Come to the Nightmare
Today our guest is William S. Ryan an independently published author on Amazon. Currently, he is working on a series of short stories set in an alternate dimension. We have conducted an interview with him about his current short story "Come to the Nightmare" and plans that he has for the series as a whole.
Which genre is your short film 'Come to the Nightmare' belong?
"Come to the Nightmare" is a science fiction/fantasy novelette, I intend to blend aspects of both as best I can through the presence of technology and various creatures.
Why did you choose to write in this genre? What fascinates you the most during the creative process?
I suppose the reason that I chose these pair of genres is due to my exposure to them. I have spent a great deal of time reading books, playing video games and watching shows and movies in these genres, so it seems a natural progression to me.
In the creative process there are always hurdles, some quite large. What I find most interesting about this is the ways in which the mind will do all it can to find a workable solution. As long as you know where you are and where you want to end up in a story, you can always find multiple paths to go down. Its like exploring in a sense, and I do enjoy exploring.
How different is it to write your series of short stories than to write one entire long story?
I'm not convinced there is that much of a difference in essence. Certainly, I can write short works faster and have them ready for publishing in shorter order. The main difference I would say is that in a novel, a high degree of detail and character development is almost required, whereas in a short work, more is left for the readers to speculate or for later works. My next work for example will not discuss what happened to the characters at the end of "Come to the Nightmare", they will be discussed in a later work.
What are your plans for the series as a whole?
This is a tough question. Right now my stories are centered around individuals and their struggles. My plan is to build the concepts of the world, how everything works and relates. That is my first goal. I think I may make the series public domain in the future since the world I've made is just too massive for me to ever fully write about. So to that end I'll build all the basics first and go from there.
Who inspires you the most in writing ever?
I'd say the people that have inspired me the most are figures that have struggled a great deal in their lives, Hemingway, Tolkien, Poe and Zamyatin. Yevgeny Zamyatin has especially made me reevaluate how I write, his work 'We' is truly unique in how it goes about telling its futuristic story. It feels like a person in the future actually telling the story. I've tried to adapt this technique and simply have my characters and writing be matter-of-fact and not tell the story from my perspective.
