Ask the Author: J.S. Garner
Answered Questions (6)
J.S. Garner
YellowStone Chronicles really came from a small snippet of a dream. In the dream, I (as my high-school self) goes out of my parent's house to see a classic, black, muscle car sitting in the front yard with no explanation as to how it got there. As I get close, a black limousine pulls up and a woman steps out from the back. She says she's a fairy from the State Dept. (Tinkerbell get's a government job?) and she aims a pistol at me. She orders me to get away from the car and I go to ask her why but when I turn around I see that the car has moved, on its own, much closer to me and I realize that she is trying to protect me from the car. I woke up in a cold sweat. At the time of the dream, I was already working on 'The Legend of Layla" and had a neat and tidy little vampire story almost under wraps. With a few minor tweaks at the end, I set it up to intro into 'The Yellowstone Protocol" which features the Government Fairy from my dreams. Originally, "The Yellowstone Protocol" and "The Yellowstone Chronicles" were going to be one, singular book, but it was way too long and confusing to tell both stories at once (would have been >196K words!) so I had to break them up.
J.S. Garner
A great deal comes from dreams. Sometimes, the story is wanting to explode out of me so badly that I just can't hold it in.
*SPOILER* For example 'The Great Bob Stansbury' is, save for a few additions, word for word straight from a dream I had about a man getting lost in a mansion, having a wild adventure in another world, and then returning to earth only to be followed by the great evil of the alternate universe as it had fallen in love with him. The claw-wand is straight from the dream but the city of Mocny and a few other details I added in later.
*SPOILER* For example 'The Great Bob Stansbury' is, save for a few additions, word for word straight from a dream I had about a man getting lost in a mansion, having a wild adventure in another world, and then returning to earth only to be followed by the great evil of the alternate universe as it had fallen in love with him. The claw-wand is straight from the dream but the city of Mocny and a few other details I added in later.
J.S. Garner
Bistro Viande: Afterlife. It picks up with where Bistro Viande ended. It is set in Toronto in the future where a crushing massive overpopulation has forced the governments of the world to enact a lottery. People are paid to play the lottery, but if you win you legally become food. In essence, it works somewhat like a loan-shark type agency does today. The lottery preys upon the penniless, who are most likely to end up risking their lives for a bit of money, and serves the rich, who can afford to eat the winners. A factor which is hinted at in the first Bistro Viande, but is pivitol in the sequel is that, in the wake of a second, nuclear civil war, America is no longer a single country but rather a mish-mash of unfederated independent nations. Those remaining in America live under third-world conditions in a radioactive wasteland. In Toronto, this means there is a crush of American refugees still living in Canada afraid to return home. This feature plays heavily in the story.
J.S. Garner
In the beginning, write for no one. Seriously, don't think about who is going to read your work while you draft it. Just tell the story to yourself. You can clean it up later.
J.S. Garner
It is fun. It really is. When things get going well in writing it's a lot like watching a movie in your mind and writing it down as it happens.
J.S. Garner
Typically re-reading over what I wrote earlier as part of a book will help me continue it. Mostly it is just getting back into the mode of where the story-line is going.
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