Ask the Author: Shannon Burke
Answered Questions (4)
Shannon Burke
Hi Justin,
Really, really sorry for the very late reply here. I just saw this. My advice on creating a fictional, historical world is to do the research early, let it sink into your conscience, and then once you start to write worry about the characters and the plot and wing it with the historical specifics. You can always clean up the details later, but if the story doesn't work no one's going to care. My feeling is that it's easy to get bogged down in setting while it's the characters and their motivations which are most important. So, get the setting clear in your mind, but then don't worry about it too much once you get into the meat of the writing, if that makes any sense.
Thanks for writing, and sorry again for the very late reply.
Shannon
Really, really sorry for the very late reply here. I just saw this. My advice on creating a fictional, historical world is to do the research early, let it sink into your conscience, and then once you start to write worry about the characters and the plot and wing it with the historical specifics. You can always clean up the details later, but if the story doesn't work no one's going to care. My feeling is that it's easy to get bogged down in setting while it's the characters and their motivations which are most important. So, get the setting clear in your mind, but then don't worry about it too much once you get into the meat of the writing, if that makes any sense.
Thanks for writing, and sorry again for the very late reply.
Shannon
Shannon Burke
Well, thanks for the kind words. That's great that it caught your interest like that. The next book will probably be a coming of age novel that takes place in suburban Chicago, more or less based on my childhood. It will be gritty and raw and probably with some dark humor where the kids are reveling in their abject circumstances. Thanks for writing.
Shannon
Shannon
Shannon Burke
Read widely. Follow your interest. Keep writing.
Shannon Burke
After Safelight and Black Flies I was rooting around, looking for a new subject, when I stumbled across some trapper’s journals and fell in love with the reckless, carefree world they depicted. I grew up reading adventure novels like Kidnapped and Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe and White Fang. I love books like that and I had always wanted to try my hand at something along those lines, but I didn’t know that much about trapping or that time period. So, I read a little more. I went out west, driving up the Missouri, staying at places where the trappers stayed, camping out, hiking up the drainages they trapped in, getting a feel for it. I did that a few times. I kept reading. And one day, after a year or so, I started to write without much of a plan, which is unusual for me. It took years to shape the book into the present novel, but that was the inception.
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