In December, I was spending a quiet night with the latest copy of Writer’s Digest and texting a friend as I read. I am a big fan of texting. Honestly, it’s pretty much the only reason I own a phone at all. Either way, I was paying more attention to my phone until I came across the latest contest winning short story. It was a story called Yellowed Kodachrome by Stephen Book.
The story was a response to a writer’s digest short story prompt, one that I had read only an issue before but hadn’t known what to write with it. Stephen’s story was not only surprisingly good for a prompt response. It was actually startling both in concept and execution.
The story stuck with me. I found myself thinking of some element of it or another at odd times during the next few days. I showed it to a friend who seemed to have the same response I had. “Wow,” she said, just “wow”. We talked about the story for a while, and then I had an idea. I’d write to Stephen myself and ask him some of the questions floating around in my head. Even better, I’d ask if he’d be willing to do an interview for my blog. To my surprise, he agreed immediately.
So here it is: my first interview with Stephen Book. If you haven’t read Yellowed Kodachrome, you can find it in the November/December back issue of Writer’s Digest. You can also read some of Stephen’s work on his blog, Powder Burns and Bullets. http://powderburnsandbullets.blogspot.com/
Brinna: Thanks again for letting me interview you. What made you decide to enter a fiction writing contest as opposed to simply writing a short story on your own and then submitting it to a magazine?
Stephen: Most of the time I submit stories to magazines or e-zines for publication. What attracted me to this contest was the possibility of name exposure. Writer’s Digest is widely recognized throughout the world, and I wanted a chance to have my name put out on a global scale.
Brinna: How many fiction contests have you entered and what was your first?
Stephen: I’ve entered about five or six contests, the Writer’s Digest Short Story contest being the first. Looking back, I can see why that story didn’t win. It was a miserable piece.
Brinna: Why did you decide to do this particular contest and prompt?
Stephen: I had been trying to write a story for a couple of years about a corrupted prayer closet. I could never find the right way to deal with it, though, and it always went back on the shelf. When I saw the prompt for this contest, my mind immediately went back to my story. “That’s it,” I said. I sat down with the story again and hammered out the details. The lesson learned is to never give up on an idea. Sooner or later, something will come along, some additional idea or something you see, and suddenly you’ll find the answer you’ve been looking for.
Brinna: Sometimes when I write, I know exactly what inspired certain aspects of my stories, but other times, I have no idea where things come from. I’m sure you’ve never killed anyone yourself, but were there any specific things or events that inspired this story?
Stephen: Growing up, I’ve seen a lot of people who use religion to justify their bad behavior. The whole idea of a corrupted prayer closet came from that understanding. The prompt, however, moved this story beyond the religion and focused on something else: abuse and its aftermath. Sometimes, even with all of the original ideas and planning, stories take on a life of their own and turn out to be about something else. That’s the part that always surprises me.
Brinna: In Yellowed Kodachrome, you alluded to some pretty terrible events without being exceptionally graphic. You let the readers draw their own images from the details you provided. Personally, I admire this. What do you think of stories that spell out all the gory details?
Stephen: One thing I had to learn early on is to trust the reader. They don’t need to have everything spelled out for them. In fact, I think it irritates the reader if you have to explain everything. It’s like the punchline that fell flat and you made it worse by explaining it out. So, it’s probably better if you don’t. The reader will bring his or her own experiences into the story and fill in the missing parts, and that is what truly makes the magic of fiction work. It’s that connection between the writer and the reader.
Brinna: What do you think is the most important thing to remember when writing?
Stephen: Focus on the characters. That’s what stories are really about. That’s what draws the readers in. They want to see how characters react. They want to learn something about what it means to live.
Brinna: Without spoiling the ending, I believe I can safely say that you left the situation in the story pretty open ended. It makes the reader think and wonder what is really going on even after the last sentence. How open ended is the story in your own mind? Is it solid or just a list of possibilities?
Stephen: I think the story leaves the reader with the haunting conclusion about what is immediately next. What is open, however, is the question about where it all ends and how many lives will be affected.
Brinna: What was your mindset, submitting it? Any idea you might win?
Stephen: I was proud of the story, and I thought I had a good chance. Of course, if you don’t think your story will win, then why submit, right? If my story didn’t win, however, I had already planned on the next submission. Winning a competition, or even submitting it to a magazine, is so much about how you impact your first reader: the editor. Sometimes it works, often times it doesn’t. The point is to persevere. If you believe in your story, keep pushing it out there.
Brinna: And when you found out your story had been chosen?
Stephen: I was excited to see that the story had been selected and then later chosen as the winner. Seeing your story in print for the rest of the world to read is a wonderful experience. We have these ideas, these characters, that say something, and we want to share that with everyone else. I think it’s what drives many of us to do what we do.
Brinna: So what’s next? Has this inspired you to enter more contests, submit more stories or just think more seriously about writing as a career?
Stephen: Every success drives you forward. Entering another contest is always an option if it’s the right contest and I feel I have something to offer. I don’t like to enter without being inspired to do so. In the meantime, I am always at work at stories. I’m still submitting the short stories, and I’m also working on revisions to my first novel.
Brinna: Care to share the details?
Stephen: It’s a crime fiction novel set in west Texas. As in all crime novels, it’s not so much a mystery, as it is about the people, the crime, and how lives are affected. The novel is about Mac Burdette, a widower and a Dallas police detective who moves out to small-town life in order to save his daughter and salvage what’s left of their relationship. Only what he discovers is that people aren’t who they pretend to be, and that life in the small town can be just as dangerous as the big city.
Brinna: Sounds interesting and I can’t argue with the setting, being from Texas as well. So, If readers want to read more of your work, where can they find it?
Stephen: My blog at http://powderburnsandbullets.blogspot.com/is the best gateway to all of my writing. I not only write crime fiction, I also try to write westerns, literary, and science ficition.
Brinna: . What feedback have you received on your Writer’s Digest short story since publication and has it increased traffic to your blog by a noticeable degree?
Stephen: Of those who are new to me, and they are few so far, the comments have been favorable. Like you, the open ending and the slow reveal are the common threads of praise.
As far as traffic on my blog, I haven’t seen much of an increase. And I’m okay with that. Building a reputation takes a lot of time and hard work.
Brinna: Looking you up, I had a little trouble on google until I finally decided to search on facebook. It seems searching for “Stephen Book” in regular search engines yields quite a few results but most of them are for Stephen King’s books. Do you plan on using a pen name at all?
Stephen: I thought about a pen name once; then, I decided against it. For me, it was a question of who do I want to be known as, me or somebody else. I chose me.
