Q1 Hello, can you please introduce yourself?
Hello! My name is Stephen David Curtis, and I am the author of the supernatural thriller: Circle of Innocents. I must confess this is a little strange for me, as I am not one who generally enjoys talking about himself, but on this occasion I will make an exception!
I suppose the best place to start would be the place of my birth, which happens to be the city of Chelmsford, in Essex, a county in the South East of England. This was where I was to spend the first four years of my life before moving with my family to Letchworth, a small town located just thirty miles north of London in North Hertfordshire.
With the exception of the past two years where I have been a resident of Cambridgeshire, the North Hertfordshire area is where I have spent the vast majority of my living years. I was educated there, I grew up there, and I worked there, so I guess it should come as no surprise that North Hertfordshire would have ended up being the setting for Circle of Innocents.
I left school (having had a standard, state education) at the age of sixteen, choosing to go into full time employment rather than stay on to get further qualifications, or go on to college or university. As a consequence, I don’t have a degree or letters after my name, but I do sign up to being a graduate of the “University of Life”. I been very fortunate in my fifty-nine years on this wonderful planet to have known some amazing people, some of whom were musicians, and it is to these individuals that I have to give thanks for the four decades I spent in the music industry as a performing artist, guitarist, songwriter, and lyricist.
Poetry and creative writing were a part of my school life. It was a means of escape in some ways, but I also learnt the true power of the written word at the same time. This would morph into writing lyrics as my musical career began to take shape, the emotivity of words combined with the power of music. I guess the passion I felt then still burns inside me, and, undoubtedly, it always will, but my pathway has since changed, and I shall leave that particular road to now be travelled by my two grown-up children, because yep, you guessed it…this Old Rocker’s, Rock ‘n’ Roll genes have managed to find their way into his offspring! My twenty-three-year-old daughter, is a singer, songwriter and performer, and my twenty-seven-year-old son, is an extremely gifted guitarist and graphic artist. They are two, truly talented young people, and I am immensely proud of them.
Well, that’s pretty-much me in a nutshell. I could have gone into more detail about being a keen golfer and budding bonsai artist as well, but you might well have lost interest by then!
You’re still with me, though, aren’t you…?
Great! Let’s see what else might be about to come out!
Q2 What were the key challenges you faced while writing CIRCLE OF INNOCENTS: It Must Remain Unbroken…?
That’s a very good question…
To begin with, the biggest challenge I had to face was the fact I had never written a book before! Sure, I had an idea for a story and I knew I had an imagination, but where the heck was I even going to begin?
Oddly, the beginning came about by writing what I perceived would be a likely end to the story. By getting a feeling as to where the book was going, I was able to form the skeletal plot onto which I could slowly add the flesh of developing characters, twists and subplots.
And developing those characters and making them all relatable was another challenge. In life, everybody we meet has a backstory, a reason why they are the way they are. Life’s experiences shape us, and it should be the same for fictitious characters in a book. Making every character in a story as strong as possible is vital. Characters are often the heart and soul of a book, making us react to them as we embark upon their respective journeys. Authors can make us feel what their characters are going through, and the words on a page can almost make us feel that we are even looking through a character’s eyes.
In truth I learnt pretty-much as I went along to begin with, planning one chapter at a time, and then I came upon the challenge of continuity. What we write in one chapter will affect what might happen later on, and if we decide to strengthen an earlier scene or idea, then we really have to think very hard about the consequences further down the line. Not being a full-time writer, there were days when I didn’t write at all, I had to pick the thread back up again, and sometimes this could be problematical. There might well be other authors reading this right now, tearing their hair out about my probable total lack of professionalism, but this was my very first attempt at creating a novel, and the point I want to make is that I improved considerably as I wrote. Once I was into the flow, the characters developed along with the story, and the writing became easier.
Q3 What books or authors have influenced your own writing?
If you are asking if any author or book has directly influenced my writing style, then I would have to say no, but I do have a penchant for reading Supernatural / Horror Thrillers, which is undoubtedly the reason why I ended up writing such a novel, myself!
James Herbert is the first author I read from that genre when I was a very young man. I remember reading a number of his books: The Rats, The Lair, The Fog, and The Survivor among several others.
The number of books by Steven King that I have read since are too numerous to mention, and then there is Clive Barker and Dean Koontz, two more incredible authors whose works I have always considered being nothing short of exceptional.
To be able to write as prolifically as all these famous names, and as consistently well, is something to which I can only aspire, so I would accept that my aspirations to attain those self-same levels of creativity, is, in itself, because of the influence that those great writers have had upon me.
Q4 What’s your favourite spot to visit in your own country? And what makes it so special to you?
To narrow the beauty of the British Isles down to one favourite spot is nigh on impossible for me. For one thing, as an island, we have thousands of miles of coastline, some of which is nothing short of spectacular. Then, of course, there is the Peak District, the Lake District, Snowdonia in Wales, and the magnificent Scottish Highlands among many other sites too numerous to list right here.
But one stretch of England I once visited did have a very profound effect upon me, and what I am about to say may well surprise a few people. I am talking about The Ridgeway, a prehistoric trail and broad track in the south of England once used by ancient travellers, traders and herdsmen. The trail runs for eighty-seven miles from Avebury in Wiltshire (site of the famous Avebury Ring), to Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire, passing through the North Wessex downs, and the woodlands and valleys of the Chiltern Hills along its way. I travelled the very same route that my ancient stone age and bronze age ancestors had taken up to four thousand years before, and the experience was truly humbling. To walk in their prehistoric footsteps, to see what they had built with their bare hands, see how they had lived and died, and then learn that they were far more advanced than was once believed, filled me with a sense of wonder and incredible pride. Britain is an ancient country steeped in ancient history, and during the days I travelled The Ridgeway, with its stunning views and breathtaking scenery, I could almost feel that I was a part of it.
I really MUST do that again…
Q5 What inspired you to write ‘CIRCLE OF INNOCENTS: It Must Remain Unbroken…’?
Oh, how I would love to say that it was a flash of inspiration, an overpowering, all-consuming moment of enlightenment that meant it was something I just had to do…
But it wasn’t…
The idea came about in the most bizarre way, during one of those deep conversations that we often have at the end of a night out, or at the winding down bit of a party when we’re all a little worse for wear, and we start to become strangely philosophical. I just happened to come out with something, just put something out there, and one of my friends said in reply: ‘That sounds like a bloody good idea for a book…’
And look what happened!
Q6 How long did it take you to write the book ‘CIRCLE OF INNOCENTS: It Must Remain Unbroken…’?
Just over two years of blood, sweat… and, at times, total frustration. But I enjoyed every bit of it, and I will be more than happy to go through it all again when I start writing my next novel!
Q7 On what platform can readers buy the book?
The book is on sale via Amazon in paperback, hardback and eBook formats.
I hope to have an audio version available at some point in the future, but as we speak, this is only at the mulling-things-over stage.
Q8 Tell us about the process of coming up with the book cover and the title ‘CIRCLE OF INNOCENTS: It Must Remain Unbroken…’?
You really do ask some seriously good questions, and I am going to have to be really careful here not to slip up and reveal any spoilers!
Both the cover and the title relate heavily to the story. Without going into too much detail, the child is very significant, and is also a powerful, eye-catching image in its own right. I had an idea for the cover in my head, and my son came up with a design along the lines of my mental image. Kindle Publishing took that design and improved it further, turning it into the stunning cover you see today.
Circle of Innocents is a title that just occurred to me during the writing of the novel. There had, in fact, been two previous working titles, but as I was working on the manuscript, the true relationship between what I was writing and what the book should be called, suddenly became very apparent in some of the dialogue. One of the characters referred to a group of people with a shared purpose as a “Circle”. That same character then began to speak of those very same people as “Innocents” and that is how the title of the book: Circle of Innocents came about. The tag line: It Must Remain Unbroken… is a reference to the group needing to stand together.
And that’s all you’re going to get out of me on that one!
Q9 When writing a book how do you keep things fresh, for both your readers and yourself?
Another very good question!
I found that the book was always fresh to me while I was writing it. That was, of course, because I knew where I was going with the story, and every word, sentence and phrase were all steps towards that end. I knew that pace was going to be key with Circle of Innocents, not just with the pedal to the metal stuff, but that it would also require some quieter moments for character and plot development, which would, in turn, add even greater impact to the scenes where the pace was to increase again. In my own experience of reading real page-turning novels that are difficult to put down, I found myself being immersed in worlds where every turn of a page contained a need for me to want to know more, and a desire to find out what might be about to happen next. When an authors achieves that, their book will remain fresh for the reader from beginning to end.
Q10 What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve ever been given about writing?
The most valuable piece of advice I’ve ever been given about writing a book, stressed the importance of its opening. I was told to imagine somebody in a book shop picking up my book. They said that the first line of my book should be the best line I have ever written, that the first line should make that person read the first paragraph, and that the first paragraph should make them want to get to the end of the first page. If I could achieve that, they said, then the person holding my book would probably go and buy it!
Of course there is far more to a book that than just its first page, but from a strong opening, a strong story should inevitably follow. A the beginning of this interview I spoke about writing the end of Circle of Innocents first. I can honestly say that the opening line took much longer because of its significance!
That piece of freely given advice will stay with me for as long as I am an author, because its importance cannot be overstated. All I know is that somebody reading this interview might be itching to write their own book, and it has been a pleasure for me to share that little gem with whoever that may be. If I can do this, believe me, so can they.
In fact, this entire interview has been an absolute pleasure for me. Thank you, Monica for giving me the opportunity to connect with your followers and subscribers, and to those who feel that they might wish to give Circle of Innocents a try, I say that I sincerely hope you will enjoy reading it every bit as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Buy Circle of Innocents on Amazon
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