Ask the Author: Jason Parent
Answered Questions (19)
Jason Parent
Yes, I have had the story idea for the third in the series in my head for a few years now. It is just a matter of putting pen to paper. Speaking Evil has the potential to be a very big book...
Jason Parent
I think you should take your lights off a timer... or if they're not on a timer, consider moving, lol
Jason Parent
Here's a one sentence horror story: It's the first day of school, and as I bend over, I hear a rip.
Here's a two-sentence horror story: It's the first day of school, and as I bend over, I hear a rip. My teacher is unzipping her skin.
Here's a two-sentence horror story: It's the first day of school, and as I bend over, I hear a rip. My teacher is unzipping her skin.
Jason Parent
Hi Catherine - first off, thank you for all your wonderful reviews! They mean mountains to me. :)
To answer your question, I always start with a barebones outline, but I fairly solid start and ending. Endings are important to me, not so much in the action that closes out the work but in the feeling or thought I hope to leave readers with. I hand write first drafts, which become my new outline, pretty much scrapping the old one as the story rewrites itself. When I type it up, the story evolves again. I am a slow typist, so I have plenty of time to think and rethink scenes to try and make them better or rewrite altogether. But my endings rarely change beyond being more fleshed out. I have final chapters for two books already written despite having none of the preceding chapters.
What about you? What's your style?
To answer your question, I always start with a barebones outline, but I fairly solid start and ending. Endings are important to me, not so much in the action that closes out the work but in the feeling or thought I hope to leave readers with. I hand write first drafts, which become my new outline, pretty much scrapping the old one as the story rewrites itself. When I type it up, the story evolves again. I am a slow typist, so I have plenty of time to think and rethink scenes to try and make them better or rewrite altogether. But my endings rarely change beyond being more fleshed out. I have final chapters for two books already written despite having none of the preceding chapters.
What about you? What's your style?
Jason Parent
I plan on finish Michael Sullivan's Hadrian and Royce novels.
Jason Parent
This is a tough question, but I can say many of the mysteries of my life are explored in my books and none more so than my next novel release.
Jason Parent
Mickey and Mallory come immediately to mind. So do Batman and Alfred - come on, they're kind of a couple. Sid and Nancy? Bennifer?
Okay, okay... in the book world... Odd Thomas and Stormy Llewellyn from Odd Thomas or Oskar and Eli from Let the Right One In.
Okay, okay... in the book world... Odd Thomas and Stormy Llewellyn from Odd Thomas or Oskar and Eli from Let the Right One In.
Jason Parent
Anyone else asking me this question, and I'd take it at face value... Somehow, I think I am walking into a trap, but I'll bite. "Ka like a wind..."
Cadbury Eggs and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Cadbury Eggs and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Jason Parent
Seeing Evil is actually a conglomerate of ideas. I had started to write a Columbine-type drama along time ago, and what happened in Connecticut re-vitalized the issue in the media. That's a small part of the novel. Growing up, one of my favorite novels (and movies) was The Dead Zone. It's influence can be seen here. Then there's me, my voice, the story I want to tell. I hope Seeing Evil is something reader's will find something in beyond a fast-paced thriller, something they can relate to but also a story they will enjoy). I suppose only time will tell.
Jason Parent
I need to write a loooooooooooooooooooooooooonger answer to satisfy Goodreads, but the short of it is, "I'm in!"
Jason Parent
That's crazy... I really hope we can PM, or I am not a fan of this new Goodreads set up. Anyway, I can PM you. I'm IN! You've motivated me to get my ass in gear with this series. Let's do this. I have like a 40-page head start. Yay!
Jason Parent
people watch. I do it like crazy. truth is truly stranger than fiction. Of course, then I have to consider that people are watching me back. That's usually when the yogurt fall off my spoon and onto my work pants. I need not tell you what the stain resembles.
Jason Parent
Write. Edit. Edit. Edit. Edit. Get an editor. Get another editor. Then get an editor that knows how to edit. Re-write. Repeat.
Jason Parent
I had forgotten this one. Punishment did not fit the crime, perhaps? I didn't take much from it more than a simple tale of revenge and bully's comeuppance. Not a favorite, but a decent tale.
Jason Parent
When I was in fifth grade, I wrote my first short story for a class. It was a fantasy piece, and I remember being immensely proud of it. I also remember my brother getting hold of it, and to this day, he still makes fun of it on occasion. He was right: the story was terrible. But it was my first indicator that writing could be fun...
I really started writing more consistently early on in college at what was a very hard time for me personally-bad break-up, lost a friend, etc. We've all been there, I'm sure. But writing became an escape. I wrote fantasy then, too. I was a regular George R.R. Martin... if he had seven strokes, a lobotomy, became a zombie and then tried to write about the Iron Islands and Braavos, and that still might be giving it too much credit. But I nearly completed my first novel then. Wonder where it is now...
I really started writing more consistently early on in college at what was a very hard time for me personally-bad break-up, lost a friend, etc. We've all been there, I'm sure. But writing became an escape. I wrote fantasy then, too. I was a regular George R.R. Martin... if he had seven strokes, a lobotomy, became a zombie and then tried to write about the Iron Islands and Braavos, and that still might be giving it too much credit. But I nearly completed my first novel then. Wonder where it is now...
Jason Parent
Horror, for me, started with Poe and Shirley Jackson. His most fun story is A Tell-Tale Heart. His best works from a literary standpoint, though (and both are awesome) are The Masque of the Red Death and The fall of the House of Usher. I do own and have read cover to cover a volume that claims to be Poe's complete work, poems and all. Though not the same for every author, I do believe Poe's most famous stories are his better tales, with lesser known The Island of the Fay and this strange tale about a guy stuck in a balloon (the name of which escapes me) adding some peculiarity to his portfolio. Actually, he has some other very strange tales, with talking severed heads, vibrating tongues, etc.
Jason Parent
It's the ability to live lives, exact revenge, be something extraordinary - something I'll never achieve in a world limited by human capabilities. Don't we all want to be something more?
Jason Parent
When I get it on one project, I put it down for as long as I need to and work on something else. Sooner or later, I will have an epiphany and return to the first work.
Jason Parent
A lot. Finalizing four novels. One science fiction and three horror. Not to mention all the short stories I have in the works.
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Oct 11, 2019 09:06AM