Ask the Author: Richard Trice
Answered Questions (6)
Richard Trice
As mentioned before, I force myself to sit and write...anything...for two hours a day. If something takes off, then great. I'll keep at it. If nothing was accomplished but staring at the computer screen, then tough. Do it again tomorrow, and the next day. If nothing at all is coming, I will get up, jump on my motorcycle, and ride through the countryside and mountains where I live, and where most of my stories are set. I'll take a camera and stop and photograph whatever looks interesting...an old building, an desolate road, landscapes, anything I can use later when I am trying to picture a location for a scene in my mind. I also dream a lot. I dreamed the surprise ending in ACT OF CONTRITION, getting up in the middle of the night and jotting down the details. When I had that, the book starting writing itself (almost), because I knew I had to get to that particular ending.
Richard Trice
The therapy.
If you do it honestly, you have to give yourself permission to dig up all the emotional baggage you've been carrying around forever, and then swallow hard and use it in your writing. My best characters have a lot of my own angst and wounds in them.
If you do it honestly, you have to give yourself permission to dig up all the emotional baggage you've been carrying around forever, and then swallow hard and use it in your writing. My best characters have a lot of my own angst and wounds in them.
Richard Trice
Know your craft. Poor writing turns people off.
Know yourself (because your best writing will come from what you know or have experienced personally)
Sit down every day and write something, even if it turns out to be junk! Get in the habit of treating it like a job and stick with it. My first book took four years to finish.
Don't expect to become rich at it. Do it because you love it. Do it because you like to make people smile when they read your work.
Know yourself (because your best writing will come from what you know or have experienced personally)
Sit down every day and write something, even if it turns out to be junk! Get in the habit of treating it like a job and stick with it. My first book took four years to finish.
Don't expect to become rich at it. Do it because you love it. Do it because you like to make people smile when they read your work.
Richard Trice
I am writing the first sequel to ACT OF CONTRITION. It also features AOC's main character, Trent Carter and a few of the other modern day characters we met earlier. The historical touchstone with this one is The Colfax County War of the 1870s, the bloodiest land dispute in American history. So pretty much a western genre shoot-em-up that has repercussions in some current day murders and international intrigue, reaching all the way over to The Netherlands.
Richard Trice
For me, in writing historical fiction, I have to begin with a couple of clear, overall events that will frame the story, then try and tie realistic fictional events to the historical ones. As to my writing routine, I simply treat it as a job and try to sit down at the same time each day for at least a couple of hours and just write whatever comes to mind, whether or not it's any good, or whether or not it ever sees the light of day. The important thing, to paraphrase Ernest Hemingway, is if you call yourself a writer, you must write. Your daily goal is to come up with just one great sentence. So that's what I try to do.
Richard Trice
I had always been interested in the World War II POW camps located in nearby Southern Colorado, not to mention the large "melting pot" of ethnicities dating back to the old railroad and coal mining history of this area.
It seemed a great jumping off point for a modern day murder mystery that had its roots over 60 years earlier with an escape from a nearby German POW camp. I also have been trying to write something that spoke to the spiritual condition of real people in unreal situations, something I think has not often been done well in literature without becoming too "preachy."
It seemed a great jumping off point for a modern day murder mystery that had its roots over 60 years earlier with an escape from a nearby German POW camp. I also have been trying to write something that spoke to the spiritual condition of real people in unreal situations, something I think has not often been done well in literature without becoming too "preachy."
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more