http://www.stephanie-osborn.com
I was recently tagged as part of The Next Big Thing, a writers' blog journey, by Herika Raymer. Her blog can be found at http://herikarraymer.webs.com/apps/blog/entries/new. She, in turn, was tagged by Selah Janel, at http://selahjanel.wordpress.com/.
As per Herika, who gave it to me:
Hey there! Here are the questions
for The Next Big Thing...your post will go up not this Monday, but
next Monday. :)
Rules of the Next Big Thing
***Use this format for your post
***Answer the ten questions about
your current WIP (work in progress)
***Tag five other writers/bloggers
and add their links so we can hop over and meet them.
Well, this could keep me busy for
awhile, since I have several works in progress.
Ten Interview Questions for the Next
Big Thing:
1) What is the working title of your
book?
Work in progress #1 is book 4 of the
Cresperian Saga, and the working title is Heritage.
2) Where did the idea come from for the
book?
Travis Taylor and Darrell Bain started
the series, and I've inherited it, so I'm kind of following along
from there as best I understand it.
3) What genre does your book fall
under?
Science fiction – military science
fiction, mostly.
4) Which actors would you choose to
play your characters in a movie rendition?
That's a good question. I think that
Robert Downey Jr. would probably do a very good job of the male lead
in this book (each book has different “stars” in the same
universe and events). Maybe Reese Witherspoon for the female lead.
She has the right “pixie-ish” look for how I envision that
character.
5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of
your book?
“Earth's first contact wasn't quite
what we thought.”
6) Will your book be self-published or
represented by an agency?
Neither. I will deal directly with the
publisher, Twilight Times Books.
7) How long did it take you to write
the first draft of your manuscript?
Heh. I'm still working on it! As I
“inherited” it, it's proving a bit more difficult to write than I
would have expected. Finding my own footing in that world, my own
ideas, and making them work within someone else's world can be hard.
8) What other books would you compare
this story to within your genre?
Oy. These questions.
Probably some of Travis Taylor's work,
since he started the series, and I'm trying to keep it in a similar
vein. Also he and I have comparable writing styles.
9) Who or what inspired you to write
this book?
I would say Nikola Tesla. I've been
using a lot of Tesla's concepts in the series once I stepped into it.
10) What else about your book might
pique the reader’s interest?
This one actually HAS Tesla in it!
* * *
Ten Interview Questions for the Next
Big Thing, Take Two:
1) What is the working title of your
book?
Work in progress #2 is book 5 of the
Displaced Detective series, and the working title is A Case of
Spontaneous Combustion. Work in progress #3 is book 6, A
Little Matter of Earthquakes, and #4 is book 7, The Adventure
of Shining Mountain Lodge, which is complete but being polished.
2) Where did the idea come from for the
book?
You know, I really don't know where the
Displaced Detective books are coming from. I get these ideas and they
just sort of develop on their own. The characters are so real to me,
I just have to watch how they react and then describe what I “see
and hear.”
3) What genre does your book fall
under?
Science fiction and mystery. A touch of
action, a hint of thriller, a soupรงon
of romance.
4) Which actors would you choose to
play your characters in a movie rendition?
Johnny Lee Miller, the Sherlock Holmes
of CBS' Elementary series, looks a lot like how I envision
“my” Holmes. But he'd need to clean up a bit. My Holmes is clean-shaven,
neat and tidy.
To play Skye Chadwick? That's tougher.
Cameron Diaz is about the right age and height, I think. I'm not sure
if she's how I “see” Skye or not, but she could do the part
readily enough.
5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of
your book?
Let's go with series instead of book.
“Sherlock Holmes meets the X-Files.”
6) Will your book be self-published or
represented by an agency?
Sullivan-Maxx Literary Agency
represents the Displaced Detective books.
7) How long did it take you to write
the first draft of your manuscript?
Heh. I'm still working on books 5 &
6! I don't recall how long it took on book 7.
Now, if you're talking about the very
first book of the series, that's different. I wrote a 215,000 rough
draft in two months. A normal novel length is about 80,000-100,000
words. We ended up breaking it into two volumes, The Case of the
Displaced Detective: The Arrival and The Case of the Displaced
Detective: At Speed. When the
plot bunny bites, I can but write.
8) What other books would you compare
this story to within your genre?
That would be kind of hard. Not a lot
of people blend science fiction and mystery in the way that I do.
That's not to say that the two genres haven't been blended; they have
and quite effectively by some of the grand masters. But none of them
seem to have quite my “take” on such things. Maybe someone else
could come up with a comparison, but off the top of my head, I can't.
My hope is to, using my own style,
evoke a hint of Conan Doyle in the background, though. I even go to
the extreme of having Holmes' dialogue and thoughts written in
British English, as well as any other Brit characters, such as the
MI5 lot. It gets confusing from time to time, but I have a great
editor who understands and likes what I'm doing with it, and she's a
huge help.
9) Who or what inspired you to write
this book?
I've been a Sherlock Holmes fan since I
was a kid. I started this whole series with the concept of, “What
if?” What if Holmes got dragged into an alternate future and
couldn't go home again? What would he do? How would he react? How far
can the great detective stretch before he breaks? What sorts of
things would he be interested in? So really the reader should be
aware that these books are character-driven as much as
plot/science-driven. I'm constantly adding things to poke around in
Holmes' psyche, so don't expect to just jump into the usual action,
and expect an extended denoument as Holmes and Skye [Chadwick, the
co-protagonist] wind down and assimilate matters after a case.
10) What else about your book(s) might
pique the reader’s interest?
Holmes has found, in Dr. Skye Chadwick,
a woman who is his equal in almost every respect, and whom he can
trust completely into the bargain; a woman that he can, and does,
make an integral part of his life.
* * *
Ten Interview Questions for the Next
Big Thing, Take 3:
1) What is your working title of your
book?
Well, this one is my (counts on
fingers) fifth work in progress, and it's the sequel to Burnout,
tentatively titled Escape Velocity.
2) Where did the idea come from for the
book?
From the realization that, after the
Columbia disaster, I couldn't let the story end in Burnout,
couldn't let it be a one-shot. I had to create some sort of closure.
3) What genre does your book fall
under?
Science fiction and mystery, once
again. I have a tendency to like combining those two genres. Strong
element of suspense and thriller too. A good mystery has to have some suspense, in
my opinion.
4) Which actors would you choose to
play your characters in a movie rendition?
When I was originally writing it, I had
in mind a whole cast of characters – Tommy Lee Jones for Crash
Murphy, Hugo Weaving for Dr. Mike Anders, Sissy Spacek for Gayle, and
so on. The movie project for Burnout is probably going to go
with a revamp and younger actors; that's out of my hands now.
5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of
your book?
“If you don't take 'em out the first
time, better keep looking over your shoulder.”
6) Will your book be self-published or
represented by an agency?
Neither. It's already under contract to
Twilight Times Books.
7) How long did it take you to write
the first draft of your manuscript?
How is it a work in progress if I've
finished it...? Still working. Taking awhile, unfortunately, because
of my own emotional involvement in the Columbia disaster, and
the fact I worked in the space program for so many years. Please be
patient; I WILL get there.
8) What other books would you compare
this story to within your genre?
Well, Burnout got compared to
Michael Crichton, E. E. “Doc” Smith, and Robert Heinlein. I'm not
sure what to draw out of all that.
9) Who or what inspired you to write
this book?
Well, like I said earlier, I wrote
Burnout, and then lost a friend aboard the Columbia
disaster, which Burnout predicted in detail saving that the
real historical event was truly an accident, and the fictional
disaster was sabotage. I had planned – up to that point – to make
Burnout a standalone novel, but after the disaster I couldn't
do it. I had to have, needed to have, more closure than the end of
the book provided. And so I decided to keep on writing the story and
see what happened.
10) What else about your book might
pique the reader’s interest?
Oh, there are always surprises when I
write a mystery...
I'm tagging Maria De Vivo, Leia Barrett Durham, Grady Glover, and Dellani Oakes!
-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com
