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| Interview with David Dvorkin, author of 14 novels ranging from science fiction to non fiction. The Cavaradossi Killings is his first mystery novel. Feature by Mystery Editor, Nancy Mehl. NANCY MEHL - You’ve published fourteen novels, from science fiction to non fiction. The Cavaradossi Killings is your first mystery novel. Why did you choose to write in this highly competitive genre? DAVID DVORKIN - Although I was first published in the science-fiction genre, and later in the horror genre, I've always wanted to write many different types of fiction. I’ve begun (but not finished) mainstream, suspense, fantasy, Western, and historical novels. Whenever I read and enjoy a novel, I find myself wanting to write one in that genre. Like most writers, I was a voracious reader as a kid, and I read every type of novel I could find. I've always read a lot of mysteries, and as a result, I've always wanted to write them. My real problem was gaining the confidence to do it. I have no difficulty embarking on a science-fiction novel (or horror or fantasy, which are closely related to SF as marketing categories) and no lack of confidence about my ability to write competently in that genre, but I felt intimidated by mysteries. I was encouraged to persist by Barbara Paul, who is an online friend - although she frequently said that the title of my first mystery should be Poor Mario instead of The Cavaradossi Killings. How was writing a mystery different than writing previous novels in other genres? Apart from the intimidation factor I mentioned above, writing a mystery was surprisingly similar to writing science fiction, in that with both one must maintain a cerebral approach to the story. With SF, the writer has to be intellectually rigorous about the underlying scientific gimmick and its extrapolations. With mystery, the rigor applies to what really happened and the hidden story that the investigator and the reader discover during the course of the novel. The good SF writer worries about how the extrapolation would affect his characters and what the small details of the resulting world would be. The good mystery writer is careful about clues, red herrings, and consistency. Unfortunately, it's acceptable to a lot of SF fans to have rather shallow characters, so long as the scientific gimmick and extrapolation are intriguing enough. Mystery fans generally want deeper characterization. I'm happy to try to oblige. The older I get, the more I read other people's novels for the characters, and the more important the characters become in my own novels. The genre that's really different from both mystery and SF, speaking as a writer, is horror. When I write horror, I find myself writing from a very different part of my mind, very much from the emotions rather than the intellect. Of course, there have always been novels that cross genre boundaries, that can be properly classified as both mystery and SF, say, or mystery and horror. If new publishing technologies, such as print on demand and e-books, result in the rise of many small publishers and more direct marketing by them to the public (as opposed to through distributors and bookstores), I suspect we'll see more breaking of the genre barriers. Those barriers were to a large extent the creation of the traditional publishing industry, after all, a way to define and target segments of the readership. However, the intersections of genres have always been fertile ground for fiction, so I'm looking forward to reading more cross-genre novels (and maybe to writing some of them). The story revolves around Mario Cavaradossi – a tenor who is shot while performing Tosca. Where did you get the idea for this interesting premise? You know, I no longer remember! I do remember that I started with that idea - Mario being shot when someone puts live ammunition in the firing squad's rifles - and then tried to come up with a plot so that I could use that twist. I thought up a couple of real stinkers of plots that I fortunately discarded. Then I started thinking about the characters instead, and the plot grew out of their relationships. At the same time, I had also been thinking about the kind of central character I'd like to use in a series of mystery novels. I had Tom Hamilton fairly well defined by then, and he meshed nicely with everything else. I think I was about halfway through the book when I read about a tenor playing Caradossi being shot onstage in the firing-squad scene. In the actual case, he was shot by debris in the rifle barrel (I think), and he suffered a minor injury in his foot. It made me feel more secure about what I had come up with, and I had one of the characters refer in passing to "other tenors being accidentally shot while singing the role" - or some such wording. What is different about this novel from other mystery novels? The protagonist, most of all, I think. Second, the setting. Almost all the action takes place in the invented small Colorado town of Ransom, but the rest of the world is very much present. Ransom is midway between Denver and Colorado Springs. In THE CAVARADOSSI KILLINGS, Tom spends some time in the two larger cities. In the third novel, the very different social and political nature of the two cities will have a major impact on Ransom and on Tom. There's also a lot of humor in this novel. That's certainly common in mystery novels. However, I think that the type of humor and the way it's combined with grimmer elements is somewhat unusual. Your protagonist, Tom Hamilton, is not your everyday detective. How did you develop this unusual character? I started out knowing what I didn't want: a superman (e.g., Spenser), or a policeman, or a tough guy of any kind. I wanted Tom to be at a physical disadvantage, to be unarmed (I'm strongly anti-gun), to have to rely on his wits. I toyed with giving Tom a disease that acts up at appropriate moments in the plot, but I realized that would seem facile and silly. (Not to mention that I'd have had to either invent a disease, which would be unconvincing, or choose a real one and risk medical science coming up with a cure for it in the real world and killing off my hoped-for series!). And I did NOT want Tom to know martial arts - to seem to be at a physical disadvantage but to turn out to have some kind of skills with which he fairly easily whomps the bad guys. I wanted him to be mentally tough but physically at a genuine disadvantage. I wanted Tom to have good reason to avoid physical confrontations. I've always been saddened by the social burdens society imposes on short men, and I started playing with that idea. Tom's childhood poverty and terrible family life, including the loss of his mother, sprang from wherever it is such character developments spring from, and I kept them. But now he was becoming more pitiable than either sympathetic or competent. I wanted him to have an edge, a disturbing darker side, so I added the shady doings during his twenty years away from his hometown. That also added an element of danger that I plan to exploit in the second Tom Hamilton novel. And it made it believable that Tom would be able to look at a freshly murdered man and think analytically about who killed him. This dark side also added a nice challenge for me - to make Tom as sympathetic a character for the reader as he had become to me. You work in Web Development and Technical Writing. How do you find time for writing fiction? What are your best times for quiet writing? Unfortunately, I don't find enough time for writing. Not as much as I'd like, at any rate. I'd love to be a full-time writer. Wouldn't we all! Obviously, though, I do in fact find time to write. For me, the secret is that I think of myself not as a Web developer who writes but as a writer who has a day job in order to pay the bills. Writing is primary in my life and in my image of myself. I ride the bus to and from work, so that gives me a fair amount of time for reading, meaning that I don't feel as much need to read at home in the evening as I used to when I had to drive to and from work. That evening time at home is available for writing, instead. The advent of the personal computer has been an enormous boon to me. I know that some people use a preparation ritual to help them write, but for me, it's the lack of preparation required when one is writing on a PC, the way one can write whenever there's time, that helps me be productive. Not to mention that the computer makes it so much easier to go back and plant the clue one forgot to plant during the original pass through the manuscript! By the way, I'm no longer a technical writer. I was a programmer for many years, then a tech writer for about 7 years, and now I'm a programmer again. I had a lot of trouble writing fiction during those 7 years. There were various external reasons, so to an extent that's just a coincidence, but I can't help wondering if a day job that involves writing is detrimental to writing fiction after hours. I've heard exactly that from a journalist. How do plots form in your mind? What inspires you? Reading generates more ideas for writing - reading the news, or a science magazine, or a history book, or a novel, or just about anything. The bus ride I mentioned above also gives me a lot of daydreaming time, and for me, daydreaming (which I've always done a lot of, maybe too much) is a wellspring for writing. I usually start with a gimmick, a twist, a what-if. I daydream about various situations and adventures, and then suddenly I realize that one of those dreamed-up twists or situations would make an interesting story. My problem has never been coming up with plots but rather deciding which ones to invest time and effort in. I used to write my plot ideas down carefully, thinking I was storing them against a time of idea drought, when I'd need my notes. So far, I haven't had to use any of those old ideas, and I've stopped writing down the new ones. What I really need isn't plot ideas, but more time to work on them! How would you counsel emerging writers who wish to become published authors? Read. Write. Read. Write. Repeat the process. After you've finished writing with enthusiasm and energy, reread with detachment and critical objectivity - as much as possible, anyway. It's a terrible time to break into the conventional publishing world. This may be risky advice, but I wonder if a new writer isn't in a better position than anyone else to explore the various new avenues - e-books, print on demand. But anyone who does so should do it through a small press, not through one of the new Web sites that expect the author to pay. Vanity presses are still with us and are still trying to snare the unwary. They just don't look quite the way they used to. What’s next? Will you continue writing mysteries or do you have something else in mind? Will Tom Hamilton live on in a series concept? I'm drawn to various genres, and I expect to keep writing in many different ones. I do want to write more mysteries; in particular, I have two more Tom Hamilton books roughly outlined in my mind, and I hope to write them both. Whether I'll continue with Tom will depend on what his status is by the end of the third book. The three books together will cover a lot of emotionally trying times for Tom. By the end of the third one, though, he'll be settled into a more comfortable groove. I don't want to fall into the trap of fabricating mysteries for Tom after that just to write mystery novels starring him -- stories that no longer grow out of his personality and circumstances. It might be time at that point to write about someone else entirely, perhaps in a different setting. Any closing thoughts or comments? I'd like to say a few words about my wife, Leonore. Not just because she's my best friend and we've just celebrated our 32nd wedding anniversary, but also in connection with my writing. It was thanks to Leonore that I started writing seriously in the first place, rather than continuing to dither and dream. Since then, she's cheered me up and encouraged me to keep writing during career low points. She's also a wonderful, perceptive first reader with an awe-inspiring knowledge of English grammar. I think I'd like to add to my advice to emerging or aspiring writers: If you're getting emotionally involved with someone, be sure that person takes your writing as seriously as you do and will support and encourage you. Life - or at least writing - will be impossible otherwise. Leonore gave me the push I needed at the beginning, and she's kept me going along the way. Leonore's first novel, a wonderful mainstream titled Apart From You, will be published by Wildside Press late in Summer 2000. -- Previous novels by David Dvorkin - Fiction: The Children of Shiny Mountain The Green God Time for Sherlock Holmes The Trellisane Confrontation Budspy Timetrap The Seekers Central Heat Ursus The Captain's Honor (with Daniel Dvorkin) Insatiable Unquenchable Non fiction: At Home with Solar Energy |
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