Ask the Author: Raymund Eich
Answered Questions (3)
Raymund Eich
[2019-02-06] I'm working on a space adventure novel with the working title The Reincarnation Run. It's set in a galaxy with hundreds of independent human colonies, kind of like the Federal Empire/Thousand Worlds setting of most of George R. R. Martin's '70s and '80s science fiction. I like the setting enough that I might write other stories and novels in it.
Back to The Reincarnation Run. After living in Texas for a while, I heard about ‘coyotes,’ the criminals who smuggle illegal immigrants from Mexico into the United States. There’s nothing heroic about these criminals—they take the life savings of poor Latin Americans and leave them to die of thirst and heat in the West Texas desert—but the concept lodged in my memory.
Sometime after that, I read a news story about the Dalai Lama and realized he’s an elderly man. Infogalactic tells me he's 83 years old. The Tibetans believe each Dalai Lama is the reincarnation of the previous one, and they have a complicated process for finding the next one.
These ideas combined and sparked the novel. In contemporary terms, imagine a people smuggler leading the next Dalai Lama, a child born among Tibetan exiles in India, into Chinese-occupied Tibet to spark a rebellion. It's not as simple as that, of course. Among other things, the people smuggler is wrestling with his own religious background.
Back to The Reincarnation Run. After living in Texas for a while, I heard about ‘coyotes,’ the criminals who smuggle illegal immigrants from Mexico into the United States. There’s nothing heroic about these criminals—they take the life savings of poor Latin Americans and leave them to die of thirst and heat in the West Texas desert—but the concept lodged in my memory.
Sometime after that, I read a news story about the Dalai Lama and realized he’s an elderly man. Infogalactic tells me he's 83 years old. The Tibetans believe each Dalai Lama is the reincarnation of the previous one, and they have a complicated process for finding the next one.
These ideas combined and sparked the novel. In contemporary terms, imagine a people smuggler leading the next Dalai Lama, a child born among Tibetan exiles in India, into Chinese-occupied Tibet to spark a rebellion. It's not as simple as that, of course. Among other things, the people smuggler is wrestling with his own religious background.
Raymund Eich
The single best advice I can give an aspiring writer is *listen to your creative voice.* Not only does your creative voice know how to tell stories, but your creative voice tells stories that matter the most to you. The more a story matters to you, the more it will matter to readers.
Related to this, *lock everyone else out of your writing office.* A metaphor, but it's a good one. By everyone, I mean *everyone*. Your biggest fans and the people who leave drive-by one-star reviews. Loved ones and strangers. Your English teacher—this is not the place to worry about grammar. Your MFA professor—this is not the place to worry about symbols, metaphors, and themes. And especially not thought police of any stripe. You don't want to write about women or minorities? Don't. Your female characters fail the Bechdel test? That's fine.
Follow *Heinlein's Rules*. Write. Finish. Don't rewrite. Put on market. Keep on market. Repeat with the next story. The more I do this, the more fun I have in my career.
Finally, *learn business.* Understand copyright. You aren't selling a story, you're licensing that story in a certain format in a particular place for a selected period of time. And learn the other aspects of your business. https://kriswrites.com/category/busin... is a great place to start.
Postscript: if you like learning from books, *Techniques of the Selling Writer* by Dwight V. Swain is the single best craft book out there.
Related to this, *lock everyone else out of your writing office.* A metaphor, but it's a good one. By everyone, I mean *everyone*. Your biggest fans and the people who leave drive-by one-star reviews. Loved ones and strangers. Your English teacher—this is not the place to worry about grammar. Your MFA professor—this is not the place to worry about symbols, metaphors, and themes. And especially not thought police of any stripe. You don't want to write about women or minorities? Don't. Your female characters fail the Bechdel test? That's fine.
Follow *Heinlein's Rules*. Write. Finish. Don't rewrite. Put on market. Keep on market. Repeat with the next story. The more I do this, the more fun I have in my career.
Finally, *learn business.* Understand copyright. You aren't selling a story, you're licensing that story in a certain format in a particular place for a selected period of time. And learn the other aspects of your business. https://kriswrites.com/category/busin... is a great place to start.
Postscript: if you like learning from books, *Techniques of the Selling Writer* by Dwight V. Swain is the single best craft book out there.
Raymund Eich
The idea for my recent four-book Stone Chalmers series came when I walked into my office at the day job.
I earned bachelor's and doctoral degrees from Rice University, and received gorgeous sheepskins to prove it. When I got a "real job", I hung my diplomas in my new office, where I walked past them multiple times every day for years.
One afternoon, I walked into my office and my gaze landed on the Rice diploma's phrase "the progress of humankind." Hmm, that would make a good science fiction title. My gaze tracked down the diploma. "Ad maiorem dei gloriam." Is that Latin for 'the greater glory of God?' "To all high emprise consecrated." "In public convocation assembled." Hey, that's four titles!
There was more to writing the Stone Chalmers series than that. Story creation reminds me of the video game Katamari Damacy, in which the player rolls a giant sticky ball around, picking up random stuff. To the ball of those four titles, things kept sticking. All the Sean Connery James Bond movies I'd seen on TV in the early '80s. Why are artificial wormholes always positioned in space? When faced with a much stronger force, your options are fight, flee, or get absorbed in order to attack the stronger force from the inside. Victor Frankl's three loci of meaning, family, faith, and work.
A quarter million words later, with custom cover art by Polish artist Jędrzej Tarkowski, and the series was complete.
I earned bachelor's and doctoral degrees from Rice University, and received gorgeous sheepskins to prove it. When I got a "real job", I hung my diplomas in my new office, where I walked past them multiple times every day for years.
One afternoon, I walked into my office and my gaze landed on the Rice diploma's phrase "the progress of humankind." Hmm, that would make a good science fiction title. My gaze tracked down the diploma. "Ad maiorem dei gloriam." Is that Latin for 'the greater glory of God?' "To all high emprise consecrated." "In public convocation assembled." Hey, that's four titles!
There was more to writing the Stone Chalmers series than that. Story creation reminds me of the video game Katamari Damacy, in which the player rolls a giant sticky ball around, picking up random stuff. To the ball of those four titles, things kept sticking. All the Sean Connery James Bond movies I'd seen on TV in the early '80s. Why are artificial wormholes always positioned in space? When faced with a much stronger force, your options are fight, flee, or get absorbed in order to attack the stronger force from the inside. Victor Frankl's three loci of meaning, family, faith, and work.
A quarter million words later, with custom cover art by Polish artist Jędrzej Tarkowski, and the series was complete.
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