AFTER RESONANCE with AUTHOR R.P. KRAUL

Author Bio:  R.P. KRAUL (@Rpkraul) was born in Pennslyvania in the late sixties, when the last fumes of the Vietnam War were still present.  He distinctly remembers bandanas, kerchiefs, glow-in-the-dark monster models, and Cadillacs the size of cruise ships.

As a teenager, he began writing horror stories based mostly on the vast array of horror films he’d seen.  Additionally, he took interest in both Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, both of whom became influences.  

It was at this time that MIRRORS OF ANGUISH first started taking form.  At the time, however, the story was called THE DUNKIRK HORROR.  He later changed the name when he realized readers closely associated “Dunkirk” with the seaport in France.  He has nothing against France, but the ubiquitous question fatigued him.  Just for the record--and to clear any ambiguity--Belcorte,  the town in which Mirrors is set,  is not in France.  If there is a Belcorte in France, or for that matter, Europe, it is purely by mistake.

He frequently locks himself in his dark, clandestine laboratory, (read: converted pantry.  He comes out of this lair only to use the restroom, check for the Apocalypse, and fetch more Belgian beer (though Belcorte is not in Belgium, either).  Occasionally his wife takes pity on him and slides a piece of toast under the door.  He likes toast.   Mostly, he listens to operatic death metal, contemplates the meaning of life, and creates the dark characters who inhabit your nightmares.

1.  After reading your introduction to “Mirrors of Anguish,” I understand that your novel has been long in creative gestation…what were the clinching concepts or “forces,” which finally wrangled your story into the trajectory of its eventual completion?

R.P.:  I had stopped writing for 12 years, and during that period, I discovered more and more artists outside of horror:  fiction from Kurt Vonnegut and Kurt Heller; non-fiction from William F Buckley Jr., and others; films from Bergman, Woody Allen, Billy Wilder, and Atom Egoyan.  These non-horror influences gave me the fuel I needed to finish Mirrors.  I needed that variety, as I had been living and breathing horror for most of my life.

The front man for Opeth, a band whose work I love, put it best. He asserted that it's difficult to make good, heavy metal music if all you listen to is heavy metal music.  You had better have an array of influences--Opeth does, and that's what makes them so great.  

The same can be said for writers.  Unfortunately, I was a horror writer who lived and breathed horror, and my tone was too pensive.  I learned from those artists that storytelling should be fun and entertaining--you need to make people laugh.  You need to understand human behavior on all levels.  

As for Mirrors, specifically, I simplified things. I had two brother characters originally, Johnny and Ben Callahan.  I realized I only needed one, so I went with Ben.  Further, the story for Mirrors--it was called "The Dunkirk Horror" at the time--was too broad.  I was writing about a lot of events from the past.  I used characters from the past, and in that version of the book, it took this left turn and sort of became a dystopian horror story that would have taken eight or nine-hundred pages to finish.  I simplified things and decided to write a prequel later. Gone, are all the dystopian ideas, and I may use some of those in a future book.

2.  Which Horror Authors in the great tradition have meant the most to you, and what contributions did their work make, to your appreciation of what Classic Horror writing ought to be?

R.P.:  Poe and Lovecraft go almost without saying.  What Poe did was that he brought some attention to the genre--not to mention a fresh set of eyes. Lovecraft never got the recognition he deserved, at least not during his lifetime, but a lot of horror writers, myself included, consider him a pioneer of modern horror.  A lot of artists, especially in film, try to riff Lovecraft, and they do this by borrowing Cythulhu or Nyarlathotep, or by writing about clandestine books and elder gods imprisoned in some secret place.  That's why we haven't seen a genuinely outstanding adaptation of Lovecraft on film.  If you want to do a homage to Lovecraft, what you really have to look at, is atmosphere.  He created atmosphere like no other writer.  It wasn't his monsters; it was the dark, decadent worlds they inhabited. 

Another writer from the past who has meant a lot to me is Fredric Brown, and that's a name many people won't recognize.  He was in the newspaper business, I believe, and he wrote short stories--anything from sci-fi to noirish horror to short shorts consisting of pure irony.  His "Come and Go Mad" is probably my favorite piece of horror fiction ever.

My favorite among modern writers is Ramsay Campbell.  He's gotten a lot of accolades in the horror community, but not enough readers are familiar with his work.  Like Lovecraft, he is great with atmosphere.  In fact, he may be the closest thing to Lovecraft that exists in horror fiction at the moment.  His powers of observation are stunning. 

I also have to mention Stephen King for his contributions in both fiction and non-fiction; Peter Straub for his assured literary style, Robert McCammon for getting to the heart of what horror is about.  I also enjoy Tom Piccirrili, who writes a gritty, noirish style, always told from the POV of a character who fully understands the people around him.  

3.  What Horror movies or filmmakers have injected inspiration into your story-telling, and what are some of those memorable movie moments or concepts that stand creatively tall in your mind?

R.P.: Probably my favorite film of all time is The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).  It's a brilliant piece of filmmaking, and probably the closest thing to a nightmare caught on film.  Interesting enough, it may also have the first twist ending on film.  There's no doubt the surreal atmosphere found its way into Mirrors--well, at least I hope it did.  

After Caligari, I look at all the great gothic horror Universal did, inspired by German expressionism.  Then in the 50's, you had a strong sci-fi movement with the likes of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  That movie is such a great metaphor for a group mentality--it can be political beliefs or religious beliefs that run amok.  You see that similar paradigm in Romero films--how a new society comes along and eats the old one.

On the modern front, well--he's been at it for a long time--Dario Argento has influenced me.  He's a camera prodigy, and it's easy to watch his films with amazement just listening to the throbbing soundtrack and wondering what clever shot comes next--or what the next death scene will look like.  Again, atmosphere.  In horror, atmosphere can never be overstated. 

There's been a whole wave of transgressive films made outside the US.  Audition, Taxidermia, Martyrs, just to name a few.  The horror film has suffered in the US, especially in the mainstream, because filmmakers are so intent on bringing foreign horror to the American screen.  This is so hard to do, I think, because horror films--well, really, film in general--tend to be products of a period and culture.  You take that piece away, and it's just not going to resonate with viewers.  You look at something like Audition (brilliant horror film, by the way). At its core, isn't it really about a Patriarchal mindset getting its comeuppance? I don't know that that particular theme has much traction in contemporary American society.  

That said, we're seeing some really good independent films made in and around America:  Insidious, Absentia, and Excision come to mind.  

4.  What are a few real world horrific events from history, from the news, that have truly shocked or horrified you, and what have you mulled-over in your mind regarding the nature of Evil as it truly exists in the world today?

R.P.:  I find the Inquisition pretty horrifying, and it's even more horrifying that the Roman Catholic church continues to disavow it.  There are some Inquisition elements in Mirrors of Anguish.  The antagonist believes that religion has perverted the human race, and he aims to use some instruments from the Inquisition to prove his point.  

I've studied serial killers and they continue to amaze me.  They're kind of anomalies in our society, and they can be difficult to catch.  It's as though their societal instincts have been put to bed by their primitive instincts. 

An interesting book that takes a look at the constant battle between civilization and instinct is "The Lucifer Principle."  You could label it as a psychological view of history.  

I'm frightened that so many people in today's world tend to believe what politicians tell them--or what the media tells them. If there were a race of body-snatchers from another planet, I don't think they need to go so  far as to replace everyone with pod people.  No, I think they could simply feed our citizens mountains of political rhetoric.  That's scary to me, I think we take our freedom for granted.  

5.  What insight would you share into what motivates your writing or how you tend to work your way through "process" in developing one of your stories?

R.P.:   Well Mirrors, at least the early version, was a sand-box.  I started to write this story in the pre-Internet era, and it just wasn't easy to interact with other writers--or if it was, I didn't know how.  It was pure creative exercise, not different from painting or music.  There was never a point where I said, "You know what, I really love writing."  It wasn't that way at all.  Writing is simply the creative endeavor that I've stuck with the longest.  But I digress.

I refined my writing process when I came back from hiatus to finish the book.  I'm a pure "pantser" which is to say I don't plan anything--well, unless you count that seed of a story idea, generally, a thing that can be written in a single sentence.  I do spend a lot of time developing the characters--though sometimes I get to know these people as the story progresses.  Character is everything; when I read a book, I care about the characters, not the story.  The reason is that I've seen the same story before--or one very similar. The people  that populate the world, though, they are the elements that set each book apart.  This is probably why I don't spend much time reading plot-based genres.  I've also found that readers who prefer plot-based books won't like my writing very much.  A great novel, at least in my opinion, is a character journey.  It isn't a systematic plot so much as a set of choices the characters make.  Plot-based writing may be more tightly structured, but it's also less organic. 

So I embark on this long, blind journey.  I discover my own stories the same way a reader does.  After two drafts, I always start to see patterns--these are the themes.  They always end up there subconsciously, and it's our job as writers to illuminate them. 

Editing poses the biggest challenge.  I tend to do this in passes.  For instance, I might make one pass for verbs, another pass for punctuation and so on.  If I try to edit twenty things at once, I become overwhelmed.  I do tend to dislike editing to the extent that, when I complete a second or third draft of a book, my brain wants to move on to another story instead of polishing the one I just finished. So it's a persistent battle.

6.  What can you share with Readers and Writers, regarding the catalyst or influential events which brought Immortal Ink Publishing together and the effects your publishing label's had on your own development?

R.P.:  Rebecca Hamilton and I met about four or five years ago, I think, and we really made a strong creative connection right away.  At some point, we had talked about doing this literary journal, but that never came to fruition because we were both busy with other things.  

When we were both about ready to publish our first books, she came to me and asked me about starting our own publishing house.  I hesitated at first, but then Immortal Ink Publishing came to fruition.  

It's opened my eyes to a number of things.  Some writers won't want to hear this but aesthetics and surface details are important, if you aim to succeed.  The cover, the pitch, the manner in which the writer presents both the book and the writer's self--these things are important if you want to succeed.  In fact, success relates more closely to presentation than to content, in my opinion.  There are few exceptions to that rule.

7.  What is the title of the book you are currently writing or revising, and would you give Readers a sneak-peak pitch, as to what we can expect from that story, arriving next from R.P. Kraul?

R.P.: I have written two other books:  "Demon of the Fall," and "Gates of Perdition."  

"Demon of the Fall" is a gritty, noirish horror story set in a small town with a demonic presence.  The two primary characters are career criminals--and they also happen to despise each other.  So there are these two dangerous characters trying to kill each other--couple that with a small town's demonic presence, and one that goes back to the Civil War. With Demon, I wanted to write something that was fun, something that reaches back to the E.C. comics of the mid-twentieth century.  

"Gates of Perdition" is the prequel to "Mirrors of Anguish."  I believe it is more complex, more literary, and with a bigger cast of characters.

Both books require major revision and editing, so I can't say when either will be published.  It will be sometime in 2013, I imagine, though my workload is such that it's impossible to say whether it will be one of them or both.  I do think "Demon of the Fall" would be a good Halloween release, so that may play into the plan as well.  

Andre--thank you very much for the opportunity to express myself...err, babble.

Are you kidding?  This is a Rock n' Roll companion to your review! Thank you, R.P. Kraul, for one horror EPIC interview!