Benjamin K. Hewett, a speculative fiction author and a Program Analyst with NASA, took time out of his schedule to answer some questions, for which I’m very grateful. The result was a ton of great information on process and projects. Benjamin Hewett is the author of DARTS and RINGS.
Victor Sweetser: One of my favorite things about your work is your ability to create interesting characters with distinctive voices, characters that—much like people we encounter in the real world—immediately suggest depths of personality and history. Where do these characters come from?
Benjamin Hewett: Ha! Thanks Victor!
Most of my characters are at least one part “Ben.” Parts I like about myself. And sometimes, parts I don’t like so much. Ever find yourself being annoyed with someone and realize that the especially annoying thing is something you dislike about yourself? That’s one source.
I pull characters from spending time with people and trying to understand them. I try to get away from my computer every now and then and get into the real world. You can learn a lot about someone by going on an eight mile hike with them. Or try to teach them to wake-board. Everybody has years of experience to tap into. As a teenager, I worked as a survey guy in the local mall, and I met some pretty strange characters. I thank my lucky stars for that difficult job, though. It made me get out of my comfort zone, out of my books, and into trying to understand what makes people tick.
The easiest way to ruin a character—even a supporting character—is to give them too much of one color, to paint them all one way: all heroic, completely boring, unswervingly villainous. I think that depth of personality and character complexity come from finding ways to show a villain’s positive traits and a hero’s flaws.
With DARTS I really struggled with this. About the twentieth time through, I realized (with my brother’s help) that my primary antagonist, Pale Tom, had no redeeming qualities. He was flat, evil, and unbelievable. So I gave him a redeeming quality: affection for the main character. That’s when the story really came alive for me, and I realized that I was going to have a lot more fun with Teacup and the denizens of Lower Ector. That’s how Paladin’s Thief series was born, and that one redeeming characteristic of the villain gave me ideas for a whole new cast of interesting people.
I don’t always do characters well. (But when I do, I . . . 🙂 ) Usually one of my beta readers says something like “Natasha wouldn’t say that,” or “Vance wouldn’t act that way,” and then I have to tweak the character so they behave like a real human and don’t get slaved to my plot.
BTW, Victor, thanks for interviewing me. This is fun!
VS: You have two fantasy novels available on Amazon, DARTS and RINGS, but a current project of yours is a sci-fi novel, Plague Runners. What has been most different, besides setting, between writing fantasy and sci-fi?
BH: Hmm. This is a tough question, especially if you make me answer it without talking about setting. I think the fantasy feels a bit easier for me to write, because I can wrap my head around the technology a bit better. But I guess that’s a setting answer.
I think there’s a tendency for developing writers to play things a little fast and loose in fantasy, fudging things like the impractical physics of anatomically correct armor, or how many miles a horse can run before dropping dead. In science fiction, I see aspiring authors developing plot ideas and gadgets well, but delivering two-dimensional characters. When I started writing DARTS, I began with a cast of characters. When I started Plague Runners, I started with a compelling idea about the science fiction world. The characters came afterwards. I’m not sure if that’s what other writers experience, but that’s the way it was for me.
I’m going to go off the reservation a bit and say that the better you get, the less they are different, once you put setting aside. I may change my mind on this at some point—and your readers will be able to point to several exceptions—but the most compelling stories are the ones that combine powerful ideas, gadgets, and scenery with believable characters that readers can identify with. The people really have to make sense. You can’t have a 4-year old girl be stoic in the face of a lazer-gun shoot out or a bloody sword massacre if she’s grown up in a sheltered environment. It might be “cute” to have the little angel kick a corpse and shout an expletive, but in a book, discerning readers are going to say, “This doesn’t feel right.” They might be able to put a finger on it exactly and say, “Nope. A four-year-old probably wouldn’t do that,” but it’s going to make their feet itch and they’re going to put the book down. People have to feel realistic. That’s one thing I’ve learned from submitting to the major players in publishing.
VS: What is your preferred workspace for getting work done and why?
BH: Oh man! It depends on what I’m doing: outlining, flash-writing, gap-filling, editing, reading out-loud.
Flash-writing can happen just about anywhere for me. That’s what I call it when I get see something that sparks a story in my mind, or I’m driving to work and something comes together for a scene I’ve been trying to write. An idea like that is almost too overpowering not to write, and it will fall onto the paper (or computer) as long as nobody is directly addressing me and asking me math questions.
For out-lining and gap-filling, I have to have a quiet space, preferably uncluttered, since these are more strategic endeavors. This type of work usually happens in my car (parked) or in one of my offices (home or work), where I can control the interruptions. For me, filling the gaps between flashes of “brilliance” is the most frustrating part of writing. It’s the time when you need all the power of your intellect and it won’t come naturally.
Editing or read-aloud editing can happen at the kitchen table or in the living room, and I often get more out of it when there are people around because being in a public makes me more critical of the things that don’t work.
These aren’t unbreakable rules, but I find myself gravitating towards one or the other depending on the task. Sometimes a change of scenery is helpful when I’m road-blocked. This concept of different workspaces for different tasks has been addressed by various bloggers. I’ll send some links for those interested.
VS: Are there any stages in your process–from brainstorming to the final draft–that you’d be willing to share, and which stage would you say is most important?
BH: I’m a seat-of-the-pantser, learning to outline. My first stories all started from an interesting idea that I couldn’t put down. I kept writing different sections of the story until they started to chain together. This works great for short stories and novellas where scope creep and expansion can be curtailed fairly easily, but it doesn’t work so well for novels, though it is fun. One of my biggest issues for Plague Runners has been reigning in the scope and tightly coupling every scene to the plot. Another problem: sometimes the dots don’t connect so well and I get a story that doesn’t quite work. Sometimes, I put stories like that away and let them incubate for a while. DARTS was one of those.
Flash-write.
Incubate.
Repeat.
Outline.
Fill gaps (drafting).
Re-draft.
Edit.
Read aloud edit.
Send to beta readers.
Repeat as needed.
Flash-writing and gap-filling are the most important stages for me. Recapturing a good idea four hours later can be tricky. My mood and environment have often changed and the idea isn’t as fresh, making it harder to see important connections. Instead of waiting, I clock out from whatever I was doing and give my idea notebook 15 minutes. I make sure to put thoughts down that will help me recapture the spark when I have a larger block of available time. Ideally, I’ll write an entire scene, as it might appear in a novel, because that has a reality to me, a way of sticking in my head better.
But gap-filling, or the process of turning a string of scenes into a complete draft, is the most important step for me. The lazy part inside always wants to shirk, but if I beat it down and finish draft one, I’ve usually established enough momentum with the story to go through all the other steps. I’ve always been a bit of a dreamer, so finishing the first draft is the most crucial step.
VS: If there was only one piece of advice you could share with other writers, what would it be?
BH: Nothing makes you an author like finishing a book. Finish your book. Slog through the boring parts and finish. Set yourself a schedule and finish. That’s the hardest part, which makes it the most important part.
When you read a good book for a second time, you get more out of it. The same is true for second drafts. Once you’ve been through the novel once, and laid it all out on the line, you’re going to start to see things you didn’t see before, and you’re going to be able to turn that piece of crap (no offense) into something a little better.
For the last 4 months, I’ve hated Plague Runners for all its flaws and ugliness, all the while knowing it’s my best and most unique work to date. And now I’m on draft seven and starting to really love it again.
VS: Along those lines, do you have any advice for juggling other very important things, like family, with writing?
BH: Or juggling period? You know I juggle fire right? 🙂
The trick to juggling is knowing which balls you can drop, because everybody drops something occasionally. “Put first things first” is a great piece of advice from Stephen R. Covey. People come first. If I’m writing and my wife comes into my office, I put my laptop down and look at her. I won’t ever get that moment back.
I write first thing in the morning. If I don’t, it doesn’t happen, or it isn’t not top notch. After a long day with my primary employer, I’m only good for editing and tweaking. If my family life is in shambles, I can’t focus either. If I haven’t played with my kids, they run around the house making lots of noise. (Sometimes they do that anyways. It’s part of the fun.)
So, I try to double up. If I need exercise, I take the kids with me. We might jog laps together or play soccer. If I have to read a book (research) I try to get it on Audible and listen to it while I do the dishes. Then when my wife gets home from a trip, the house is clean and I feel relaxed.
I also don’t play video games or watch television much. I think the last video game I finished was Skyrim (main questline only). I miss it, but I’m passionate about writing, and so I make it a priority. It’s also been a while since I went to the theatre and saw an action movie, though I took my kids to see Pixar’s Inside Out last Saturday, and then they wouldn’t stop talking about it. Another good case of “doubling up.”
There are weeks when I’ve got to put my nose to the grindstone and get writing stuff done. And there are other weeks where the only writing I do is a few scribbled notes in my writing journal. Usually, when I take time to do something nice for my wife, or listen to one of my kids tell me about something that happened at school, I don’t regret it.
Some things can wait and some can’t. Decide what’s important to you early on and stick to it.
VS: What can you tell us, that you haven’t already, about Plague Runners?
BH: This one is still under pretty tight wraps since I don’t have a book deal yet, but the idea comes from watching a two-year-old put her tongue on an airport moving-handrail. Yuck. I won’t reveal the main plot-line, but I will say that it features a highly-capable government employee as the protagonist, and a cast of beautifully flawed characters. I hope to begin shopping for agents by year-end and then start gap-filling the sequels.
Victor, thanks again for the opportunity to talk with you and your audience! I can’t wait to hear about your next project.
For those interested in updates regarding The Paladin’s Thief series, Plague Runners, or my other thoughts on writing fantasy and science fiction , I can be found at BKHEWETT.COM.
Workspace Links
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