The 7Q Interview: John McCallum Swain
AUTHOR BIO
John McCallum Swain has lived in Canada, Germany, Scotland, and the United States, where he now shares his home with a small herd of cats. He began writing stories as a kid, progressing from longhand to typewriters to laptops while writing tales ranging from graphic horror to alternate history. Swain's stories have appeared in WEIRD MENACE VOLUME 2, SPAWN OF THE RIPPER, PEELING BACK THE SKIN, BLOOD SWEAT & FEARS, THE STARS AT MY DOOR, DEATH'S GARDEN and many other anthologies. His own titles include the horror and speculative fiction collections MY VILE BOUNTY and CALIFHORRORNIA, the novellas SMILE and THE UNICORN MAN, and the novel MADE IN THE U.S.A.
QUESTIONS
#1. Looking back, what’s one fiction book that you feel truly made an impact on your writing? Do you still gravitate towards that author?
#1. This is a tough one, since a handful of classic horror and sci-fi works really kicked my ass when I was young, but if I have to pick ONE book that has and still does influence my writing, it is Boy Wonder, by Robert James Baker. Baker was born and raised in LA and completed only a few novels before sinking into depression and committing suicide, and it’s a goddamned shame because he wrote stuff that was really dark and really funny. I’ve been recommending Boy Wonder to friends for years and not one of them has come back to me and said they read it and loved it, so I feel like a guy trying to give away an old sofa. Trust me, if you love Hollywood and old movies and a singularly perverse sense of humor, you need to read this book!
Most of what I write is horror, or unclassifiable fiction with elements of horror or alt history, but almost every story I’ve ever written contains elements of black humor, from warped political satire to the capering glee my villains feel when carrying out any number of heinous acts. Much of my fiction features characters rebelling against whatever blocked their road to happiness, and Baker’s tales are fueled by rebellion as well. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read Boy Wonder, and I return to it again and again, in awe of how good it is.
#2. How do you feel about the use of sub-genres in the industry? How do you describe your work overall?
#2. My only worry about sub-genres in fiction or movies or music is that a label might prevent the work from reaching a wider audience. You could have a terrific story marketed as a neo-monster erotic urban fantasy that is ignored by readers who are not jazzed by those genres, when the story is actually a moving beauty and the beast romance for adult readers. And to be honest, sub-genres confuse the shit out of me. Trying to keep up on the infinite splitting of sub-genres in fiction is like trying to get a grasp on the Marvel Universe by reading Wikipedia articles on their superheroes; I end up lost at the Intersection of Everything and just sit there scratching my head.
My antipathy toward sub-genres is a direct result of my utter inability to classify my own work. Short horror tales are one thing, but my novels have a bit of everything in them, from graphic horror to romance, from political maneuvering to cutting edge science. When asked what I write, is ‘stories’ still an acceptable answer?
#3. What about your writing process do you think is unique or quirky? What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever received?
#3. I write best under pressure, which I absolutely hate doing, but if I have a submission deadline looming, the story engine always kicks in. I’ve never, ever had writer’s block – my problem is that I have too many goddamned ideas. The majority of my short stories come from dreams or the usual writer what-ifs and are mostly fully formed from the start, crude, but whole, ready to be shat out of my skull. With novels and novellas there’s much more involvement in my characters, they become friends, as loathsome as some of them can be, and as they go about their business in my head I feel like I’m transcribing a film or play. I’m a stenographer trying to keep up with the action and dialogue, which explains how characters will evolve and take on their own lives, doing or saying something that surprises me or makes me laugh my ass off. It’s not me, it’s them.That kind of storytelling is hard to explain to people who don’t share this mental aberration, but it has an advantage; if I can’t see a plot twist coming, perhaps the readers won’t either, and that will make for a more exciting ride. And speaking of rides, 90% all of the work I’ve done in the last decade has been edited on the train to and from work, or when I can find a few minutes to screw off at the office (now known as Executive Time, apparently). I print out a stack of pages beforehand and carry them everywhere. For me there’s nothing as precise, and as enjoyable, as editing with pen to paper.
Contrary to Those Who Dispense Lists of Writing Advice in Preachy Blogs (who are right up there with Strangers Who Fart in Enclosed Spaces in my book) I don’t follow a lot of writing rules. I often write the ending of a story first. Every story starts with an image or a line of dialogue, and sometimes that spark occurs at the end of a tale, or in the middle, not at the beginning. I use flashbacks, epilogues, and prologues, but I don’t use outlines or checklists, I don’t worry about daily word counts, and I don’t give a shit about pacing, arcs or acts, at least not consciously.If you are telling a good story, and you’ve done your research and have the mental tools at hand, that stuff will come naturally. If you need to use a checklist to hit your plot points, you’re probably already fucked. Use the same common sense you’d apply to any discipline, from rebuilding car engines to playing the violin; study the craft of those who inspire you, and practice, practice, practice! If you want to write, read EVERYTHING you can, to get a sense of how words work together to serve different needs, and to expose your inner ear to a multitude of voices. Write as often as you can, even if it is shit headed for the trash can. The brain is a muscle; without exercise it will atrophy. And this bit of advice hurts as much as it helps—invite criticism from complete strangers. Relying on feedback from friends who don’t want to hurt your feelings is the worst thing you can do. Getting reamed by a dozen sadistic ass-clowns in a public forum can be brutal, but there might be one critic who is spot on in exposing a plot hole or pointing out an inconsistency in character, and those critics are worth their weight in gold because they make you a better writer.
#4. How does music and media factor into your writing? Do you feel it plays as much an inspirational role as literature?
#4. When I was in high school and college I would spin vinyl while writing on an old electric typewriter with keys that hammered the platen like a diesel powered pile driver run amok. I listened to everything from Elvis to Joan Jett, from classical music to John Williams’ soundtracks. And when I wasn’t playing records I was listening to the radio, because in those days you could listen to the radio all day long without once wanting to throw it at a goddamned wall, thanks to the smooth patter and the vast knowledge of music shared by old school disk jockeys.
These days, like so many writers, I’m my own DJ. I make playlists for stories short and long. Most of the chapter titles in my next novel are song titles from the playlist I enjoyed while writing the story. Music is essential, especially if I am trying to recreate moments from the past, or evoke a particular atmosphere, because music can instantly transport you another time and place. That makes it a useful tool, and how many tools are that much fun to use?
#5. As an author, how much do you engage in social media? Do you feel it is more for your own entertainment, or for marketing and networking?
#5. I’m terrible at marketing and self-promotion, and I’m still struggling to connect with fellow writers online while avoiding the sucking black pit of lost time that is Facebook. I tweet a lot and I hope that my tweets show that I’m a guy with a lot of different interests and a sense of humor, and that they will generate interest in me as a writer, because in all honesty some of the driest, most uninspiring social media posts you will ever read are written by writerswho insist over and over again that we buy this book, buy this book, buy this book, like Homer Simpson demanding his burrito.
#6. Where do you see the future of horror fiction heading? In turn, what changes would you love to see, either socially or technologically?
#6. I can’t tell where horror is heading, but I’d really dig seeing horror tales continue to find inspiration in modern life, as shifting norms and destructive practices have inspired so much horror and science fiction in the last two centuries. From an American perspective it would be interesting to see horror tales springing from a world impacted by Donald Trump and his cabinet of marauding goons, a world unraveled by greed, where our environment, wildlife and ecosystems are bled and pillaged, a world where home schooling may supersede a crumbling public educational system, a world where an increasingly isolationist America is cut off from our allies by a rising tide of fear and ignorance, a world where children must be protected at any cost, at least until they are out of the womb, whereupon they are no longer worthy of our concern or compassion and can be torn from their mothers and penned like livestock. That’s where we are right now, and that’s some really scary shit.
As for social change, I’ve always said every problem in the modern world can be traced to some form of greed, and greed goes hand in hand with ignorance. Well-educated and socially conscious billionaires give enormous sums of money to charity, but they are outnumbered by the hateful, fearful and ignorant who live merely to screw over others and amass personal wealth. If you think I’m talking hypotheticals, look at the very well off men and women in our Republican led Congress who pushed through a tax bill that blatantly took from the poor and gave to the rich while being cheered on by the people they are screwing over; that is mass insanity fueled by greed and enabled by ignorance. You fight ignorance with education, and the cheapest and most accessible route to education is through books. We need to see every child in this country reading as great a variety of books as possible so they can learn how to express themselves with eloquence in both the spoken and written word, so they can understand the voices of people who may be nothing like them, and empathize with them, and to help them weed out the bullshit in every political argument and avoid getting suckered by fake news and soulless hucksters. I don’t care if kids are holding weary old library books or shiny new tablets, as long as they READ.
And there is nothing wrong with reading horror as an introduction to literature or history or science or the human condition, because horror covers all those bases and more. A kid reading Mary Shelley’s Frankensteincould be moved to explore every area of interest I just mentioned by reading one single book.
#7. What can you tell us about any forthcoming projects? What titles would you like to promote now?
#7. I’ve had the very good fortune to be included in amazing anthologies of horror tales alongside writers who are inspiring and impressive and damned fun to read. Links to those books can be found on my Amazon author page. https://www.amazon.com/John-McCallum-Swain/e/B00XDS5YES/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_4?qid=1532987121&sr=8-4
I completed my latest novel at the end of 2017. Beta readers have been reading it, and I’m hoping they’ll tell me where I’ve dropped the ball. Set in 1973, A Different Country is a tale of American citizens mutated by atomic power, gentle monstrosities who have been hidden away for decades and now must fight for their survival as they face the wrath of the United States government. As I said before, astute critics will make you a better writer, and I’m looking forward to the feedback of my readers.
I’m also working on more of my Kitchissippi Tales, short horror stories that span the entire decade of the seventies and document the fall of a small Canadian town beset by everything from mind-altering maple syrup to deadly butterflies. I’ve already sold a few of these stories and as grim and dark as they can be they are a lot of fun to write as they are set in a fictionalized version of a town where I spent much of my childhood. My number one rule with my Kitchissippi Tales is that all of the ‘monsters’ have been created by human hands or by nature – there are no supernatural elements, because you don’t need the supernatural to sit back in a comfy chair and enjoy blood-letting, mass psychosis, homicidal children and smothering darkness.
AUTHOR PIC
