Ask the Author: Bruce Overby
Answered Questions (7)
Bruce Overby
It’s not exactly my own life, but it is my family history: There was an 11-year-old boy who would have been my great uncle—he was my grandfather’s brother, but he died before my grandfather was born. Around 1911, my great-grandfather became angry with this boy on a freezing Minnesota winter’s night and punished him by not allowing him back into the house. The boy froze to death that night, and dozens of questions about that boy would make a fascinating mystery: What did he do to make his father so angry? Was he found dead, or was there even a sliver of a chance of saving him? Did he scream and cry to be allowed back into the house, or did he accept his punishment quietly, even as he was freezing to death? What interactions with the authorities were there, if any, after this mysterious death? How did my great-grandmother and the other 3 children in the house at the time respond to the death? And on and on…
Bruce Overby
I actually don’t experience writer’s block that often (knock wood), but when I do, I do one of two things: Either I grab my laptop and go out to a public place to write, or I grab a pen and paper and start writing in freehand. The effect is that of slowing things down and giving the sentences a little more room to stretch and take form.
Bruce Overby
Now that I’ve enjoyed some moderate success, doing well in writing competitions and getting a publishing contract for my debut novel, I have to honestly say, that success is pretty awesome. But before that success and after, the best thing has been the way fiction writing has enabled me to more deeply explore not only my own history, but my own emotions, proclivities, and life challenges. Whether it be the struggles with addiction that have plagued my family, the experience of being born into and living in a very large family (I have 4 brothers and 4 sisters), or the very human need for belonging that introverts like me often wrestle with, fiction writing is a remarkable tool for delving more deeply and reaching a fuller understanding.
Bruce Overby
First, I’d say start small and hone your craft on shorter pieces before settling into the long slog of writing a novel. If you can write flash (I personally never could), I’d say start there, then go to short stories, and once you’ve either published a few of those or felt very strongly that you’d slain that beast, then move on to something longer. Certainly, there are some people who are born novelists, and if you’re one of those people and you’re certain of that, good for you. But I think that’s rare, and, in fact, there have been truly great short story writers (Alice Munro, Raymond Carver) who could never really succeed in the long form. Along those same lines, I would say something that might sound silly, but has worked for me: pay attention to your sentences. Great writing, I believe, is comprised of great sentences. Think of your sentences as bars in a musical composition. Make them clean and crisp, and allow them to flow from one to the next seamlessly, and you’ll have a solid foundation on which to craft your stories.
Bruce Overby
My current project is a sequel to The Cyclone Release, shifting focus to a different main character and following chronologically on the events of the first novel. I’m also working on some non-fiction pieces about family, and particularly about my mother, who passed away in 2019, and I’m always working on short stories as well.
Bruce Overby
Two things: 1. I wanted to tell authentic stories of Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley, in popular culture, had become a caricature: tech bros driving around in Teslas ruining the world with toxic social media, youthful billionaires without a clue being deified into modern shamans of wisdom, quirky white dudes who can’t get a date, etc. I was born in San Jose, the largest city in Silicon Valley, and I experienced and participated in the creation of Silicon Valley. I therefore know firsthand that Silicon Valley is not Mark Zuckerberg, Sergei Brin, and Larry Page—or even Steve Jobs. Silicon Valley is hundreds of thousands of regular people toiling in the trenches to design, build, and market great innovations. It’s also a place with a distinct culture and history, and I wanted to tell the stories of those people and that culture and history. And 2. I wanted to explore, through fiction, the challenges and trials I’ve faced in my life. In The Cyclone Release, the main thing I’m exploring is the human need for a sense of belonging, of being part of something larger than oneself. As an introvert, this is something I’ve always struggled with, and it’s something several of the characters in the story struggle with as well.
Bruce Overby
From 1999–2001, long before I got serious about fiction writing, I was a technical publications manager, and then a professional services manager, in a highly successful Silicon Valley startup. In that role, I was a participant in and observer of one of the great periods in the history of Silicon Valley’s work-obsessed culture. I almost immediately started thinking of exploring that experience through fiction, and some years later, I was able to do that.
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