Ask the Author: Sean Thomas
Answered Questions (10)
Sean Thomas
I was just telling my brother an open-world game set in George R.R. Martin's Westeros would be so much fun, so I guess that would be my answer.
What would I do there? Mostly I'd just try to stay alive, but if I'm being honest, I'd be dead within a couple of days if not hours.
What would I do there? Mostly I'd just try to stay alive, but if I'm being honest, I'd be dead within a couple of days if not hours.
Sean Thomas
1) "The Stand"--started it last summer, but didn't get to finish once the school year started.
2) "The Handmaid's Tale"--can't believe I've never read this before!
3) "Big Little Lies"--loved the mini-series. My wife is currently reading the novel and loving it.
2) "The Handmaid's Tale"--can't believe I've never read this before!
3) "Big Little Lies"--loved the mini-series. My wife is currently reading the novel and loving it.
Sean Thomas
I'm not sure my life is exciting enough to form the basis of a plot, but...how did I end up living in Baltimore, the middle of Indiana, and New York City over the course of three years? And (more importantly) how did I survive the transition of moving from place to very different place?
Sean Thomas
In order to have the motivation to keep working on a project, I have to know that the idea has meaning and substance to it. It has to be about something important--whether political/social or simply the strangeness of human nature. So even if I get an idea that I think is a good concept or an interesting angle, if I don't get the sense that it matters somehow outside the story itself, I'll lose the motivation to write. (I realize this is an incredibly vague answer--apologies!)
Sean Thomas
I'm in the planning stages of my next novel. This idea involves quite a bit of world-building, so I've been working on creating almost an encyclopedia for myself of this world to make the writing process easier and more authentic when I finally start.
Sean Thomas
Know how you want your story to end. Your ending can (and maybe should) change as you write, but it creates a sense of purpose that can keep you motivated when life gets busy (and it's always busy). I'm an English teacher, and I wrote the majority of "Sattler's Woods" during the school year--usually late at night when all my grading and planning was done. Having a sense of how I wanted the story to end inspired me to write for an hour or two instead of collapsing in my bed (which, after a day of teaching, was very tempting).
Sean Thomas
It's maybe the most terrifying thing about being a writer as well, but the moment you turn your story over to a reader--even a beta reader (for me, it's my wife)--and the characters you've created, the story you've crafted, in solitude for months or years suddenly have an audience. There's nothing quite like the experience of knowing another person is now exploring a world that, up until then, only you had known about. It's gratifying, scary, and ultimately incredible.
Sean Thomas
It's a strange technique, but I go for a long walk (preferable somewhere isolated) where I will actually speak my characters' dialogue. If I know my characters well enough, there's something about actually hearing their words out loud that helps me figure out what they're thinking and, subsequently, what they'll say or do next.
Sean Thomas
You can never go wrong with wings.
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