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Author Interview - M. Brandon Robbins 'Heart Of Stone': Book 42 in the Short Sharp Shocks! series11/27/2019 Short Sharp Shocks! Book 42 is Heart Of Stone by M. Brandon Robbins. The book is out now for pre-sales and is published on the 30th November.
DEMAIN PUBLISHING: Great to talk to you! What a horrible (and we mean that in a good way!) story Heart Of Stone is, for those don’t know yet know M. Brandon Robbins, please tell us a little about yourself and why / how you became a writer. M.BRANDON ROBBINS: Hello! My day job is as a school librarian, but I’ve wanted to write professionally ever since I knew you could do such a thing. I majored in English in college and tried for years to make it, but I just wasn’t at the right point in my life for that to happen. I took some time off, lived through some experiences, and I’ve recently tried throwing myself back into the fray. I love to write because I love to create. I love creating characters and worlds. I love telling stories. I like maybe people feel something, be it fear or joy or even sadness. If you can make somebody feel something, then you’ve touched their life. There is power in that. DP: I hear you and totally agree. Also sometimes it is worth taking a break / stepping back for a while before you’re able to press forward / succeed – I can speak from personal experience there...anyway, Heart Of Stone, what’s it about? MBR: The protagonist wakes up in a basement to discover they’re tied to a chair and there’s a table nearby with a heart on it. What follows is a story of obsession and distorted views of love, with a heartbreaking act of desperation. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say that there’s no happy ending. DP: And in writing it did you have to do much research? MBR: I didn’t but it went through several revisions. It started out as just one scene and it was a far more gory work, with lots of visceral detail. I then tried expanding on it, turning that scene into a more proper story, but it then felt like too long of an introduction before you got to the true conflict. So I decided to start where the story really does begin―with the protagonist tied to a chair, lost and confused―and go from there. DP: I’m not sure whether you’ve written screenplays before but it had that vibe for me (again a good thing) and I truly believe Heart Of Stone would make a cracking short film (or part of an anthology film)...did you find any of the scenes difficult to write? MBR: Yes, I found one scene very difficult to write. I’m not shy when it comes to violence and gore―I grew up playing Mortal Kombat and Doom―but this scene required violence an innocent and sympathetic character. I was afraid it would come off as unearned, but I think it paid off with a sense of torment that was fitting for what happens. DP: No spoilers from us but I think you achieved that so well done. Creatively so far, what you say has been your biggest success? MBR: I have a novel forthcoming from Dragon Soul Press. It’s titled Mr Haunt and is scheduled for an October 2020 release. DP: Well done! Looking forward to reading that in due course then. Let’s talk about other authors / books and how they influence you... MBR: Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Allan Poe are my old standbys. It’s impossible for those works to not influence you if you write horror or fantasy, save for the blatant racism of Lovecraft’s works. That’s easy and necessary to avoid. Honestly, though, I haven’t read many novels lately. I’ve always loved comic books and those make up the bulk of my reading. Right now I’m liking anything by Scott Snyder, Tom King, Tini Howard, and Jeff Lemire. They all influence how I write dialogue, I think. When you write comics, you have to be skillful at writing dialogue, and they excel at it. Warren Ellis is another big influence. He writes very natural, conversationalist dialogue. DP: Ah, there’s some names I need to check out. I used to read a lot of graphic novels / comics but not for a long while...so, what does horror mean to M. Brandon Robbins? MBR: There are as many definitions of horror as there are of fantasy or science fiction, but to me it all comes down to this: horror is an examination of fear. It can be fear of the unknown. It can be the fear of death. Fear can come in the form of a fantastical creature. But horror is ultimately fiction about things that scare us, and sometimes the things that scare us aren’t obvious or in plain sight. DP: Too true...too true. Are you interested in working in any other creative forms / mediums? MBR: I would love to write comic books. I would love to do a Batman story with Scarecrow as the main villain and just make it a bone-chilling tale of terror, like an old-school EC Comic meets a superhero book. DP: I love that idea...actually perhaps Heart Of Stone would also work as a graphic novel...bit of fun: Marvel or DC? MBR: Generally, I like DC’s comics better and find Marvel’s movies to be better done. The quality of the comics fluctuate, of course, especially with talent moving back and forth between the two companies. DP: And finally, What is something your readers might be surprised to find out about you? MBR: Two things, actually. First, I also write westerns. I’ve had a western short story published online and have written a western novel that I see as being part of a series; I’m just not sure if it’s the first book or not. Second, I’m an Episcopalian. I know that horror and religion don’t have to be mutually exclusive―religion is the source of some the most horrifying imagery out there after all―but I know I find it entertaining when I’m in church the day after I just wrote the first draft of a bloody new short story while listening to black metal. We’re all a contradiction I suppose. That we are my friend, that we are. Thank you so much for your time – truly appreciate it. If you would like to connect to M. Brandon Robbins direct: Website: http://www.mbrandonrobbins.com Twitter: @mbrandonrobbins
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November 2023
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