with Stephen Foehr
We are delighted to welcome back author Stephen Foehr to Omnimystery News.
Stephen first visited with us last week when we discussed his new mystery novel Water War: Snake Valley Okies vs. Las Vegas (Jiri Vanek Publishing; January 2014 trade paperback and ebook formats).
We asked Stephen to follow up on one of our questions and give us the backstory on how he came up with the idea for his book.
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Photo provided courtesy of
Stephen Foehr
To start a new book I asked myself, What am I curious about? The big curiosity of my recent novel, Water War: Snake Valley Okies vs Las Vegas, is the increasing scarcity of water as a trigger of conflict.
I found the real case of Las Vegas proposing a 285-mile pipeline to the Snake Valley Aquifer and the local ranchers' 19-year-long battle to stop the project. Las Vegas wanted the water to supply new urban growth; the lost of water from the aquifer was a threat to the ranchers' heritage and way of life.
So I narrowed the globe water conflicts to a local conflict in a real setting between the ranchers (Individual) and the city (Greater Authority). The big questions included; What right does the Greater Authority have to destroy or seriously compromise for its own benefit the quality of life guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution?; At what point are citizens required to push back and how to do that?; And what, given the realpolitik, might be the outcome? The characters responded within this action framework. I also threw in the issue of love for a personal perspective.
I don't work from an outline. For me, an outline is a bit too mechanical of a process where the author predetermines to some extent the characters. I let my characters be formed by the story as it develops. This is a double-edge sword: often I have no idea what will happen next so the writing becomes a bit of a slog as I feel my way forward, and I'm open to surprise and wonderment about "where did that come from!"
The plot is a puzzle to be solved by creating problems and solutions for the characters. I sort of know where I want the story to go, although I don't know details or the actual ending. I sort of know what I want the characters to represent, but they must reveal that within the context of the story. Once I have these two things, I stumble forward.
My primary interest is the personal lives of the characters and how they react in situations, particularly situations where vulnerability and courage intersect. In my novel, this happens in the context of love and physical courage while scared to death and taking morally right action that could very well endanger the characters' safety, love ones and way of life.
You cannot have courage without vulnerability, but what does that really mean? How does that play out? Writing fiction is a crash course in discovering what I think I know, what I don't know, and how shallow is my understanding. This process of self-mining is the real value of writing.
I do in-depth research on the place and issues in the story. In this, I work as a journalist. But what fascinates me about fiction writing is that I must employ the tools and skills of an actor to bring the characters to life, of a musician to hear the rhythms and patterns in sentences and paragraphs, of a painter to make the scenes visible and of a film director to make it all work together. With each book I become increasingly humble in face of the task.
In writing, and life, I use two guiding principles: Just concentrate on not making the lazy move. (Morton Feldman, composer) and advice by Samuel Becket: Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
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In his career, Stephen Foehr has been a newspaper reporter, an editor, a freelance writer and an author. This background has given him experience working as a staff member and as an independent contractor capable of conceiving, executing and delivering on deadline the articles assigned to him or ones he conceived.
For more information about the author and his work, please visit his website at StephenFoehr.com or find him on Facebook.
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Water War: Snake Valley Okies vs. Las Vegas
Stephen Foehr
A Mystery Novel
Water is the life blood the individual rancher’s way of life; Las Vegas wants the water for development to expand its tax base. Stet, leader of the ranchers, embodies Old West values and uses high-tech methods to stop the pipeline to the aquifer. The Lounge Lizards, two Las Vegas cops, try to remove Stet as the opposition leader by framing him for a car bombing and a murder.
While on the lam hiding out in "safe ranches", Stet and his wife Ali find new and creative ways to say I love you without using the word love.
