1. In The Heart Of The Dark Wood
is your fifth published novel. How many books did you write before your first
contract?
Several. Three or four at least, all
of which currently reside in an old steamer trunk in my office. I started off
as a memoirist, writing personal essays. A lot of those old manuscripts aren’t
worth the paper they’re written on, but more than a few have been bent and
twisted into fiction and have made their way into my published books.
2. There are lots of ways to learn
writing. What do you think are the important ones?
My shelves are stocked with books
about how to write and they’re all great, but I’ve always thought the best way
to learn writing is to read great writing. That’s how I learned. I never made
it further than a high school diploma, but the great books have given me a
pretty good education as far as fiction goes.
3. Which comes first for
you—characters, plot idea, incident to open or close, what?
With me, it always begins with a
character. Usually the protagonist, but there have been times when the
antagonist came to me first. Everything else follows from that. I’ve always
thought if you get the players right, everything else falls into place. Plot is
simply the characters bumping into each other.
4. Authors are warned about the “sagging
middle.” Do you consciously plan a mid-manuscript incident to avoid that?
I do. I really try to follow the
basic rules of screenwriting when it comes to what goes where, having a turn at
the middle and ends of the first two acts and then the climax at the end of the
third, every turn moving the story in a different direction. Life is so busy
for readers now. Rule number one has to be holding their attention.
5. Some publishers prefer books to be
series, some want all the books by an author to be stand-alones. This one is a
sequel of sorts. What are your thoughts about that?
The majority of my books take place
in the same small town, which kind of gets me the best of both worlds. They’re
stand-alones but also sequels that tell a larger story about the same group of
people, and that’s how I like it. The hopes are a new reader will read one book
and be led to read the others.
6. What’s the most important
marketing tool you’ve discovered?
I enjoy social media a great deal,
though I don’t really have the time necessary to use it as often as I should.
I’ve found that conferences are a great way to market yourself, and I’ve had a
lot of success there in the past few years. But by and large, I’ve always
thought a writer’s best marketing tool is the last book he or she wrote.
7. What advice do you have for
someone who’s frustrated because they haven’t been published yet?
It took me close to
twenty years to be published. I’d never want to relive those years again—the
mounds of rejection letters, the dark nights of the soul, the feeling that
you’ll never get there. But I’m a firm believer in that the best writing will
always find a spot in the marketplace, somehow and someway. If your end goal is
to be published, you’re going to have a tough time. You have to write because
it’s who you are and because if you don’t—if you never pick up a pen again—you
understand that your life will somehow suffer for it. If you’re one of those
people, chances are good you’ll find a measure of success. So put your head
down, grit your teeth, and try again. Everything I’ve managed to accomplish is
owed to God and the fact that I tried one more time.
Thanks, Billy, for dropping by and sharing your thoughts with us.If you'd like to learn more about Billy Coffey, check out his website. And if you're interested in reading In The Heart Of The Dark Wood, you can purchase it here or through your favorite bookseller, both brick-and-mortar and online.
If you have any questions for Billy, please leave them in the comments. And if there are other aspects of writing you'd like covered here, please let me know.
4 comments:
I haven't read this author before, but after reading this interview I am definitely going to. Thank you for sharing.
Blessings
Katrina, I'm going to stick my neck out and say that you'll find Billy's writing compelling and his characters easy to identify with. Hope you agree after trying it.
Thanks for your comment.
Dr. Mabry,
I agree Billy Coffey that the best way learn to write is to read great writing.
Wow...20 years of writing without being published. The fact that Billy continued to persevere gives evidence that being a writer is part of who God created him to be.
Thanks for sharing this interview. It's insightful and a good peek into the heart and mind of a writer.
Lord bless...Susan Wachtel
Susan, My own story is a bit different, but the end result is the same. For me it was four books over four years garnering forty rejections until I got the first contract. And when I look at those early (unpublished) books I see why I needed to spend more time reading and writing before I "got it."
Thanks for your comment.
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