Lane Diamond, Author
I recently had the opportunity to interview Lane Diamond, co-founder and executive editor of Evolved Publishing, and author of Forgive Me, Alex. Read on to learn more about Diamond, his creative process, and his literary inspirations.
MS: What drew you to the suspense/thriller genre, and how would you differentiate it from mystery?
LD: Thrillers differ from mysteries in the sense that they’re not so much about whodunit, as they are about the tension and emotional strain leading up to the end. Even if the reader has a sense of what’s coming (in some cases, the author makes it clear), a good thriller will keep the reader turning the pages because she just has to see if it really happens.
Character attachment is critical to the thriller genre. As the reader, you must care deeply about one or more of the characters embroiled in the action, or the story just won’t work. Ideally, and this is just my opinion, you’ll love two or three characters, and hate/fear one—the bad guy, of course. The other critical element is pace; a thriller must move forward at a good clip. That’s not to say we should give short shrift to character development, or turn it into an action film on paper—all effects and no emotional content. However, thriller readers expect to remain in high gear for most of the book.
My early days of reading—I mean serious, voracious reading—were dominated by the likes of Stephen King, Robert Ludlum, John Le Carre and Frederick Forsyth. I hadn’t yet developed an interest in what we might call “literary finesse,” so the rapid action kept me engaged. Later on, I learned that just because a thriller moves quickly doesn’t mean it can’t be well written. Indeed, I discovered that some thriller authors were excellent technical writers, and I concluded that a “literary thriller” held some appeal for a lot of readers. I was one of those readers and that led me down my eventual writing path.
MS: Do you have a background in human psychology, either academically or personally, that informs your fiction?
LD: Well, I always wanted to be an Orthopaedic Psychiatrist… you know… a Bonehead. Actually, I took a number of psychology courses in college—just enough to be dangerous. The human mind intrigues me. It’s a wonderful, dangerous, mysterious, loving, evil, caring, disturbing machine. Good stuff; fodder for great stories.
MS: What inspires you, or drives your work?
LD: I write because I must, and because the alternative is unthinkable. The act of writing is, for me, a psychological imperative. I write of my thoughts and dreams, joy and anger, fears and aspirations. The process relaxes me. I pour out my angels and demons onto the page, and thus refresh my soul. It’s been that way since I first started writing short stories and poetry at the age of 12. It was all quite juvenile, of course, but it started a process to which I’ve clung desperately in the years since.
Yet I’d like to carry that to a higher level, and be able to make my living as a writer. All of us, if we’re lucky, will have the opportunity to work at something we love. We’ll wake up every morning ahead of the alarm clock, raring to go, thinking, “Man, I can’t wait to get to work.” This, to me, is a blissful life. It’s taken me a long time to get to this place, but it remains my primary goal.
MS: Could you tell us a bit about your creative process, from concept, to outline (if you use outlines), to words on the page?
LD: I tend to sit at my computer and stare into space, thinking of story possibilities, of characters, of settings. I then jot down notes on how I might tie those elements together, perhaps with a line or two of narrative or dialogue, just to plant the seed. Then I expand it to 2 paragraphs, then 3, then 4—until I have a couple pages of conceptual material. That might take me 30 minutes, or it might take me a year—depends on the piece.
From there, I start at page 1 and simply write freely. I let the story unfold as if it were telling me the story, rather than the other way around. I let the characters jump in where they will, and tell me what’s happening.
At some point, when it appears I may have a cohesive novel, I outline it—at least several chapters ahead—to keep me on a logical track. In the case of Forgive Me, Alex, that happened at the 30,000-word mark of a 98,000-word novel. Additionally, I then went immediately to the ending, and wrote what would become the last 4 chapters. That gave me my destination (it didn’t change much, by the way), and made it easier to stick to the path when I went back to where I’d left off with the earlier portion of the manuscript. Thus, I suppose you could say I start as a pantser, but finish as a planner. I’m a hybrid.
MS: Do you have a favourite book or author? If so, what do you love so much about it/them?
LD: Oh, this is really tough, because I love so many great works; I tend to think in terms of Top 25. Still, if someone held a gun to my head and made me choose a single book, it would have to be Harper Lee’s singular masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird. The characters are so real, in no small part because they were so closely based on real live people. Atticus Finch is a gem.
As to favourite authors, once again I have several, but I would place Mark Helprin at the top (A Soldier of the Great War, Memoir from Antproof Case, Winter’s Tale and lots more). I love his work for two primary reasons: extraordinary characters, and extraordinary prose. If you’ve never read Helprin’s work, I’d recommend starting with A Soldier of the Great War. I love the protagonist, Alessandro Giuliani, and I think you might, too.
Visit this link to enjoy a FREE sample of the first 5 chapters of Lane Diamond’s novel, Forgive Me, Alex.
