Happy Saturday, readers! Please help me in welcoming Cristian Dorin Zarioiu to Darkeva’s Blog! Continue reading for my interview with Cristian about his book “The Labyrinth.”
Q: Tell the readers a bit about what inspired you to write “The Labyrinth.”
A: I think that when it comes to writing fiction everything begins with a “What if” question. Then come the “why’s” and “how’s” which just make it that much more fun, and tiresome. The “what if” for The Labyrinth appeared when I was watching one of George Carlin’s (my favourite comedian) comedy shows at about 3 or 4 A.M, half asleep. The show was “Again” and that’s all I’m going to say about that, because mentioning which exact line sparked the idea would be a big spoiler for the book.
Q: What was the process like when you were writing it? Did you outline or plot extensively, or just write without any roadmap?
A: My process, if you can call it that, is sitting at my window at the 10th floor at night, and when I say sitting, I mean sitting on the desk which is right near the ledge, and thinking. That’s when “idea orgies” happen. I call them that instead of “brainstorming” because it never really felt like a storm, more like a… I’m sure you think you can’t really relate, but imagine having a buffet of Swiss chocolates in front of you and trying them all at once. It all starts with that spark, the “What if” and then combined with the “why” and “how” the book is slowly formed in my mind. The first thing I know is how it begins and how it ends. The problem is getting from one end to the other. To answer you, I guess it was extensive plotting without any roadmap. Especially when I sit down and write, and realize that my great ideas were just points on a map, and what happens between those points is completely unpredictable as the action and characters get a mind of their own. I just have to herd them back to the line from time to time.
Q: Tell us a little bit about the challenges of writing in four separate points of view. Many writers such as Clive Barker often introduce different POVs that are seemingly unrelated and then they slowly come together and the novel makes much more sense–what was your reasoning behind so many different points of view?
A: There’s a funny story with the unrelated POVs. One of the agents that I talked to read the beginning and told me that the book was a collection of short stories and left it at that, without really delving deeper than the first twenty pages or so. I strongly recommend submitting to agents even if you self-publish, sometimes you get nice criticism, sometimes you learn how to reject someone politely and evasively. And if you have a book already published, submit it anyway for the fun of it, and see how many turn it down.
I digress. Most people would think that it’s not a good idea to slap the reader around from the beginning with seemingly unrelated POVs, but the reasoning for that was simple. I couldn’t see it happening any other way. You have four main characters, with four different lives and stories, how else can you approach them? As the book progresses I entwine their stories and the unrelated POVs in the beginning become their reactions to each situation. Except of course their flashbacks, but again, “here there be spoilers”, so I’ll stop there.
Q: Many people seem to be interested in the deaf cellist character, Sarah, and with good reason. Did you draw your inspiration from historical figures, such as Beethoven, or what was the process behind choosing these characters, each of whom have something to do with one of the senses?
A: First of all, I need to specify to new readers what previous readers already know. This isn’t a superhero book, and I don’t want you to be tempted by the promise of that. But it does have something to do with superheroes, at least super senses. Their senses are tied in to the story and there’s a reason for them, and it’s not a failed lab experiment or visitors from outer space either. But the reason I made their senses work like they do is the fact I found it fun to make anti-superpowers. You can tell that right off the bat when I introduce Dan in chapter two. I wanted people who dream of superpowers to have nightmares with what my main characters had. So in fact, my characters are anti-superheroes. That and the fact that I’m a bit of a sadist.
Q: And what exactly were you trying to go for with the villain, The Guardian?
A: The Guardian. Whenever I say that word I smile. The Guardian is not just a villain, but a major plot device. He’s as much of a foundation to the story as the main characters, and I think the best way to make a villain is to make the story not work if you replaced him with any other villain, so much so that even changing one detail about him, the book would collapse and the plot wouldn’t make any sense.
That’s why nothing about the Guardian is gratuitous. From his androgynous, eerie appearance to the gore and savageness he’s capable of, everything he does and is serves a purpose and has an explanation that comes together as the story progresses, culminating in the end when his name is explained.
Let me give you an example. Someone who read a synopsis of the book told me the Guardian is modeled after the stereotypical “polite monster” and be that as it may, there’s almost never a reason for why these monsters are polite, except some cookie-cutter explanation like “they’re always too powerful and and/or on top of the situation to lower themselves to pedestrian attitudes” but most of the times it’s “because a polite and cold villain is cool”. It sure is, but when there’s a fundamental reason for which they are like that, makes the fact that they’re cool a bonus. And that’s cooler.
Q: Tell us a little bit about your road to publication. What made you decide to self-publish?
A: I won’t go in too much detail about why I decided to self publish, except to say I hit some snags on the traditional road ( literary agents, publishers) that I shouldn’t have. Suffice it to say my country of origin had a part to play in it.
Q: You’re also a Romanian who learned English as a second language. What were some of the challenges you encountered when you decided to write in English?
A: The biggest problem is the fact that I’ve never read a book in English, having learnt all of it from T.V. and movies. The reason for that is that they weren’t readily available as I was growing up, and up until my teenage years I wasn’t even aware of the internet, let alone Amazon and the likes. Since I only decided to start writing books later on, I was satisfied with Romanian translations of classical authors, so when I finally said I’d do it, I still hadn’t read a book in English. I can be faulted for not starting to read immediately, surely at least before writing, but to me things seem very urgent, especially when finding the path on which you want your life to be on.
When pressed by that urge and gripped by those dreams, you feel as though it isn’t something you can put off a few years to catch up to native speakers in such a way that nobody notices you’re not English. I feel I need to specify that the decision to write books came overnight, but not out of nowhere. I had been writing poetry since I was six years old, so to those of you who think “another overnight convert” rest assured, it wasn’t overnight. It was just a shift in literary genre and language. And of course I was always an avid reader and while that’s a perfect introduction to writing it doesn’t help with the language barrier.
A native speaker might see through my “translation” in places where the language doesn’t flow quite as it should, or the odd mistake in idioms or such will stick out. A couple of critics very nicely pointed that out to me, and I will heed their advice to polish up my English so much so that these minor mistakes won’t have the slightest chance to detract from the story. Thankfully these mistakes are few in The Labyrinth, so I don’t feel they pose much of an obstacle to the reader.
Q: Who are some of the authors you’ve drawn the most inspiration from?
A: As I’ve specified in the previous answer that I was limited to Romanian translations of foreign books, and while there was a wide plethora of books translated, as I was growing up, the modern authors were left out. In our family library there were only classics (the Russian greats had a special standing because of the Communist era in which my parents grew up). So I grew up on Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Balzac, Stendhal, Faulkner, and the list goes on. Think of a classical writer, and I’ll have read them. Sadly, that doesn’t prepare you for the supernatural, but the inspiration one can draw from them makes me feel like I haven’t missed much by not reading contemporary literature. These writers set the bar for character psychology, view on morality, mortality and just about anything really. That is why their works are ageless while today’s authors don’t really try to make a stake at immortality, just send out a message and do what they love.
It is for that reason that I probably won’t pick up a modern book, and before you take out the pitchforks, let me explain that by saying that I have a pathological fear of being influenced by other people’s ideas and styles. I have no problem with watching movies made after books, because they don’t seem to leave a lasting impression on me (except Stephen King’s It which scared me as a child) or reading reviews and such to see what their ideas are, but when I read a book, it might as well be my soul Xeroxing everything in it and absorbing it, including their style.
I inhabit the book when I read it, and because of it I’ll shy away from modern authors, since you can never exit those worlds the same way you went in. As I’m looking to polish up the grammar, flow and so on, I’d rather keep the style completely my own.
And these days, where originality grows on trees, I think as an artist you should try to keep your ideas and style as pure as you can. Or at least, keep them yours. That’s why, after seeing the movies, I wouldn’t have any qualms about reading the Twilight saga. Going in blank, coming out blank. But Stephen King, Iain Banks, Anne Rice, Clive Barker, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman and the likes, I’ll stay away from simply because they’re good and unique. Maybe I’ll read their books translated in Romanian…
Q: What are you working on next?
A: Right now I’m polishing up “When the Night Comes,” a novel about a group of five friends who’ve grown up together in an Eastern Bloc country, surviving through horrible ordeals, that society seems to think of as mundane. They represent the hidden war that doesn’t make it to the front pages as much as the Holocaust, child molestation by the clergy, South Africa and such, but I dare say is more widespread, because it’s universal. They also represent the scars that are somehow imbedded in most people, but again, nobody really talks about them, and show how these five boys survived this hell with a smile on their faces. The book should be done by October, and I will be giving it out for free as an e-book for quite a while.
After that, I am re-writing Urshe (the covers of which are already on my website) – a modern mythology fantasy book where two deities (the warriors of darkness and light) are imprisoned on Earth and have to survive together, or risk destroying their prison which they discover is their haven. They attempt to learn from humans how to overcome their primordial hatred. The story spans from Earth’s creation to modern times.
Beyond that, there are about six more books on the shelves of my mind, waiting in queue to be written.
Q: Thank you so much for stopping by my blog! How can people purchase your book?
A: Thank you for offering me the opportunity, and giving me my first interview. Hopefully one day you’ll be taking the interview on my tenth book. People can find The Labyrinth on my web-page, along with a sample and a “buy” page.
