Linnea Sinclair Day 2 - The Interview

Linnea's back for another day at the island! These are answers to all the questions you awesome DIK ladies sent in so enjoy!!

Is Ren ever going to get a HEA?
At this very moment, I have no idea. Ren’s essentially only nineteen or twenty years old. That’s rather young for a male protagonist in my books. I like my male characters a bit more “seasoned,” shall we say. Personally, yes, I think he does because that’s the kind of optimistic person I am. But I don’t know if it will become a book within the next two to three years.


What are your plans for the future? Any other HEA's from previous books?
Well, as I write this a tropical storm is making a bee-line for my house in southwest Florida, my house here in Ohio is torn apart due to a pipe bursting behind the walls and flooding of the downstairs hallways, and I’m in a hellacious deadline for Hope’s Folly. So my immediate future plans seem to involve lots of water and typing. By the time you all read this, all that should have passed—successfully I hope—and my brain will be back in some semblance of normalcy (ie: mayhem).

The only two books currently under contract are Hope’s Folly, which is a continuation of Admiral Philip Guthrie’s story and the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, and another book set in that same universe. The latter is untitled and though I have a possible plot idea, nothing is yet formalized.
After that…I have bunches of ideas. I always have bunches of ideas. Some my agent and my editor get excited about. Some they say, “eh?” Some ideas are ones I’ve had for over twenty years. Some just show up in the middle of the night, wrenching me out of my sleep (the husband says it’s menopause…I say it’s creativity).

My publisher has not asked that I return to any other previous universes and characters, other than their interest in Folly and the subsequent book. Readers have asked about Sass and Branden (and Tank) from Games of Command. I’ve not received any indication of interest in that from my publisher. It doesn’t mean it won’t happen—it means the people who sign my paycheck aren’t requesting that right now. How’s that for a long way of saying I haven’t a clue in a bucket?

Are you going to continue to write in this genre or branch out?
I’m seriously considering writing some romantic suspense, being I have decent street cred as a retired private detective. I’ve heard varying reports that the rom suspense field is overburdened and others that state there’s room to grow there.

My problem is—and this rather adds to my answer to the previous question—I have to write the story of the character who screams the loudest. If you’d asked me, last year, if I’d ever write Philip Guthrie’s story, I’d likely have given you a resounding no. Last year, Philip wasn’t talking to me. This year, he wouldn’t leave me alone (evidently Sully must have told him how to push my buttons). I can’t write to formula and I can’t write to order. If the characters don’t incite me to riot, I can’t write them.

Given that, I’m waiting for a couple of characters—PIs, cops, reporters—that populate rom suspense plotlines to make themselves known to me. Once that happens, yes, I’ll branch out.

I will continue, regardless, to write SFR. For reasons behind my control, when most of the characters walk into my office, they have just walked off a starship. I don’t see that changing any time in the near future.

How do you come up with your ideas?
A character walks into my office and demands—sometimes at gun point—that I write his or her story. That’s pretty much the gist of it. Sometimes they’re ushered in by a line in a song or something I see in the news. Sometimes it’s something I overhear in a bar or a restaurant. Sometimes there’s no salient reason. They just are there.
All stories do start, though, with a “what if?” But the what-if, for me, is vacant without a character to wrap it around.


What about research? How do you figure out cultures and planets?
I have several excellent how-to books on creating planets and other things requisite to alternate star systems. Unfortunately, as I sit here in Ohio, those books are on my office bookshelf back in Florida so I’m going to have to give you incomplete citations. But ones I’ve found not only helpful but terrific fun to read are by Dr Jeanne Cavelos and by Lawrence Krauss. The Science of Star Wars, The Physics of Star Trek and so on. Both authors give you workable examples of how to build everything you need for an SF story or movie—and also how NOT to do it. Why certain concepts work, why others don’t. And since they use Star Trek or Star Wars as the basis, the books are a hoot to read.

I also have the more scholarly tomes by Ben Bova and others for when I need to get accurately technical. And Google is my friend. I use NASA’s site, I use the Discovery channel’s site, I use just about any site you can think of, including SF RPG and other gamer sites (the latter tend to have excellent starship schematics).

For the “soft” sciences and cultures, I use our own world. I use news stories. I use features on other cultures and religions. We have a very vast and varied planet here, if you keep your eyes open. We have primitive cultures yet today in the Amazon, in Africa, in the Pacific Rim. We have advances being made in criminal profiling and understanding the psyche of the serial killer. We have a variety of religions. We have the Amish who exist in a time warp in America. We have followers who speak in tongues. We have believers who see a deceased SF author as a religious icon. We have our superstitions, our holidays, our quirks, our foibles.

I’ve studied the etymology of swearing. We denigrate the sexual act, defecation and bodily orifices. Amazing, when you step back and look at it critically.

What is the world-building process like, do you ever "fight" with your characters, etc.?
Those are actually two rather disparate questions: world building and fighting with characters. I’ll answer the easier one first: No, I don’t really fight with my characters. They know more than I do. I try to listen. The problems come with I don’t listen closely enough. If I listen—really, really listen—then everything comes through just fine. The best example of that is the thirty four days I listened to Chaz and Sully. That generated in those same thirty four days an entire novel.

World building—well, I’ve taught month long classes in that and blogged quite a bit on the subject as well. My world building isn’t essentially all that different from most other SFF authors. If there is one thing I do a bit more strongly or a bit more a la Linnea, it’s that I interweave my characterization from my world building. Just as I believe we’re influenced by our environments here, my characters are influenced by theirs. Are they religious or atheists? Do they embrace the local culture or rebel against it? Are they educated? What kind of education is possible based on who and what they are? Are they space-faring? If so, how does that affect their world-view as well as their personal ethics? Things like that. How my characters view their ability to love or succeed is based to a great extent on the family, the village, the space station they called home. It’s based on their family dynamics and how their culture views family.

Check out:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/08/alien-culture-club.html and
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/02/whose-world-is-this-anyway.html

Some of these things I know from the outset as I’ve spent time ruminating about the main characters before I write them. I “try them on for size” so to speak . Being with them, as them, I start to break down their reactions, their fears, their experiences, all based on where they’re from and where they are now.

Then when I get a good idea of how they feel about their city, space station, job, family, village, school or whatever, I step back and try to take a broader view of their situation, their culture, their locale. IE: They may worship a particular deity but overall that religion may be stifling the populace. I need to be aware of both sides of the story. I need to know how that religion evolved and why it’s still functional if it’s so oppressive. And I have to look at how my characters relate to it, and why. A lot of this won’t be detailed at all in the story. But it’s detailed in my mind as I understand the reasons my characters do what they do. That doesn’t mean things don’t surprise me. They do. I don’t understand myself fully and I’ve been me for over fifty years. Most of my characters are younger than that and I don’t expect them to have any super-human insights into themselves. They bumble around a bit just as we all do. I just watch their bumbling a lot closer than I do my own.

How important is it to make sure the romance and action is balanced?
I’m less concerned with whether the action and romance are balanced than I am with the balance of the overall story. I won’t write action just to have action and I won’t write romance just to have romance. Each story and each set of characters are unique as to what they have of each. Characters who’ve been together for a long time will have different romantic expectations and experiences than characters who’ve just met.

Cars flying over cliffs or starships crashing into asteroids for no salient reasons are useless unless those things are critical to the plot and logical escalation of conflict. I don’t think, “Oh, I need an explosion here.” I DO think, “What else can logically happen here to make things more difficult for my protagonists to achieve their goal?” The key is logically. I learned tons about conflict vs complication from noted SF author, Jacqueline Lichtenberg. Basically I use her and agent Donald “Writing the Breakout Novel” Maass’ advice when it comes to escalating action and tension.
Try:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=114747903&blogID=282711184
http://www.rwaonlinechapter.org/pubbedauthors/2008/08/11/i-learned-about-writing-conflict-from-that/from-that/

Who is your favorite hero or heroine of yours?
Oh, good heavens. That’s a tough one. Generally it’s the one I’m writing at the moment so right now that would be Philip Guthrie and Rya Bennton. But I adored Theo “The Down Home Zombie Blues” Petrakos when I was writing him and I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Branden “Games of Command” Kel-Paten. And Tank the Furzel.

Trilby Elliot in “Finders Keepers” was great fun and probably the character who most has my mouth. Although Sass…well, yes. There’s Sass. We really can’t get into the whys and wherefores of Tasha “Sass” Sebastian…or I’d have to kill you. So let’s leave it at Tank the Furzel. Daq Cat agrees that’s the best answer.


I know Shades of Dark released this year. For those who have never read you, tell readers what they can expect from this story.
Shades of Dark picks up about three to four months after Gabriel’s Ghost leaves off. Chaz and Sully are still looking for the labs that breed the mutant monsters—jukors—that they fear the Empire is going to use to create a civil war. But they know now that the problem is deeper than it first appeared—they need help. Help does come but then then so do new troubles—troubles that may change Chaz’s and Sully’s relationship forever.

Shades is an intense read, quite action-packed and highly emotional. Sully’s Kyi powers are growing and now encompasses Chaz, ramping up their relationship but also adding a new element. Obviously, I’m trying to dance around spoilers here… but suffice it to say that though their love is sorely and deeply tested, love does triumph in the end.

Shades received not only a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly but also Romantic Times’ magazine’s highest rating of four-and-a-half stars: "Chaz and Sully are back, and their lives haven't gotten any easier! Picking up after Gabriel's Ghost, the singularly impressive Sinclair thrusts her dynamic lovers into a maelstrom of trouble. The first-person, high-octane action is exhilarating. When it comes to futuristic romance, it doesn't get better than Sinclair!”

It was also a Top Pick at Romance Reader at Heart: "SHADES OF DARK is a romantic, science fiction roller coaster. If you like intricate plots and fascinating characters, you will love Sinclair's latest, the sequel to GABRIEL'S GHOST. ..Sinclair has done a spectacular job of world and character building with this book." —Heather Hiestand , Romance Reader at Heart

Please tell us a little about your upcoming 2009 releases.

In February 2009 Bantam will release Hope’s Folly, which is the third book in the Dock Five series that started with Gabriel’s Ghost. Folly is Admiral Philip Guthrie’s story. Philip is Chaz’s ex-husband, and while in Gabriel’s he straddled the fence between being a hero and being an obstacle, in Shades he has quite a lot happen to him, and as one blogger noted, is starting to sport his hero duds. He’s blossomed into a take-control, very sexy man and in Folly, he faces one of the toughest challenges of his life:

It's an impossible mission on a derelict ship called HOPE'S FOLLY. A man who feels he can't love. A woman who believes she's unlovable. And an enemy who will stop at nothing to crush them both. Admiral Philip Guthrie is in an unprecedented position: on the wrong end of the law, leading a rag-tag band of rebels against the oppressive Imperial forces. Or would be, if he can reach his command ship—the intriguingly named Hope’s Folly—alive. Not much can rattle Philip’s legendary cool—but the woman who helps him foil an assassination attempt on Kirro Station will. She’s the daughter of his best friend and first commander—a man who died while under Philip’s command, and whose death is on Philip’s conscience.

Rya Bennton has been in love with Philip Guthrie since she was a girl. But can her childhood fantasies survive an encounter with the hardened man, and newly-minted rebel leader, who it seems has just become her new commanding officer? And will she still be willing follow him through the jaw of hell once she learns the truth about her father’s death?

Thanks for the great interview Linnea! Please come back tomorrow for Linnea's last day here!!