accepting of other people. I used to work at the main desk of a library. All sorts of people stop by the desk. Over the years of writing, I definitely became more curious about the people. More curious and less assuming. Instead of judging the person in the moment (the proverbial book by its cover) I found myself wanting to know their stories. When you write you have to put yourself in your characters’ shoes. After doing that for a few years, it’s become automatic. I find myself wondering, “If I were that person right now…ohhh, yeah, I completely understand why they’re upset.” Or “Oh yeah, given what I know about that person, I get why she did X instead of Y. I totally would have done X but Y makes sense for her.”

Also, silly as it sounds, writing has made me more hopeful. By finally allowing myself to focus on and regularly practice my creativity (that’s an awkward phrase!)I’ve become more aware of how other people are creative in their own ways. Some of those ways are obvious – print-making, for example. Some of those ways are less obvious – how a parent interacts with a child in a difficult situation. I’ve realized that creativity is everywhere all the time. Once you open your eyes to it, you can’t help but see it. It’s in every decision that went into making the car you drive or the book you’re holding in your hand or the show that you’re watching on TV. Yes, of course, some of the decisions we disagree with and/or are compromises made for pragmatic/budgetary reasons. But that doesn’t dilute the fact that every manufactured thing you see, use, touch, pass by on the street was produced via some creative process. Every interaction between people has a creative element to it. A simple greeting, a simple smile – we each do it in our own way. Those are creative choices. Longer, more personal conversations include hundreds if not thousands of creative choices. What am I going to say? How am I going to say it? When is the best time to say it? How can I best help this person here and now? And so on. We all do this fluidly, mostly unconsciously. But it still counts. It’s still creativity in action. I prefer to think of our species not as Homo Sapiens (thinking people) but as Homo Creatiens. We are all creative engines, creative beings. That gives me hope.