Interview with author Vik Rubenfeld
TGIF am I right?! Fridays are so awesome, and not just because it kicks off the weekend but also because it also means it’s #fridayguestinterview! I’m excited to introduce you to this week’s guest, the talented author Vik Rubenfeld. Vik, tell us a bit about yourself.
Vik:
Thanks very much, Kara. I’m Vik Rubenfeld. I was raised in Virginia and Washington DC. After NYU I came out to L.A. where I created the hit CBS TV series, .
I do a lot of stuff. I’m a Director of Market Research, a professional programmer, and I recently published my novel, Conquest, about the amazing experience of becoming who you really are. I also teach people how to plot a story like a pro. I’m the Suspense Guru. My wife made up that tagline for me. I have 25,000 Twitter followers with whom I have fantastic conversations.
The Writing Piazza:
I loved that show Early Edition! I loved the cat that would show up with the paper too. 🙂 The concept of the show was so original and clever. Could you tell us how you came up with that idea and how it came to be such a successful show?
Vik:
Sure. I’d met Pat Page playing volleyball in Manhattan Beach, and we got to talking about possible stories for low-budget movies we could sell at AFM and the other film markets. One day we’re talking on the phone and together we made up Early Edition. I knew right away it had to be TV.
As you know, Kara, the show is about Gary Hobson, who gets tomorrow’s paper every morning. The paper has all the news in it that’s going to happen later today. It tells about tragedies that haven’t happened yet. If he can save even one person—that’s his goal!
Well, in TV you have an urgent need to come up with new stories every week. Here you have the entire newspaper to draw on. We created a whole genre of TV show in which the main character has a foreknowledge of the future and uses it to save people. Shows in this genre have been on almost continuously ever since. Right now there’s a show I really enjoy, Person of Interest.
The Writing Piazza:
That must feel so satisfying to know your show launched a whole new genre in television! I’ll have to check out Person of Interest now that I know it has your stamp of approval. 🙂
You also mentioned your book Conquest, can you tell us about that?
Vik:
I’d love to. As I mentioned, Conquest is about the experience of being who you really are. For me that happened when I was writing this novel! Obviously it’s a super-personal, intense, interior experience. So that means you gotta have a big metaphor. Am I right? What I call a “moby”, after Moby Dick. A “moby” is a book-length metaphor. Everybody knows the whale in Moby Dick is a metaphor. So for me, my “moby,” my book-length metaphor for being who you really are, is a rock band. Because the experience of being on stage in front of a huge crowd has a lot of the same emotions!
So I’ve got my band members—Reid the bass player, who’s the narrator, and is desperately trying to make something of himself and find his place in life. Barry, the lead guitarist, who puts the band together—spacy, frazzled, but also a leader. Link, the singer who has a secret fear. And Clay, the drummer, who has major demons and is a huge danger to himself and everyone around him. Reid knows how dangerous Clay is, but nobody wants to hear it because the music the band is making is so good.
Reid has a conviction that if he isn’t on top of what Clay is thinking and doing every second, people he loves are going to die. And you know what? He’s right! Reid falls for Kristy, who’s in the fashion business. With her own independent career she can’t go on the road with the band when they go out on tour. They both have to find out if their love is big enough to bring them back together again. Ultimately Reid feels sorry for his bandmates who are sleeping with all the groupies and don’t have a love in their lives as powerful and meaningful as his feelings for Kristy.
I wanted it to feel so real that when you closed it after reading it for a while, it would get into your head and expand—you’d get fresh insights into the people and what was happening to them, just by thinking about it after you stopped reading. One of the biggest compliments the book has gotten so far was from a blogger in South Africa who said, “strangely enough you also almost hear the music!”
I’ll tell you what—I made it such a page-turner that most people blow through it in a few days. Take your time with it, people! You have to savor it a little bit. 🙂 There are lines in there that are meant to give readers something to feel. Lines like, “The misery is sitting on me like a wrestler that’s got another wrestler pinned.” Do you feel that?
The Writing Piazza:
I love those kinds of books! The ones that get in your head and make you think. The ones where you learn something new each time you read it, or think about it. That’s the type of book I try to write too. It’s definitely not easy. But you managed to pull it off! And it sounds like you’ve received some great comments on it already!
Can you tell us about how your book came to be published?
Vik:
I picked self-publishing, and I’m very pleased with that decision. I love being able to change and update anything and everything any time I want. Here’s news for your readers—I’ve just written a new additional chapter (Chapter 25 “That’s Why I did it.”) for the end. If you email me, I’ll send you the new chapter before it’s even available on Amazon!
The Writing Piazza:
There are a lot of pros to self-publishing and you’ve named some good ones! And I love it when authors give out special perks to their fans ahead of everyone else. I always think that’s such a class act thing to do.
Let’s talk a bit about the writing course you’ve created, the Suspense Guru™ webinars. I think it’s so great to see authors helping other authors. It’s such a great community to belong to, it makes me proud to be a writer. Tell us how your course is going and what it’s about.
Vik:
Kara, I have to tell you that the response I’m getting from students is so incredible. I’ve got a webinar going on right now and one of the students gave me one of the biggest compliments I could imagine. She said my feedback “is more helpful than an entire degree program.” Isn’t that something? The whole webinar is only 5 1-hour live online sessions, one a week for 5 weeks. Another student gave me the huge compliment of tweeting “The success of a writing webinar is the ability to stimulate your creative juices & get you excited about writing. @VikRubenfeld does that.”
What I teach is storybreaking. That’s the Hollywood term that means everything that goes into plotting a story like a pro. I teach what plot is and how to create it. What suspense is and how to create it. What Act Structure is and how to master it. My secret to beating the dreaded Act 2 Slog. And on and on. One of the things students really love is my personal feedback on the homework they do, applying my principles to breaking the story for their own novels, screenplays, TV episodes, TV bibles, YouTube videos, and even non-fiction speeches and books. I have a student in the class right now who’s doing a non-fiction book. Every week I provide a homework assignment that lets students apply my principles to their story. Then via email I give them feedback. I don’t write their stories at all—I just show them what they need to do to get their plot and suspense and act structure super-tight.
The Writing Piazza:
That all sounds amazing! At the end of the interview I have a surprise for everyone reading this but you’ll have to keep going if you want to find out what it is (no cheating!).
Though you’ve had great success with your writing career, I’m sure it hasn’t all been easy. What’s been the hardest part about your journey as an author?
Vik:
It’s a huge learning curve the first time you do it! I’ve got a blog post up, The Big Picture, A To Z, Self-Publishing Checklist, that bullet-points all the things you have to learn about, and has lots of links to resources.
The Writing Piazza:
My readers know how much I LOVE resources for writers so thank you for telling us about it! It’s one of my favorite parts of these interviews, I always learn so much and I love being able to share that knowledge with others.
Writing can be a difficult thing. Getting published is hard no matter which publishing path you choose. That’s why I will take all the helpful resources I can get. I also like to stay positive, so do you have any fun/heart-warming/inspirational stories you can share about your experience as a published author?
Vik:
It’s very fun and heart-warming for me to connect with people on Twitter, to interact with them, and especially when I can contribute something valuable via my blog posts or my Suspense Guru webinar. You know, if your readers have a question about how to plot a story, they can ask me on Twitter—I’ll answer via Twitter or a blog post. It’s a great way to connect with people! My site has lots of posts on it that came about exactly this way.
The Writing Piazza:
Twitter is great isn’t it? In fact that’s how you and I “met.” So I know you truly mean that when you say that you will respond. 🙂 It’s so great when writers are approachable like that.
I usually like to ask as many new questions I can in these interviews, but there’s one question that I like to ask everyone just because it always gets such helpful responses. And I’ve heard so many different answers that the question just never seems to get old. So here it is, what is one thing you know now, that you wish you’d known before you published your very first book?
Vik:
This is elementary of course, but you need a line editor. I’ve got a Master’s Degree in English Literature from NYU so I thought I didn’t need one. Wrong! James N. Powell did a great job for me. Another thing—and everybody says this—is to get a great cover. Dick Cherry did an amazing job. The broken guitar cover design he came up with is iconic!
The Writing Piazza:
So true. I think those are two areas where a lot of self-published books miss the mark. Reading a book riddled with typos and plot gaps beneath a poorly designed book cover is (sadly) what many people think of when they hear a book is self-published. But there are some phenomenal stories being told out there all the time by authors that are done right. So that is great advice to anyone self-pubbing.
Do you have any last advice for authors hoping to publish their own work?
Vik:
This is more of a just-starting-writing-a-story thing, but it’s very powerful to pick your Style. Style is distinct from Genre. Style is about your goal as an author in terms of the effect you want to have on your audience. I’ve got a guide to Styles here. This can help guide lots of key decisions you make when breaking a story.
The Writing Piazza:
Yay more resources! I should just link all my posts to you and your site and I won’t have to write another blog article! haha But seriously, thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience with us.
Before I let you go I have to ask, are you currently working on a new book?
Vik:
Yes! I can’t talk about it yet, but I’m so excited about it.
The Writing Piazza:
Well we’ll just have to keep an eye on your website for future details then I suppose. 🙂 What about any upcoming events? Do you have anything exciting coming up?
Vik:
I’m honored to say that I will be giving the Keynote speech at the upcoming Book ‘Em NC Writers Conference and Book Fair in North Carolina. This event has 3,000+ attendees. It brings together authors and readers, and raises public awareness of the correlation between high illiteracy rates and high crime rates. If any of your readers are going to be there I would love to meet them!
The Writing Piazza:
For those of you who would like to connect with Vik, here are some links to help you do that:
Author blog: vikrubenfeld.com
Twitter: @vikrubenfeld. Connect with him there and ask him questions about how to break a story!
Book ‘Em NC: http://www.bookemnc.org
Conquest on Amazon
Vik, thank you so much for your time and for being a guest on my blog!
Vik:
Kara, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it!
The Writing Piazza:
I’m so glad we were able to do this! And of course we’d like to thank all you wonderful readers that are here with us today. And I haven’t forgotten about the surprise I promised you, so here it is, Vik has graciously offered a 20% discount on his Suspense Guru webinar, just use the coupon code: TheWritingPiazza-Aug-30-2015. I know a couple people that have taken it and have given rave reviews so be sure to check it out.
Until we meet again.