Today I’m joining the blog tour for Dark Fiction. I’m sharing my Q&A with the author with thanks to Zoe O’Farrell for inviting me on the tour and to Jon Richter for answering my questions!

Have you always wanted to write?

Yep, literally since I was about five. I can’t really remember a time I wasn’t consuming stories (books, films, telly, video games, audio cassettes in bed) and trying to recreate them in some fashion, and my school teachers always showered praise upon my stuff… as well as flagging concerns to my parents about the gruesome content!

What were your previous jobs? Have they helped you with your writing process?

I’ve had some weird and wonderful jobs over the years: I acted as a teenager and was in a few episodes of Coronation Street, I’ve been a video games journalist, and I’ve also spent over two decades working in finance! So rather than helping with writing it’s probably the other way round – writing gives me an escape from a busy and sometimes stressful working life.

What was your inspiration for Dark Fiction?

It’s a huge collection of my best ever short horror stories (including some brand new and very weird ones), and each one has its own little back story in terms of inspiration/inception.

To give you an example, I wrote one of them when we had a mercifully brief but incredibly unpleasant experience with a family of rats moving into our loft (sneaked in through a hole in the roof). It took about three weeks to deal with which were probably the worst three weeks of my life; like living in an HP Lovecraft story with things scuttling around in the ceiling and the walls. So I decided to write about what would happen if those unwanted guests had put up more of a fight…

Other stories encompass an array of genres including fantasy, science fiction, a complicated time travel tale I’m really proud of, and even a bit of <500 word micro fiction. It’s a really eclectic mix 

How do you construct your characters? Do they have traits of people you know?

I am most definitely a plot-driven writer, so the story usually comes first with the characters following the needs of the plot, which I think is perhaps a little unusual – other writers talk about creating characters that lead their stories off in unexpected directions, but I’m far too much of a control freak for that!

I do like to sprinkle some interesting/weird/creepy traits and quirks into my characters though, some of which are indeed derived from real-life encounters… my most blatant was a story I wrote for a previous collection called ‘The Execs’ where a corporate leadership team battled each other to the death, Battle Royale/Hunger Games style. One of my former colleagues read it and IMMEDIATELY recognised every character… clearly I hadn’t done a good enough job of anonymising them!

What does your writing process look like? Are you a plotter or a pantser?

It depends on the project I think. Next year my first ever fantasy novel, Scarred, is being released by Cosmic Egg, and that was very much a ‘pantsed’ project – I created the setting and main protagonist and despatched her on her quest with a rough idea of the ultimate conclusion, and everything that happened in between just sort of materialised!

Contrasting this was my 2022 crime thriller, Chains, which was a really intricately plotted story told from 35 different characters’ perspectives. A very large planning spreadsheet was involved!

How did you research Dark Fiction? Did you enjoy it?

Again, the amount and type of research needed is dictated by the project. I don’t get too bogged down with trying to research to the extent that I have to appease every single expert in a given topic, but I do seek to know enough to not mislead readers, and hopefully for them to learn some interesting trivia along the way.

For example, in Dark Fiction there’s a story that involves some Komodo dragons, and researching those despicable creatures was FASCINATING. Their bite is venomous, but was believed for a long time to simply be poisonous because of their appalling dental hygiene… they scuttle after their prey and bite their ankles and then follow them patiently for days while they slowly die, before moving in to begin their feast before their victim is even dead… true villains of the animal kingdom who deserve more of a starring role!

Who are your favourite writers? Are you influenced by them?

I absolutely love the work of Iain Banks (including his sci-fi alter ego, Iain M Banks) and have read everything he ever wrote before his sad death. The story ‘Dead Horizon’ in Dark Fiction is heavily inspired by one of his short stories, and in a wider sense his breath-taking imagination and originality is very much something I seek to emulate. In my writing I value nothing more highly than originality – the day I write something formulaic and predictable, shoot me!

Other favourite writers include Philip K Dick, China Mieville, HP Lovecraft and also those old Fighting Fantasy gamebooks by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone!

If you could invite three people, living or dead, to dinner, who would they be and why?

Definitely living, they would be much more fun! (Sorry, that’s my go-to response to that question that I stole from someone once because it made me laugh. Now to answer properly!)

Although people with impressive accomplishments or great historical significance would be interesting, I think I’d prioritise people who just seem like they’d be really great company and a good laugh. So I think I’d go for Keanu Reeves, Nic Cage and Willem Dafoe!

Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with and why?

Boris Johnson or any of his lying, country-ruining cronies. Sorry to get political, but I really hope we’ve finally seen the back of this incompetent, manipulative, lazy clown.

Who would play the main character/s in a film version of Dark Fiction?

Well, there are a lot of main characters of course, but I’ll pick a favourite one: in ‘Brute’, a modern-day wizard tries to summon a demon and instead accidentally summons his henchman, an orc named Bogrot. I think Bogrot is my favourite character in the entire book, a sort of loveable, violent lump who manages to take over a drugdealer’s crime empire (I told you the stories were unusual…) If Bogrot’s tale was made into a movie I think Stephen Graham could do a fantastic job in the role (although we might need to shove some stilts on him as Bogrot is about eight feet tall…)

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I do like to keep myself busy, so along with the finance job and writing ‘side career’ I like to keep fit by running (two half marathons earlier this year and a third coming up), and of course I still consume dark fiction by the bucketload! Most recent recommendation: the video games of Puppet Combo, particularly Murder House (like an interactive, retro slasher B-movie – it even has a grainy VCR filter over the screen!)

What is next for you?

I mentioned earlier the fantasy novel that will be released next year, which will be my tenth book – after that I have nothing else in the pipeline so it will soon be time to start working on the next project! As you can tell from Dark Fiction, I’m a bit of a genre-hopper, so I’m currently not even sure whether it will be crime, horror, science fiction, fantasy, or something completely different…

Favourites:

Book?

House Of Leaves by Mark Danielewski (the only book I’ve ever read that feels like it’s reading YOU…)

Film?

Big Trouble In Little China (Kurt Russell is incredible as the deluded ‘star’, John Carpenter’s direction and synth soundtrack is phenomenal, the rest of the cast looks like they’re having a fantastic time, and it’s possible the only fantasy/sci-fi/horror/martial arts/comedy/romance movie ever made?)

Band/Singer?

The Fall, fronted by Mark E Smith until his sad death a few years ago. An absolutely astonishing back catalogue of nasty, unique post-punk noise!

TV show?

Twin Peaks – the 2019 comeback season was the greatest TV show I have ever seen.

Colour?

Orange! Partly because orange chocolate is the best…

Place?

I absolutely love Japan, have visited twice and am keen to go again!

Biscuit? 

Slightly cheating but I’m choosing Boost bars because they’re my favourite chocolate bar and they do contain biscuit bits…

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Dark Fiction is available from Amazon.

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