Author Q&A with Elena Nix

Author Q&A with Elena Nix

1. How do you approach starting a new book? 

When I get an idea, I add it to a running list. Sometimes it’s just a few sentences. Other times, it’s several paragraphs. The point is to capture whatever I have in mind at that point. Not every idea is going to end up being a book. The ideas that will become books keep coming to mind at odd moments during the day and the story keeps developing each time I think about them. That’s how I choose which one to work on next.

I think about the story a long time before I start writing it. I’ve already imagined the story’s setting and main characters in great detail before I type the first words. The plot’s a bit different. I have the overall arc of the story in mind before I start, but good stories have smaller arcs within them, too. I don’t have all of those figured out. In some cases, I figure them out while I’m writing that part of the story. I enjoy being surprised. 

For a full-length novel, I start with a very rough outline. The first few chapters may have some details in the outline, but later chapters are just a sentence or two. They’re place markers to remind me where I’m headed. I don’t plan later chapters out in great detail because the story changes as I’m writing it. I know my destination and I know the main points I need to hit along the way. How I get from one point to the next remains flexible. 

When your characters and themes are well-realized, the setting becomes like a sandbox. You can turn your characters loose and see what they want to do in the situation you set up for them. I like to leave myself enough flexibility to allow that to happen. Those often turn out to be my favorite parts of the story. Occasionally, the characters have to be reined in, but I’d rather do that than have them tied to a rigid plan.

When I start writing, I also start a file of reference material. It includes a list of characters, including names, brief descriptions, and anything else to which I am likely to need to refer to remain consistent. I have a similar list of place names. Where the floorplan or a map is relevant, I sketch one out so that I can refer to it. Some readers zero in on any inconsistency. Continuity errors bring down their enjoyment of the story, so it’s worth investing in the effort to avoid those errors. If I need visual inspiration for something like a building or clothing, I’ll find pictures and save them in my reference file.

After that, it’s just a matter of finding time and inspiration to write.

 

2. Do you do research for your books? If so, what kind of research? 

Yes! It depends on the story, of course, but I may research elements of the setting, cultural backgrounds, technical information, or any other subject that’s relevant to the story. Sometimes the subjects I research are really odd. While writing Passion… or Prey? I researched the construction of wood pulp mills. Part of the story takes place in some abandoned buildings around an old railway industry track. One character is chasing and searching for the other character, who has hidden in the buildings. I needed a very tall building that would be found on a railroad stub track. Wood pulp mills have a high tower, a lot like a grain elevator. I learned about them by looking at a lot of pictures and finding obscure articles. I cannot imagine ever having a use for that information again!

Some of the things I research are obscure. One story I’m currently working on, Death Waits in Ceylon, takes place partly in India and partly in Sri Lanka. I needed to learn about the construction and aesthetics of homes and public buildings in each location. To do that, I needed to learn about geography and ethnic groups in the region. I chose to focus on the Tamil people, and that allowed me to narrow down a lot of the aesthetic choices and to incorporate Tamil honorifics in the story. The story involves the legacy of the Hindu temple dancers in India. Under British rule, the temple dancers were persecuted. Sadhiraattam, a form of classical dance of the Tamil people was outlawed because it incorporated sringaar, which are hand gestures with erotic meanings. 

The history of the dance is very obscure in English sources, so it took a lot of hunting, but what I found was fascinating and I believe it brings a lot of depth to the story. Temple dancing is not what the story is about, but it is an important part of the background and it was important to get it right. I also want to make sure I’m being culturally sensitive, especially when the story moves to Sri Lanka and references the Sri Lankan civil war. 

No matter what I write, I always find gaps in my knowledge. Doing the research makes my stories better, but it also makes me better informed. I think that even the information I don’t specifically include in the story allows me to create a more authentic “feel.”

 

3. What do you do when you have writer’s block? 

I switch from one story to another. In addition to the full-length book I’m working on, I always have one or more short stories in progress. When I find myself struggling with one story, I work on another. Bouncing back and forth keeps the creativity flowing without beating my head against the wall of writer’s block. Sometimes it helps to get inspired by reading someone else’s work. There are plenty of times when I just put writing aside for the rest of the day, too. I know my writing will be better if I don’t try to force myself to write while I’m at a frustrated standstill. 

 

4. How do you handle criticism? 

 I crave and fear it. Praise of my writing is motivating, but only constructive criticism can help me improve. It can be difficult to get this kind of criticism. Friends don’t want to provide a lot of negative feedback. Anonymous criticisms run the gambit from helpful and insightful to mean-spirited and counterproductive. 

When I first receive criticism, the first thing I do is feel it. I’m only human and no matter how much I want to improve, it’s still hard to hear negative things about my work. I have to acknowledge how I feel about it before I can move on to being objective. The second thing I do is to assess the validity of the criticism, especially if it’s anonymous. I assume it’s valid unless I see a good reason to believe otherwise. If it’s trollish or if the person makes a comment so factually incorrect that it’s clear they didn’t pay much attention to what they were reading, I discount the criticism unless I can see something in it that I can recognize as having value.

Next, I think about how the criticism applies specifically. Most comments are broad, but to make use of them, I usually need to think about the specific things I could do differently to correct the problem. If the criticism is from someone I know, it’s at this stage that I may ask for clarification or discuss specific examples. Once I feel that I understand the criticism and how to apply it, I think about how to rectify the things that have been criticized. 

Then, I think about whether the solutions I’ve devised are something I want to implement. They usually are, but that’s not the case all the time. Sometimes, solving one problem creates another. For example, resolving ambiguity too early could spoil the story. It’s important to keep your purpose in mind when deciding how to react to criticism.

Finally, I fix what can be fixed and move on. Even if it’s a published piece, I create a revised version for myself. That helps me internalize what I’ve learned and also helps me let go of my disappointment over the imperfections in my work. Moving on after criticism is important. I need to use it to lift my work up, not to weigh myself down.

 

5. Tell me about your current work. 

My primary work in progress now is what I’m calling postapocalyptic erotica. It’s set in a near-future in which governments and social institutions around the world have collapsed. The collapse was triggered by multiple worst-case scenarios coming to pass: infrastructure sabotage, accelerated climate change, pandemics, nuclear accidents, and civil wars. Even combined, these disasters would not have been enough to result in societal collapse. The collapse, or “the Fall” as it came to be called, occurred because governments around the world had become so corrupted and compromised by the influence of the extraordinarily wealthy, acting through powerful corporations. 

The Fall took place over a period of ten years, as one disaster after another struck and governments were unable to respond. Power grids failed, satellite communications were lost and travel became impossible because of contagion. Cut off from each other, each town, city, and village was left to fend for itself. During the early years of The Fall, the ultra-wealthy retreated to bunkers and fortified estates stocked with hoarded consumer goods. They formed an organization with access to a single working satellite for communication with each other. They call themselves, “The Elites.”

Michael Kincaid is one of the Elites, having inherited membership after the recent death of his father. The Kincaid compound is located on the outskirts of Ashland, Colorado. Michael has fallen in love with one of the residents, Mariah Williams. Although Michael has not left the compound since his father locked it down nearly ten years before, he has watched the town through hidden video and audio cameras his father had installed all over town. He’s been watching Mariah through the video feeds for years.

Although Michael is fairly ignorant of the true state of affairs outside the compound, he’s long been inclined to help the town, against his father’s wishes. While his father was alive, Michael secretly arranged for supplies to be smuggled out of the compound, but it was little more than a token effort. Free now to make his own decisions, Michael concocts a plan to ensure he will have Mariah at his side. 

Michael’s plan is set in motion prematurely when Mariah is assaulted outside the gate of the compound, where she is riling up a crowd to demand entrance. Michael’s security team separates Mariah from her assailant and brings her into the compound. There, Michael makes a bold proposal: he will launch a massive project to revive the town if Mariah will offer her companionship and sexual submission. With death and suffering plaguing the people of Ashland, it’s a deal Mariah can’t and won’t walk away from.

As the relationship between Michael and Mariah develops, the story follows their efforts to bring safety, food security, and reliable power to Ashland’s residents. Disrupted weather patterns, a local gang, a new street drug, and eventually interference from the other Elites threaten the project. As Michael grows to trust Mariah with more secrets, she learns of his suspicions that some of the Elites are withholding critical information and resources that could jumpstart the rebuilding of society. Together, they work to uncover what the leadership of the Elites has been up to.

Although the story has quite a lot of explicit sex and falls firmly in the realm of erotica, it reads like a cross between a thriller and a romance. Marketing it to the right audience will be challenging. Right now, it’s about halfway complete. I expect to publish it in two volumes, hopefully by spring. My working title is After the Fall, but I intend to revise it. 

 

6. Tell me about your main character 

I wrote Passion… or Prey? while working on After the Fall. Passion or Prey was one of what I call my “frustration projects.” They’re novellas and short stories I work on when I need a break from my primary work. Cara, in Passion or Prey, was written in reaction to Mariah in After the Fall. Mariah is very moral, measured, and deliberate. Her restraint had my muse champing at the bit and kicking up her heels, so I wrote Cara as Mariah’s polar opposite.

Mariah has a quiet, determined passion. Cara’s is tempestuous, precipitate, and highly reactive. Cara, an artist, loves to paint storms. To her husband, Felix, she embodies the wildness of storms. She has a white-hot temper, few boundaries, and no fear. Whether she has any restraint is a question tested during the story. 

Despite the conflict between Cara’s fiery nature and Felix’s staid and sensible approach, their marriage is usually loving and supportive. Ever so often, though, anger spirals dangerously out of control and threatens to destroy their relationship. They have developed an unconventional method of dealing with these occurrences. It is a hunt of sorts, in which Felix has to find and subdue Cara somewhere within the boundaries of an agreed-upon territory. 

Cara has a head-start and uses it to lay traps for Felix, demonstrating that despite her spontaneity, she’s a devious planner. She’s also very insightful and makes good use of her knowledge of how Felix thinks and what he will expect her to do. When Felix finds her, Cara’s willingness to fight him and to endanger herself are unsettling to some readers. She is a creature of extremes. During their physical confrontation, Cara’s wildness is on full display, as is her stubbornness. Even after Felix has her physically subdued and tied securely, she remains stubbornly defiant. 

Cara has a safe word she could use at any point during the story to stop everything. That word is “surrender.” She will never say it. That is her defining quality.

 

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You can find Elena on Twitter.