Q. Was it difficult to change your career from management to Author?
A. The transition was easier than punching the snooze button on my alarm clock. However, the metamorphosis took a few years because I didn't realize it was happening. I wrote several short stories, memoirs, in first person and realized that the contents were informative; nevertheless approaching the boring side for my readers, like a humid summer night at the neighbor’s drinking kool-aid while watching a slide show of their trip to the salt flats of Utah. Therefore, I wrote the next one adding in exaggeration, the next with enhanced setting description, and the next … the rest is history.
Q. What motivated you to write fiction?
A. An equation camped out in my mind. On the left side, my short stories with added settings struck a match and lit the fire. Third person narrative added logs to the fire. When everything was cooked, the equal sign pointed to a flavorful manuscript. With third person, I was able to provide more than one point of view. That resulted in conflict and action beyond just what happened to me. It showed others in their lairs plotting so that only the reader knew. Suspense developed as the readers turned the next page, some hoping for the key character's good resolution, others cheering on the villain. The story grew more real than reality. Hemingway once said, "All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened." Destiny, is my one word answer.
Q. Your Protagonist is a woman. Is that difficult for a man to write in a woman's point of view?
A. Yes. Men are frequently referred to as creatures in the dark when it comes to understanding women. Nevertheless, life’s experiences have shown me that women are smarter than we are. Women handle complexities more thoughtfully than most men. My protagonist needs well thought out reactions to stay a step ahead of the scum that she faces. Women are more empathetic to the hurt or exploited, the people who beg for my protagonist’s victory over their captors.
Q. Are your characters based on people you know?
A. No one in particular, that I can think of at the moment. I believe, as most novel writers do, that fictional characters are a composite of personalities and physical traits of everyone that has crossed my path in my lifetime.
Q. I notice you sometimes break the grammar rule about comma usage. Why?
A. To me commas are speed bumps that slow the already out of breath reader’s pace especially during scenes when characters tied to chairs or laying on the musty floor in deserted warehouses or abandoned railroad cattle cars face life threatening danger have no idea how to survive while trying to keep their pulse from racing off the chart their heartbeats pounding in their ears. No commas I'm out of breath.
Q. You've written a trilogy. Are the Protagonist and the Antagonist the same throughout?
A. I would like to answer that question in two parts: One, Dominique continues to apply her skills in new confrontational ways through Book Two and Book Three, as she grows stronger in her belief that manipulating a manipulator is her right. Two, you would have to read the trilogy to discover the villain's presence or lack of in the next two Equation Novels. Is he the same, a more desperate villain, a split personality, a different psychopath, or some of each?
Q. Will you keep writing, if so how many more, and will your protagonist in the trilogy be the same person in the next novels?
A. I have grown fond of my protagonist and intend to keep her around for several years. She's already doing her stuff in three more stand alone Equation novels beyond the trilogy. Six so far. Beyond that my notebooks are overflowing with ideas, including having two protagonists, Dominique and her grown up protégé, Yvonne Castel.
Q. Your main character does something in Book One of the Trilogy that is against all sensible rules of hostage negotiation. What made you do that and do you think it would work in real life?
A. That is a tough question to answer without upsetting the bureaucracy. Many of their policies on negotiations would have to change, at least in situations like my protagonist faces. She takes calculated risks, and I make a calculated risky Author's Note about that subject in KENSINGTON EQUATION.
_____________________________________________________________
Site created and managed by 11191999. Logo design 2211. Site contents © Norman Mushnick