Travis Thrasher is the author of a
dozen novels in several genres. He has written love stories (The Watermark, Three Roads
Home, Every Breath You Take), suspense
(Gun Lake, Admission, Blinded, Out of the Devil’s Mouth), drama (The Second Thief, Sky Blue), and supernatural thrillers (Isolation, Ghostwriter, Broken). His varied writing styles give
testament to his skill at the art of storytelling.
Even
though swamped with deadlines, Travis took the time out to answer a few
questions about his just-released novel from FaithWords called Broken. I want to thank Travis for
taking the time to answer my questions. Before we get on to the questions, I
will be giving away a copy of Broken
to one lucky person who comments on this interview. Just comment to enter, and
on Monday. May 17, at 11:59p ET, a winner shall be named.
TCC:
In my opinion, Broken is what I would call a Hosea story. Would you
agree?
I love that you call this a Hosea
story. When I hear that description, I of course think of Redeeming Love by
Francine Rivers (which many consider her defining work). I think this is a
great hook for Broken. Laila is really no different from anybody else,
but she feels like she's too tainted to be loved by anybody. Especially
God.
TCC: What served as your inspiration for writing this novel?
If there's one thing I can point to,
it's probably the birth of our daughter, Kylie. She is three and a half now.
After she was born, I had a story idea about a broken woman a lot like Laila.
In that initial idea, I had a few of the dark elements from Broken along
with some of the love story and father-daughter elements of Every Breath You
Take. That initial story idea didn't really work, but proved to be starting
points for the subsequent novels.
I wanted to write a story about a
woman who is beautiful on the outside and ugly on the inside. Sounds somewhat
cliched, but that was another starting point. Like any novel, the novel ended
up becoming something I could have never predicted or planned.
TCC: Broken is written in the present tense. What are the challenges of writing in that style consistently?
I love present tense. It's so
immediate, so intense. I deliberately tried to make Broken tight and no
nonsense. There are few interior thoughts in this story and almost no italics.
Present tense helps because it really puts you in the action. It's not as
natural of a style as third person past tense, but I've done it before and
enjoy it.
TCC: You’re a pretty busy man beyond this. What sort of projects are you working on and how are they faring?
I just completed a supernatural thriller which
is really cool. It's coming out next year. I'm reading through the galleys one
final time for Solitary, my first teen novel which will be published
this August. I'll be writing the second book in that series this summer. I also
just completed writing a novel based on a song by a contemporary Christian
artist. Hopefully there will be an announcement on that book soon. I'm excited
about these and other projects. I'm very fortunate to be able to write stories
and am very glad they're finding their way to readers.
11 comments:
I have many of Travis's books, and think Gun Lake is his best. Looking forward to future works of his in this vein.
I gotta say, I think I'm the most excited about the novel written about the song :) I write poems and stories from songs a lot of the time and that will be interesting!
The Hosea story is one of my absolute favorite Bible stories, so this story intrigues me very much! :)
I love hearing from authors about what they are thinking. Can't wait to read this book.
the more I hear from you about it, the more I like the sound of this book.
Okay I must start reading his books! The idea of basing a novel on a song intrigues me.
I have the book, Josh, so I don't need to win a copy. Just finished this one today. It may sound cliched, but it's haunting. I'll be reviewing it for the CFBA Tour. It was a daring venture, but Travis pulled it off.
I like that Mr. Thrasher is involved in so many different genres - adult, teen, thriller, romance. All of them benefit from his varying perspectives.
And Country Mom is the winner of our random drawing! Please send me your address at thechristiancritic (at) gmail (dot) com!
Pat, since Country Girl did not send me her information by the deadline, I redrew names, and you are our new winner. Email me at josh (at) thechristiancritic (dot) net with your address to claim your prize!
I stayed up till 1 am to finish reading Solitary---a review copy. What a great night to read this book---Tropical Storm winds and heavy rain. I loved this book, I would say it's a phenomenal read!
Post a Comment