Meghan: Hi, Danger! Welcome back… er… um… back, but to my new home. It’s been awhile since we sat down together. What’s been going on since we last spoke?
Danger Slater: I’ve just been kicking ass and taking names. Okay, that’s not true. I haven’t kicked a single ass or taken a single name since we last talked. I’ve mostly just been hanging out and playing video games.
Meghan: Who are you outside of writing?
Danger Slater: A dude with a small bladder. I pee a lot. It’s kinda annoying. Don’t take me on a car ride.
Meghan: How do you feel about friends and close relatives reading your work?
Danger Slater: Eh, if they are into it, then sure. But I’m not reading their stuff.
Meghan: Is being a writer a gift or a curse?
Danger Slater: Neither. It’s not a gift because you have to work at it. It’s not a curse because nobody is making you do it. It’s more like… a job.
Meghan: How has your environment and upbringing colored your writing?
Danger Slater: I mean, probably a lot. But I don’t know how exactly because I have no other frame of reference.
Meghan: What’s the strangest thing you have ever had to research for your books?
Danger Slater: Research is for scientists and nerds. I’m writing fiction so I can just make stuff up if I don’t know the answer. Who was the 12th President of the USA? I have no idea. But if I was writing a book, I’d say it was Taylor Johnston. Is that factually accurate? No idea.
I do look up how to spell words though. Want my spelling correct.
Meghan: Which do you find the hardest to write: the beginning, the middle, or the end?
Danger Slater: The beginning. It sets the tone for the whole book. I rewrite my beginnings over and over again, those first few pages or chapters. Sometimes 20 times. Whatever it takes for me to really figure out the characters and the tone of the book. Once I have that down, it’s just setting up the pieces for the rest of the novel.
Meghan: Do you outline? Do you start with characters or plot? Do you just sit down and start writing? What works best for you?
Danger Slater: I don’t outline, generally speaking, but I will go in a with a few ideas. The story takes shape as I go over it again and again. I write towards certain scenes or character beats, but I also keep it pretty loose and don’t hold myself to that too much. Sometimes I’ll outline the third act, if I have a lot of loose plot points I need to resolve before the book wraps up.
Meghan: What do you do when characters don’t follow the outline/plan?
Danger Slater: Nothing. Keep writing.
Meghan: What do you do to motivate yourself to sit down and write?
Danger Slater: I’ve done it on a regular basis for long enough that I don’t have to motivate myself. I just sit down at my “writing time,” which I try to keep around the same each day, when I first wake up, and I go to work.
Meghan: Are you an avid reader?
Danger Slater: Of course.
Meghan: What kind of books do you absolutely love to read?
Danger Slater: I like bizarro and horror. Weird stuff that goes in unexpected directions. Characters that I can relate to stuck in impossible and unreal situations. Reading gives me the opportunity to let someone else help guide my imagination, so I try to be selective. I will put a book down after 3 pages if I’m not feeling it. Likewise, I can be 300 pages into a 400 page book, and if I stop feeling it, I’ll just put it down. No sense in punishing myself. It’s supposed to be fun.
Meghan: How do you feel about movies based on books?
Danger Slater: No opinion. The types of books they make movies from are typically not the kinds of books I have read.
Meghan: Have you ever killed a main character?
Danger Slater: No. Well, like, kinda but not really. Often times characters will transform after some kind of personal apocalypse, so maybe that is a type of death. I don’t know.
Meghan: Do you enjoy making your characters suffer?
Danger Slater: No, because I suffer with them.
Meghan: What’s the weirdest character concept that you’ve ever come up with?
Danger Slater: The main character of my last book Impossible James impregnates himself with his clones over and over again, which has some… unintended consequences on his body. I guess that’s pretty weird.
Meghan: What’s the best piece of feedback you’ve ever received? What’s the worst?
Danger Slater: I honestly don’t recall either. I have a terrible memory. Best advice is probably something like: keep writing! Worst advice is probably something more like: quit writing! Haha.
Meghan: What do your fans mean to you?
Danger Slater: They’re great. It’s exciting for me that people read my stuff, and I like when people write reviews or message me about it. It’s a satisfying feeling to know that people are connecting with my stories.
Meghan: If you could steal one character from another author and make them yours, who would it be and why?
Danger Slater: I’d take Don Quixote because all my characters are basically him anyway.
Meghan: If you could write the next book in a series, which one would it be, and what would you make the book about?
Danger Slater: I wouldn’t want to do that, but if someone made me, I’d do the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy because 1.) it’s great, and 2.) it’s the only book series I can ever remember reading.
Meghan: If you could write a collaboration with another author, who would it be and what would you write about?
Danger Slater: I would collaborate with Michael Allen Rose and we’d write a book about toast. MAGICAL TOAST!
Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?
Danger Slater: I’ve already finished my next two books, editing a third, and working on a fourth, so a whole bunch more fiction coming your way!
Meghan: Where can we find you?
Danger Slater: Twitter is best. Or just google me. I’m not invisible.
Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview or the last?
Danger Slater: Meghan, I think you’ve asked literally every question in the whole entire world, so there is nothing unsaid and nothing left to cover. Also, if you’re out there and reading this right now: buy some books, preferably mine. Thanks!
Meghan: Just wait until round three…
Wonderland Award winning author Danger Slater is the world’s most flammable writer! He likes to use a lot of exclamation points!
My father was dying. There was no hope. Then he took a screwdriver to the brain. Got pregnant. And found the cure for death.
Impossible? That’s my dad.
IMPOSSIBLE JAMES
Get a job. Get married. Buy a house. Cut off your hands and replace them with gardening tools. Dig a hole. Can you hear the worms calling? Keep digging.
Meet Ernie. His life is a mess. Gretchen’s gone, and the apartment they once shared is this grey, grim city is now overrun with intelligent mold and sinister bugs.
Then his neighbor Dee shows up, so smart and lovely. If he can just get past the fact that her jealous boyfriend could reach out of her blouse and punch him in the face at any moment, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.
Unfortunately for all involved, a Great Storm is coming and it will wash away everything we’ve ever known about the human heart.
Meghan's House of Books 