Writers chatting to each other on writing. Tedious or devious? Let’s have twenty questions, and find out. In this guest-spot, READ TUESDAY participant Lisa Capehart delivers the answers...
1. Fire rages in your house. Everyone is safe, but you. You decide to smash through the window, shielding your face with a book. What is the book?
My Kindle would likely be nearby, so I'd shield my face with that, and use my dictionary to break the window.
2. Asleep in your rebuilt house, you dream of meeting a dead author. But not in a creepy stalkerish way, so you shoo Mr Poe out of the kitchen. Instead, you sit down and have cake with which dead author?
That would be a toss-up between C. S. Lewis, and Andre Norton.
3. Would you name six essential items for writers? If, you know, cornered and threatened with torture.
Pen, paper (LOTS of paper!), a good dictionary, a quiet spot, a large pitcher of tea, and a cozy chair.
4. Who’d win in a fight between Count Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster? If, you know, you were writing that scene.
I'd probably have Godzilla show up and stomp them both!
5. It’s the end of a long and tiring day. You are still writing a scene. Do you see it through to the end, even though matchsticks prop your eyelids open, or do you sleep on it and return, refreshed, to slay that literary dragon another day?
I'd have to sleep, and probably have a whole new take on it (I get a lot of writing ideas in my dreams!).
6. You must introduce a plot-twist. Evil twin or luggage mix-up?
Luggage mix-up, of course! You can go so many interesting ways with that!
7. Let’s say you write a bunch of books featuring an amazing recurring villain. At the end of your latest story you have definitely absitively posolutely killed off the villain for all time and then some. Did you pepper your narrative with clues hinting at the chance of a villainous return in the next book?
No. I'm tired of him! I have a new, even more exciting villain waiting in the wings!
8. You are at sea in a lifeboat, with the barest chance of surviving the raging storm. There’s one opportunity to save a character, drifting by this scene. Do you save the idealistic hero or the tragic villain?
The hero would have to be saved, I think. But he would mourn the waste of the villain's tragic life, as he died trying to kill our brave hero.
9. It’s time to kill a much-loved character – that pesky plot intrudes. Do you just type it up, heartlessly, or are there any strange rituals to be performed before the deed is done?
With tears in my eyes, I would write a very touching funeral, wondering if there were any way to bring the character miraculously back to life.
10. Embarrassing typo time. I’m always typing thongs instead of things. One day, that’ll land me in trouble. Care to share any wildly embarrassing typing anecdotes? If, you know, the wrong word suddenly made something so much funnier. (My last crime against typing lay in omitting the u from Superman.)
I've had plenty of those, but none comes to mind at the moment.
11. I’ve fallen out of my chair laughing at all sorts of thongs I’ve typed. Have you?
I use a voice-recognition program, being a two-finger typist. Once I looked up to discover that an astronaut had suddenly appeared in the very down-to-earth scene! (It should have been - and she nodded.)
12. You take a classic literary work and update it by throwing in rocket ships. Dare you name that story? Pride and Prejudice on Mars. That kind of thing.
Hmm...Robinson Crusoe of Ptenlar.
13. Seen the movie. Read the book. And your preference was for?
In most cases, that would have to be the book.
14. Occupational hazard of being a writer. Has a book ever fallen on your head? This may occasionally happen to non-writers, it must be said.
Not my head, but my foot, more than once!
15. Did you ever read a series of books out of sequence?
Not if I can help it.
16. You encounter a story just as you are writing the same type of tale. Do you abandon your work, or keep going with the other one to ensure there won’t be endless similarities?
I usually find them after I wrote mine. But there are always differences, so I'll keep mine, being true to my own writing style.
17. Have you ever stumbled across a Much-Loved Children’s Classic™ that you’ve never heard of?
Once or twice.
18. You build a secret passage into your story. Where?
I have one in my book lined up for the "Read Tuesday" event. But you'll have to read the book for that!
19. Facing the prospect of writing erotica, you decide on a racy pen-name. And that would be…
I never would.
20. On a train a fan praises your work, mistaking you for another author. What happens next?
I'd gently correct their mistake, praise the author, too, and then ask if they might like to read something that I've written, offering a free copy.
Lisa Capehart's AmazonAuthor Page.
Here's Lisa's blog.
And Lisa's Facebook Author Page.
Lisa's book.
I answer my own questions here on Lisa's blog.
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