Interview with Katie Berry
Katie Berry, a Canadian author of thrillers, hails from Ottawa, Ontario, and now resides in British Columbia’s picturesque West Kootenay region. An accomplished digital musician and sketch artist, Katie’s diverse creative talents extend beyond writing, enhancing her storytelling with rich, detailed experiences. In her free time, she captures the natural beauty of her surroundings through photography, always seeking new ways to advance her artistic expression.
In writing the CLAW Emergence trilogy, was the “Weird West” genre your initial goal, or did the story just happen to fit the genre?
Good question! After writing CLAW, I naturally wondered what had happened back in 1895 when the gold rush started in the valley around Lawless. I didn’t actually plan on it being a Weird West story. However, the fact that it is set in the Old West and weird things are going on made it a natural fit for the genre, as you intimated.
Lawless, like many real towns in the Kootenays and the Yukon, was founded on the discovery of precious metals. So, I wondered to myself, had anybody else discovered this cavern before Jerry Benson in CLAW? I decided the answer was yes, and the novelette CLAW Emergence: Caleb Cantrill was born, shortly followed by Kitty Welch. I enjoyed writing the novelettes so much that I decided I needed to explore the history of the town further and that an entire series in the ‘Old West’ of British Columbia was the way to go.
When I wrote the history of the valley around Lawless in CLAW, I didn’t have the concept of a prequel or a sequel in my mind at the time, but upon CLAW’s release and its success, it was a natural progression. That said, I had always been fascinated with the gold mining in the area around where I live, the West Kootenays of BC, and have always been a sucker for westerns, especially of the weird variety. Weird Western Tales from DC Comics was one of my favourites growing up, along with the House of Mystery and The Witching Hour, amongst others.
That’s an impressive backstory. I have the usual question of if you’re a “plotter” or a “pantser”, but I assume from the depth of your thought into it, that you are a plotter. When you are writing a story what do the early drafts look like? An outline, a treatment, a world bible, all of those, etc?
Regarding your ‘plotter or pantser’ question, I believe I am 80/20. Eighty percent pantser and 20% plotter. Allow me to explain.
When I begin writing a new novel, I have an idea of the beginning and the ending, the only problem is I just need to figure out how to get there.
I jot notes down regarding my thoughts on a novel that I refer to on occasion. I also do a lot of brainstorming sessions. I record them and then transcribe them and go through and pull out the stuff that I want to use.
Though I don’t plot, per se, I do chart out my progress. I use a program called Plottr, but I don’t use it for most of the features that it is made for. I just use it for the overview of what I have accomplished and how the flow is looking regarding the characters and number of chapters they each have based on their importance, as well as who is in a chapter and what they’re doing.
That said, I have a very difficult time charting out an entire novel from beginning to end. I don’t know how some writers do that. I feel that a novel is more organic and surprising when the author is unsure which direction it is going. In fact, I’ve had some of my best twists and surprises due to writing that way.
Rigid structure and absolute plotting are detrimental to creativity, I think. But then, I know some authors write using various structural models (Hero’s Journey, Story Circle, etc.), and it works for them, and that’s great. Perhaps they can see the whole story all at once. But my crystal ball isn’t that good, and I work on one chapter at a time. Reliance on systems like I mentioned can lead to very formulaic stories with few surprises for many readers.
I think of writing a story like I’m sculpting a statue from a block of marble. I get a little bit chiseled away at a time, and eventually, I have a whole story. The first draft is very chunky and hardly looks like the finished story. But then, after the second edit, you start to see the underlying form and structure and flow. By the third and fourth edits, I am adding fine detail and polish to make it shine. Generally speaking, I find if I am surprised by a twist or turn that my novel takes, my readers will be, too. And now, at ten novels and counting, it seems to be working so far.
Interesting. I was recently given the advice to write the end first so that I could ensure that the end had all the inspiration and chutzpah. You said that you have “notes around of story ideas”. How many stories do you work on at once, and how do you decide which one will be taking your full effort?
That is certainly a viable method to use. I just don’t find it works for me. Because even though I know the ending, things might change by the time I get there due to the way I write. So, I wouldn’t want to lock in the ending, unless it’s the best ending in the entire world.
I write just one novel at a time, eight hours a day, six days a week, Monday through Saturday. And that takes my ‘maximum effort’ (to borrow from Deadpool). I don’t like to spread myself too thin with more than one project at a time and then lose my focus. On Sunday, I work on short stories, my book covers, and other creative stuff that needs tending to, such as ads and accompanying artwork.
That said, I know some writers work on numerous different things at the same time, but I have never been much of a multitasker. Just getting a novel written and edited, the cover done, the blurbs for the cover and the ads written, and then actually publishing it is more than enough for me at one time.
I’ve always told my kids that if they wanted to become a creative powerhouse they needed to learn to create on a schedule, something I have never been able to do. Is creating on a schedule something that comes naturally to you? Or did you learn it? Or do you force it? Any advice for people like me that have a hard time pinning down a project?
Creating on a schedule is something I learned. I knew I needed to put in the time to make any progress, and it’s finally starting to pay off.
That said, it doesn’t come naturally. I was aware that many successful authors scheduled regular writing time each day, and I knew I needed to write daily if I ever wanted to get anywhere. Some days, the words are harder to come by, and take longer to get on the page. But I show up, no matter what, and I almost always succeed. It seems that sometimes, the hardest part can just be getting something, anything, on the page to get the flow going, and after that, it comes so much easier.
Even if you can only schedule an hour or two per day, that little bit of writing on a regular basis is all it takes. Since I write for a living now, I try to aim for 1200-1500 words each day. But if you only have an hour or two, even 300 or 400 words a day can lead to some amazing results in only one month. And always remember to write for YOU first. Some people write to market, which is fine, but I have always written things I would want to read. I am my harshest critic and try to make each chapter I write entertaining and move the plot forward. And if I am not being entertained and the chapter ends without me wanting to turn the page, then I know my readers won’t either.
I hope this answers the question and I didn’t ramble too much.
Not a problem. Rambling is what we do here : ). We hopped right in without covering some of the basics, so let’s knock some of those out. Where are you from and when did you first start writing? What are a few books that inspired you early on? Your bio says you have always been an avid reader, have you always been an avid writer? Was the transition from reader to writer a natural one or a scary one?
I was born and grew up in the nation’s capital, Ottawa, Ontario, but have lived more of my life out west in BC.
The first piece of fiction I wrote was in grade two. We were tasked with writing a short story, and I wrote a murder mystery (I also drew a cover for it—a house with a white picket fence and a big pool of blood on the sidewalk out in front).
Growing up, I read all the novels of Jules Verne, HG Wells, Alexandre Dumas, Conan Doyle, etc. I loved all the grand adventures of which they wrote. Then I transitioned into Stephen King and Clive Barker. I know you asked for specific books, but I love so many, so I listed authors instead. I can be more specific if you like.
I’ve always been an avid reader. I started reading when I was young and never stopped. Big Little Books were some of my younger favourites, and then I got into comics, like The Witching Hour, Tomb of Dracula, House of Mystery, etc.
The transition from reader to writer was exciting, but since I always felt the two went hand in hand, I wasn’t too intimidated by it. Since I did both reading and writing from such an early age, I thought all readers were also writers. Imagine my surprise to learn that wasn’t the case. I ended up taking journalism in college and enjoyed it, but it helped me to realise I really wanted to write novels instead.
And then life got in the way for the next few decades—I got married and had an amazing son, amongst other things, and had an assortment of careers. Also, I had still been writing during this time and wrote several novels that I never published, but there are a couple I might revisit someday. And then I got the inspiration for CLAW and well, you know what happened after that. And here I am, now working on my tenth novel and still loving the process as much as the first. The satisfaction I get when I release a new novel is quite strong still, and I hope it never diminishes. My goal is to now write about two novels a year for the next two or three decades and then I might consider taking some time off.
It’s funny how weird of kids we can all be. Writing a murder mystery in second grade is a prime example. What do you suppose prompted your interests in murder mysteries in second grade?
The cause of my love of murder mysteries is the NBC Mystery movie. Each week, it used to air with a different detective, such as McLeod, Banacek, Columbo, etc. They would rotate, each having a TV movie once a month. My parents loved those shows, and I naturally saw the odd episode on occasion (usually peering through the bannister railing at the TV down in the living room).
And my love of horror was thanks to my mother. She’d grown up going to the theatre and watching things like The Wolfman, Dracula and Frankenstein, and in particular, their comedy run-ins with Abbott and Costello. It was through the comedy duo’s series of Universal films I was first introduced to the concept of movies, and monsters in general. Though they were comedies, for a child such as me with a vivid imagination, the scares with the monsters were visceral and exciting. Imagine my delight as I got older and began to catch the actual horror movies that featured the monsters on late-night TV reruns.