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Continued: Eric Wilson spotlight (Part 2 of 2)
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Continued from Part 1 of Spotlighting local author: Eric Wilson
Vampire Series:
Inspiration strikes at any time, and Eric always tunes in. A girl wearing ruby earrings graces the cover for his novel Field of Blood. He wrote about his protagonist wearing a necklace that held a drop of blood. In looking at the cover he had an epiphany: “the earrings look like drops of blood.” Inspired, he rewrote the story line to include the earrings, adding another level of complexity.
His vampire series has a “strong foundation of history.” For instance, "Jesus said to drink his blood and eat his flesh. When he told the disciples this, there were disciples that left him.” Eric views this as life being, literally, in the blood and uses such symbolism throughout his novel – for the vampires are finding life in the blood.
“In 1989, outside of Jerusalem’s city walls, where Judas hung himself, a bulldozer broke into the field side in the ‘field of blood.’ The bodies inside the burial caves – 19 boxes that held the bodies, were emptied.” In his story, Judas hangs himself, but the branch breaks. In his fall, Judas hits his head upon rocks and his blood seeps into the ground and into the bodies of the 19 dead. The bodies fill with new life, anew from the blood.
Style:
With age, Eric developed a love for writing dialogue. But it’s his love of history that leads him. Almost all of his original books explore historical mysteries.
Eric is passionate about his subjects. So much so that he has “7 novels that tie together by theme and overlapping.” All his novels, besides the adaptations, tie together.
What is Eric’s plotting routine? “I don’t really outline. I started off in High School doing all that – character sketches, and got so bogged down in it that I didn’t ever get to the writing.” He elaborates, “As I write I have to feel like its real. For me the description is what makes me believe it. I like a lush environment in a story.”
“I have to keep writing – that magic has to be there for me. All those characters sketches and the plotting would basically rob all the magic.”
“I start with an idea, maybe a concept. With Field of Blood I have a vampire concept, and I wanted to deal with religious fanaticism. So, I have the main character’s mom go to extremes. She cuts her daughter to bleed out her sins. But the main character is raised with superstitions done in name of God. And the blood in her earrings is Nazarene blood, which makes her immune to vampires. To have to grow up under extreme views... It's what drives the story - finding the character issues and from there I keep reassessing.” Eric rereads over and over to “get the feel of what a reader would be thinking and wondering.”
Eric loves his characters, but isn’t confused on where he begins and they end. In fact, he was part of a university study trying to establish the link between childhood imaginary friends and fiction writers. What they found was that fiction writers are very grounded and understand the difference between imagination and reality better than most.
While Eric recognizes that his characters are not real, they still manage to change the scene for him from what he had intended. Eric likens the experience to God’s telling a story where he had a plan, but “all these characters have free will.”
Choices the characters have made have led to the characters dying. This has affected Eric to where he had writers block when it came time to write the scene. “Not that I didn’t know what was going to happen, but that I did know and didn’t want to write it.”
His thought was “Oh no, I was hoping that person was going to get it together.” Real or fictitious, the characters have minds of their own.
Economy:
Eric's thoughts on the economy are that “it affects the new writers trying to get out there.” The reality is “entertainment is a stable luxury.” The way readers get novels may change, people may spend more time at the library, but they will continue to turn to books for an escape.
But Eric fees like “more than the economy, the industry is changing and may be slow to change.” Eric “will always love books and reading them” and while the Kindle is on the rise, he hopes that readers will remember the feel of the novel in his or her hands.
“People will always want stories; they just may want it delivered differently.” Because “as long as there are storytellers, someone will want to hear them. It’s just how we deliver them to them that may change.”
Advice:
“In order to become a good storyteller: be aware of your audience, know the craft of character, dialogue and keep at it.”
“Don’t give up; the odds to ever make it as a full time writer are extremely low. If you have a creative spark – be willing to face the reality and stay with it. It’s a growing process.”
Eric continues to grow and perfect his craft. His haunting words delight and intoxicate readers. But, you don't have to take my word for it. Pick up a copy of Field of Blood, FireProof, or any one of Eric Wilson's novels to see for yourself.
To learn more about Eric visit his website at: http://www.wilsonwriter.com/
To follow me on Twitter go to: http://twitter.com/PCrutcher
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