Interview with Author Garon Whited

With a series about vampires, you would think you might find an interview with its author in our horror category. However, this author has a different tale to tell. We had the pleasure of delving into the mind of Garon Whited, the ingenious author behind the beloved Nightlord series. With a fascinating blend of vampires, fantasy, and science, Whited has crafted a universe that continues to captivate readers. We are excited to explore the inspiration, character development, and world-building processes that breathe life into his remarkable work.

GeekPost: We have heard the captivating story about reading a vampire book at a bookstore and deciding that you could do better. Beyond that, what inspired you to create The Nightlord series using a unique blend of vampires, magic, and physics?

Garon: Well, the initial motivation was a mixture of disgust and spite with the then-predominant vampire stories.  I tend to think things mostly happen because someone gets upset enough to make them happen, and that’s pretty much what happened here.

Other inspiration?  I’m not sure there was other inspiration—not for the series as a whole.  There were bits of nerdity here and there that inspired small pieces of it, but it rolled on under its own steam once I got it going.  I sit down to write, and the next part is right there, waiting to be put on the page.  It’s less like writing a story and more like copying it down as fast as I can.

GeekPost: How did you develop the character of Eric, and what aspects of his personality do you think resonate most with readers? Do you see any of yourself in your main protagonist?

Garon: Developing Eric as a character was—and is—a complicated process.  Where he starts from and where he goes, as a person, are vastly different.  There’s continuity between who he was and who he is and who he’ll become, but, aside from a few fundamentals, you can see he changes.  One might say he grows.  He does.  Not all his growth is in a good way, and I think that’s something that resonates with readers.  He’s not entirely human, but even in his non-human aspects he has very human qualities—which are sometimes his worst qualities, blood-drinking monster or no.

As for whether or not I see myself in Eric, sure!  Every character I write has a bit of me in them.  Eric has pieces of what I am, what I would like to be, and what I hope never to become.  But, when you come right down to it, Eric is Eric, not me, and putting him through the wringer is his problem.  I just watch and write up the incident report.

GeekPost: The world-building in The Nightlord series is incredibly detailed, both from an explorative and scientific perspective. Can you share the process you went through to create the universes in which Eric’s adventures take place?

Garon: I had lots of practice!  I ran Dungeons and Dragons for years.  Decades, really.  Building worlds was part of the business, especially when player characters got powerful enough to go skipping across from world to world.  After a while, it got downright intuitive.

Building Rethven and the various Voidworlds wasn’t difficult—not after training like that.  Rethven needed to be a certain way for the larger plot, so I started with the plot and built a world around it.  Other non-Earth worlds each had their purpose, and that purpose helped shape what and how they had to be, like a crystal dropped into a supersaturated solution.  One idea drew in everything around it and grew into a place that had its own internal consistency and logic.

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GeekPost: Themes of morality and philosophy are prevalent throughout the series. How did you approach integrating these complex themes into the narrative? Do you draw inspiration for Eric’s points of view from any philosophical sources?

Garon: Integrating these things into the series is, I think, easier with a first-person point of view.  Eric is always concerned about being a monster, even when he’s telling himself he isn’t human anymore and should just get over it.  In many ways, this makes him more human than some people!  Eric is usually concerned about whether or not he’s the “bad guy.”  Regular people don’t concern themselves with whether they’re monsters even when they are.

Eric’s point of view evolves, of course, through his character arc.  It touches on a lot of philosophers and philosophic concepts, ranging from Objectivism to Existentialism, Empiricism to Stoicism, Utilitarianism to Absurdism, Idealism to Pragmatism.  Eric has flirted with Nihilism, but nobody wants to see the results of that.

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GeekPost: What motivated you to write novels in a journal entry format rather than traditional storytelling?

Garon: I would argue the first-person point of view is a “traditional” form of storytelling.  What’s more traditional than sitting around with a bunch of friends, swapping tall tales about how “I went out and had an adventure”?

I went with a first-person narrative to give the reader a much more detailed look into the main character, the narrator of the story.  Since Eric is the vampire stuck in the middle of all this adventure (as well as the instigator of a pretty significant part of it), it benefits the reader to see what he’s thinking and understand why he’s doing what he does.

I’ve written a few pieces from other characters’ points of view, just for contrast, and, wow, the story takes on a very different tone when you don’t get what Eric is thinking!

If you’ve read the books, compare the incident at the farmhouse when Mary and Eric are attacked by a bunch of the local vampires to the “Christiana” story on the website:  https://garonwhited.com/project/christiana/

GeekPost: What challenges do you face while writing the series, and how do you overcome them?

Garon: Interruptions.  Everybody #$%@ing wants something and wants “just a moment of your time.”

Listen.  If you interrupt someone who is busily at work on a project, you are forcing them to stop juggling a dozen thoughts, refocus on you, deal with you (even if it’s just to tell you to go away), and then they have to figure out where they were, what they were doing, how they were going about it, and gather up all those dropped balls, knives, and bowling pins before they can try to get back to juggling them in the rhythm you destroyed.  Your two-second interruption is a half-hour of their time you’ve wasted.  Do not do this.

I deal with it by driving out to a spot I know in the countryside, late at night, with a shovel.  Eventually, I’ll run out of people who interrupt me while I’m working.  In the meantime, I get the exercise my doctor was going on about.

GeekPost: How do you handle reader feedback, and has it influenced the direction of the series?

Garon: If you mean “reviews,” I handle them by not reading them.  I’m told Amazon has a star rating system.  I’m sure the series has some stars.  That’s nice.  I’m sure people have left bad reviews.  I’m glad they are self-aware and can vent their feelings.  I am under no obligation to read them.  Why should I?  If they don’t like the story, they can read something else.  If they do like the story, I’m glad they did.

There has been a fair amount of reader feedback on the Facebook fan pages, to which I try to respond.  They’ve put forth a lot of suspicions and theories about where the series is going, what happens next, what happened to a character, all that sort of thing.  If it’s the Spoilers group, I might tell them.  Sometimes, I present alternate theories when they come up with an idea.  Mostly, I just rub my hands in typical Evil Mastermind™ fashion.  I know what the story is and how we’re getting there.  I’ve got the ending planned out.

But I do like the fact they’re having fun on the ride.

GeekPost: If someone was to start Sunset without any prior knowledge, what do you hope they will take from the first 5 chapters of the book? What do you feel is the hook that will keep them reading the rest of the series?

Garon: First five chapters?  Hang on.  Nobody told me there would be homework!  Now I have to look up where we are after the fifth chapter…

Okay, so: Eric’s specific form of vampirism isn’t the typical dead-by-daylight sort, there’s magic involved, he’s going to be studying it in a scientific fashion, there’s a Secret Society of vampire hunters, and his sense of humor is going to be an issue throughout the story.

As for the hook, I think the idea of “What the hell is going on?” is the predominant feeling by the end of Chapter Five, “Wednesday, June 15th”.

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GeekPost: Do you have any advice for aspiring authors who wish to get their story written and might look to other writers for inspiration?

Garon: This has been said before—by me, and by others—but I’m going to say it because it bears repeating.  Let me emphasize that.  It’s going to be said by me and by other writers because you need to understand it.  This is one of those truths you may not want to hear, or you may not comprehend in depth, or you have only heard it without internalizing it as a fundamental fact—and to be a writer, you absolutely, positively, unequivocally need to!  Here it is:

Write.

There.  That’s the advice.

Now, to go into a little bit more detail:

That blank piece of paper isn’t going to give you ideas.  Put words on it.  Write stuff.  Put the wrong story on the paper.  Come up with a stupid succession of words that you hate with every fiber of your being.  Write delicate prose.  Use terrible grammar.  Misuse and abuse punctuation.  Scribble down some dialogue.

Now you’ve got something you can look at and tinker with.  Now you’ve written something you can either fix up and edit into a workable chapter, or you’ve got something you hate so much you will furiously write something else just to show it who’s boss!

But you have to write to be a writer.  If you want to be a daydreamer who enjoys the lovely fantasies in your head, that’s fine.  I daydream a lot, myself.  It’s nicer there than out here with all these—ugh!—people.  So you need to be sure about this whole writing thing because writing is much, much harder.

If you do want to write, you have to write.  The words have to go on the page even if they are the wrong ones.  That’s fine.  Go back and fix it—later!  Right now, write until you can’t write anymore.

Other authors have said “You can’t edit a blank page,” or “The water doesn’t flow until the faucet is turned on,” “Read a lot and write a lot,” “Write.  If it’s good, you’ll find out.  If it’s not, throw it out the window,” “Rule One: You must write.”

So write something.  Anything.  And keep doing it until you’ve got the book or story or poem you want.  If you’re going to “be a writer…”

Write!

For bonus stories, signed novels and more visit Garon’s Website.

The Geek Post would like to thank Garon Whited for taking the time to allow us all to get to know more about him and his work. His passion for storytelling and meticulous world-building has given rise to a series that resonates deeply with its audience. The Nightlord series, with its intricate characters and thought-provoking themes, continues to enchant readers, leaving them eagerly anticipating what lies ahead in Eric’s journey. We look forward to many more adventures in the enthralling universe Garon has so masterfully created.

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