Jesus Boy, Bounce, and All or Nothing

Q: I have read three of your novels now and I enjoyed them all, Bounce, All or Nothing, and now Jesus Boy. I cannot believe that the same person wrote all three books. In Bounce, you write from the point of view of a Dominican teenaged woman, in All or Nothing, you are an insane gambling addicted guy, and in Jesus Boy you are this little Christian piano player. What I enjoyed about them all is that each character tells their story honestly and passionately, but how do you write as a worldly very sexual woman in one book and then write as a young christian man in the next one and make them both believable? I think you would be a very interesting person to meet.

A: Good question. I think I can answer this one because I have been thinking a lot lately about how I do what I do.

I think that my strength as a writer is in my ability to depict or present character compellingly. At any rate, for the most part, my stories are character driven, rather than plot driven. This being said, I approach character in two ways--from the outside and from the inside.

Let's start with the outside, which I do less frequently. When I present character from the outside, I know how he/she looks, talks, feels, sounds. I know his/her thoughts. A character like this is one that I can easily deposit into a plot. So when I have a really dynamite plot, I generally put a character of this type into it. I have done this a few times with short stories, none of which I felt was strong enough to bother submitting for publication. Thus far, I have not done it with a novel.

When I present a character from the inside, I become the character. I am Elwyn in Jesus Boy. I am P in All or Nothing. I am Cindique in Bounce. I could write about them, or write AS them, even if I weren't telling a story.

It has happened several times after I have done a reading that someone has come up to me and asked, "Are you an actor?"

I'm not, but I am performing a script that is . . . me.

My characters, I think, tend to be passionate because I will not tell their story until I know what makes them tick, until I know what they are passionate about. In every story of that sort, I can point to the sections where the character just lets go and reveals who he/she is. For me, these are the easiest and most rewarding scenes to write. The character just lets her rip. I kinda like go into a zone at this point, typing like mad to get it all down on paper. I'm thinking of Cindique where she reveals that she still loves her husband despite the abuse. I'm thinking of P in All or Nothing when he goes to GA and the meeting goes crazy because he starts fantasizing loudly about gambling--actually, I'm thinking of P in too many places--P does it a lot. I'm thinking of Elwyn in Jesus Boy when he admits he has fallen in love with Rev. Jed's daughter but realizes that such a love is doomed because his true love is with Sister Morrisohn. Stuff like that.

What I think unites my characters in all of my books is that they are prisoners in their tragic little worlds and they are self aware enough and brave enough to admit it to the reader.

So once I have a character like that, a character that is so interesting or compelling that you would be willing to spend several hundred pages with him/her, all I have to do is ask the character, "What is your story? Tell me your story."

A character like that provides each story with its own particular style and voice. You pick up the book and it just oozes with the essence of Elwyn or Cindique or P. There is no generic kind of narrative going on. The book reads unique. The book feels unique. P has to tell the story the way he tells it because he is P. Elwyn is Elwyn. I like the way he talks. I like what he is talking about. The story tells itself in its own effective way. That's why I like books like A Clockwork Orange, Charlie (Flowers for Algernon), The Color Purple, and Push (by Sapphire). I like the way they talk, I like what they are talking about. And I mean, you don't have to be extreme like some of the examples I am giving. My characters are not illiterate, nor do they live in a distopian future and speak Russo-English. But the way they speak, once I have discovered it, is crucial to the story they are telling and how it will sound in the reader's ear. Like I said, the story tells itself. It's so beautiful. It's magical. Plot is the real work in a case like this. Plot comes later. Once the magic is in place, it's time to get to work. Plot takes work.

Thanks,

Preston