Heidi requested this excerpt from Bell Mountain No. 5, The Fugitive Prince:
By Request: How an Ancient Artifact Scared the Daylights out of Jack
What would a boy and girl living in, say, 11th-century Norway think if they found a functioning cell phone… with someone from the 20th century at the other end of the line?
I like to print excerpts from my books, on those rare occasions when I get them.
My doctor asked me about this because he was interested. He got me interested, too. How can I explain what I actually do, and what it’s like to do it?
My task is a simple one. I make up a world that doesn’t exist and persuade readers to imagine they are there. I invent fictitious characters and get readers to respond to them as if they were real people. I make up events, based on real events I’ve found in the Bible or studied in history, and persuade readers that these events occurred.
Well, all right–not really! No one actually believes the stories that I write. But they can believe them for a little while: like the way you can let go when you’re watching a movie, and let the audio and the visuals just carry you along.
I try to make reading my book to be like watching a movie, to make the experience for the reader as effortless as possible. To do this, I choose every word based on how it interacts with other words and makes the sentence flow. Too much of that can be annoying; not enough, and it reminds the reader that he’s only reading words on a page. I know I’ve succeeded when a reader tells me, “Reading your books is like watching movies.”
For the story to work, I have to get myself into a frame of mind that’s not always easy to achieve. Sometimes it can only be achieved while I’m asleep. You’d be surprised how many scenes and incidents in my books started out as dreams. Some of the characters, too. Sometimes it can be achieved when I’m doing something else. The whole climax to The Fugitive Prince came to me as I was walking down the street to the Chinese restaurant. Just pow! There it was. All I had to do was write it.
This is a little hard to explain, but I feel–not ideate, but feel–that I have actually been to the world of Obann and seen it with my own eyes. How else can I write about it? If I don’t see it, I won’t be able to make the reader see it. I’ve been to Lintum Forest, with my feet rustling in the leaves. I’ve been in the labyrinth of tunnels under Obann City. Again, not really. But I don’t see how you can write fantasy at all, without ramping up your imagination to a certain high level–although I have read, alas, all too many fantasies in which no imagination was employed at all.
I may return to this subject later, if any of you out there are interested. I hope it’s good weather tomorrow, so I can take up my legal pad, out there with the birds and breezes, and ask the Lord to give me more of the story, and to help me tell it.
Yes, we have under 100 comments to go, to get to No. 6,000–and whoever posts comment No. 6,000 will win an autographed copy of one of my books. (Sorry: if you’ve won already, I will pass to someone who hasn’t won yet.)
Anyone can play. Just “leave a reply” at the bottom of any post.
I rule out comments abusive to me or to any other reader, comments that make use of the f-bomb, blasphemy, thinly-disguised commercials, or anything just too inane to bother with. Other than that, anything goes.
Join the dozens of happy people who have already read one of my books. Enter now!
Just skimming the headlines this morning reminded me of that old Car 54 theme song, from 1961–only worse, of course. Great Scott, what a mess!
But as long as you’re here, why not help this blog fulfill its purpose, and take a look at my books? Just click “Books” and you’re there.
True, in my Bell Mountain series you will search in vain for any mention of Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matter, Obama, the Republican Party, Democrats, homosexuals, exciting new forms of “marriage” endorsed by Satan himself, or special martial arts that enable 9-year-old girls to annihilate able-bodied grown men. I have purposely left them all out. You’ll just have to read about a world in which none of those things has even been thought of.
Liberals and progressives will be unhappy if a lot of people read my books. They will even be unhappy if just some of you read my books.
There are seven in print, with No. 8, The Temple, in pre-production and No. 9, The Throne, still being written.
Read the amazon.com Customer Reviews.
You know what? I wish I was you, so I could read these books without already knowing what’s in them.