How do you balance writing short stories, novels, and novellas? And do you typically know which of these a story will be when you start?
You’ve already published two short story collection ( Behold the Void and Beneath a Pale Sky) and have a third on the way ( No One is Safe, October 2023). I just sold a novel coming in 2025 that takes place in the near future, and while that had its own set of challenges (involves a lot of hard science), it was nice not to have to research underwear. Whereas with Boys it was more little things, such as lighting, heat, how they washed themselves, how they spoke. But to answer your question, the research with the Civil War stuff was way more intensive than it was with Boys. Primarily because Boys is so self-contained (95% of it takes places in an isolated orphanage), whereas Shiloh and my upcoming novel spread out into cities and get into a lot of different areas, such as weaponry, historic battles, dialect, structures, cooking, clothing, et cetera, et cetera. My next novel is also a Civil War-era story, so I apparently enjoy putting my brain through the grinder, because writing period novels is an act of self-flagellation. Do you do a lot of research when writing stories that take place in other times? But ultimately it’s all about execution (and rewrites, of course).īoys is set at the turn of the century in an isolated orphanage run by priests, and your novella Shiloh takes place during the Civil War.
#WHATS MY DARK MOON SIGN FULL#
So, by developing strong characters, a plot full of horrific incidents, and structuring the story in a way that keeps readers flipping pages and chapters and letting the story slowly build to a climax, you aspire to hit all three of those goals. The heart/humanity comes from writing believable, empathetic characters, and the scares come from the plot and the things you throw at those characters. A lot of the suspense came during the writing process, meaning that suspense is generated by the way you tell a story, as much as the story itself. Well, the aspiration was to write a scary, heartfelt horror novel.
#WHATS MY DARK MOON SIGN TRIAL#
"Child" was a lot of trial and error, but once I figured out the best way for me personally to construct a novel, the subsequent books came much easier. When you started writing the book, how much of it did you know going into it? It’s frightening, suspenseful, and deeply human. In many ways, Child was a lot of trial and error, but once I figured out the best way for me personally to construct a novel, the subsequent books came much easier.īoys in the Valley races like a train on fire. when to go from Idea to Outline to Draft to Rewrite, etc.). But I’d say the biggest leap between Child and Boys was in my development of a “system”, or a modus operandi if you will as to how to write a novel (i.e. It’s hard to quantify my evolution as a writer between the three books, because they were all such different projects told in a completely different way. I actually gave publisher Paul Miller his choice of the three and he picked Boys. I think we then sold Child and Gothic within a one-or-two-month span. My agent was shopping Child when Earthling reached out asking for a novel. So, in which order did you write your recent novels, and how would you say you’ve evolved between them? I’ve always been interested in the evolution of a writer, in terms of the chronology of their work. The following year, your epic novel A Child Alone with Strangers was published, followed not long after by Gothic.
#WHATS MY DARK MOON SIGN SERIES#
Boys came out in 2021 as part of Earthling Publication’s Halloween Series and immediately became highly sought after. Originally published as a deluxe limited edition by Earthling Publications, his latest novel, Boys in the Valley, is out today from Tor Nightfire.īefore Boys in the Valley, you’d published two early novels ( Don’t Let Them Get You Down, The Egotist) but you’d been primarily known as a short story and novella writer. The New York Times calls his work “terrifically scary.” Philip’s work has been translated into multiple languages, and his stories have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Best Horror of the Year, Nightmare Magazine, and Black Static. His novels include A Child Alone with Strangers and Gothic. Philip Fracassi is the Bram Stoker-nominated author of the story collection Behold the Void (named “Collection of the Year” by This Is Horror) and Beneath a Pale Sky (named “Collection of the Year” by Rue Morgue Magazine).
0 kommentar(er)
