Interview with Eric Swanson

 Emma Dhesi  00:00

Growing up in Minneapolis suburb, Eric Swanson has spent his life engrossed in stories with a wide scope from being frightened by Stephen King’s it to being enthralled by Orson Scott Card’s Ender Wiggin stories, the written word of others has grabbed Eric and often refused to let go. Many of his favourite novels have been read multiple times. From an early age Eric was a fan of all things science fiction, with a leaning towards the dystopian and post apocalyptic the future fascinates Eric no end be that a realistic or a wild eyed and far fetched future while he annually binges on Battlestar Galactica. For he dreams of worlds people and happenings yet to be written. Eric lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, two children and a pair of golden doodles. His first novel, Micah Trace and the Shattered Gate is a science fiction epic and the first in series, and in today’s episode, he tells me all about it. So let’s get in and listen to what he has to say. Welcome to the turning readers into writers Podcast, where we teach beginner writers how to find the time and the confidence to write their first novel. I’m your host, Emma Desi. And I’m very excited that you’re here. Thank you for joining me today. Because if you’ve been longing to write your novel for forever, then this is the place to be Think of this as your weekly dose of encouragement of hand holding and general cheerleading, as you figure out how you’re going to write your first novel. Trust me, as a mom of three young kids, I know how tricky it can be to tuck some time aside for yourself on a regular basis. And even when you do find that spare five minutes, you can feel so overwhelmed that no rating gets done. Trust me, I have been there. But this podcast is going to help you in practical ways. Because once a week, I’ll be delivering an episode that gives you steps to building a writing routine, encouragement to build your confidence and cheerleading until you reach the end. Okay, let’s start. Off. Fantastic. Eric, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate your time. I wonder if you could start off by telling us a little bit about yourself and how you came to be a writer. 

Eric Swanson  02:33

Sure, you’d happen very much by accident. But it’s it’s been something I’ve been interested in my entire life. I always joke with my mother all the time that the first story I wrote when I was 10 years old, I sat down and wrote a story about a bunch of my friends playing on a baseball team. And it It went from, you know, a couple page story to ended up filling six spiral notebooks with this story. Yeah. And, you know, again, it he, I don’t know if it was any good. He could because I was 10. But that that sort of itch to create sort of always, it was there. It was always there. I think everybody’s life asks them a question. Right. And I think people don’t necessarily struggle finding the answer I think people struggle with the first part is figuring out what that question is. And, you know, I’m married, I’ve got two kids, they’re in high school now, which is mind blowing. But, you know, the writing thing has always been something I’ve been interested in, it’s always been something that I suppose I’ve been somewhat good at. And this has given me an opportunity to use those skills to get a story out there that I think will resonate with people once in a while to actually really market it. I’ve got a couple things going from a marketing perspective that really, to this point, my sales have been, you know, friends and family. 

Emma Dhesi  04:12

Well, that’s up because we’ve all got to start somewhere, isn’t it? And I think it’s such a brief thing, and not something that everybody does is even just to press publish, to take that deep breath, have that faith in yourself and go for it. And, you know, we’re all I think all of us are always nervous about doing it the first time because it’s huge. And we’ve told our friends and family about and of course we always want people to like it. But and so, you know, just being able to press publish, I think is a huge, huge step forward. And it’s just the beginning of the journey. 

Eric Swanson  04:46

That’s absolutely true. I can actually empathise with that, but we’ll call it button fear, right? literally like sitting with my hand over the button thinking Should I really do this? You know, I’ve got 12 reviews so far. The 11 fives and one four star on Amazon, which is great. Three of them are actually can people I don’t know, which is kind of interesting. Even. Right, right? Um, oh, it’s so there is a lot of fear to it, especially if it’s not an impersonal store. You know, because there’s a lot of I mean, obviously, the story is sci fi oriented. So it doesn’t really apply to much of my life. But the themes are, I think, sort of evergreen is still a phrase. Yeah. 

Emma Dhesi  05:41

And so how long did it take you to write this first book years? 

Eric Swanson  05:48

Between starting and actually writing the last word in the first draft, it was about a year and a half. 

Emma Dhesi  05:57

What’s good, you make good, you could be sat down and said, I’m doing it? 

Eric Swanson  06:02

Well, so So you’d asked earlier about the whole philosophy and syntax of writing a series. And what I did is I sat down and started outlining the first story. And it wasn’t until I was done, outlining what I thought was the first story that I realised that that wasn’t the first story. That was the first two stories. And then, as I started thinking about what I wanted to do with the books, just in terms of the story, and themes and the character development, this image popped into my head of what will end up being the last scene of the sixth book. And so I’ve, you know, begin with the end in mind. 

Emma Dhesi  06:50

So does that mean that you have, you’ve planned out the all six nodes, so you know, what’s going to happen in in all six in series? 

Eric Swanson  06:57

So I’m actually 100 pages into the third book right now writing it, I know exactly what’s going to happen. stem to stern in books three and four. And books five and six, I have high level outline. 

Emma Dhesi  07:11

Okay. And in your series does and is there an overarching storyline that covers them all? Or each one not standalone, but can be read independently of the others? No, they’re serialised. This is such a, I’m always in such admiration of people who can do that, who can have that big overarching plotline. And then the smaller ones in each group as well. 

Eric Swanson  07:39

Well it’s been one of the one of the struggles is sort of, and I know I say this, as someone who’s, you know, only sold a couple hundred copies of a book. So like, Who the heck am I. But I think one of the things that really successful authors struggle with sometimes is tending that garden. In that, you start telling this story. And I think as authors, we’re inclined to think that every aspect of our story is beautiful and compelling. And, and it’s going to hook people. So I think what, what happens sometimes is that the garden tends to get overgrown, and you have too many characters in too many places, and too many things going on. So I’ve tried to balance introducing new characters over the course of the second and third books. And some of the some of it is by nature of the story, then moving from one world to another, you have to introduce a lot. But, but I’ve tried to be mindful of that, because some of my favourite books, they’re great. But you get to the point where there’s sort of a war and peace chapter. And it’s all about this one character that you meet for five minutes, and then they’re gone. And I just, I was trying to avoid having too many points of focus. Mm hmm. 

Emma Dhesi  08:58

I remember talking to another author as well. Emily Thompson and she was saying that one of the wonderful things actually about writing series is if you discover a character that you love, you don’t need to squeeze them into that first or second book. In fact, you can bring them in later on down the line, maybe the third or fourth book, because you know, you’ve got all this space to play with. And so you don’t need to let go of those characters necessarily. And but you can swap them in at another time. And as someone who will narrate standalone, I had a bit of envy there explore Yeah, that that must be nice to know that you’ve got that room to play with. 

Eric Swanson  09:32

Yeah, there are actually a couple characters there are two specifically that come to mind that are in the first book that don’t appear until the third See, and they’re so so and then the state of the characters changes meaningfully between that those two points in time. And then I’ve got this is sort of a sickness, right but as I’ve been writing, as the universe has kind of developed in the books characters will mention historical happenings. And as in writing, I’ll start writing about, you know, then just mentioning this thing happening, whether it’s, you know, a year ago, 50 years ago, or in the far flung history of the universe. And I’ll, I’ll take that chunk and say, You know what, at some point, I want to write more about that. So I have another 14 stories that take place at some point in the universe, where that sort of that lightning bolt hit me. And I was like that, I want to talk about that. 

Emma Dhesi  10:35

And talking of universe and something else I admire about people who write sci fi or fantasy, is that that element of world building, or universe building? So for you with this series, how have you gone about creating this this new world? Is that something that you planned beforehand, something that’s been in your mind for the last 10 years? Or is it something you’ve sat down and strategically worksites? 

Eric Swanson  11:03

So I know, there’s the what’s the glitter? What are the phrases? pantser and plotter? Hmm. I’m a weird hybrid of the two in that I do from the final draft? Well, it’s a screenwriting software. We don’t need to promote it too heavily here, but there’s a function in the programme that allows you to build like a beat board almost. Okay. Right. And so what I do is I use that to outline the stories. Mm hmm. And that’s, that’s where all the outlining all the character arcs are outlined, where all the broader story beats are outline, and then where eventually I start actually outlining, you know, individual happening, happenings as I’m trying to tell the story. Oh, so I think the outline is probably the equivalent of, I don’t know, 60 or 70 pages, okay, which isn’t huge, but you know, 

Emma Dhesi  12:03

that’s pretty hefty. 

Eric Swanson  12:05

Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, so basically, what I do is I come up with bullets for each of the scenes. And then I just start writing. So it’s, it’s like half plotter, half pantser. Um, you know, I’m not really writing, I’m not plotting out anything like down to the word or down to the paragraph. But it’s here, two or three lines about what I want to accomplish in the scene, you know, how I want to move the story forward, and then I sit down and start writing. 

Emma Dhesi  12:33

Fantastic. And it’s quite, it’s quite useful to have that even just having those bullet points, because then it just gives you a little bit of focus, a few signposts along the way to help you keep on track. But I’m also interested though, kind of the idea of you know, of place names of people, names of vehicles, transport spaceships, and whatever else that might be in this world that you’ve created, or even languages or jobs, and that kind of thing to you are those things that come to you, as you’re writing, or those things that you have, you’ve developed beforehand, 

Eric Swanson  13:10

I would say that the concepts for the most part have been developed beforehand, in a lot of cases, character names, location names, they sort of as I’m writing, I’ll sort of get a feeling for a character or a place or thing. And in a lot of cases, what I’ll do is I’ll take a word that I think defines that person, that character that whatever. And then I’ll start looking for translations in different languages of that same word. And then I’ll sort of bastardise the word right to just turn it a little bit from a phonetic perspective, or make it a little easier to read. And use that. Oh, cool. 

Emma Dhesi  13:58

I like that idea. That’s really nice. And you still get the essence of the character of the place, but a really unique twist on it. I like that. 

 Eric Swanson  14:07

Yeah. Well sort of give you an example. In in the story, I invented a sport, that sort of this so that I think there are things I’m going to back up for a second, I think there are things that sort of define societies, right. So the things that define societies are their faith, or lack thereof, right, depending on what society we’re talking about. Sports, politics and media. So I think you can learn a lot about society by watching their entertainment, by getting a sense for you know, what they do to pass the time how they talk to each other, how they legislate how all of that. So the way I’ve introduced this alien world And then the way in the second book, I’ll introduce the second planet. It’s through those lenses. It’s it’s through the political lens, it’s through the entertainment lens, it’s through the religious or faith oriented lens. And so I created a sport for the story. And the sport in the book is called antiseptic, which is a sort of mucked around version of the word for victory in Arabic.

 Emma Dhesi  15:27

Like it, that’s

 Eric Swanson  15:30

it just, you know, it’s um, it’s something I’ve had a lot of fun with.

From time to time, I link to products or services I love using with affiliate links. This means that I may receive a small percentage or fee for referring you to any product you may purchase from one of those sites. It does not cost you anything. These small fees help sustain my small business. I truly appreciate your support.

Emma Dhesi  15:36

Mm hmm. Yes. Okay. So not in kind of like with your, your flossing is a bit of a hybrid to some of the things you have thought about beforehand, perhaps they’ve been kind of mulling around there in the back of your brain for a while, then other things are kind of more instinctive and arise as you’re writing. And that’s something that feels right for that place, or that character. I like that. Now, when you are writing, and how do you balance that out, having that writing time that you need balancing that out with? I don’t know if you have a day job, but I know you’ve got a family. So how do you lose out?

 Eric Swanson  16:13

incredibly difficult. You know, frankly, it’s sometimes almost impossible. And I think, I think, especially given the world we live in right now. Right? The the side hustles, the passion project. If they’re not bringing in meaningful income, right, you’ve got to focus on what is. So you know, and frankly, one of the things that’s been tough about this period is trying to balance you know, keeping the full time job played spinning, making sure that, you know, knocking the cover off the ball there, so to speak, so that, you know, things are stable, and then finding time for everything else. And right now, yeah, writing is one of those, everything else’s. But unfortunately, just by virtue of the world we live in, and kind of the circumstance we’re faced with right now. It’s, it’s not at the top of list.

 Emma Dhesi  17:21

Okay, I should just find so for anybody listening in the future, but and, and Eric and I are recording this in October 2020. And so we’re still kind of in the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and everything is a bit crazy this year in 2020. So just to put that in perspective, for anyone listening is the future. Yeah, yeah, I know, I can totally understand that. I think even listening to interviews with professional writers or full time writers, just having schools closed down, everything being changed, even though our profession is is very home based or very sort of insular, it’s just as it still throws everyone for a loop, it’s still mentally is quite a rejigging of things, isn’t it?

 Eric Swanson  18:03

It is it is. And it’s, it’s, it’s a tough thing to balance. And again, in a lot of cases, almost impossible. So like, I think what’s important for people who maybe find less time than others do to write, I think the key is, it’s two things in my mind, it’s a Don’t feel bad about that. I think it’s really easy to sort of, let’s say, take a break unintentionally, from writing your story. And I think some people get a little more disappointed by those breaks than they should. And so maybe sometimes it’s also maybe sometimes they get, they get sort of wrapped up in the idea that, oh, I wanted to have, you know, 20,000 words written by this date. And I’ve got 12. Right, right. And there’s this, there’s this sort of defeatist mindset that I think can kind of weigh on you, as you’re writing. And that it can it can come through in the voice. So just, I guess, if I were to give anybody advice, I would say, you know, write as your life allows, and don’t, don’t feel bad when your life doesn’t allow that to be, you know, two hours every day.

 Emma Dhesi  19:23

Exactly. Agree. Yeah. You got to give yourself grace. Sometimes life life has a way of throwing a curveball every now and again.

 Eric Swanson  19:32

or an entire year of curveballs.

 Emma Dhesi  19:36

So and the kind of normal year normal time and when you do sit down to write, do you tend to have a goal for each writing session? Is it maybe a set period of time or word?

 Eric Swanson  19:48

Like don’t I should, but I don’t you know, I think that’s something that that’s something I’ve always considered establishing Don’t saying hey, if I’m going to sit down and write, it’s going to be for, you know, an hour. And I’m going to do, I don’t know, 1500 words, right? 2000 good words, something like that. But again, I think that if I set really strict goals on myself for the hour that I can steal to do that. I just feel like, if I don’t hit that number, even if it’s a great 750 words, I’m still going to be disappointed by it. Okay, and so I so I try not to set a word count goal more. So just, you know, can I find half an hour? Can I find, you know, 45 minutes? Can I knock out? You know, maybe this one beat that’s been sort of bouncing around in my head, like a pinball. That kind of thing.

 Emma Dhesi  20:50

Okay, cool. So that is giving yourself that flexibility that you need around everything else. And you mentioned just some beats there. And before you mentioned, first draft, the software first draft. So is that you’re using first draft again, the second book? Is that the sort of approach that you’ve taken, I wonder if you could tell us just a little bit more about the idea of the beats and how that works for you in your planning?

 Eric Swanson  21:16

Yeah, yeah. So Emma, final final draft is actually a screenwriting software. So it’s a little bit it’s not, I don’t think generally thought of as a, an author’s tool. But essentially, what it is, is basically there’s a feature in the programme that basically lets you build a like a sticky board, where you’re basically putting post it notes, digital post it notes up, and you can organise them, move them around change colours, things like that. So, you know, it allows you to organise thoughts and allows you to organise character arcs, it allows you to organise, you know, all sorts of things, it is something that I’ll be using for the foreseeable future. I mean, I’ve like I said, I’ve got the third book and fourth books fully outlined in that tool. And then I’ve got five and six, sort of at a high level outline. And then the other dozen plus stories are sort of sketched out in separate documents in the same programme.

 Emma Dhesi  22:15

And so do you quite like that beats and approach because I used and Jessica Brody’s save the cat, which is also kind of derived from a screenwriting idea of using these different beats. And I find it very useful. I really like the way it was laid out. And that’s something that seems kind of resonates with you as well, rather than than having chapters and plot points. The idea of these different beats resonates. 

Eric Swanson  22:40

Yeah, well, and because again, it’s, it’s less about, the outlining is less about what’s happening in the story, and more about what I’m trying to convey. So in a lot of cases, it’s like, I’ve had situations where, as I’ve been writing, I’ve realised that a certain beat belongs earlier in the story or later in the story. So being able to sort of shift things around visually, it helps me to on the street. Mm hmm. Yeah. It helps me kind of straighten my mind out as I’m, as we’re getting ready to read again. 

Emma Dhesi  23:20

And do you tend to write quite linearly? Or do you sort of jump in and out, depending on what mood takes, you. 

Eric Swanson  23:27

No, it’s linear. I often wonder, like, you know, could I do that? Could I, could I write the end and then come back, and I think, because it’s half plotter, half pantser. I think if I wrote the end, and then wrote the middle piece, I think the middle piece would influence the end of the point where the end wouldn’t. It would be the same, but there’d be elements to be different. 

Emma Dhesi  23:52

Okay. Okay. And so I wonder, Is there anybody as well, apart from their first draft? Is there anybody that you kind of turn to, for sort of craft advice or who particularly inspires you when it comes to raising? 

Eric Swanson  24:08

Sure. So, in terms of advice, I actually have a small group of friends that are sort of like my beta reader group. And so you bounce things off them. I’ve got a friend in California that was introduced to me by a mutual friend who, you know, he’s read chunks of it. And then my parents actually, as well have they were the first people to actually read the first two books. And then and then what my mom is a writer, she was more technical professional writing. But you know, that it’s a it’s a small group of people that I trust to be honest with me, right? It’s always sort of a Okay, you know, read the And legitimately, if it’s terrible Tell me and said rather know now, but no, I mean, you know, the feedback has been good. The advice has been good. You know, there have been both my kids play hockey. So I wrote I do a lot of writing in hockey rinks. So there’s occasionally in the draft, there’ll be like weird typos. Just because it’s like, oh, Puck hit the glasses, I was typing, and I just kind of like, reset my mind in a weird way. And that’s, it’s good to have people that you can talk to about this stuff. You know, a lot of the inspiration originally for the story came from a TV show that a TV show and a couple of ideas that my wife and I were watching together a lot. So there’s, you know, a bunch of different stuff I’ve bounced off of her. And it just it it all kind of meshes together in a very weird, beautiful way.

Emma Dhesi  26:07

So tell us about the series tell us about? What sounds about the first book first of all, the world that it sets in? And who’s in it? 

Eric Swanson  26:16

Sure, sure. So the book is called Micha Trace and The Shadow Gate. And it actually starts on Earth, about 35 years from now. And the idea is sort of put the reader in this version of Earth that’s a little bit further down the roads, some of the technology that we are thinking might pop up some of the technology we may not want to pop up. And sort of throwing that out there. And then pretty quickly, there’s an abduction of about 100,000. Humans very violently, very publicly. And then then the story stops there. And that’s the first chapter is this, this really traumatic, very public abduction of 10s of thousands of people. So yeah, 

Emma Dhesi  27:14

I’m sorry, straight into the action. 

Eric Swanson  27:17

Yeah, I think that’s, that’s important in terms of hooking people, story jumps for centuries, and actually takes place on another planet. And it’s the planet that these, these 10s of thousands of humans were taken to. And they were genetically altered in order to provide a resource pool for this alien race, the sun that their world orbits is older than ours. So the radiation from the sun is degrading their genome over time. And the only way to fix it, because they can’t fix the star is to patch their gene pool. So there, they created this hybrid race of half human half alien people, as a, as a resource pool to patch that genome. The broader genome. story focuses on Michael trace, who was genetically engineered to be the mimic or body double for the king of this alien world. So he looks exactly like the king shares every aspect of his aesthetic. But if everyone knows there is a body double, right, the value of that, that tool is sort of limited. So when he’s in public, he wears a hood that hides his face. So he has the most famous face on the planet. But very, very few people know that it’s his. And over the course of the other part of the story, he’s in court, you know, listening to sort of the goings on of, of that world. And a couple travellers mentioned Earth, and he knows he’s half human. He knows his story, so to speak. And they start talking about how, you know, humanity is isolated. And they’ve basically built this incredible net of defensive technology around the planet. Because after that, that that taking happened after that episode, the entire human race basically looks to the sky, and to this jump gate that the aliens used to leave when they had everyone. But now that the date at the end of that kidnapping humanity, nuked the gate and broke it. So the gate is, it’s so big that they can’t knock it out of orbit because if they do, it’ll come down to earth in large chunks and kill millions I think. So they’ve spent for centuries humanity has looking at this broken gate or The planet. And so rather than, like most traumas in human history, right, they fade because they’re not right in front of your nose. This just, it’s always there. It always, it’s always reminding people of what happened. And out of fear, they’ve created this insular society, they’ve created sort of a, john, this is more of the second book. But that’s what, that’s what these travellers end up making Micah aware of, is the plight of humanity. And so he’s struck with this desire to go back to her. And, yeah, and basically, now that the, the, the royal family that runs the planet, now his planet is a little more benevolent than maybe the ones that, that it orchestrated that episode. Okay, so so his goal is to go to Earth, fix the gate, and help them understand that, you know, the rest of what’s out there, which, as far as they know, is just their planet and Earth. So it’s not like most sci fi where they’re, you know, thousands of races, and we’re blue skin people and anything like that. It’s really just those, those two planets. 

Emma Dhesi  31:19

Okay. Sounds very exciting. Lots of drama and tension. Yeah. And so I know that you have quite a big month coming up soon, because you’ve got a few releases. Do you want to tell us about those? 

Eric Swanson  31:32

Sure. So yeah, within November at some point, you’re going to see the second edition of the first book, which is mica tracing the shattered gate, a friend of mine, that actually been on LinkedIn, and did a couple charcoal drawings for me. So I’m going to include those in the second edition of the first book. The second the second book, which is called Mike retrace, and the two worlds that comes out along the same time, as well as the audio book for the first book. 

Emma Dhesi  32:04

That is very exciting getting your first audiobook right there. 

Eric Swanson  32:07

Yeah, when it’s funny, and, you know, most, most authors when you start exploring the audio book idea, that gets expensive, quickly. Mm hm. And I don’t know what it is about me or this process, or the timing of it. But I keep running into people who, when I share with them, what I’m doing, they say something to the effect of, well, I have this specific skill set, or I have this specific, whatever. And I’d like to help you. 

Emma Dhesi  32:37

Wow, serendipity serendipity. Yeah. So it’s conscious of time, Eric. So I wonder if and if you don’t mind, just letting people know where they can find out more about you where they can get their hands on your book. 

Eric Swanson  32:50

Sure. So the website that has a little bit of a about me a little bit about the books is Eric-Swanson.com. And then the book Micah Trace and the Shattered Gate is on Amazon, and exclusively right now. But at some point, it’ll be a little more broadly available. 

Emma Dhesi  33:07

Fantastic. That’s lovely. We’ll be sure to put links in the show notes to both of those. Well, Eric, thank you so much for your time today, I really appreciate you sharing with us your experience of getting into writing how tough it can be to balance all the things, but also really the excitement and joy that you get from as well. So thank you so much. 

Eric Swanson  33:25

Thank you.

If this article was useful, you’ll love:

• https://emmadhesi.com/blog-post/andrea-fink/
• https://emmadhesi.com/blog-post/devon-j-hall/
• https://emmadhesi.com/blog-post/innercritic/

Emma Dhesi

Emma writes women’s fiction. She began writing seriously while a stay at home mum with 3 pre-school children.

By changing her mindset, being consistent and developing confidence, Emma has gone from having a collection of handwritten notes to a fully written, edited and published novel.

Having experienced first-hand how writing changes lives, Emma now helps beginner writers find the time and confidence to write their first novel.