Big Cranky: Fall Into Darkness by James Pyne Genre: Dark Mythological Fantasy, Action

• What are your top 10 favorite books/authors?

I would say my all-time favorite author is John Gardner (Grendel, Sunlight Dialogues). Clive Barker is up there. Favorite books not necessarily in order after top three. Without a doubt missing tons.

1: A tie between the books Grendel and Sunlight Dialogues by John Gardner.

2: The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky

3 The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker, though his books Imajica and Weaveworld aren’t far off.

4: Hunger by Knut Hamsun

5: The Gunslinger by Stephen King

6:  The Tin Drum by Günter Grass

7: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

8: The Trial by Franz Kafka

9: In Evil Hour or One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

10: The Mountain and the Valley by Ernest Buckler

 And hundreds of honorable mentions.

• What book do you think everyone should read?

The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky.

• Do the characters all come to you at the same time or do some of them come to you as you write?

They come when they are ready. They are gentle with me like that . . . slowly introducing themselves to me, allowing other characters to be fleshed out first.

• What kind of research do you do before you begin writing a book?

I don’t think I have done research in preparation for any book. I’ll do it during the process while getting to know my characters.

• Do you see writing as a career?

I would love to quit my day job and do it for a career.

• What do you think about the current publishing market?

I have been seeing an alarming pattern where if one writer doesn’t agree with the politics of another group of writers, and that group has serious pull, they will blacklist that writer. I also see a lot of writers / publishers flying the banner of different forms of censorship. We’re writers. We’re supposed to be against censorship not shout for it.

• Do you read and if so, what is your favorite genre?

If it’s dark in some way and has a message of morality, I will more than likely enjoy it. I go from literary to horror and everything in between.

• Do you prefer to write in silence or with noise? Why?

Depends. Silence is preferred but I do enjoy those epic music compilations people put up, the ones they get from movies. Not loud, just in low in the background like a coming storm.

An example: youtu.be/Jc7yFqYBJKo

• Do you write one book at a time or do you have several going at a time?

I presently have three going.

• If you could have been the author of any book ever written, which book would you choose?

I wish I was immortal so I could take credit for all the greatest books ever written. If I had to choose, The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. Or Sunlight Dialogues by John Gardner. Both have so much going on. True legends.

• Pen or type writer or computer?

Laptop all the way.

• Tell us about a favorite character from a book.

There’s a few. I really liked Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. What a nasty piece of business he was.

• Advice they would give new authors?

Read all genres. Embrace criticism. Write every day.

• Describe your writing style.

No nonsense. Get to the point. Like many in this fast-paced world, I have a short attention span. I like to think myself as literary with a mix of most genres. But that’s my opinion. I would love to hear what others have to say.

• What makes a good story?

Entertain. Should garner an emotional response from the reader. In my opinion, the writer has failed if both aren’t achieved.

• What are you currently reading?

One Thousand and One Nights.

• What is your writing process? For instance, do you do an outline first? Do you do the chapters first? What are common traps for aspiring writers?

There are two types of writers. Plotters and pantsers. I am a pantser. No plotting. I just write what comes to mind. One of the worst things a writer can do is be fussy during the first few drafts. Especially the first draft. I bet a lot of potential good books never happened because would-be writers spent too much time on perfecting sentences during the first draft. Just write it down. Don’t worry about grammar or typos. You got this.

• What is your writing Kryptonite?

Plotting. I am with King and Atwood on this. But it would be my glaring weakness. Picking up on my glaring typos jumping up and down at me would be another one.

• Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?

If I force it, not going to happen. If a fan base asked for a certain character to be represented, then yes, I could run with that and see where it takes me.

• If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?

Stop trying to be the next Hemingway. Just do you.

• What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex?

I have been blessed with honest female friends and they’ve unknowingly helped with my female characters, but in the end, I’m a guy, and will at some point misrepresent.

• How long on average does it take you to write a book?

I wrote the first draft of Book 3 of Big Cranky in about a month. That includes day job and everyday life things. That took me to about 70,000 words. Now on my third draft, Book 3 runs at almost 130,000 words.

• Do you believe in writer’s block?

To an extent. An example would be, if you focus on perfect sentences during the first draft, slowly moving along, you’re most likely going to hit a roadblock. Now go freestyle and speed forward and plow through that roadblock like a boss.

Forget everything you think you know about myths and legends, James Pyne’s Big Cranky connects them all in an epic web of deceitful betrayal, love, and loyalty. A capricious tale of gods, showing human quirks are not only wasted on the mortals. A tale of many deities treading lightly around a superior as the world begins.

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James Pyne hails from Nova Scotia, Canada, and has been a scribe for the Universe much of his life. He's a firm believer in being able to write in every genre, to make his world building and characters hopefuly come out genuine. No matter what he writes it will have some form of darkness, nothing is pure light in any worlds James creates and rumor has it, his surviving characters are plotting his demise. When it comes to his past time, much of it is spent learning the craft, but he does enjoy gardening and playfully tormenting those he loves. When he's not writing, or working his day job, he's traveling. The Andalusia region of Spain the last place that tolerated him. 
Favorite authors: John Gardner (Grendel, Sunlight Dialogues). Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Brothers Karamazov). Clive Barker (Imajica, Weaveworld, Books of Blood). Terry Pratchett (Good Omens, Bad Omens). J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings). And all the scribes who carried on the tradition of myths throughout the ages.

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