Ask the Author: Martyn Perry
Answered Questions (4)
Martyn Perry
My advice would be to not be too impatient. You have to take your time and work hard at your story. A great way to ensure your story is ready is by getting friends, family and co-workers to read your work and give you honest feedback. What worked? What didn't? Don't be too precious over your work, if you can't take feedback, writing isn't for you! By listening to the feedback of others and implementing changes, your work will only ever get better!
Martyn Perry
The best thing about being a writer probably isn't the writing itself to be honest. The endless hours spent mulling over the phrasing of a particular sentence, or the daunting prospect of having to re-write entire chunks of your story as you've had a change of heart, or the moment when you re-read your previous night's work and hate every word! Those are the worst bits.
The best bit is when you've finally completed your story. You've written, re-written, read, re-read, re-written and re-written again your story to the point when you feel it's ready to share with the world. That moment when it's finally released and when you get your first review back. When you know that you've successfully managed to entertain a reader all from the power of your own imagination and your ability to represent that as a story, that's the best thing.
The best bit is when you've finally completed your story. You've written, re-written, read, re-read, re-written and re-written again your story to the point when you feel it's ready to share with the world. That moment when it's finally released and when you get your first review back. When you know that you've successfully managed to entertain a reader all from the power of your own imagination and your ability to represent that as a story, that's the best thing.
Martyn Perry
I'm currently working on a longer story set within the Dragon Zoo Universe. In this novella I jump the story forwards in time to the near future, when the entire events of the as yet un-released Dragon Zoo trilogy have already taken place.
Dragon Zoo: Apocalypse will be a thrilling, scary and fun fantasy adventure novel that will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the thrilling climax. By the end of this book, you'll want to see how it all began, to find out where the dragons of Dragon Zoo came from and how the world ended up like it's described in this story. At least that's the plan!
Dragon Zoo: Apocalypse will be a thrilling, scary and fun fantasy adventure novel that will keep readers on the edge of their seats until the thrilling climax. By the end of this book, you'll want to see how it all began, to find out where the dragons of Dragon Zoo came from and how the world ended up like it's described in this story. At least that's the plan!
Martyn Perry
Dragon Zoo: Night of the Prowlers was inspired by a unique concept I had for a short story. Rather than do a conventional 3rd person narrative to introduce the Prowlers, what about something more interesting? More exciting?
Watching movies such as The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity, I really enjoyed the way that the "found footage" genre could be utilised really effectively to not only generate scares, but also to get to know the characters on film in a unique and relatable manner. So what was the book equivalent of a home video? A diary.
What if you discovered somebody's diary, and what's more tempting than reading someone's inner monologue, their thoughts, feelings and secrets... how well do you get to know that person as a result of reading those diary pages? Now what if that diary was found at a crime scene, a scene where the writer was found dead? And what if that diary contained a description of events that were spectacular (like Cloverfield), that was the basis for a really good short story...
Watching movies such as The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity, I really enjoyed the way that the "found footage" genre could be utilised really effectively to not only generate scares, but also to get to know the characters on film in a unique and relatable manner. So what was the book equivalent of a home video? A diary.
What if you discovered somebody's diary, and what's more tempting than reading someone's inner monologue, their thoughts, feelings and secrets... how well do you get to know that person as a result of reading those diary pages? Now what if that diary was found at a crime scene, a scene where the writer was found dead? And what if that diary contained a description of events that were spectacular (like Cloverfield), that was the basis for a really good short story...
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