Of the several novels I’ve written, none have included a foreword. I consider that a service to my readers, because who really cares about the author? What matters is the story. The story, it’s always about the story. It isn’t about technique, vocabulary, or even word selection (though it helps), it’s about the story. When a daddy tells his daughter and her twelve brownie friends a story by a campfire, do they give two shits about anything other than the story?
The Story. I wanted to write a foreword on how stories come to be, at least in my own experience, and if you’ve read Stephen King’s On Writing, you’ll know that he shares the same method of story creating, one that preceded my own by roughly forty years. I’d guess that most writers share this method. Those who have never written a novel will assume that stories are outlined, plots considered in advance and written down, with arrows pointing this way and that, notes scrawled on the margin, stuff crossed out and some stuff with several underscores—the butler did it, perhaps. The truth is, most stories are written one word and one idea at a time. I don’t know why stories are better written on the fly, but they are. There is always an exception to the rule, but generally speaking this is the case.
I write prolifically. Once I get a vague idea of a story, I set aside some time where I won’t be disturbed and I pour out copious amounts of text in no-time-flat. I’ve written a novel in less than a week. I don’t say that proudly, or as a badge of honor. Stories are like demons needing to be exorcised, the faster the better. Behind The Horned mask was such a long novel that I split it in two, each of them being roughly novel-length. I wrote that like a maniac, it had become an obsession. I was working 12 hour shifts at the time I wrote it, so when I wasn’t at work I was cranking out words on an abused laptop in my car with a can of Monster at the ready. Just over two weeks that long-assed novel took for me to write. That demon was exorcised and I was pacified for a good while, until I ventured to write Fiddleback 2.
If I can veer off topic for a moment, let me talk about Fiddleback 2. I had never intended on writing a sequel. It shouldn’t be considered a sequel, shouldn’t have been entitled Fiddleback 2, but perhaps Fiddleback Lateral. The time-frame of the novel takes place during the 5 years that gapped Trent killing Mae’s parents, and Tag submitting his stories on an amateur website. Those 5 years were suspiciously absent in the first novel.
And now for the reason why I’m writing this foreword: to tell you the ideas that sparked my novels. I’ll keep it short. I won’t be offended if you skip over this and get to the meat and potatoes of this novel. My novels were written from a simple image or idea, no more than that. Here they are, and thank you for your time.
(Listed in chronological order)
Fate Fatale: A man driving down a mountain highway in a convertible swerves purposely off the road, plummets off a cliff. Mid air he feels the touch of a hand on his shoulder.
Reflection: A wealthy man has a bitch wife who is divorcing him. He decides he’d rather give his money away to a select few strangers in need than letting that bitch get his money (boy did that story turn out differently than I had intended).
Fiddleback (a two pronged idea, as it was originally two separate novels): 1) What if a girl had an imaginary friend who wasn’t as imaginary as she thought, and he tells her to do bad things? 2) What if an amateur writer falls in love with one of his characters, then learns the character is a real person?
Mortality in Wasteland: What if during the Black Death plague in 14th century England, a young man was tasked with being the town’s undertaker. How’d he deal with burying half the town, and where would he put them all?
Tell No One: What if a star college quarterback about to enter the draft has a dark secret from his childhood. What if when he was a kid, he and a little girl entered a mine and killed someone.
Harlot Malediction: What if you could utter a curse that unleashed something pretty fucking horrible, wiping out the whole town.
Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso: What if a guy sees a black-shrouded figure in the great distance, and every day that smudge of a figure becomes a hair closer. Closer and closer until it reaches him.
Behind The Horned Mask: What if there was a masquerade party and one of the masqueraders was wearing a mask of a man, and a hat with devil horns. The devil masquerading as a man. What might he do to the partiers?
Fiddleback 2: I wonder what happened during the 5 years I glossed over in Fiddleback? There’s only one way to find out, let me power up my laptop.