What got you started in writing?
The short answer is “reading”. I love to read and have since I can remember. But what I found was that often a story wouldn’t turn out the way I hoped, or it took a direction different than I wanted it to. Not that it was necessarily bad, but I kept thinking, “how cool would it have been if ‘XYZ’ had happened instead of ‘ABC’?” So I started writing my own stories. Eventually, they didn’t suck anymore.
How many books have you published?
So far, I have five novels published:
*A MURDER OF SAINTS (1st Ed 2017, iUniverse, 2nd Ed 2018, Crimson Saint Press)
*THE HARD GOODBYE (2019, Death’s Head Press).
*THE DAMNED PLACE (2019, Black Bed Sheet Books).
*THE DAMNED ONES (2020, Black Bed Sheet Books).
*DUST: A SPLATTER WESTERN (2020, Death’s Head Press).
I also have a novella published and available:
*TRESPASS (2018, Deadman’s Tome).
What is your writing process like?
It always starts with an idea, or as is often the case with me, MULTIPLE ideas that all form together. Something will come to me and I’ll think, “Oh, that might be interesting to explore,” and I let it brew for a while. Sometimes they vanish from my mind, either not a very good story idea or it may just not be the right time. But quite often they grow and build and before you know it, there’s a great story emerging from the primordial idea soup. Once I have the main story together, the characters come next. Who is in this story? What’s their purpose? And so on. Once the characters are formed, I try to put something together to create a human conflict. Even when I’m writing about cosmic monsters, I still make sure to include a human villain, because that conflict between the characters is what roots the story somewhere the reader knows and understands, and creates an atmosphere where when the monsters come, they believe it. After all that is figured out, it’s time to start writing. I might make a list of characters and brief descriptions of their appearance, but little else. I don’t outline, I just scoot up to the keyboard and floor it. The characters tell me the story, and I write down what they say. So far, it works for me.
What’s next? Are you working on something new?
Oh, yes. I’m always working on something new. At the moment, I’m working on my first collection of short fiction, and it’s getting close to finished. I have several other ideas for novels and novellas I’ll be getting to just as soon as time allows. Of course, I’m always spitting out little short stories from time to time and some of those will be appearing in anthologies in the coming months. I’m always writing something.
Has any of your work been adapted for film or TV?
At the moment, no, but one of my published short stories is in talks for possible production. Can’t say more about it than that, so please don’t ask. If/when I can discuss it, I promise I will.
Is any of your work available in audiobook?
Yes, actually. My novels A MURDER OF SAINTS, THE HARD GOODBYE, THE DAMNED PLACE, and THE DAMNED ONES are all in audiobook on Audible, iTunes, and Amazon, and my novella TRESPASS is also currently available in all the same places. My short story FLUSHED is also available in audio, and you can find my short story IN THE HOUSE on audio with the KILLERS INSIDE anthology alongside some other great authors. That one is narrated by Paul D. Henry. CERBERUS RISING, the collection of nine novelettes from Cerberus (M. Ennenbach, Patrick C. Harrison III, and myself) is currently in production and should be out fall of 2020.
Where can people contact you?
I’m on all the major social media sites. You can like my author page on Facebook here, follow me on Twitter here, and on Instagram here. You can send a friend request to my personal Facebook page if you’re not a creepy freak, and I’ll probably accept it so long as I’m still under FBs arbitrary 5000 friends limit. If you want to send me a direct line, email me at authorchrismiller@gmail.com.
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Chris Miller 