February 7, 2024 • 40 mins
In an enlightening episode of MF Uncensored, host Paul explores the intricate world of storytelling and authorship with prolific author Andre Gress. They delve into provocative topics such as character development, creating resonating narratives, and the writing process. Andre passionately shares insights from his writing journey and gives a sneak peek of his upcoming book, 'Black Rose Cocoon.'
Focusing on the complex art of creating captivating stories and characters, Andre reveals how he incorporates real-life experiences and personalities into his writing. The dialogue reveals Andre's unique approach to maintaining the momentum and audience interest in his Boone and Jack series, as well as his thoughtful reflections on the societal impacts of crime.
The in-depth discussion also presents an enticing preview of 'Black Rose Cocoon.' The conversation unravels the story's complex characters, the book's unique four-character rotation, and its ability to evoke a range of human emotions in its readers. Moreover, the dialogue delves into the often ignored mental toll of writing such powerful narratives and how the author copes.
Andre Gress, influenced by renowned filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro, presents his unique perspective on life, death, and society's reactions to crimes like murder. He candidly shares the challenges around creating a female serial killer character who is both monstrous and relatable, achieving unpredictability in his work, and much more. An insightful conversation for aspiring writers, story enthusiasts, and anyone intrigued by the art of storytelling.
The conversation concludes with a wealth of advice for budding authors, deconstructing the myth of writer's block and encouraging continuous creativity. This revealing interview serves as a guided tour through the labyrinthine world of storytelling and the mind of an innovative author. A must-hear episode for anyone eager to understand the nuances and complexities of the art of authorship.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Warning, MF Uncensored contains adult language and discussion.
Listener discretion is advised.
We're a couple of misfits, we're a couple of misfits. What's the matter with.
Music.
Misfits? That's where we fit in.
We're not Duffy and Billy. Don't
go around with a hit. Hello everyone and welcome back to MF Uncensored.
(00:20):
Don't forget if you guys are listening to us on the go, you can find us on Podbean,
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, YouTube, basically anywhere you get your
podcasts. You can also find more of our content on our website,
themisfitfaction.com.
There you'll find links to not only this show, but some of our other shows,
like the Multiverse Fancast and Cinematic Adventures.
As always, I'm one of your hosts, Paul. With me, via the Zoom studio,
(00:41):
is author, writer, and upcoming book releaser.
I don't know if that's an actual phrase, but I'm going to make it a phrase for
the sake of conversation.
And you may know him by A.G. Fletcher, or as I'm going to be calling him,
Andre Gress. Andre, how are you today?
I am great. How are you? I am doing so well. Thank you so much for being on.
I'm really excited to chat with you for a little bit.
(01:04):
All right. So before we get started, why don't you tell our audience a little
bit about you, what, you know, some of your writing, what you do, all that jazz.
Well, I'm Andre. I am from Canada, British Columbia.
I've always been in a small town, so a lot of the aesthetics in my writing kind
of falls in that. I mean, I'm glad that I got the chance to actually travel in my life.
(01:28):
So it's not so, you know, static and kind of stale in my writing.
Speaking of traveling, I am obviously native to Canada, but come from a family of Egyptians.
And there is even some family members in Greece on my dad's side.
But as for who I am as a person, I'd say I'm a very grounded and genuine person.
(01:53):
And that's why over time I noticed that a lot of my characters are grounded.
And I actually got kind of annoyed at myself that I'm making everyone so self-aware.
It's like, that's not realistic.
There's no such thing as everyone knowing who they are.
So I, over time, developed a better understanding of different kinds of people.
(02:13):
And you know most authors are like oh i don't like this person i'm gonna put
in my book no that's not how it works but getting back to who i am i've had a lot of different,
day jobs in my life which is where i got some of my ideas from there have been times where,
i realized you know i can't do this job anymore because i need to evolve as
(02:38):
a person and as a writer obviously and part of that comes with being able to
let go of things let go of complacency,
so i can't i guess i kind of summed it up i mean i've
done a lot of actually mental health podcast interviews where i got the chance
to unpack a lot of my personal stuff and that could go on for hours i've done
(03:03):
two-hour interviews where it's just that so i'll keep that for another one.
Yes let's keep moving here and that's about it
i dude i like i like that i like one of the
things that you said that really resonated was that a lot of
times when you hear authors talk about characters especially characters they
don't like because that's what everybody focuses on there's a big focus on
like the villains the anti-heroes and it people
(03:26):
love hearing that it was based off somebody you know or somebody
like the writer knows so it's actually really refreshing to hear
you say it so for you though you
do pull from real life into your stories and
into your writings can you kind of tell me a little bit about your process
because i love creating that's why i do three podcasts
you know youtube shows the whole nine i love creating and i love hearing creators
(03:47):
also work my process over time actually kind of mimicked not purposely but how
stephen King does his process where he has an image in his head that's kind of conclusive and,
he kind of creates a storyline from there where for me it's more like.
(04:09):
A picture that gives me questions that didn't i
don't know how to answer yet and then i find the
answer and that's where the story comes so for example
like two nights ago i was like you know that romance
story i've wanted to do for years is kind of catching up like i won't do it
now but it's getting close so i i did something that i do when i don't want
(04:34):
to lose an idea I was watching TV and I was like, I'm getting bored of watching TV.
So I had this image in my head of the picture of a French Italian woman just smiling.
Her hair is blowing in hot wind or something. And she's on some island in the Gulf of Mexico.
(04:54):
And she's looking at you or even off in the distance very romantically.
Romantically so because i've never written romance
before and i had that image in my head i'm like
you know what what if i just just kind of add a
little just add mystery here so that's
more about the chase but also
(05:16):
what happens when these two
people meet because the premise i've always had is
a long distance relationship but i didn't know
what kind of long distance relationship and
what technology in terms of communication
is available to these people so the
idea of the picture came to me and i just went on my computer and wrote a little
(05:40):
pre-blurb and then one paragraph for the opening chapter and i wanted to do
something that kind of came off as like a french movie where i don't know if
you know french movies but in french film the style is that.
They don't really do any fancy cuts it's all just long cuts and they just jump
(06:01):
to the next one where they allow the character to speak for the scene and it's it can be very,
draining for for a typical american audience that's
not used to not fast cuts where
they have to actually pay attention so i
want to do something like that but still keep the
(06:23):
scenes moving i that's what's so important to me
as a writer is that no matter how poetic or action-packed
chaotic or mundane as long
as a story is moving forward physically and and
and mentally then that's a
good story to me you can you can give the
reader a breather as many times as you
(06:44):
want but it can't be like what i
call the potted plant effect whereas you're just
the story is sitting there and then
nothing's happening like i've i've like
skimmed through books when i'm going shopping and i'm like nope don't like that
nope don't like that and it's because the first sentence is boring me if if
(07:04):
the the hook is the only thing interesting on the first page i'm not going to
read it right and it's the same same thing for a movie if the first scene is
just two people sitting in a park,
bench and we stay there for 10 minutes better be a damn good good conversation.
I like that because a lot of times people they
(07:26):
say if they don't if you don't get the audience it's hooked in the
first sentence or two you're not going to have them but i like
how your focus seems to be more on you still have to have the actual like meat
of the story and you have to have a good story to tell so you get a great hook
and but if you don't have something to follow it then what's the point of having
a great hook so yes some authors do there's so many different,
(07:50):
analogies you can use like there's the snowball effect where you start with one flake of snow No.
And then it rolls into something bigger and that's great. But whatever starts
going downhill too fast.
So that's not really good. Now analogy. A good analogy is you making a dish
from scratch with ingredients you're not familiar with or familiar with. So I like that.
(08:15):
So like, cause I, as, as someone who, who has eaten, of course,
his family's ethnic food and other ethnic food, it's, It's surprising to you, right?
Like, you're either going to hate it or you're going to love it.
But it's new, so you try it anyway.
So that's how I see writing, is every book I write, even my series here of Boone and Jacques.
(08:41):
Because it was like my first, not trial and error, but I was basically trying
a different genre in every installment, because that plate was good,
but I'm tired of eating pizza, so I'm going to eat something else.
Do you find that challenging, though, for like a book? It's a series.
Do you find it challenging for your audience to go from not necessarily genre
(09:04):
to genre, but just flavor to flavor?
Not necessarily, because what I do to keep the flow going is I tease a little bit of the next book.
So it's like maybe an epilogue or even a chapter that leads into kind of like
I'm already showing the inciting incident, basically.
(09:25):
And it's not that I'm cheating them out of a story. It's more like this is kind
of the vibe I'm going for. Do you like that or not?
So like even if they don't catch on to that on the back of the cover sometimes i'll introduce,
bright colors that will kind of insinuate
what happens in the next book i don't really
(09:47):
think i'm going to do that anymore that was just more for the sake of not jarring
the reader too much because each book is pretty different and not everyone likes
that and that's fine but now that that I've done all this writing and experience.
It's not that I'm streamlining.
(10:08):
It's more like I'm just becoming more focused.
So my upcoming book, Black Rose Cocoon, I actually started working on that while
finishing the last book of William and Jack.
So it's been about a year and a half. Wow.
While working a full-time job and only being able to write on my days off because
(10:30):
I don't have the brainpower hour to write on my working days.
I think I averaged 5,000 words a week.
What I really did for the most part of the process of Black Rose Cocoon is really
just research and listening to crime podcasts, interviewing criminology professors, even a teacher.
(10:52):
I don't remember where she was, somewhere in the States. I think it was Massachusetts or something.
And she wrote a book about the psychology of female killers.
And at a certain point i kind
of stopped reading it because i realized you
know it's not really about the killer i originally
was going to be an origin story but i was like no i don't i
(11:12):
don't want to humanize a killer this is stupid and it's
not the point i'm trying to make the point i ended
up making which is what i wanted to make sure it
shines is to exemplify the
different ways of looking at
the relationship between life and death the metronome
of it and we were you were talking about
(11:34):
the writing process i didn't actually
have an image in my head for this story
i because i wanted to create a conversation
for the readers because it was more about
how murder murder affects society
and families as opposed to the
thrill of the hunt that that most crime authors focus
(11:56):
on right if you read the crime book no matter who is the writer how good they
are they focus on what the detectives are doing and of course the killer but
you don't they don't really touch on the psychology of it of it all when when you when you You are.
To me as a writer, when you try to exemplify fear, it can't just be verbatim.
(12:22):
It can't just be the action.
That's kind of, it's too watered down.
There's no closeness to relatability to the reader.
So one of the types of effect that murder.
I did my best to try and exemplify because I'm not a mom,
(12:44):
is how does a mom feel when her
child is taken away from her too soon that is
really hard to do if you're not that person so what
i did is towards the end because and it's
not really a spoiler that's what i want your audience to understand
i'm not hiding who the killer is that's not the point of
the story we know who it is it's not about the mystery it's
(13:05):
just when do they get caught and what happens in between so
maybe some characters don't know right away who the
killer is is but it's you know and it
that's okay there's not that doesn't cheat
cheat you out of the story but anyway i had a
scene at the end for victim impact statement
because i was watching the all of
(13:28):
these different adaptations of jeffrey dahmer's
story and so i went on youtube and watched
the actual victim impact statements and even
i don't know if you know about this one daryl brooks somewhere in
the states i think it was georgia somewhere
in georgia anyway he was sentenced to.
(13:50):
Life sent had a life sentence for literally running
over people in a parade and making sure
that they're done right and so i was watching this mom look directly at the
killer in the court and just go off on him and i was like getting goosebumps
and just getting getting really uncomfortable i was like that's what i want
(14:13):
i want to make the audience uncomfortable.
Because if a mom hadn't actually been through that and she reads it whether
it's triggering to her or not the fact that i can show an echo of what she was
feeling at least then that to me is powerful enough that I'm reaching out to
someone and saying, I don't know how you feel.
(14:35):
I don't know what you went through, but I'm assuming it's something like this.
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. So.
You have to really be willing to put yourself out there and try to exemplify other people's pain,
because if you only put in your pain and your writing, it becomes one-sided
(14:58):
and really selfish and kind of strange because you're one person.
You can't exemplify all kinds of people through your own pain.
That's kind of silly. so this book
is obviously something i'll
never do again because it was it took a lot out of me it's
certainly powerful and i'm proud
(15:20):
of having put myself out there like i did a
four character rotation meaning when it
says chapter one it says the name of the character then we
go to the next and we rotate through twice per act
it would have been long-winded if
i did more than that but that to me was very
tricky but i managed to kind of
(15:42):
polish it towards the end so what i did was the
first act is basically a character introduction but as we move along in the
story even though we go to the next character's perspective i'm kind of continuing
the same scene just on the other side okay so that way i'm not jarring the reader
(16:03):
too much it's more like Like,
you're going to get bored of this detective perspective.
So let's just flip to something a bit more relatable. So I have a detective,
radio disc jockey, a doorman, and one of the victim's mom.
Now, we don't really see the victim. It's kind of just mentioned.
(16:25):
Because it's more about her journey as she loses people.
And what does that do to her? does it does it actually make her stronger or
does she descend into madness as the the,
the killer wanted see i like that
you know it's it's very easy to do the typical
like murder mystery type story or
(16:47):
follow you know follow the killer follow the mystery of
unraveling who the killer is i like you're
coming from a place of pure human emotion and just
like that that's where you're taking your story from
and that's kind of what the story is building around do you did you
find it i mean you mentioned that it was draining on you
i can't imagine like watching all these these true stories and
(17:09):
stuff like that like how did you how did you cope with that
as you were writing well when i did this on the last word i i was having an
out-of-body experience because it's like i unconsciously put myself in a headspace
bubble that kind of how can I put it.
(17:30):
It's almost like I manipulated my brainwaves into we're doing this.
And even though I don't want to. So I just, I committed to it.
I treated it like I'm an actor where you just forget about yourself and you just go for it.
You speak through the character.
And so to do that with four different kinds of characters was really tasking.
(17:53):
But I really wanted to do it. So what I did to kind of make it not so like I'm
splitting myself apart is,
yes, they're all different, strong personalities, but they're all kind of telling
the same story because they're in the same place.
So the detective that
(18:15):
was really tricky for me because i didn't realize i
was doing this she has this very reserved stoic
personality and even though she does open
up a little bit about her past towards the end as a person she doesn't really
change and i did that i think on subconsciously on purpose because i wanted
(18:36):
to have a character that doesn't change but but becomes less numb towards the
end and less black and white.
And yeah, she'll be a little bit more open to certain parts of being a human
being, but she's still herself.
Kelly, the radio host who loses her sister, I think about a third,
(18:59):
a third way in, not, not the sister is dead. She gets kidnapped.
Okay. By the killer. And that's not really a spoiler because it's kind of, it's at the beginning.
So it doesn't matter if i say that so that was a character that made sure wasn't
self-aware because i wanted to explore that kind of person because i've never done that before,
where she's confident in who she is but she's not aware
(19:21):
of her actions and how she's being perceived by others because there
are a lot of people like that where yes they're all confident and
they they know what they're doing but as soon as
you question them they get all uptight and pissed off so
like for example this is one scene i can tease because it's very small
and it's really just a little her flair she's holding
boxes of file a box of
(19:42):
sorry a stack of files and she can't
open her apartment door because she
also has a coffee in her hand and she sees two doors down in the in the hall
her neighbor and she's like can you please fish up the keys from my pocket and
just open the door for me and then she ignores her and goes back in her apartment
(20:02):
and then comes back out with a big box.
And she goes, honey, stop trying to impress people and just gives her the box
and says, just put them in here.
And she's like, can you just take the keys out? She's that stubborn.
She's just like, do what I tell you. So.
That's kind of the gist of the scene so i wanted to show like no
(20:24):
there are just there are some people out there that they're
not bad they're not weird well they're
weird but they just they don't notice themselves
sometimes they're very stuck in their
ways and like yeah a lot of times characters whether
it's tv movie books any any sort of
medium people are looking for big character arc
(20:44):
swing and suddenly they're a totally different person by the end of
the story like in real life that doesn't
happen like i'm i'm in my mid-30s and
watching somebody try and change like we're recording we're
a week and a half into january so everybody's in their new year
new me resolutions and some people are
already like nope done so it's it's referring with
(21:05):
yeah like with kelly i won't
say too much but essentially it's kind
of like with rosaria the detective where they
kind of have a mirroring effect of being themselves
until the safety net
of their life is taken away from them so that's that's kind of how what i did
(21:27):
for the all the characters is that to a certain point of the story they're all
kind of just figuring out the mystery and then i take the safety net away and
then we see what their true personality will do for their their own,
I guess, their own rescue.
See, I like that. That sounds really interesting. I'm really excited for this
(21:48):
book to come out. I think it, you said February, right? So it's like right around
the corner. Are you excited?
Yeah, I just got an email from my editor. She's starting on Monday for the two weeks of editing.
Sometimes it becomes three because she doesn't realize how complicated my stories are.
But like the easiest, the easy part that I did for her is that it's not a fantasy story.
(22:09):
So it'll be just just people so yeah
mid to late february is when it should be
out that's so cool man like that's it's just awesome to
hear that you're doing well with like you know creating now you also started
off as a screenwriter before you started books so like was that a big change
from screenwriting for you know i don't know if it was yeah louise tv yeah definitely
(22:32):
because Because when I did my associates in creative writing,
I took like a few courses in screenwriting and then created an ad on Craigslist.
And some indie director picked me up and we got to the rough cut.
But because he had me rewrite the script so many times, when he wanted to do
(22:55):
the reshoots for what he wanted,
the actors said, no we would rather do on andre's original script so that's
when i started to lose interest is that.
If if who I am as a writer is so small that even some indie director doesn't
want to trust me with my writing and just put his stamp of visuals on it and
(23:20):
whoever he wants to cut it up, then why should I bother?
Right. And but but that was my mentality at that time.
Right now, it's more like I just want to make a name for myself.
Self and if film directors want
to adapt one of my books or whatever and i
tell them about my experience as a screenwriter then i'll just i'll
(23:40):
do like a like a kind of like jk rowling where you do the first
the first draft and even king did that
for some movies the first draft as a like a
deal i think or even i think teleplay
i think some authors do that but yeah yeah
so i did screenwriting for like a year or two then I
saw that that just wasn't going anywhere so I became
(24:01):
a personal trainer for a year and
then I worked in film as a production assistant
and background actor and that
was all on call and it just became very sparse
so I let that go and then I
tried to write a
children's book with a friend and we both had
(24:23):
different approaches and it just wasn't working so i
was like you know what let's go get some education and see if i
can make myself credible as a writer so i did that.
And that's how i ended up getting my bachelor's that's awesome
man like that's such a cool story and from what it sounds
like and i'm sure it relates to the books
that you've written it sounds like when you have a vision you want
(24:44):
to you kind of want to see your own vision take place and
you know working in in film you got a lot
of cooks in the kitchen everybody's got something and directors notoriously
you know you look at stephen king he hated
the adaptation of the shining like he hated it
and to the point where i think like made his own afterwards
that was like completely faithful to his book so like
(25:06):
yeah i remember in interviews he
was saying he said something like there were parts that
he liked and then there were other parts where
he thought that kubrick threw his body
at a grenade in terms of how he shit all over his his story and stanley kubrick
like he is notorious like you hear horror stories about how meticulous he is
(25:29):
like i forget the female actress's name off the top of my head but like he treated
her like shit and yeah i had to cast like not talk to her,
I think she ended up doing like just years and years of therapy after that.
Like her hair was falling out and stuff like it was. Yeah, I saw a recent picture
of her. I was like, oh, God, what happens to you? I'm so sorry. What did he do to you?
(25:52):
Now, for you, though, would you want your your Boone and Jacques story translated
first to film or TV if that was an option?
Or would you rather with your new book? I mean.
Maybe. I mean, it took me four years to write Boone and Jacques.
While working full-time i don't think so
maybe because the thing about boone and jack
(26:14):
is that that's the first like series i
wrote before i felt practiced enough
to be legitimate and it's not that i'm not proud of it it's more like it's it's
something that could be adapted pretty easily but i think now that i've become
(26:34):
more practiced and i'm starting to should be a bit more cohesive and polished as a writer.
And it's actually the next project that I'm working on after Black Crow's Cocoon
that is something that I think would be better.
It's called Zephutro. I don't know how many books I'm going to do in this series,
but it's a new fantasy series.
(26:56):
The title is based off of two flowers, Zephian,
which represents rebirth, birth and locust sutra which represents hell so the
futra is essentially the,
name of an apocalyptic event so these this brother and sister I think horror.
(27:21):
Harlow i think harlow and and darrow
i'm still working on the names so i
was listening to this this classical composition called
the isle of the dead i think
it's sergey roka recommended off
anyway i was listening to it and it gave me the
(27:42):
overall energy of like it
did the disney movie be fantasia oh yeah yeah yeah
so i kind of
was like you know that's the kind of beat the rhythm that i'm
going for here and even i'm there was a 1880 painting
painting based off of that composition and because
i wanted to go with something that has the vibe of a desert so the the overall
(28:09):
atmosphere is going to be something in the southern hemisphere or after some
certain event that happened at the end of Boonejack there's all of these islands,
and it's full of magical people.
And it's still all up in the air but essentially what I'm going to try and do with this is,
(28:32):
make it succinct enough that however many books I do it won't feel as jumbled
as Boonejack did it's a great series I'm proud of it but I was trying so many
different things in each book that it's not a very,
it's not predictable,
so I want to keep that element obviously in Zafutra I want each book to feel
(28:57):
like it's just following each other it's not me trying to outdo myself it's just it's.
A surprising yet familiar feeling is what I want to try to create out of them.
See, I really liked that as somebody who, when I started podcasting,
my, my first podcasts are very different than my current podcasts.
(29:19):
Like just the, just production value alone.
Like when you listen to our first episode of our first podcast ever, it is rough.
We tried to re-listen to it recently because I think we had an anniversary and we're like,
let's, let's listen to and oh my god it is it's bad the
content is fine but oh god
like it sounds like i threw a microphone down
(29:40):
a long tunnel and we're yelling to it so i
like that that you're also very self-aware that you
know you start up at the series that you're exceptionally proud of and
you know that you still have room to grow and you know kind of
fall into your own writing spirit so i think
that's really cool man like and i'm looking forward to so
you're working on that next after your
(30:01):
your current your next book comes out yeah and
then there's this other book that takes
place in the same city as black rose cocoon
called red widow waltz it
takes place 30 to 40 years after
black black cross cocoon storyline but it
doesn't really follow that that story it
(30:24):
it is the the concept that i was going for in terms of what is left after that
story happens which is you know the the event is over the bubble has burst now
all that's left is pain so what's going to happen to this kind of aura.
So this city government called Redwood Waltz or they created a program called
(30:50):
Redwood Waltz where they take damaged people and try to weaponize their emotions.
They have certain abilities kind of like, it's basically stranger things with
adults. Okay, I can get behind that.
So I was like, you know what interests me is the Hawkins lab.
So it was like, what if, because there's a house, there is the Black Rose,
(31:14):
the house on Black Rose Hill is what I call it in Black Rose Cocoon.
So I was like, what if they actually created some kind of like sky train or
subway that goes straight to that house?
And that house has been basically transformed into this tarantula sort of nesting
area for all of these people that are innocent yet not isn't innocent.
(31:39):
And they create this sort of like virtual programming that will manipulate their
brains into either becoming super violent or they'll resist it.
And what will this government do to them if they resist?
So something like that but because it's such whenever i
(32:00):
i think of an idea that i know is very it
could go either way i i don't want
to do it until i'm ready so black rose
cocoon i did it because i was in the right headspace but with
redwood waltz i know that i can't do that right now because it's
it's really hard to do straight up
(32:21):
psychology when you're trying to keep it
lively and not so down in
the dumps because if i make every
character doom and gloom it's not
the reader is not going to be interested right so i
have to create some kind of like multiple layers that
kind of balance out
(32:42):
each part of of those of those those emotions
because otherwise i'm just like.
Depressing the reader i don't want to do that yeah
nobody wants to read or or watch like watch a show where
everybody's just miserable or depressed or like you need
you need that up you need the entire emotional spectrum in
order to catch because yeah you know i think you mentioned it
(33:03):
before i'm trying to remember but like you're trying to catch everybody
you can't just speak for one person like a
good story has something that you know everybody can
at least not full maybe not fully latch on to but at
least relate to in some capacity so again your self-awareness
about your writing it just shows like how passionate
you are about it and how like how well your work on
(33:25):
it it's awesome but going back to when you're asking
what what created this the story kind of
thing it was actually an interview with guillermo del toro is what inspired
a black rose cocoon because the interviewer was asking him about his perspective
on life and death and he says life cannot begin if it doesn't end.
(33:50):
So, I was like, what? I mean, I know, but he's essentially saying.
You have to see death as a beautiful thing because without it,
we wouldn't try so hard to make something of ourselves.
And there's the metronome of it, of one person lives, one person dies.
(34:11):
So that's where the whole body count and me asking, well, how would society react to murder?
Would it just be a throwaway where I say, well, it's not me.
It's not someone I know. so why should i care so it's
kind of me asking the audience that question because that's
(34:32):
what guillermo del toro does in his movies when it
comes to to the relationship of life
and death is questioning the audience's perspective on the beauty of life and
death and do you see death as something gruesome or do you see it as something
beautiful that creates the encouragement of doing something with your life because
(34:54):
there is that sense of urgency that you should have.
So with Black Rose Cocoon, that's essentially what I'm doing,
which is that it's so unpredictable when someone will go.
And the way I try to levity that is, yeah, there are some comedic moments because
I have to have people that do see life and death as just a careless amount of
(35:19):
time, time as opposed to meaningful time.
And then asking the characters, the core characters, is that you too?
Or which, which one are you?
Do you want to see life as something passive or active?
I didn't, I didn't know we were going to get so deep tonight. I love it.
That's awesome, man. So I'm really looking forward to all this work.
(35:40):
Like it sounds like a lot of really good stuff on the horizon.
And I love to read. My wife is the queen of reading.
So I'm I'm going to have to pass your books along to her.
So we are getting to the end of our time, though. And at the end of our show,
we always like to do a little game, if you're interested, of course,
where we do a couple of rapid fire questions.
I try and create questions that cater to who I'm speaking to.
(36:01):
And they're just off the top of your head type answers, if you're interested.
Yeah, let's do it. All right. Who is your favorite character from your Boone and Jacques series?
Shammy, who is Boone's love and trust throughout the whole series.
Awesome. What is the most challenging aspect been of writing a female serial killer?
I would say making them a monster yet tangible in terms of realism.
(36:27):
Nice. What is a writing habit that you swear by? One of your most important ones.
To make dialogue as lively, yet somehow morose and chocolatey.
Chocolate, I like that phrase. And who is a dream collaboration that you would
like to work with in the literary sense, like an author or screenwriter, anything?
(36:49):
I would say, literarily, there's my French coming in. I would say Stephen King for books.
But for movies, I would love to work with Guillermo del Toro.
I actually had this weird fantasy of doing like a fucking metal song with him
and just jamming out i don't i was like i can just see here with the door rocking
out a bass i don't know why,
(37:11):
i i could actually get behind that i could see that as well i love him like
ever since i saw the first hellboy movie i was like who is this guy that's directing
it i must be a metal head he must be obvious yes and then one last one what
is one piece of advice that you have for authors that are looking to make their starts?
Keep putting stuff out there. Not keep writing, keep putting stuff out there.
(37:32):
There are so many new authors that try to focus on perfecting one thing as opposed
to just putting as much out there so that you see how people will react to different
parts of your style of writing.
That's awesome, man. Thank you so much. If anybody wants to get your book or
learn more about you or anything along those lines, what are some of the best ways that they can do it?
(37:52):
I made it super easy for everybody. It's the same handle for everything.
So H.U. Fletcher for Facebook, Twitter, I was going to say Tokyo for some reason,
TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
That's awesome, man. And I do teach authors, by the way, on YouTube. Oh, yeah?
Really quick, how do you teach authors? We got a man. I basically just do lectures.
(38:12):
And because I put my links there, I offer, because I have my email address on
Facebook, so you can email me questions And I can even I've even mentored authors, entrepreneurs,
business owners, that kind of thing when they're trying to create a novel.
I've even taken little pieces of someone's writing and just gave gave notes or something.
(38:34):
So, yeah, I mean, I've I will. Fair warning, though, to the new to new new writers.
If you watch my video on.
On writer's block it is my most popular but a lot of novice writers found it like a personal attack,
attack because i'm very blunt about it i
(38:55):
i was saying things like you know one of
the the things about writer's block is that it's
it's seen as something concrete but it's not it's it's
your own anxiety and and fear of how
it's gonna come out when it really is just
you writing there's no one in the room it's just you writing
it's just you but because we
(39:16):
have that fear of oh this someone's going to see this eventually what
if they don't like it what if no one likes it what if no one buys this
but that doesn't matter and the biggest thing though that people get pissed
off with my video is when i talked about perfectionist cannot be a perfectionist
when it comes to writing because you will never finish anything because you
(39:38):
will be so nitpicky about well, this typo there, this typo there.
Oh, that scene doesn't really make sense to me or it's not the way I want it
to be. It's like, first off, that's the editor's job.
And two, even if your story is not absolutely perfect, you have to realize that
there are famous authors that don't have perfect books.
(39:58):
There's no such thing as Stephen King having perfect 60 plus books. That's weird.
That's not possible. so that's kind
of what i was getting to in that video but yeah please
look at look at those videos i most of my
students have found it very helpful and i
hope you do too i do sometimes do a series
(40:21):
called stories with ag flitcher where i talk about real life stories that influenced
certain scenes or books in my stories that's awesome and i'll make sure i link
all those down in the bottom so if you guys are listening make you can uh just
check out the description if you're driving the the car or whatever it is.
And that would be awesome, dude.
This was fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on. I really had a great time talking to you.
(40:43):
Me too. It was fun. We'll definitely connect again soon. All right. All right. Take care.
Warning, MF Uncensored contains adult language and discussion.
Listener discretion is advised.
We're a couple of misfits, we're a couple of misfits. What's the matter with.
Music.
Misfits? That's where we fit in.
We're not Duffy and Billy. Don't
go around with a hit. Hello everyone and welcome back to MF Uncensored.
(00:20):
Don't forget if you guys are listening to us on the go, you can find us on Podbean,
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, YouTube, basically anywhere you get your
podcasts. You can also find more of our content on our website,
themisfitfaction.com.
There you'll find links to not only this show, but some of our other shows,
like the Multiverse Fancast and Cinematic Adventures.
As always, I'm one of your hosts, Paul. With me, via the Zoom studio,
(00:41):
is author, writer, and upcoming book releaser.
I don't know if that's an actual phrase, but I'm going to make it a phrase for
the sake of conversation.
And you may know him by A.G. Fletcher, or as I'm going to be calling him,
Andre Gress. Andre, how are you today?
I am great. How are you? I am doing so well. Thank you so much for being on.
I'm really excited to chat with you for a little bit.
(01:04):
All right. So before we get started, why don't you tell our audience a little
bit about you, what, you know, some of your writing, what you do, all that jazz.
Well, I'm Andre. I am from Canada, British Columbia.
I've always been in a small town, so a lot of the aesthetics in my writing kind
of falls in that. I mean, I'm glad that I got the chance to actually travel in my life.
(01:28):
So it's not so, you know, static and kind of stale in my writing.
Speaking of traveling, I am obviously native to Canada, but come from a family of Egyptians.
And there is even some family members in Greece on my dad's side.
But as for who I am as a person, I'd say I'm a very grounded and genuine person.
(01:53):
And that's why over time I noticed that a lot of my characters are grounded.
And I actually got kind of annoyed at myself that I'm making everyone so self-aware.
It's like, that's not realistic.
There's no such thing as everyone knowing who they are.
So I, over time, developed a better understanding of different kinds of people.
(02:13):
And you know most authors are like oh i don't like this person i'm gonna put
in my book no that's not how it works but getting back to who i am i've had a lot of different,
day jobs in my life which is where i got some of my ideas from there have been times where,
i realized you know i can't do this job anymore because i need to evolve as
(02:38):
a person and as a writer obviously and part of that comes with being able to
let go of things let go of complacency,
so i can't i guess i kind of summed it up i mean i've
done a lot of actually mental health podcast interviews where i got the chance
to unpack a lot of my personal stuff and that could go on for hours i've done
(03:03):
two-hour interviews where it's just that so i'll keep that for another one.
Yes let's keep moving here and that's about it
i dude i like i like that i like one of the
things that you said that really resonated was that a lot of
times when you hear authors talk about characters especially characters they
don't like because that's what everybody focuses on there's a big focus on
like the villains the anti-heroes and it people
(03:26):
love hearing that it was based off somebody you know or somebody
like the writer knows so it's actually really refreshing to hear
you say it so for you though you
do pull from real life into your stories and
into your writings can you kind of tell me a little bit about your process
because i love creating that's why i do three podcasts
you know youtube shows the whole nine i love creating and i love hearing creators
(03:47):
also work my process over time actually kind of mimicked not purposely but how
stephen King does his process where he has an image in his head that's kind of conclusive and,
he kind of creates a storyline from there where for me it's more like.
(04:09):
A picture that gives me questions that didn't i
don't know how to answer yet and then i find the
answer and that's where the story comes so for example
like two nights ago i was like you know that romance
story i've wanted to do for years is kind of catching up like i won't do it
now but it's getting close so i i did something that i do when i don't want
(04:34):
to lose an idea I was watching TV and I was like, I'm getting bored of watching TV.
So I had this image in my head of the picture of a French Italian woman just smiling.
Her hair is blowing in hot wind or something. And she's on some island in the Gulf of Mexico.
(04:54):
And she's looking at you or even off in the distance very romantically.
Romantically so because i've never written romance
before and i had that image in my head i'm like
you know what what if i just just kind of add a
little just add mystery here so that's
more about the chase but also
(05:16):
what happens when these two
people meet because the premise i've always had is
a long distance relationship but i didn't know
what kind of long distance relationship and
what technology in terms of communication
is available to these people so the
idea of the picture came to me and i just went on my computer and wrote a little
(05:40):
pre-blurb and then one paragraph for the opening chapter and i wanted to do
something that kind of came off as like a french movie where i don't know if
you know french movies but in french film the style is that.
They don't really do any fancy cuts it's all just long cuts and they just jump
(06:01):
to the next one where they allow the character to speak for the scene and it's it can be very,
draining for for a typical american audience that's
not used to not fast cuts where
they have to actually pay attention so i
want to do something like that but still keep the
(06:23):
scenes moving i that's what's so important to me
as a writer is that no matter how poetic or action-packed
chaotic or mundane as long
as a story is moving forward physically and and
and mentally then that's a
good story to me you can you can give the
reader a breather as many times as you
(06:44):
want but it can't be like what i
call the potted plant effect whereas you're just
the story is sitting there and then
nothing's happening like i've i've like
skimmed through books when i'm going shopping and i'm like nope don't like that
nope don't like that and it's because the first sentence is boring me if if
(07:04):
the the hook is the only thing interesting on the first page i'm not going to
read it right and it's the same same thing for a movie if the first scene is
just two people sitting in a park,
bench and we stay there for 10 minutes better be a damn good good conversation.
I like that because a lot of times people they
(07:26):
say if they don't if you don't get the audience it's hooked in the
first sentence or two you're not going to have them but i like
how your focus seems to be more on you still have to have the actual like meat
of the story and you have to have a good story to tell so you get a great hook
and but if you don't have something to follow it then what's the point of having
a great hook so yes some authors do there's so many different,
(07:50):
analogies you can use like there's the snowball effect where you start with one flake of snow No.
And then it rolls into something bigger and that's great. But whatever starts
going downhill too fast.
So that's not really good. Now analogy. A good analogy is you making a dish
from scratch with ingredients you're not familiar with or familiar with. So I like that.
(08:15):
So like, cause I, as, as someone who, who has eaten, of course,
his family's ethnic food and other ethnic food, it's, It's surprising to you, right?
Like, you're either going to hate it or you're going to love it.
But it's new, so you try it anyway.
So that's how I see writing, is every book I write, even my series here of Boone and Jacques.
(08:41):
Because it was like my first, not trial and error, but I was basically trying
a different genre in every installment, because that plate was good,
but I'm tired of eating pizza, so I'm going to eat something else.
Do you find that challenging, though, for like a book? It's a series.
Do you find it challenging for your audience to go from not necessarily genre
(09:04):
to genre, but just flavor to flavor?
Not necessarily, because what I do to keep the flow going is I tease a little bit of the next book.
So it's like maybe an epilogue or even a chapter that leads into kind of like
I'm already showing the inciting incident, basically.
(09:25):
And it's not that I'm cheating them out of a story. It's more like this is kind
of the vibe I'm going for. Do you like that or not?
So like even if they don't catch on to that on the back of the cover sometimes i'll introduce,
bright colors that will kind of insinuate
what happens in the next book i don't really
(09:47):
think i'm going to do that anymore that was just more for the sake of not jarring
the reader too much because each book is pretty different and not everyone likes
that and that's fine but now that that I've done all this writing and experience.
It's not that I'm streamlining.
(10:08):
It's more like I'm just becoming more focused.
So my upcoming book, Black Rose Cocoon, I actually started working on that while
finishing the last book of William and Jack.
So it's been about a year and a half. Wow.
While working a full-time job and only being able to write on my days off because
(10:30):
I don't have the brainpower hour to write on my working days.
I think I averaged 5,000 words a week.
What I really did for the most part of the process of Black Rose Cocoon is really
just research and listening to crime podcasts, interviewing criminology professors, even a teacher.
(10:52):
I don't remember where she was, somewhere in the States. I think it was Massachusetts or something.
And she wrote a book about the psychology of female killers.
And at a certain point i kind
of stopped reading it because i realized you
know it's not really about the killer i originally
was going to be an origin story but i was like no i don't i
(11:12):
don't want to humanize a killer this is stupid and it's
not the point i'm trying to make the point i ended
up making which is what i wanted to make sure it
shines is to exemplify the
different ways of looking at
the relationship between life and death the metronome
of it and we were you were talking about
(11:34):
the writing process i didn't actually
have an image in my head for this story
i because i wanted to create a conversation
for the readers because it was more about
how murder murder affects society
and families as opposed to the
thrill of the hunt that that most crime authors focus
(11:56):
on right if you read the crime book no matter who is the writer how good they
are they focus on what the detectives are doing and of course the killer but
you don't they don't really touch on the psychology of it of it all when when you when you You are.
To me as a writer, when you try to exemplify fear, it can't just be verbatim.
(12:22):
It can't just be the action.
That's kind of, it's too watered down.
There's no closeness to relatability to the reader.
So one of the types of effect that murder.
I did my best to try and exemplify because I'm not a mom,
(12:44):
is how does a mom feel when her
child is taken away from her too soon that is
really hard to do if you're not that person so what
i did is towards the end because and it's
not really a spoiler that's what i want your audience to understand
i'm not hiding who the killer is that's not the point of
the story we know who it is it's not about the mystery it's
(13:05):
just when do they get caught and what happens in between so
maybe some characters don't know right away who the
killer is is but it's you know and it
that's okay there's not that doesn't cheat
cheat you out of the story but anyway i had a
scene at the end for victim impact statement
because i was watching the all of
(13:28):
these different adaptations of jeffrey dahmer's
story and so i went on youtube and watched
the actual victim impact statements and even
i don't know if you know about this one daryl brooks somewhere in
the states i think it was georgia somewhere
in georgia anyway he was sentenced to.
(13:50):
Life sent had a life sentence for literally running
over people in a parade and making sure
that they're done right and so i was watching this mom look directly at the
killer in the court and just go off on him and i was like getting goosebumps
and just getting getting really uncomfortable i was like that's what i want
(14:13):
i want to make the audience uncomfortable.
Because if a mom hadn't actually been through that and she reads it whether
it's triggering to her or not the fact that i can show an echo of what she was
feeling at least then that to me is powerful enough that I'm reaching out to
someone and saying, I don't know how you feel.
(14:35):
I don't know what you went through, but I'm assuming it's something like this.
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. So.
You have to really be willing to put yourself out there and try to exemplify other people's pain,
because if you only put in your pain and your writing, it becomes one-sided
(14:58):
and really selfish and kind of strange because you're one person.
You can't exemplify all kinds of people through your own pain.
That's kind of silly. so this book
is obviously something i'll
never do again because it was it took a lot out of me it's
certainly powerful and i'm proud
(15:20):
of having put myself out there like i did a
four character rotation meaning when it
says chapter one it says the name of the character then we
go to the next and we rotate through twice per act
it would have been long-winded if
i did more than that but that to me was very
tricky but i managed to kind of
(15:42):
polish it towards the end so what i did was the
first act is basically a character introduction but as we move along in the
story even though we go to the next character's perspective i'm kind of continuing
the same scene just on the other side okay so that way i'm not jarring the reader
(16:03):
too much it's more like Like,
you're going to get bored of this detective perspective.
So let's just flip to something a bit more relatable. So I have a detective,
radio disc jockey, a doorman, and one of the victim's mom.
Now, we don't really see the victim. It's kind of just mentioned.
(16:25):
Because it's more about her journey as she loses people.
And what does that do to her? does it does it actually make her stronger or
does she descend into madness as the the,
the killer wanted see i like that
you know it's it's very easy to do the typical
like murder mystery type story or
(16:47):
follow you know follow the killer follow the mystery of
unraveling who the killer is i like you're
coming from a place of pure human emotion and just
like that that's where you're taking your story from
and that's kind of what the story is building around do you did you
find it i mean you mentioned that it was draining on you
i can't imagine like watching all these these true stories and
(17:09):
stuff like that like how did you how did you cope with that
as you were writing well when i did this on the last word i i was having an
out-of-body experience because it's like i unconsciously put myself in a headspace
bubble that kind of how can I put it.
(17:30):
It's almost like I manipulated my brainwaves into we're doing this.
And even though I don't want to. So I just, I committed to it.
I treated it like I'm an actor where you just forget about yourself and you just go for it.
You speak through the character.
And so to do that with four different kinds of characters was really tasking.
(17:53):
But I really wanted to do it. So what I did to kind of make it not so like I'm
splitting myself apart is,
yes, they're all different, strong personalities, but they're all kind of telling
the same story because they're in the same place.
So the detective that
(18:15):
was really tricky for me because i didn't realize i
was doing this she has this very reserved stoic
personality and even though she does open
up a little bit about her past towards the end as a person she doesn't really
change and i did that i think on subconsciously on purpose because i wanted
(18:36):
to have a character that doesn't change but but becomes less numb towards the
end and less black and white.
And yeah, she'll be a little bit more open to certain parts of being a human
being, but she's still herself.
Kelly, the radio host who loses her sister, I think about a third,
(18:59):
a third way in, not, not the sister is dead. She gets kidnapped.
Okay. By the killer. And that's not really a spoiler because it's kind of, it's at the beginning.
So it doesn't matter if i say that so that was a character that made sure wasn't
self-aware because i wanted to explore that kind of person because i've never done that before,
where she's confident in who she is but she's not aware
(19:21):
of her actions and how she's being perceived by others because there
are a lot of people like that where yes they're all confident and
they they know what they're doing but as soon as
you question them they get all uptight and pissed off so
like for example this is one scene i can tease because it's very small
and it's really just a little her flair she's holding
boxes of file a box of
(19:42):
sorry a stack of files and she can't
open her apartment door because she
also has a coffee in her hand and she sees two doors down in the in the hall
her neighbor and she's like can you please fish up the keys from my pocket and
just open the door for me and then she ignores her and goes back in her apartment
(20:02):
and then comes back out with a big box.
And she goes, honey, stop trying to impress people and just gives her the box
and says, just put them in here.
And she's like, can you just take the keys out? She's that stubborn.
She's just like, do what I tell you. So.
That's kind of the gist of the scene so i wanted to show like no
(20:24):
there are just there are some people out there that they're
not bad they're not weird well they're
weird but they just they don't notice themselves
sometimes they're very stuck in their
ways and like yeah a lot of times characters whether
it's tv movie books any any sort of
medium people are looking for big character arc
(20:44):
swing and suddenly they're a totally different person by the end of
the story like in real life that doesn't
happen like i'm i'm in my mid-30s and
watching somebody try and change like we're recording we're
a week and a half into january so everybody's in their new year
new me resolutions and some people are
already like nope done so it's it's referring with
(21:05):
yeah like with kelly i won't
say too much but essentially it's kind
of like with rosaria the detective where they
kind of have a mirroring effect of being themselves
until the safety net
of their life is taken away from them so that's that's kind of how what i did
(21:27):
for the all the characters is that to a certain point of the story they're all
kind of just figuring out the mystery and then i take the safety net away and
then we see what their true personality will do for their their own,
I guess, their own rescue.
See, I like that. That sounds really interesting. I'm really excited for this
(21:48):
book to come out. I think it, you said February, right? So it's like right around
the corner. Are you excited?
Yeah, I just got an email from my editor. She's starting on Monday for the two weeks of editing.
Sometimes it becomes three because she doesn't realize how complicated my stories are.
But like the easiest, the easy part that I did for her is that it's not a fantasy story.
(22:09):
So it'll be just just people so yeah
mid to late february is when it should be
out that's so cool man like that's it's just awesome to
hear that you're doing well with like you know creating now you also started
off as a screenwriter before you started books so like was that a big change
from screenwriting for you know i don't know if it was yeah louise tv yeah definitely
(22:32):
because Because when I did my associates in creative writing,
I took like a few courses in screenwriting and then created an ad on Craigslist.
And some indie director picked me up and we got to the rough cut.
But because he had me rewrite the script so many times, when he wanted to do
(22:55):
the reshoots for what he wanted,
the actors said, no we would rather do on andre's original script so that's
when i started to lose interest is that.
If if who I am as a writer is so small that even some indie director doesn't
want to trust me with my writing and just put his stamp of visuals on it and
(23:20):
whoever he wants to cut it up, then why should I bother?
Right. And but but that was my mentality at that time.
Right now, it's more like I just want to make a name for myself.
Self and if film directors want
to adapt one of my books or whatever and i
tell them about my experience as a screenwriter then i'll just i'll
(23:40):
do like a like a kind of like jk rowling where you do the first
the first draft and even king did that
for some movies the first draft as a like a
deal i think or even i think teleplay
i think some authors do that but yeah yeah
so i did screenwriting for like a year or two then I
saw that that just wasn't going anywhere so I became
(24:01):
a personal trainer for a year and
then I worked in film as a production assistant
and background actor and that
was all on call and it just became very sparse
so I let that go and then I
tried to write a
children's book with a friend and we both had
(24:23):
different approaches and it just wasn't working so i
was like you know what let's go get some education and see if i
can make myself credible as a writer so i did that.
And that's how i ended up getting my bachelor's that's awesome
man like that's such a cool story and from what it sounds
like and i'm sure it relates to the books
that you've written it sounds like when you have a vision you want
(24:44):
to you kind of want to see your own vision take place and
you know working in in film you got a lot
of cooks in the kitchen everybody's got something and directors notoriously
you know you look at stephen king he hated
the adaptation of the shining like he hated it
and to the point where i think like made his own afterwards
that was like completely faithful to his book so like
(25:06):
yeah i remember in interviews he
was saying he said something like there were parts that
he liked and then there were other parts where
he thought that kubrick threw his body
at a grenade in terms of how he shit all over his his story and stanley kubrick
like he is notorious like you hear horror stories about how meticulous he is
(25:29):
like i forget the female actress's name off the top of my head but like he treated
her like shit and yeah i had to cast like not talk to her,
I think she ended up doing like just years and years of therapy after that.
Like her hair was falling out and stuff like it was. Yeah, I saw a recent picture
of her. I was like, oh, God, what happens to you? I'm so sorry. What did he do to you?
(25:52):
Now, for you, though, would you want your your Boone and Jacques story translated
first to film or TV if that was an option?
Or would you rather with your new book? I mean.
Maybe. I mean, it took me four years to write Boone and Jacques.
While working full-time i don't think so
maybe because the thing about boone and jack
(26:14):
is that that's the first like series i
wrote before i felt practiced enough
to be legitimate and it's not that i'm not proud of it it's more like it's it's
something that could be adapted pretty easily but i think now that i've become
(26:34):
more practiced and i'm starting to should be a bit more cohesive and polished as a writer.
And it's actually the next project that I'm working on after Black Crow's Cocoon
that is something that I think would be better.
It's called Zephutro. I don't know how many books I'm going to do in this series,
but it's a new fantasy series.
(26:56):
The title is based off of two flowers, Zephian,
which represents rebirth, birth and locust sutra which represents hell so the
futra is essentially the,
name of an apocalyptic event so these this brother and sister I think horror.
(27:21):
Harlow i think harlow and and darrow
i'm still working on the names so i
was listening to this this classical composition called
the isle of the dead i think
it's sergey roka recommended off
anyway i was listening to it and it gave me the
(27:42):
overall energy of like it
did the disney movie be fantasia oh yeah yeah yeah
so i kind of
was like you know that's the kind of beat the rhythm that i'm
going for here and even i'm there was a 1880 painting
painting based off of that composition and because
i wanted to go with something that has the vibe of a desert so the the overall
(28:09):
atmosphere is going to be something in the southern hemisphere or after some
certain event that happened at the end of Boonejack there's all of these islands,
and it's full of magical people.
And it's still all up in the air but essentially what I'm going to try and do with this is,
(28:32):
make it succinct enough that however many books I do it won't feel as jumbled
as Boonejack did it's a great series I'm proud of it but I was trying so many
different things in each book that it's not a very,
it's not predictable,
so I want to keep that element obviously in Zafutra I want each book to feel
(28:57):
like it's just following each other it's not me trying to outdo myself it's just it's.
A surprising yet familiar feeling is what I want to try to create out of them.
See, I really liked that as somebody who, when I started podcasting,
my, my first podcasts are very different than my current podcasts.
(29:19):
Like just the, just production value alone.
Like when you listen to our first episode of our first podcast ever, it is rough.
We tried to re-listen to it recently because I think we had an anniversary and we're like,
let's, let's listen to and oh my god it is it's bad the
content is fine but oh god
like it sounds like i threw a microphone down
(29:40):
a long tunnel and we're yelling to it so i
like that that you're also very self-aware that you
know you start up at the series that you're exceptionally proud of and
you know that you still have room to grow and you know kind of
fall into your own writing spirit so i think
that's really cool man like and i'm looking forward to so
you're working on that next after your
(30:01):
your current your next book comes out yeah and
then there's this other book that takes
place in the same city as black rose cocoon
called red widow waltz it
takes place 30 to 40 years after
black black cross cocoon storyline but it
doesn't really follow that that story it
(30:24):
it is the the concept that i was going for in terms of what is left after that
story happens which is you know the the event is over the bubble has burst now
all that's left is pain so what's going to happen to this kind of aura.
So this city government called Redwood Waltz or they created a program called
(30:50):
Redwood Waltz where they take damaged people and try to weaponize their emotions.
They have certain abilities kind of like, it's basically stranger things with
adults. Okay, I can get behind that.
So I was like, you know what interests me is the Hawkins lab.
So it was like, what if, because there's a house, there is the Black Rose,
(31:14):
the house on Black Rose Hill is what I call it in Black Rose Cocoon.
So I was like, what if they actually created some kind of like sky train or
subway that goes straight to that house?
And that house has been basically transformed into this tarantula sort of nesting
area for all of these people that are innocent yet not isn't innocent.
(31:39):
And they create this sort of like virtual programming that will manipulate their
brains into either becoming super violent or they'll resist it.
And what will this government do to them if they resist?
So something like that but because it's such whenever i
(32:00):
i think of an idea that i know is very it
could go either way i i don't want
to do it until i'm ready so black rose
cocoon i did it because i was in the right headspace but with
redwood waltz i know that i can't do that right now because it's
it's really hard to do straight up
(32:21):
psychology when you're trying to keep it
lively and not so down in
the dumps because if i make every
character doom and gloom it's not
the reader is not going to be interested right so i
have to create some kind of like multiple layers that
kind of balance out
(32:42):
each part of of those of those those emotions
because otherwise i'm just like.
Depressing the reader i don't want to do that yeah
nobody wants to read or or watch like watch a show where
everybody's just miserable or depressed or like you need
you need that up you need the entire emotional spectrum in
order to catch because yeah you know i think you mentioned it
(33:03):
before i'm trying to remember but like you're trying to catch everybody
you can't just speak for one person like a
good story has something that you know everybody can
at least not full maybe not fully latch on to but at
least relate to in some capacity so again your self-awareness
about your writing it just shows like how passionate
you are about it and how like how well your work on
(33:25):
it it's awesome but going back to when you're asking
what what created this the story kind of
thing it was actually an interview with guillermo del toro is what inspired
a black rose cocoon because the interviewer was asking him about his perspective
on life and death and he says life cannot begin if it doesn't end.
(33:50):
So, I was like, what? I mean, I know, but he's essentially saying.
You have to see death as a beautiful thing because without it,
we wouldn't try so hard to make something of ourselves.
And there's the metronome of it, of one person lives, one person dies.
(34:11):
So that's where the whole body count and me asking, well, how would society react to murder?
Would it just be a throwaway where I say, well, it's not me.
It's not someone I know. so why should i care so it's
kind of me asking the audience that question because that's
(34:32):
what guillermo del toro does in his movies when it
comes to to the relationship of life
and death is questioning the audience's perspective on the beauty of life and
death and do you see death as something gruesome or do you see it as something
beautiful that creates the encouragement of doing something with your life because
(34:54):
there is that sense of urgency that you should have.
So with Black Rose Cocoon, that's essentially what I'm doing,
which is that it's so unpredictable when someone will go.
And the way I try to levity that is, yeah, there are some comedic moments because
I have to have people that do see life and death as just a careless amount of
(35:19):
time, time as opposed to meaningful time.
And then asking the characters, the core characters, is that you too?
Or which, which one are you?
Do you want to see life as something passive or active?
I didn't, I didn't know we were going to get so deep tonight. I love it.
That's awesome, man. So I'm really looking forward to all this work.
(35:40):
Like it sounds like a lot of really good stuff on the horizon.
And I love to read. My wife is the queen of reading.
So I'm I'm going to have to pass your books along to her.
So we are getting to the end of our time, though. And at the end of our show,
we always like to do a little game, if you're interested, of course,
where we do a couple of rapid fire questions.
I try and create questions that cater to who I'm speaking to.
(36:01):
And they're just off the top of your head type answers, if you're interested.
Yeah, let's do it. All right. Who is your favorite character from your Boone and Jacques series?
Shammy, who is Boone's love and trust throughout the whole series.
Awesome. What is the most challenging aspect been of writing a female serial killer?
I would say making them a monster yet tangible in terms of realism.
(36:27):
Nice. What is a writing habit that you swear by? One of your most important ones.
To make dialogue as lively, yet somehow morose and chocolatey.
Chocolate, I like that phrase. And who is a dream collaboration that you would
like to work with in the literary sense, like an author or screenwriter, anything?
(36:49):
I would say, literarily, there's my French coming in. I would say Stephen King for books.
But for movies, I would love to work with Guillermo del Toro.
I actually had this weird fantasy of doing like a fucking metal song with him
and just jamming out i don't i was like i can just see here with the door rocking
out a bass i don't know why,
(37:11):
i i could actually get behind that i could see that as well i love him like
ever since i saw the first hellboy movie i was like who is this guy that's directing
it i must be a metal head he must be obvious yes and then one last one what
is one piece of advice that you have for authors that are looking to make their starts?
Keep putting stuff out there. Not keep writing, keep putting stuff out there.
(37:32):
There are so many new authors that try to focus on perfecting one thing as opposed
to just putting as much out there so that you see how people will react to different
parts of your style of writing.
That's awesome, man. Thank you so much. If anybody wants to get your book or
learn more about you or anything along those lines, what are some of the best ways that they can do it?
(37:52):
I made it super easy for everybody. It's the same handle for everything.
So H.U. Fletcher for Facebook, Twitter, I was going to say Tokyo for some reason,
TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.
That's awesome, man. And I do teach authors, by the way, on YouTube. Oh, yeah?
Really quick, how do you teach authors? We got a man. I basically just do lectures.
(38:12):
And because I put my links there, I offer, because I have my email address on
Facebook, so you can email me questions And I can even I've even mentored authors, entrepreneurs,
business owners, that kind of thing when they're trying to create a novel.
I've even taken little pieces of someone's writing and just gave gave notes or something.
(38:34):
So, yeah, I mean, I've I will. Fair warning, though, to the new to new new writers.
If you watch my video on.
On writer's block it is my most popular but a lot of novice writers found it like a personal attack,
attack because i'm very blunt about it i
(38:55):
i was saying things like you know one of
the the things about writer's block is that it's
it's seen as something concrete but it's not it's it's
your own anxiety and and fear of how
it's gonna come out when it really is just
you writing there's no one in the room it's just you writing
it's just you but because we
(39:16):
have that fear of oh this someone's going to see this eventually what
if they don't like it what if no one likes it what if no one buys this
but that doesn't matter and the biggest thing though that people get pissed
off with my video is when i talked about perfectionist cannot be a perfectionist
when it comes to writing because you will never finish anything because you
(39:38):
will be so nitpicky about well, this typo there, this typo there.
Oh, that scene doesn't really make sense to me or it's not the way I want it
to be. It's like, first off, that's the editor's job.
And two, even if your story is not absolutely perfect, you have to realize that
there are famous authors that don't have perfect books.
(39:58):
There's no such thing as Stephen King having perfect 60 plus books. That's weird.
That's not possible. so that's kind
of what i was getting to in that video but yeah please
look at look at those videos i most of my
students have found it very helpful and i
hope you do too i do sometimes do a series
(40:21):
called stories with ag flitcher where i talk about real life stories that influenced
certain scenes or books in my stories that's awesome and i'll make sure i link
all those down in the bottom so if you guys are listening make you can uh just
check out the description if you're driving the the car or whatever it is.
And that would be awesome, dude.
This was fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on. I really had a great time talking to you.
(40:43):
Me too. It was fun. We'll definitely connect again soon. All right. All right. Take care.
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