Author Shawn Inmon Of ‘Kradak The Champion’ On How To Write Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories
An Interview With Ian Benke
For me, everything starts with an image. I’ve been carrying that image in my head of the domed city I mentioned earlier. I can see dozens of specifics of that city — parks, a river, towering buildings — but I had no idea what the story was that went with it. It wasn’t until very recently that the actual story that went with that image dropped into my head. If it’s not an image, it is always a character. My characters really do appear, already-formed, in my mind. It’s why I don’t try to plot too much in advance. A plot requires my characters to do certain things because the plot needs them to. I only want my characters to act and react the way they actually would, given the situation.
Science Fiction and Fantasy are hugely popular genres. What does it take for a writer today, to write compelling and successful Science Fiction and Fantasy stories? Authority Magazine started a new series called “How To Write Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories”. In this series we are talking to anyone who is a Science Fiction or Fantasy author, or an authority or expert on how to write compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Shawn Inmon.
Shawn Inmon has written more than twenty books, ranging from redemptive time travel to true love memoirs, to collections of short stories. He lives in bucolic Seaview, Washington and is married to his high school sweetheart. They share their home with two chocolate labs and a slightly schizoid cat named Georgie.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share a story about what first drew you to writing over other forms of storytelling?
I was fortunate to have a mom who decided I was going to read very early. She started me on flash cards at two and I was reading Dr. Seuss by three. I wasn’t precocious, necessarily, I just had a mom pushing me hard! I read Green Eggs and Ham at three and The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins at four. That was my first time to experience that I need to know what happens next sensation. Why wouldn’t Guy-I-Am at least try the green eggs and ham? I was truly stressed out when the hats kept appearing on Bartholomew’s head.
The books I read have changed, but it’s that same sensation of wanting to know why that keeps me turning pages as a reader and tapping the keys as a writer.
I am a discovery writer — someone who writes without plotting in advance — so I need to write the story to find out what happens to my characters. When I sit down with a blank page, I honestly don’t know.
You are a successful author. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I think an innate ability to be a storyteller is important. Two people can tell the exact same story. One will bore an audience, the other will hold them spellbound. It’s not the story, it’s the perspective we bring to it that makes the difference. I share stories on my Facebook page regularly. The stories themselves may not be earth-shaking, but if you have the proper perspective, there are lessons to be found in everyday events.
It’s important to be able to be observant of people and things around us. My oldest sister nicknamed me the observer when I was very young because I often stood off to the side and watched everyone else interact. It was important to me to figure out why people responded the way they did. That skill has come in very handy when writing dialogue!
I think Richard Bach conveyed what is important for success when he said, “A professional writer is one who didn’t quit.” I didn’t publish my first book until I was 52. I didn’t become a full-time writer until I was 56. And yet, all my life, I knew I was a writer. I was just a writer who wasn’t writing yet. Once I started, though, I haven’t stopped. I’ve published 32 books in the last ten years.
Can you tell us a bit about the interesting or exciting projects you are working on or wish to create? What are your goals for these projects.
I’m one of those writers who always has more projects swirling around in my brain than I can ever write. Every time I sit down and watch a new documentary, it is inevitable that I will end up with an idea for a new series.
I recently watched a documentary about a housing project that was built in the seventies and how it all went wrong so that it is abandoned today. Now I have a whole series I want to write about a false utopia where a billionaire builds a domed city and offers people everything they need to live in return for never leaving. He views it as a social experiment. I see a thousand stories that could be told within the confines of that city.
I have another series in mind about humans who go on to fill supernatural roles after they die. The person I want to focus on first works for the Karma Police. Who wouldn’t want to read a series that is completely focused on people getting exactly what they believe?
My goal for all my upcoming projects is to entertain my readers and give them an escape from whatever else they are dealing with in their life. Below the surface of that, I try to show truths about our shared experiences. I often say I try to reveal truth by making up lies.
Wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Let’s begin with a basic definition so that all of us are on the same page. How do you define sci-fi or fantasy? How is it different from speculative fiction?
They are all three linked in my mind, of course, and sometimes the lines between them can become blurred.
My favorite concept of sci-fi is that the world looks like ours (though perhaps set in the future) but with one key element changed. That element can be faster-than-light travel or a thousand other things, but I think we still need to relate to the basic human condition or the story doesn’t work.
To me, fantasy is set apart from sci fi because the entire created world can be so different from our own. And of course magic, which I love, can be used in place of the scientific advancements in sci-fi.
Speculative fiction is actually a label I love because it feels like I can really let my imagination soar. My Middle Falls Time Travel series falls into speculative fiction because there is no science used to explain the time travel, but the world its set in is definitely our own. That allows me to explore the idea of redemption and improving our life in a place we recognize, but using a mechanism that is purely metaphysical, not science-or-magic-based.
It seems that despite countless changes in media and communication technologies, novels and written fiction always survive, and as the rate of change increases with technology, written sci-fi becomes more popular. Why do you think that is?
I think that since gatekeepers no longer control what gets published, it’s possible for writers to reach hungry readers in smaller niches. For instance, game-based fiction (sometimes called LitRPG for Literature Role Playing Games) is hugely popular, though there isn’t much of it published by the largest publishers. There are dozens and dozens of authors who are happy to fill that vacuum.
And of course, access is easier now. When I was young, getting to go to a bookstore was a huge treat, but not one that happened very often. By the time I graduated high school, I had read every book that vaguely interested me in my school library. Now, I would be able to access tens of thousands of books at that same age, with many of them available for free.
In your opinion, what are the benefits to reading sci-fi/fantasy, and how do they compare to watching sci-fi/fantasy on film and television?
The pictures are always better in my own head! A great sci-fi or fantasy author knows how to give just enough description to explode an entire series of mental images in the reader. Film and TV directors, even with the explosion of CGI, are still limited to what they can put on the screen.
I have watched the new version of Dune several times already, and will see it many more times. I loved it, and thought that it captured many aspects of the story that had never made it onscreen before. But, was it close to the story that unfolded in my mind on the three occasions I read it? Nope. Even excellent adaptations can never fire my imagination the way a book can.
What authors and artists, dead or alive, inspired you to write?
My favorite question! My first adult books were written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Jules Verne, and Robert E. Howard. I grew up in a tiny, rural town, but when I read their stories, I was transported to Mars, Pellucidar, the Center of the Earth, and Cimmeria. My Alex Hawk Time Travel Series is my homage to Burroughs and Verne. My Kradak the Champion books do the same for Howard. They were the first writers who inspired me to want to write my own versions of their ideas, and that feeling never left me.
At fifteen, I moved into the grand masters of sci-fi, particularly Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, everything Robert Heinlein wrote, and ditto for Ray Bradbury. I still go back and reread Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man every few years and marvel at his economy of words and limitless imagination.
In my late teens, I discovered Kurt Vonnegut and my world has never been the same. Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse Five changed many things about the way I look at the world.
If you could ask your favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy author a question, what would it be?
I would most love to sit down with Ray Bradbury, though I would have difficulty limiting myself to just one question. I admire him for his blue-collar approach to writing, so it would probably be, “How did you tame your imagination enough that you were able to focus on one project at a time?”
If I had a second chance, I’d love to sit with Kurt Vonnegut and just say, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is?”
We’d like to learn more about your writing. How would you describe yourself as an author? Can you please share a specific passage that you think exemplifies your style?
I’m definitely a character-driven author. I love to write in close-third perspective, which means I spend the book looking at events right over the shoulder (and sometimes in the mind) of my protagonist.
My Alex Hawk and Kradak books are adrenaline-filled fantasy adventure series, but I believe that action is meaningless unless we have a good grasp on the characters and why that action is important to them.
Here’s an excerpt from my second Kradak book, where my three heroes have come across a miserable creature in the middle of a desert. The creature only wants one thing from them: death.
Steve took a step back, his hand automatically dropping to Lumina’s hilt.
Hyrant laughed. It was a bitter sound that resonated through the dead trees. It was the only jovial sound the group would hear that day. “Is that your normal response to someone asking you to kill them? To retreat and prepare to defend yourself?”
“I don’t think I will be requested to kill someone often enough to develop a normal response.” Steve made himself relax and used some of the techniques Weldin had taught him to quiet his mind. When he did, he heard a single sentence from Lumina: He means us no harm.
That sentence calmed him, but one word stopped Steve momentarily: us.
He couldn’t help but think, Is that what we are now? Us? As much a single unit as two separate entities? He put that thought away to consider at a later time.
“If you want to die, why do you need my help?”
“I have been thrice-cursed,” Hyrant responded. “For one, I have been permanently trapped in this hideous form. Second, I have been cursed with immortality.”
Steve started to say that it was impossible to kill anyone who was immortal, but Hyrant held up two of his hands to stop the objection.
“Third and worst of all, I have been blessed with keen self-awareness. That means I not only have to be this hideous creature, but I can see myself as I am. I am cursed.” He dropped the hands that had stopped Steve’s question.
“If you are immortal, there is nothing I can do to help.”
“Perhaps not. But it will only cost me some pain to find out. Can you tell me that Lumina, of all creations in Arkana, cannot help me? If so, you are wiser than I, which is certainly possible. Still, it is worth the price of some pain to find out the answer.”
Steve shook his head. He glanced at Rista for guidance, but she remained stoic, allowing Steve to make his own decisions when it came to how he would deploy Lumina.
“You are hesitant,” Hyrant said, “and I do not blame you. Why grant a favor to a grotesque stranger?”
Steve started to object, but this time Hyrant raised three hands to quell the thought. Steve wondered what it would take to get the rare four-handed objection.
“I can give you a reason. I have lived and suffered here in Brutal Forest for hundreds of generations. The comings and goings of creatures is no mystery to me. If you will do me the favor of beheading me, I will give you information that will save all your lives.”
Steve’s reservations about granting this boon had nothing to do with wanting to negotiate more favorable terms, but his interest was piqued, nonetheless.
Grint nudged him in the thigh with his elbow. “Listen. Big guy. If the poor misbegotten creature wants you to behead him, I say do it. What harm can come of it?”
Hyrant’s golden eyes — the only part of him that retained any beauty — welled with tears. Steve would have thought that an impossibility in such arid surroundings, but there they were. Large, silvery tears leaked out of the thing’s eyes and down its feathery cheeks.
“That’s the state of my existence then, isn’t it? When even the ugliest of creatures, a goblin, recognizes what I am, then I truly am the most despicable of all.”
To me, that sequence shows a lot of what I try to capture in my stories — a desperate need, an uncertainty as to what is right and wrong, all mixed with a fantastic creature.
Based on your own experience and success, what are the “Five Things You Need To Write Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories?” If you can, please share a story or example for each.
For me, everything starts with an image. I’ve been carrying that image in my head of the domed city I mentioned earlier. I can see dozens of specifics of that city — parks, a river, towering buildings — but I had no idea what the story was that went with it. It wasn’t until very recently that the actual story that went with that image dropped into my head.
If it’s not an image, it is always a character. My characters really do appear, already-formed, in my mind. It’s why I don’t try to plot too much in advance. A plot requires my characters to do certain things because the plot needs them to. I only want my characters to act and react the way they actually would, given the situation.
A new take on old tropes can be the greatest stuff of story, too. Tropes become such because they are aspects of stories that we have all loved. The ability to take a trope and turn it on its ear a bit is invaluable. In my Alex Hawk Time Travel Adventure series, I threw Alex a hundred thousand years into the future. When he arrived there, he found that our distant future looked like our ancient past. It was the fish-out-of-water trope with a slight twist: could a “modern” man survive in a primitive situation with none of the trappings of our current life?
Once I have my starting image, my protagonist, and my twisted trope in mind, it takes a bit of pure imagination to deliver the promise of the premise. My Middle Falls Time Travel series shows what happens when people die with unfinished business. They wake up at an earlier point in their life with all memories intact. A fun premise, but then I have to deliver the promise. I can’t just jump into the plot. I have to show what that time period looks like through the perspective of a much older person. In the first book in the series, that was as simple as him going to a market and finding a candy bar — a Marathon bar — that hasn’t been produced in decades. Nostalgia in the form of chocolate and caramel.
Finally, there has to be pacing. That’s probably what has taken me the longest to master. I write, from a prose standpoint, pretty simple books. I don’t spend a lot of words on description. Instead, I like to move things right along. So, I have to work against that natural inclination a bit by finding little scenes to slow down the headlong momentum. In one of my Middle Falls books, I spend an entire chapter with my protagonist cleaning a gross bathroom in a bowling alley. It doesn’t sound like much, but it was so important to her perspective for the rest of the book, and it was the perfect break in plot for that moment. Even cleaning a bathroom can be important!
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Entertainment, Business, VC funding, and Sports read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them 🙂
Like all of us, I have so many favorites. One of my favorite creatives in the world is David Fincher. He directed Se7en, The Game, Fight Club, and Zodiac in a ten-year period. When he is attached to a project, I don’t need to know anything else about it. I would love to have a chance to sit and talk story with him for an hour. I would have to get over telling him how brilliant I think he is, but I would do my best.
Two actors that enthrall me right now are Mark Rylance and Christopher Waltz. As with David Fincher, I’ll see anything they are in.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I’m really active on my Facebook writer’s page: https://facebook.com/shawninmonwriter. I hang out there virtually every day, answering reader’s questions, sharing my own observations, and occasionally telling bad jokes that involve puns.
I also have a website where you can find more information on all my books and I share a small list of the books that have most influenced me: https://shawn-inmon.com.
Thank you for these excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent. We wish you continued success.
Author Shawn Inmon Of ‘Kradak The Champion’ On How To Write Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.