Interview With Author Jack Barton
1. What inspired you to write this book? My good answer that bears a majority of truth and a just
little hyperbole is that I've always loved stories in all their forms and
simply wanted to create my own. From watching films like Star Wars, TV in Bones
and Supernatural, reading books such as Harry Potter or Andy McNab's army
stories, playing games like Fallout - I've always enjoyed throwing myself into
other worlds. And by immersing myself from a young age, I developed a hyper
imagination, producing little films in my mind, all of my own creations, a form
of entertainment to escape to away from the mundane day-to-day life.
A slightly more honest answer is that I was bored during the
Lockdown for the Coronavirus and devised writing as a hobby and because my
partner and I worked out that each of us holding down decent paying, honest
jobs simply was not enough to afford to buy a home in London, so finding a side
hustle of some kind seemed essential, and so I decided to pick very tough one.
2. What exactly is it about and who is it
written for? It's the first book in a series of dystopian future, sci-fi
books based around the aftermath of a catastrophic event known as the Capital
Collapse whereby the shining beacon of hope, the Capital City of one of the new
colonies of humanity to have escaped Earth after the world's fall into
apocalyptic, bloody chaos, suddenly closes itself off under an impenetrable
dome, trapping thousands inside and resigning them to a worse fate than
those ordinary people who survived the ordeal who found themselves blamed for
the calamity. It follows the story of a rogue worker, someone outside the
corporate society, as she strives to unlock the secret at the heart of the
disaster, the real cause of the Collapse, and the chilling figure she turns to
for help, the once Elite Commander of the policing forces within the city,
turned hateful and murderous in the wake of losing his family in the madness of
the event.
It's a story written for late teens and adults, containing
details of killing, torture and includes some sexual references. It's a story
for those seeking a grittier, harder story about people setting out to try to
do the right thing in a world of bad. And it's a story for those looking for
something else in a main character, for while the rebel is the hero of the
story, igniting hope and pushing through obstacles in her path to reach the
truth that would set the people free, the other main character, her companion,
is a villian of the story. Twisted, cruel and yet with a past that he uses to
justify his actions that the hero tries to help him understand and overcome,
their connection is a core element of the story.
3. What do you hope readers will get out of
reading your book? I hope readers will get some entertainment and enjoyment
from reading my book. I really hope they enjoy the characters for their
individuality and quirks, each bringing different perspectives on the journey
the story takes. I hope those who enjoy action like the fight scenes and
battlegrounds. I hope those who look more for rich dialogue and world-building
are impressed. And I hope that readers looking for stories where people connect
with one another, relating their pasts and coming together to achieve the
impossible are rewarded for picking up my book.
4. How did you decide on the book's title and
cover design? Well, firstly, I don't like the title anymore. My original
idea was to go with the trend of blending in the main character's name into all
of the book titles, (Nathan Winter, hence Winter's Return). But for all the
research and extensive use of Google I deployed in writing the book, I failed
to look up my idea for a title because if I had, I would have seen there was
already a series of books, all named in that style, after a character called
Winter. The idea of Winter's Return was that this character's return to the
fold from his self-imposed exile was the crucial turning point between a
crushing, fascist corporate regime and revolution. What would I change it to if
given a second chance? Honestly the naming of the book came last and it took me
ages to come up with what I did. So I don't know. Maybe 'The Capital Collapse'.
The cover design was a difficult process as I only had
interaction with the publisher by email and that leads to a process where
creating a personal design is difficult and there's an immense feeling of your
own creation being out of your hands. Not to have a go at anyone or anything as
remote communication does work, but in creative aspects like designing the
cover, it felt extremely difficult. But I passed on that I wanted Cait, the
rogue of the story, to be on the cover and to be holding an eyeball (as that's
the trophy of choice for the Elite Commander turned serial killer), and that I
wanted some imagery in the background to display the Capital City. I wanted to
give people who picked up the book a brief but somewhat understanding glimpse
into the story without being too exhaustive in detail.
5. What advice or words of wisdom do you have
for fellow writers - other than run!? Get Redbull and drink coffee. For me, I could barely string
my sentences together to describe the scenes in my head without an introduction
of energy, the 500ml cans of Redbull to be precise, on every sitting. And eat.
Food and energy. Absolutely essential. And if you have a full time job as I do
while trying to write, don't get frustrated with a day where you're too tired
to make the whole writing thing work or the words just aren't coming together
if you do try. Getting frustrated is the opposite of enjoying what ought to be
quite an exciting delve into your own story so take a breath, take a break, and
if that break should be a week or even two, then that's ok.
6. What trends in the book world do you see --
and where do you think the book publishing industry is heading? This is only my first book so my views on the whole book
world are extremely narrow and not well informed. But what I can see is that
books are not going away. There will always be a demand for good storytelling
with books, e-books, audiobooks and books being made into tv and films being
more and more widespread.
I think the book publishing industry is a hard place to get
into. Getting my own book over the line was difficult. Some publishers I
couldn't find how to send them a script and others outwardly said they weren't
looking to receive new scripts at all so it was hard. But I got lucky with
my one, Austin Macauley are good, the process was simple.
But I did originally publish my book by making it all from
scratch myself using a service from Amazon. It's like DIY for publishing a book
which I liked and would've stuck with but there's something to be said about
having a publisher create a real and proper book but maybe that's a product
that will grow. Giving a chance to people like how I was who can't get
their foot in the door with a publisher.
7. Were there experiences in your personal
life or career that came in handy when writing this book? Yes and no. No, because at 28 there is still a lot about the
world I don't know. That's a big part of the reason why I chose the sci-fi
genre because if you don't know something like politics or medical issues or
physics - you can just make it up.
But yes in the character of the Elite Commander, Nathan
Winter. I went through some counselling and therapy during my teenage years,
with dark thoughts and things like that, and I blew up some of those to what
Nathan does and thinks. The arrogance of anger. The inward hate that fear can
bring. Counselling allowed me to learn where my feelings came from and how to
manage them and the thoughts they influenced. This helped me better describe
Nathan's thoughts and actions, the kind of things where I said no and he says
yes.
8. How would you describe your writing style?
Which writers or books is your writing similar to? The word I kept coming back to while writing this book was
'cinematic'. I pushed my writing style to be descriptive but also entertaining
and I do think I succeeded. I wanted the reader to visualize the story using
the building blocks I provided so that they could have as much fun with the
story and events in it as I did imagining it and writing it. I wanted them to
experience it as though watching it in a cinema inside my mind.
The actual format of the book I leaned more toward JK
Rowling. The breaking down of the paragraphs, the choice to describe who was
speaking in group settings and the idea to push multiple, highly individual
characters all at once in richly entertaining story lines. And above all I
wanted to emulate some of that world building. I wanted the reader to feel like
jumping into the scene rather than being a bystander, a spectator.
9. What challenges did you overcome in the
writing of this book? The main challenge was time. I started the book during the
covid lockdown so to begin with time wasn't much of a problem as I was one of
the few jobs still going to work. But as life returned to normal with full work
weeks, then I got married and now I'm expecting a daughter in the summer, it's
hard to find the time to devote to writing. Then there's family obligations,
other distracting interests and simple tiredness, and it all gets a bit
frustrating. But as I said earlier, you can't let the frustration win. So I
wrote when I could and when I couldn't because I was too tired to form the book
at the standard I wanted then I didn't let that loss of time get to me. I
didn't let frustration tarnish a chapter.
10. If people can buy or read one book this
week or month, why should it be yours? Because we have an abundance of stories about heroes, and
this is one about a villain. I really do believe that all my characters are
interesting and follow intriguing paths but the main character of Nathan Winter
stands out from them all. A figure of authority before a disaster in which he
lost everything. He's trained. He's experienced. And now he's motivated and not
held back by anything. Nathan, I feel, is the arguably more realistic
challenger to the kind of threat that an oppressive regime might produce. Not a
starry eyed, hopeful, inexperienced youth. But someone who was already
battle-worn and wisened, held in check by a good path forward only to be
off-footed by a colossal event that essentially unleashed his true and
devastating nature. So he's not the hero who protects the weak and fights the
bad. He's the evil who hunts the bad because they taste better than the good.
And every villain is a hero in their own story.
About The Author :
I live just outside London in England, working in the building materials
industry in the transport department and taking every chance I get to write in
my free time while being a husband, an expectant father, a cat Dad and a season
ticket holder for Brentford Football Club in London. At the time of writing, I
am 28 years old and I used my restless, overactive imagination to get me into
becoming an author, taking inspiration from my great interest in stories such
as Star Wars and to finally solidify a means of forming the stories in my
own mind into linear, coherent storytelling. For more info, please see: https://www.facebook.com/jack.barton.102/
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