We are delighted to welcome author Carter Wilson to Omnimystery News today.
Carter's third novel is the suspense thriller The Comfort of Black (Oceanview Publishing; August 2015 hardcover and ebook formats) and we recently had the opportunity to spend some time with him talking about his work.
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Omnimystery News: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in your novels?
Photo provided courtesy of
Carter Wilson
Carter Wilson: I very rarely base my writing on real events, or at least events from my own life (God, imagine the horror). Are my characters based on people I know? Not usually, although there are certainly traits of my characters lifted from various people I know.
My mom gets hung up on the adage "write what you know," and she's constantly asking upon whom this or that particular character is based. I once let her read a manuscript where the protagonist had been molested as a child, and she kind of freaked out that that was based on a real event. After I assured her it wasn't, I had to remind her that authors sometime have, you know, imaginations.
OMN: Describe your writing process for us.
CW: My writing process is essentially writing myself into a corner for 100 pages and then spending the next 300 pages writing myself out of it. I usually come up with an idea for a gripping, opening scene, and then I just go. After 100 pages, I usually have a lot of wild things happening in the book, and at that point is where I try to answer the question of what every character is exactly doing and whether or not they need to remain in the book. So essentially I let the story develop as I write, but there are a lot of re-writes involved when you do it this way. In essence, my outline is really my first completed draft.
For example, in The Comfort of Black, I had no other idea for the book beyond wanting to open with a passionate sex scene between a husband and a wife. I decided they had been married for a few years, and were just now trying to start a family. At the end of the scene, the husband falls asleep, and I thought, "what if he said something devastatingly shocking in his sleep?" And so he did, and I spent the rest of the book figuring out what secret he was hiding.
OMN: Where do you most often find yourself writing?
CW: Sometimes I write at home, but more commonly I like to be around people when I write. Maybe go to a coffee shop, or go to a restaurant (I suppose I like to eat and drink as I write). But I do enjoy the energy of other people around me, even if I just plop down and put my earbuds in.
OMN: How important are the settings to the stories?
CW: I often like to write about places with which I'm not overly familiar, because I enjoy the process of learning about a setting. There's nothing more fun then walking a location that you know you'll be writing about — you tend to notice a lot more detail that way. When I'm writing about a real place, I'll generally take very few liberties, because I'd hate for someone who actually lives there to read my work and be distracted by my inaccuracies.
OMN: What is the best advice — and harshest criticism — you've received as an author? And what might you say to aspiring writers?
CW: It's a cliche at this point, but I've read or heard countless times about the need to "stick with it" because of the all the rejection in this industry. So, so true. I had written five novels before the first one ever sold, and there were so many times it would have been easy — and refreshing — to just give up. So I would say my harshest criticism has come in the form of the sheer number of rejections, and I can't tell you how many times I've been simultaneously praised and rejected at the same time. You have to harden to the rejection while also listening to the reasons you are being rejected. You have to love your writing, but your goal is to get read, so it's important not to think your ideas are the only good ones.
My other advice to aspiring authors is "don't quit your day job." God, please don't do that. There's only so much money in this industry, and it's not spread out over that many authors, and the road to financial success for a novelist is extremely rocky and usually impassable. Instead, learn to discipline yourself and squeeze in writing whenever you can, which should be every day, if even for just thirty minutes.
OMN: Your books tend to have a cinematic quality to them. Do you enjoy watching films?
CW: I'm definitely a cinephile, and I structure many of my scenes as if they were part of a movie. When I write, I often picture camera angles, music, atmosphere, lighting. I love dark movies that have deep character work in them, and The Shawshank Redemption is probably up there as one of my all-time favorite movies. Recently, I very much enjoyed Ex Machina. Many of my books deal with a (somewhat) ordinary person in an extraordinary situation, and I thought that Ex Machina explored that idea very nicely.
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Carter Wilson was born in New Mexico and grew up in Los Angeles before attending Cornell University. He is a consultant and frequent lecturer in the hospitality industry, has journeyed the globe both for work and pleasure, and as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. Carter lives in Colorado with his two children.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at CarterWilson.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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The Comfort of Black by Carter Wilson
A Suspense Thriller
Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
Though they seem to have everything, Hannah Parks has watched her husband, Dallin, become increasingly distant. Her hope is buoyed when the couple decides to start a family, but what Dallin reveals in his sleep one night rocks Hannah to her core. As she starts to investigate a much darker side of Dallin than she ever knew existed, Hannah peels away the layers of a diseased relationship closely tied to her own abusive past.
When Dallin attempts to have Hannah abducted, she is forced to run, doing so with the aid of a man named Black — an ex-con and expert at helping people disappear. Together they must keep Hannah safe from her husband's far-reaching grasp, all the while trying to solve the mystery behind Dallin's sudden violence.
Does Hannah's dark family history hold the key to her survival?
— The Comfort of Black by Carter Wilson
