An Interview With Ian Benke
Don’t write for the money: The reason I try not to let money motivate me to write is that the money may come and go. The stories, though, they will always be there, swirling around in my mind and yearning to get onto the page. I figure readers will know if I’m motivated by money or not. Don’t get me wrong: if money and fame come knocking, I won’t turn them away, but they won’t make me write any more than I already am.
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 Nathan Toronto.
After teaching military operations and strategy to military officers for ten years, Nathan W. Toronto became a management consultant in Washington, DC, where he devotes as much time as he can to writing and editing science fiction. He has lived in ten countries and visited some two dozen others, learning three foreign languages and developing a firm belief that Mexican food is the best, at least for lunch and dinner. His breakfast belief is just as unequivocal: no Sunday is complete without waffles in the morning. In a previous move, Nathan had two fish and a turtle, but he’s now petless. Four children are enough.
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?
The first time I realized I might have a flair for the written arts was in Panama, in the summer of 1999, just before the United States transferred the Panama Canal to Panamanian control. I interned in the political-economic section of the U.S. Embassy there, and my supervisor said that my report on how Panamanians were planning to use the proceeds from the canal transfer “read like a New Yorker article.” I took this as the backhanded compliment it was — I knew my report veered far from staid and stuffy State Department prose — but I’d also spent much more time with my nose in the New York Times than the New Yorker. When I got around to opening a copy of the New Yorker, I understood better why my State Department career didn’t take off. But at least I knew I could spin a yarn.
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?
That’s easy: a capacity for reflection, an abiding belief in my stories, and a healthy dose of masochism. A capacity for reflection is probably the most important of the three. Authors entertain, certainly, but they also hold a mirror up to the world, to highlight its faults in a way that the world will accept. To do this, the author must look into the darkest recesses of his or her soul and stare unflinching at ugly truths. And this takes work. Ernest Hemingway said it best, as relayed through Arnold Samuelson:
I rewrote the first part of A Farewell to Arms at least fifty times. You’ve got to work it over. The first draft of anything is [expletive]. When you first start to write you get all the kick and the reader gets none, but after you learn to work it’s your object to convey everything to the reader so that he remembers it not as a story he had read but something that happened to himself.
I have also learned that only an abiding belief in my stories will keep me going. They say that the difference between an aspiring author and an author is that an author just keeps writing. I’m a data scientist, so I know precisely how many publishers, magazines, and agents have rejected my work. At one point, I even took all my work off the market. But that deflating moment was also an opportunity to decide that I don’t write for the fame, the glory, or the money. I write because of a fierce belief in my stories, that I can change the way people think about war by writing military science fiction.
Did I mention the rejection? I have also come to accept that I am, at heart, a masochist. I have come to accept that there will be more people in the world who choose to not read my work than choose to read it. I am at peace with this, but I’m also a glutton for punishment, because (like most authors) I have just enough vanity to want everyone I meet to read my novels.
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?
The two projects I’m most excited about are a post-post-apocalyptic trilogy, Saga of the Emerald Moon, and a curated military fiction blog, Bullet Points. Both projects are meant to reimagine war and warfare in ways that we can’t by simply reading news or analysis. The trilogy presumes that women rule the world thousands of years after a cataclysmic war and explores how love and marriage, the role of the military in society, and gender relations are wrapped up in how wars are fought. The first novel, Rise of Ahrik, is out now and the second, Revenge of the Emerald Moon, is complete and scheduled for release in July 2022. I’m writing the final novel in the trilogy now, Redemption of the White Planet, and it’s planned for a July 2023 release.
The Bullet Points project is very close to my heart. Every month, I publish short stories that “capture the complexity, tragedy, and hope of warfare and violence in human (and nonhuman) society.” Some of these stories are mine, but most are from other authors. In the United States and other countries, we are emerging from two decades of war in the Middle East, and I believe that military fiction is a way for us to process what has happened. In addition, I taught strategy and operations to military officers for ten years and I want to give military professionals an opportunity to help those of us who have never lived war firsthand to understand what war costs us as a society. We desperately need to bridge the gap between those who fight and those who watch on the sidelines.
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?
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term for fiction that asks “what if?” and changes some element or “rules” of the universe in a way that makes it different from our own world. Science fiction tends to be future-focused, but it doesn’t have to be (there’s some great work on alternate history, for example). The rules that are changed in science fiction usually have to do with science and technology, whereas those in fantasy tend to be of a mystical or surreal character. These characteristics aren’t hard and fast — the genre is notoriously broad, sometimes defying definitions — but the important question to ask is what rules are different from ours in the world the author has created.
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 see two factors driving the increased popularity of written science fiction. The first is a bit ironic: streaming services are awash in speculative fiction content, and even traditional channels are producing more speculative content. I’m thinking of shows like La Brea and Manifest, where the story is mostly set in the world we know, but where there’s one little tweak that really wouldn’t happen in reality. Of course, more traditional science fiction series like The Expanse and The Mandalorian are popular, too, which piques people’s interest in the genre writ large.
Perhaps the more important factor, though, is the expansion in the knowledge economy. Yes, the publishing industry is changing, but that doesn’t mean that demand for books is decreasing. More and more kids are becoming readers, and more and more adults are reading because today’s labor market rewards workers who are curious, creative, and well-read. Combine this with the increasing availability of speculative content in visual media and it’s no wonder that more and more people are cracking open science fiction and fantasy books.
In your opinion, what are the benefits to reading sci-fi, and how do they compare to watching sci-fi on film and television?
If you walk into a science fiction and fantasy convention, the first thing you notice is that everyone there is unconventional. It’s incredibly liberating to be able to be whoever you want to be. Reading science fiction helps me do that. I’m a more creative, out-of-the-box thinker in part because I read science fiction.
Watching science fiction on-screen is grand (I love watching movies), but it also robs me of the opportunity for reflection. There’s something about reading a book that unlocks higher-order thinking in my brain, helps me imagine possibilities that movies and shows sometimes don’t. Besides, I’m an absolute sucker for a clever turn of phrase, and I’ve been known to read and re-read a line that captures my imagination or makes me chuckle.
What authors and artists, dead or alive, inspired you to write?
After college, Orson Scott Card sucked me irretrievably into the vacuum of space with the Ender’s Game series, and Robert Heinlein and Joe Haldeman dragooned me into writing military science fiction with Starship Troopers and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (Heinlein) and the Forever War series (Haldeman). C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy (beginning with Out of the Silent Planet) and Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy also gave me something to ponder when I read them in high school. I cut my teeth on J. R. R. Tolkien and Terry Brooks in grade school, back when I thought I’d always read fantasy, but eventually science fiction won out because of the opportunity to capture stories that are galactic in scope, that force me to reflect on how human society operates today.
If you could ask your favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy author a question, what would it be?
I’d ask Orson Scott Card where he sees the military science fiction subgenre going. A while back, he stopped publishing his Intergalactic Medicine Show, and I’d want to know what I can do differently to tap into the historical moment we find ourselves in, on the heels of two ruinous Middle Eastern wars and with political division rampant, and sometimes violent. When it comes to military science fiction, we’ve given ourselves a lot of raw material to work with, and it would behoove us to reflect on it in how and what we write.
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 a political scientist and a strategist, so readers may not find my prose as lyrical and complex as that of authors who hone their craft in Masters of Fine Arts programs or literary writing workshops. I have nothing against literary style, but I tend to be direct. The complexity of my metaphors lies more in characters and environmental conditions and how they interact. I have lived in ten countries, I speak four languages, and I’m a war nerd, so I am intensely curious about the conditions that lead humans to destroy themselves, or to rise above their fallen state on wings of hope.
In one passage from my first novel, the eponymous character, Ahrik, allows himself to become enraged by the unintended consequence of something his wife — who is much more powerful politically than him — has done:
Stunned, Ahrik’s face distorted in anger. “No!” he bellowed. He pulled his hand back to strike. He could break her jaw with one blow.
He did not strike. Zharla did something he did not expect. She did not cower or tremble. She did not run or dart out of the way.
She simply closed her eyes and drew in a quick breath, her body still straight and tall, ready to receive the blow.
This was how those women, men, and children looked before his sons murdered them. Women and men resigned to their fate, but not surrendered to their fear. He encouraged this kind of hate in his sons. At that moment, his hand poised to strike, his ire powerful enough to kill, he remembered the eerie silence of a town whose people would never wake or breathe or laugh or cry. He heard the whimpering of his men and saw the ghostly bodies of dozens and dozens of women, men, and children.
Until that moment, a part of him had thought that he was better than his sons for what they did, but he saw now what a lie that was. He was no better than them. He knew exactly what evil he was capable of.
He had come to the brink. He shuddered at his sins, at the blood that, he realized then, stained his own hands.
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.
If I can become a science fiction author, then I believe anyone can. There’s no special talent required to write compelling science fiction and fantasy stories, only an unquenchable desire to tell a story. At some point, the story tells itself. How to get there? I see five things an author needs to do:
- Balance life: Unfortunately, life doesn’t stop to let me just write stories. I’m still a husband, father, soccer referee, and consultant. And author. When I first started writing in the mid-2000s, I thought I’d one day earn enough from my stories to support myself and my family. That still may happen, but I still have other things I’d like to do: start a research institute, write a book about Arab state making, and connect military professionals and informed civilians. I can’t do those things if I simply write fiction. I need to find balance.
- Just write: I may never be able to just write fiction, but I still have to keep it up. This takes time, and sometimes a bit of creativity. When I lived in Abu Dhabi, UAE, I had to find time in the interstices of the day. I wrote my second novel on my Moto 6 mobile phone on the bus to and from work. Now, living in northern Virginia, I take the half-hour between getting my son on the school bus and when I begin work and an hour or two at night to write.
- Read the news: For me, the most compelling speculative fiction speaks to the present. It makes me think how history could have been different. It forces me to see current events in a new light, to evaluate my role in society and the responsibility I bear for helping to correct its ills. I read The Economist for in-depth analysis and daily newspapers to keep abreast of the day-to-day.
- Don’t write for the money: The reason I try not to let money motivate me to write is that the money may come and go. The stories, though, they will always be there, swirling around in my mind and yearning to get onto the page. I figure readers will know if I’m motivated by money or not. Don’t get me wrong: if money and fame come knocking, I won’t turn them away, but they won’t make me write any more than I already am.
- Learn the business: When I published my first book, I had the impression that I just had to write the words and the publisher would take care of the rest. I can’t describe how naïve that was in retrospect. Selling my books is all on me. I’m not perfect at it, but I’m getting better at it. I use my blog to build relationships with other authors, and I have one of the best social media managers on the planet: my teenage daughter. The reason learning the business is important is not that it helps me make money, but that being better at selling books allows me to keep writing compelling stories. The stories swirling in my head won’t go anywhere if I don’t learn the business.
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 🙂
I’d love to share a meal with Joe Haldeman. The man’s been writing bestsellers since before I was born, but I’d like to chat with him about how his military experience has influenced his writing. Aside from that, who wouldn’t want to have lunch in Boston?
How can our readers further follow your work online?
The easiest way is my website: https://www.nathantoronto.com, where folks can sign up for my newsletter. I’m also on Twitter (@NathanToronto), Instagram (nathan.toronto), LinkedIn (nathan-w-toronto), and Facebook (@nathanwtoronto).
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 Nathan W. Toronto On How To Write 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.