Interview with Author David Keck, Part Two

David Keck, author of In the Eye of Heaven, has graciously answered my questions on writing and publishing. I enjoyed his responses very much. David is a Canadian, currently residing in New York, where he teaches at a Junior High. In the Eye of Heaven was published by Tor Books on April 4, 2006, and is available in paperback as of March 6, 2007.

About "In The Eye of Heaven"

Mary: What is the target audience for your book?

David: Like most writers, I can only write what I like. I'm a reader who has a terrible sweet tooth for traditional fantasy, but whose patience for paint-by-numbers characters and settings is just plain worn out. I want stories that feel real to me. I want to be surprised. I want to be challenged. I want the language to have a little life in it. If I succeed, I'm giving the readers what I want.

Mary: What makes your story unique?

David: A lot of reviewers have talked about the grittiness of the setting. (And it is faintly odd to think of realism in a land of fiends and sorcerers). But that's what I want to do. The world needs fleas and omens if it's to feel real. Maybe we're not in the real world, but we might be in world as people imagined it to be.

Mary: What was the hardest part of world creation?

David: World creation is a pure joy. I've spent years and thousands on it. I've spent vacations climbing castles and hunting for henges. When I was poorer, I spent days in libraries. Now that I've got a day job, I keep the booksellers in business. In my work, the only difficult area is making sure not to lose the reader. I often mention Patrick O'Brian's nautical fiction when I talk about world building. The man filled his pages with impenetrable jargon, but, somehow, managed to haul his readers in. As a reader, I never doubted his world for an instant.

Now, fantasy readers would likely be less patient with a real barrage of historical accurate terminology. Still, I want the readers to know that the world around the characters isn't full of borrowed backdrops and worn props. It needs to feel real.

Mary: Does the protagonist, Durand, share any characteristics with you?

David: I suppose Durand does share a thing or two with me. When I first began the book, we were both at the beginnings of our careers and very uncertain about whether we'd ever be able to find our feet. It might also be said that my Durand is a person very concerned about ethics, and such issues must be in my thoughts as well (or I would hardly have built a novel on a character like Durand). Sadly, however, I don't think I would have gone very far in the world of professional thugs and honorable killers.

Mary: Is there a message in your novel?

David: I haven't thought much about whether there might be a message in my writing. I think that novel-length work can deal with various themes and issues, but that it's hard for a satisfying work of that scale to send a single message. A reader could probably see evidence of my thinking about a great many of life's issues if that reader cared to look.

Mary: I notice you have sketches of your main characters on your website. Do you draw the picture and then use it to create a character, or is the sketch done after a character is developed?

David: Drawing is something I've been doing since before I can remember, and it's a big part of my thinking process. I often begin with an image and try to capture it on paper (just as I'll later try to wrestle the image onto paper). You will have no idea how long I will have obsessed over some detail of a character's appearance. The trouble with writing, of course, is that you can only gesture toward such details. I think that a writer has to be careful to choose only the most telling details rather than stopping the narrative to provide an exhaustive portrait.

Check out what others have had to say about David's book at http://www.keckbooks.com/KindWords.html