An Interview with Mark Orr

Mark Orr has placed a few dozen short stories, essays, poems and reviews in various online and small press periodicals and anthologies. He has lived in or near Nashville for most of his life, with time out to obtain a B.A. in history from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He currently works as a vocational rehabilitation counselor for the State of Tennessee. Mark and his wife of almost 28 years live in the same house with three daughters, one granddaughter, 10,000 books and too many cats.

Welcome Mr. Orr. Are you comfortable? Can I get you a glass of wine?

Wine's all right, but I really prefer whiskey, neat, over a little ice. Rye, if you have any.

Well, if you're ready, lets get on with the interview.

Q: You've been publishing short stories for quite some time now. Tell me, what is it that makes for a good short story and how does writing short stories differ from writing full length novels?
A: A novel is like a feature film, while a short story is like a snapshot. A short story allows you to concentrate on only the most interesting aspect of the tale, without dragging along a lot of baggage. It's more than just a shaggy-dog tale constructed in service of a punchline, though, which is all a lot of short stories I read turn out to be.

Q: What do you think makes for a really good horror story?
A: The French have a lovely word for what I think makes a good scary story: frisson. It means a sudden, delicious shiver or shudder. Like many things French, it's out of favor these days, I'm afraid, but the best horror tales are built on a series of escalating frissons that culminate in a big shock at the end. That's what I shoot for, anyhow.

Q: You've written several Noir or Para-noir-mal stories. Is there a particular era in which you prefer to set your stories?
A: I'm in love with the period from World War I to the late 1940s. It's similar enough to our time to be familiar, but remote enough to be exotic.

Q: I've found trying to get my writing published to be a fairly frustrating experience. How do you keep yourself writing? What motivates you? Do you ever struggle with writer's block?
A: I don't know if you'd call it writer's block, but there are times I just don't feel like engaging the keyboard. I'm always rolling stories around on my mind's tongue, which for me is 90% of the process, but sometimes it is a struggle to plant myself in the chair and hammer at the keys. If one project seems stalled, I have enough other things underway I can switch gears and work on something else.

What motivates me is all these characters in my head, yammering at me to get their stories out so they'll leave me alone.

Q: Do you have any advice for fledgling writers who are still trying to get published? Any opinions on societies, agents, publishers, the process?
A: If you want to write, you must read, and not just in your chosen genre. Read everything. See what other writers are up to, how they solve their own challenges in story construction or plotting or character development. There's a reason budding artists copy Old Masters. Writers should do something similar; not copy, but explore for things that work as well as things that don't work. Even read the bad stuff, just so you'll know what not to do. Develop an intimate relationship with grammar and spelling and all the other mechanical aspects of writing. If you're going to break the rules, you ought to at least know what they are. Otherwise, you come off as merely incompetent.

Networking is essential for the new writer, I believe. It helps to have other eyes pointing out your gaffes. Sometimes you need to have somebody tell you your baby is ugly, even if it hurts.

Always walk into any association with a publisher or agent with your eyes open. Investigate anyone who will affect your earnings. Never forget that money flows TO the writer, never away, and as much money should flow towards you as possible. Guard your rights religiously. Never sign away something you'll want later.

Q: Dogs or cats? Plot or character?
A: I'm decidedly a cat person. My feline companion, mehitabel, is setting on the top of my desk right now, watching me type.

Sometimes I lean towards plot, sometimes character. Each will inform the story in its own unique way. One aspect I concentrate on is what theatrical folks call mise en scene: how the physical elements of the setting illuminate the characters and affect the course of the plot. Unless you're writing in a familiar time and place, you have to have the props and set decoration and even sounds and smells of the period and place accurate.

Q: You've been both an editor and a writer. Which do you prefer? Why?
A: Writer, definitely. I discovered that I'm too soft-hearted to be as ruthless as editing requires. I had to tell several folks I know and like I couldn't accept their stories, and that was painful to me.

Q: I understand that you've met several famous writers in the course of pursuing your craft. Care to drop any names?
A: I was a regular attendee of the Nashville science fiction conventions in the 1970s, and had the pleasure of meeting and talking to Ted Sturgeon, Gordy Dickson, Bob Asprin, Andy Offutt, Forry Ackerman, Charles Grant, Stephen King and others at those functions. Sometimes our conversatons were very brief, but I did spend some extended time with a few of those folks. Two-time Hugo Award winner Allen Steele is a friend of mine from those days. In 1983, the DeepSouth Con was held in Knoxville while I was at the University of Tennessee, and King, Peter Straub and Whitley Strieber happened to be at a party I was invited to. I spent maybe an hour or so chatting with them. That same year, I took an anthropology class from Dr. Bill Bass, founder of the Body Farm, who now writes forensics non-fiction under his own name and forensic mysteries under the name Jefferson Bass. I went to one of his book-signings last year, and was astounded that he remembered me. Lowell Cunningham, creator of Men in Black, was in the SF society I belonged to at UT. In the last few years, I've had the opportunity to hang out with quite a few mystery writers through my association with the Nashville chapter of Sisters in Crime. I've met Lee Child, Michael Connelly, one half of P.J. Parrish, J.A. Konrath, Steven Womack and many others. We have some very talented writers in the chapter - Chester Campbell, Mary Saums, J.T. Ellison, Alana White, Lonnie Cruise, J.B. Thompson, Beth Terrell, and others who will likely give me a hard time for forgetting to mention them.

Q: If you were planning a Halloween party, what would be on the menu and why?
A: The only thing I know how to cook is chess pie, which is not a particularly Halloweeny dessert. I'd probably hire a caterer to make up the menu.

Q: If you were a zombie, what beverage would you serve with foot?
A: There's not a lot of meat in the human foot, so I don't think I'd serve wine. A beer would be more appropriate, maybe a blackberry wheat or a porter, depending on the freshness of the extremity. The wheat would tone down the flavor of an excessively gamey foot, while a fresher one would need some strong accompaniment to complement the inherent flavors and problematic textures. It would have to be something with a smooth finish. Don't want the beer to overpower the vittles. Of course, if a bit of the leg is included, I'll have to give it more thought. Wine would be called for if there's enough calf included to justify it. I'm leaning towards a red Côtes du Rhone for leg o' man. It's a good game wine, and as we all know, man is the most dangerous game. That or a cabernet suavignon, but that's so, um, pedestrian.

Q: Okay, but seriously, do you have a favorite author? What is your favorite work by this author?
A: I have many favored writers, including Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Ted Sturgeon, Richard Matheson, Thorne Smith, P.G. Wodehouse, Stephen King. Brian Keene and Ray Garton are doing some steller work in horror these days, and Mary Sangiovanni's first novel, The Hollower, is most excellent. My comfort books are the Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout. I know whenever I get bored I can pick up a Nero Wolfe at random and enjoy it again. My absolute favorites are Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. I reread Hammett's The Maltese Falcon at least once a year, and always find something new in it. Chandler's The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely are my favorites of his. Lee Child is my favorite current author. His Jack Reacher novels are terrific thrillers. Michael Connelly shouldn't be missed, either. I had a nice chat about Chandler with him last year at a book-signing, but being a fellow Chandler enthusiast isn't why I like his stuff. He just writes damn good books.

I always pick up Melanie Jackson's books. Even if romance isn't your thing, her novels are consistently entertaining. I did say to read outside your genre above, didn't I? Don't let labels keep you from exploring new territory, lest you miss something wondrous.

Q: What's your favorite horror movie?
A: The Creature From the Black Lagoon. I've seen it twice as Jack Arnold intended it to be viewed, on a big screen in 3-D. It's a fun movie flat, but in 3-D it's really spectacular and truly frightening. Lots of little frissons along the way to the big climax.

Q: Is it easier or harder to have friends who are writers? Are all the writers you know neurotic?
A: Writers are like any other demographic. Some are perfectly normal, some neurotic, a few psychotic. I enjoy my time with writers, because we speak the same language and share the same joys and frustrations. Witty repartee is the legal tender of conversation among writers, which I love.

Q: Do you have any plans for future projects?
A: Yes. I'll be doing an open-ended serial for Main Enterprises, beginning with the fourth issue of Dark Corridor. Blood of Africa concerns Abraham Van Helsing and Allan Quatermain chasing my recurring vampire character across South Africa in 1896. I continue working on my Harvey Drago, Intangible Private Eye series. I've begun the process of finding an agent for the first novel, Smarter Than the Average Werewolf, and I'm preparing to get cracking on a major rewrite on the second, Dead Women in Love. Occasionally, I go back to my earliest long work, what I call the Vast Amorphous Fantasy Thing, or VAFT for short, in hopes that it can be fixed, but that might not be realistic for at least the time being.

© 2009 by Mark Orr