An Interview With Ian Benke
Creativity, a lot of what makes compelling science-fiction and fantasy is the unique worlds the author invents, and if it’s another fantasy world inspired by Tolkien and Norse mythology it can definitely still work, but it’s sacrificing the potential for truly inspired creativity.
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 Matthew Donald.
After first winning a writing contest at age six, Matthew Donald made it his lifelong goal to write a bunch of books and release them upon the world. He graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 2014 with a B.A. in English and Creative Writing, and he has published three sequels to Megazoic among some other projects. Teslanauts is his first steampunk sci-fi book and he is working on multiple sequels.
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?
Thanks for having me! I’ve always been a naturally creative person. I took photos of a toy airplane I had as a kid and made a picture book of it encountering all the other toys in my house, and when I was six years old I won a writing contest with a poem detailing how much I wanted to be an author. I’ve always enjoyed being creative and out-of-the-box, coming up with unconventional settings or ideas or using old ideas in new ways. Plus, I love people’s reactions to characters and plot developments, whether my own or otherwise. The world can be a daunting place we’d all like to escape from, and I’d love to help provide that escapism through my writing. Writing can provide that in ways very few other venues can. You can tell audiences exactly what you want them to see using merely words and language.
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 believe the three traits that have helped me the most with my success are my tenacity, creativity, and resourcefulness. I’ve heard so many people say they’d love to write a book but get stuck a few pages in, and honestly those first few pages are the hardest to write for sure, but you gotta keep going, because once you’re in the meat of the narrative, there’s nothing more satisfying than cranking out pages of content and wrapping it up with a big bow. That’s where my tenacity comes into play. In terms of creativity, that’s helped me keep my stories interesting to write and consequently interesting to read. If you’re at a part of your draft you don’t want to write, chances are your readers won’t want to read it either, and that’s when you push your creativity to find ways to make that part of the draft interesting. But above all, resourcefulness is key to success. I wanted to traditionally publish at first, but I learned that to be a very exclusive club, so I found alternate methods. I’m not good at promoting things myself, so I’ve hired a promotional team. If there’s something I don’t know how to do, I either learn it myself or rely on others’ expertise. This isn’t a solo game. Nothing is.
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?
My upcoming book Teslanauts is a steampunk sci-fi and the first of a new series focusing on how advanced technology powered by Nikola Tesla could have affected the first half of the twentieth century. It’s technically an alternate history, but I’m treating it instead as if this actually happened, with most of the fantastical elements forcibly kept in the shadows. Currently I’m planning four sequels, with the series starting in the 1920s before gradually leading up to World War II. Even once you’ve read the first book, due out August 16th, 2022, let’s just say you haven’t seen anywhere close to the craziest stuff my mad brain has concocted. The first book’s still pretty good though, I think, so give it a chance please!
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?
Sci-fi and fantasy are easily melded together, especially when you get into the spectrum of hard sci-fi versus soft sci-fi. Personally, I define sci-fi stories as about the improbable and fantasy stories about the impossible. While there might be an expected aesthetic from each of them, like lasers in the future for sci-fi and magic in the past for fantasy, that isn’t necessarily required. Star Wars might have spaceships and lasers and alien worlds, but since there’s no Earth and the Jedi are essentially wizards, I’d argue Star Wars is fantasy rather than sci-fi. Meanwhile, my book Teslanauts might take place in the past, but it has advanced technology powered by mad science from real historical figures, so I’d argue it’s sci-fi rather than fantasy. And that’s not even getting into the whole science-fantasy genre, such as the Warhammer 40k or Spelljammer tabletop games. Classification is a mess. Everything’s a spectrum, whether it be sexuality, taxonomy, climatography, or the definition of genres.
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?
A lot of us sci-fi writers have a lot of wild ideas, maybe more so than the big guys upstairs making movies, or at least the executives greenlighting them. For us, I think novel writing is popular due to its accessibility. Most of our ideas would take millions of dollars and hundreds of computer animators to produce in movie form, and none of us have easy access to that. So to keep our visions alive, we write them as books, where only one person is required for production, and the most money you usually spend is the monthly fee for your computer’s word processor. This is good for readers too. It may sound corny, but the greatest visual effects aren’t anything produced out of a CGI factory, but from the human imagination. “As the hero cocked his blaster rifle half the size of his body, the numberless swarm of extraterrestrial monsters clambered towards him. Acid drooled from their triangular jaws, their scuttling talons grazing the scarlet-hued terrain like an enveloping blanket. They would dismember this hero who dared land his ship on their home world, and they would do so with extreme prejudice. But not on the hero’s watch. Pulling the trigger of his blaster, he bombarded the horde of enemies with a barrage of polychromatic energy beams, sending splashes of emerald blood into the air in every direction like a gory firework show. This hero would stand his ground, and he would obliterate any otherworldly demon who dared to face him.” There, see? Can’t you visualize that scene in your head? It would take whole teams of animators to create this if it were a movie or video game, and would require a hefty budget. But in written form? That took me roughly five minutes, and the only thing it cost to produce was a drink at my local coffee shop. That’s the benefit of written sci-fi.
In your opinion, what are the benefits to reading sci-fi, and how do they compare to watching sci-fi on film and television?
I think it depends on what kind of sci-fi you’re reading, but all types have benefits in written form compared to visual media. For hard sci-fi where the technology and physics are more realistic, you can go into pages of detail explaining the science behind everything, sort of like how Michael Crichton went into painstaking detail for the science in all his books. This makes it feel more realistic, and gives the reader so much information they couldn’t possibly learn in a movie. In soft sci-fi where things are more like “pull the lever for lightspeed drive and set all quantum photon blasters to maximum charge!” you can just say the ridiculous things the technology does and the reader will buy it through vivid description alone. If I were to write a story about a character who uses surrounding energy fields to transform himself into electrically charged particles and run like a lightning bolt across the ground at breathtaking speeds, all I have to do is describe that and say what he’s going through and the reader’s imagination does the rest. Oh wait, I did write that story! It’s in my upcoming book Teslanauts! Check it out this August.
What authors and artists, dead or alive, inspired you to write?
Different authors have inspired me in different ways. Classic sci-fi authors like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells have inspired me with their grandiose ideas so far ahead of their time. Journey to the Center of the Earth is one of my favorite classic sci-fi novels, and even though the science behind it is outdated, the idea itself is so fantastical and wonderful that it transports you to a wonderful world regardless of its realism. More modern authors like Rick Riordan and J.K. Rowling have shown me the endless creativity possible in young adult novels, as well how to craft likable characters that readers love to root for. Humorists like Eric Garcia have shown me how one can use comedy to allow readers to suspend their disbelief for more outrageous concepts. And in terms of creators that aren’t authors, I’ll admit, I have a soft spot for the films of Roland Emmerich. His latest movie Moonfall is the ultimate guilty pleasure flick, and I love the sheer creativity and ridiculousness of it to bits.
If you could ask your favourite Science Fiction and Fantasy author a question, what would it be?
I’d probably be too flustered to spit out anything coherent, but if I were to ask Michael Crichton a question, R.I.P., I’d ask how he came up with his ideas. Like, for his original Jurassic Park novel, did he come up with the idea of bringing back dinosaurs first and then studied how one could do it, or did he learn about DNA in mosquitoes preserved in fossilized amber and come up with the idea from that? If an author has a high concept like that, it’s often interesting to learn the process of how they came up with it.
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’d describe myself as an author who values highly creative concepts. I enjoy exploring the unusual and fantastical, while still taking the time to laugh at myself. My works are almost always speculative fiction with an often lighthearted and humorous tone. The real world is fascinating, and I like to inject concepts and events from it into my writing, but I also don’t like limiting myself to just reality. I want to explore concepts possible only through imagination. And my books often have a ton of humor, while not necessarily being comedies, because I believe humor is a powerful tool more creators should try to use. Humor not only allows your readers to buy the more ridiculous concepts in your books, but also acts as an effective contrast for the more serious moments. If your book has comedic moments throughout and then the humor stops at the dramatic moments, the reader feels its absence all the more, making the drama more effective than if the book was serious throughout. In terms of my descriptions, I’m a big fan of poetic repetition to provide a theatrical way of describing fantastical things, which I think I do well in this passage of my upcoming book Teslanauts describing the advanced technology hidden in this secret base:
“All the feats the Teslanauts could do with electricity blew all the fuses of Raymond’s mind. They did far more than simply turn on lights or power devices. With their wonders, they could alter the physical state of objects and amplify the range of machines. They enhanced durability, increased velocity, improved functionality, and expanded applicability, all in a myriad of previously inconceivable ways. It seemed like magic, but it was all science, concocted from the imaginations of wizard-like dreamers and perfected by the machinations of scientific practitioners.”
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.
The five things I think one needs to write compelling science fiction and fantasy stories are, in my opinion, 1) creativity, 2) world-building 3) exploration, 4) wonder, and 5) relatability. For creativity, a lot of what makes compelling science-fiction and fantasy is the unique worlds the author invents, and if it’s another fantasy world inspired by Tolkien and Norse mythology it can definitely still work, but it’s sacrificing the potential for truly inspired creativity. This goes into the plots and characters as well. Does every sci-fi and fantasy book have to have the world at stake, or an evil overlord sitting on his throne and having his underlings do all the dirty work? Of course not. Some good examples of truly creative sci-fi and fantasy books in my opinion are Harry Potter, the original Hunger Games (before dystopian sci-fi became the big fad of the time), the mathematical fantasy Flatland, and to be a little self-indulgent, my own Megazoic books that take place in the Late Cretaceous and feature intelligent dinosaurs in a lost civilization with advanced technology. Go check it out, it’s available on Amazon right now! World-building is another key component to compelling sci-fi and fantasy, and in my opinion, no one has ever done it as well as J.R.R. Tolkien himself. If your world has so much to it, it becomes a character of its own that your readers would love to explore. On that note, exploration is a good thing too, and this is why a lot of sci-fi and fantasy have characters learn of the world at the same time as the reader. This is why Luke Skywalker is trapped on a boring desert planet before venturing across the galaxy, or why Bilbo and Frodo are homebodies in the Shire before traversing Middle-Earth. If the characters explore the world as the reader does, it makes the textual and the metatextual one and the same, which is always a handy tool for writers. On a similar note, having a sense of wonder is good for sci-fi and fantasy, to truly show the readers “wow, this place is cool” or “wow, these characters are awesome!” Wonder adds grandeur to your story, which for big sci-fi and fantasy stories is always good to have. This is the vastness of Minas Tirith, the whimsy of Hogwarts, or the sheer size of the Star Destroyers. This doesn’t necessarily mean positive wonder, though. George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series for instance is full of negative wonder. “Wow, those deaths are brutal!” “Wow, this incest is yucky!” “Wow, how terrible is this place?!” The final thing though that I think makes compelling sci-fi and fantasy stories is relatability. None of this other stuff I mentioned in this wall of text matters if the readers care nothing for the characters, and relatability is key for having readers connect with them. If they can see themselves in some part of the story, then they’ll love it. Harry Potter, A Song Of Ice And Fire, and Percy Jackson are all great at this, and as much as people like to bag on this series (myself included) this is exactly why Twilight got so popular. Like it or not, many young women saw themselves in Bella, and thus could fully sink their teeth into that franchise like the vampires within it.
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 🙂
As someone with a series of books featuring dinosaurs as his baby, I’ve always half-joked that if I could somehow get Jeff Goldblum to post a picture on his social media of him holding up one of my Megazoic books with the caption “I loved this dinosaur series! Go check it out, fellow chaoticians” or something of the like, I’d get a million sales overnight. I don’t even care if he actually read it or not, he just needs to post the picture. Maybe if I met with him I could arrange that, as well as barrage him with questions about Jurassic Park or Thor: Ragnarok or Independence Day that he’s probably heard a million times. He seems to be a nice guy though, so maybe he’d agree to it. You listening, Mr. Goldblum? I also loved you in Cats and Dogs as a kid! Do you remember doing that?!
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can find my work on my website, www.matthewdonaldcreator.com, which has links to where you can buy my books, information about them and myself, and links to my two podcasts, The Writ WIt and Paleo Bites. The former of those is a semi-regular show full of tips and tricks about writing and the creative process I do with my best friend, and the latter is a weekly show where I and a rotating series of guest co-hosts talk about and rate a different genus of prehistoric animal, be it dinosaur, mammal, arthropod, and so on. Both shows are incredibly goofy and probably don’t deserve your attention, but a lot of people seem to like them, so give them a listen I guess. I also have a Patreon at patreon.com/matthewdonald like any good artist does nowadays. We got to put bacon on the table somehow!
Thank you for these excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent. We wish you continued success.
About The Interviewer: Ian Benke is a multi-talented artist with a passion for written storytelling and static visual art — anything that can be printed on a page. Inspired by Mega Man, John Steinbeck, and commercials, I.B.’s science fiction writing and art explore the growing bond between technology and culture, imagining where it will lead and the people it will shape. He is the author of Future Fables and Strange Stories, the upcoming It’s Dangerous to Go Alone trilogy, and contributes to Pulp Kings. The CEO and Co-Founder of Stray Books, and an origami enthusiast, Ian is an advocate of independent, collaborative, and Canadian art. https://ibwordsandart.ca
Author Matthew Donald On How To Create Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.