Ask the Author: William Kely McClung
Answered Questions (4)
William Kely McClung
I rarely run out of ideas! But... I don't always know which direction I want to take. The rare times it does hit me, I think it's even scarier as I don't really have much experience in dealing with it. Still... one easy way for me to face the blank page that fights to stay blank, is to begin writing what I am NOT to going to write about.
Say I have a man in room, trapped. No way out. I've painted him and myself into a corner. One way to face it is to decide what he won't do. He won't become invisible and hide in the shadows. He won't shrink and crawl under the door. He won't beam himself to the mothership. He won't...
And soon, I am back in the flow of putting words on paper. The crazier and more interesting my ideas of what I am NOT going to write about start me down paths that become interesting and worth exploring.
Say I have a man in room, trapped. No way out. I've painted him and myself into a corner. One way to face it is to decide what he won't do. He won't become invisible and hide in the shadows. He won't shrink and crawl under the door. He won't beam himself to the mothership. He won't...
And soon, I am back in the flow of putting words on paper. The crazier and more interesting my ideas of what I am NOT going to write about start me down paths that become interesting and worth exploring.
William Kely McClung
Tell the story. Don't get caught up in machinations of writing so much they hinder or block you. Tell the story. Don't try to form and shape your words into a mold you've been told to fill. Tell the story. If in doubt over word counts or character arcs or pacing or genre bending, stop, take a breath, then tell the story.
William Kely McClung
I can't say what's best as a 'writer', only about what I like best about 'me being a writer'. And that's how much I learn. Willingly going down the rabbit holes in what sometimes become deep explorations for research, I learn and discover things that had never crossed my radar before. Many times, the research is in support of my characters, and so I learn what they know, or things that interest them. An example is in my current story LOOP. I have a what I hope is a fascinating female character who besides just being fierce, is a retro-gaming nerd. I had to do a lot of research into gaming, and pinball, and early video games and the amazing people who keep them alive. Many are brilliant people! I came out knowing a bit as I needed to write a character who is deeply involved. It's a small example, but when you read the character, you'll hopefully think the writer must know a lot about it! And he does... now. And then, of course, I try to incorporate dozens if not hundreds of those details into my stories, to share in a way that feels seamless and organic. LOOP is science fiction and horror. Both the science and the fiction are backed up with a lot of research. For me, I think the learning and diving into waters I never knew existed are among the best things about being a writer.
William Kely McClung
She vividly remembered the agony and fear the first time she died, not even seventeen, then the seemingly scalding blood of her first kill, but the priest was still droning on and on, getting to the part about loving forever and till death do we part. She smiled demurely beneath the delicate veil and tried to quell the hunger by concentrating on the quickening pulse just beneath his collared throat, wondering if her betrothed somehow knew when he answered, "I do."
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