Shauna Klein is the author of numerous short stories including the short ‘Make a Wish’ which we had just reviewed. She recently had time to sit down and answer a couple of questions on her craft.
Can you provide a brief summary of your work, novels, and short stories?
I only have short stories at this point which later I will put in an anthology when I have more to offer. I have plenty in the development stage, I just have to finish them.
What was your motivation(s) to write Make a Wish?
I like to write stories with a twist ending and I had thought about what would happen if you infected someone on purpose.
What did you find difficult to accomplish within your book?
As a short story, was it difficult for you to not make a full-length novel? I always have a harder time with the middle of my stories as opposed to the beginning and ending. I did learn something from reading On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. He wrote about just sitting down and writing and the story would start to flow and when I wrote my next piece, it did.
How was the experience of seeing your work move from an idea to a rough draft to the finished product?
It’s very satisfying although I critique myself constantly even months after something is published.
When you sit down and write what is your perfect writing environment, i.e., quiet, music, a specific room in the house?
I write at my computer desk and it’s rarely quiet since we have birds and dogs. However, I’ve found that very early morning/late nights are the best. I usually stay up very late like till 4 am or so and that helps with things being quieter.
What helps get you in the mood? Watching classic horror films or…? Â
I love watching horror movies so I never need an excuse to watch them. As far as getting in the mood to write, that’s hard to explain. I’m either in the mood or not and unfortunately I’m not like some authors that make sure they write daily. I wish I had that much discipline.
Who are 5 people, besides immediate family and nearby friends that you feel have influenced your work? Out of those 5 people, who would want to be stuck with or in a group with during an apocalyptic event not exactly a zombie outbreak but something that would affect life as you know it on a global scale? Why?
Stephen King, Richard Laymon, Bentley Little, and there’s a couple of female horror writers that helped as well. As far as who I’d want to be stuck with during an apocalyptic event, I would say Richard Laymon but he unfortunately left us too soon. Maybe Bentley Little just because he has a certain lifestyle that is more “off the grid†so perhaps he’d do better in that type of situation.
In a hypothetical apocalypse, what would be your preference; viral outbreak, extraterrestrial event, zombies, natural disaster, etc, and why?
Although I find natural disasters fascinating, I’d prefer for my own sake a viral outbreak. For one, I might be immune (one can hope although I seem to get every cold and flu that comes around) and the death might be a little less harsh. Then again, the others would be much faster like in a major natural disaster.
What advice can you impart to authors just starting out who want to break into the horror/zombie/apocalyptic genre?
Just go for it. I’ve seen a few authors that became fairly famous by putting their work out there without traditional publishers or agents and you never know what can happen.
Who do you feel is directly responsible for your entry into the field of writing and specifically the inclusion of zombies into your work?
There’s no one person since I write about a myriad of different things but I do have to say that I love short stories that feature horror so that helped me want to write them myself.
What and who are your favorite authors and books not in the zombie/horror genre? Tell us a little bit about them and how they may have affected your work.
Honestly, I mainly read horror so it’s hard to choose an author not in the horror genre. Perhaps James Patterson, Dan Brown and a few others but I’ve been reading horror since grade school so that’s my main focus.
If you had to do it all over again, the research, the writing, the search for a publisher, etc, what would you do any of it differently?
I’d have started way sooner than I did.
Do you have any plans to continue writing when you finish your current project?
This might be other projects in a different genre. I do have a project about the Twins of Terror – our Belgian Malinois dogs. It’ll be a children’s book; far different from my usual horror fare.
Where can readers and fans alike find out more information about your books and upcoming projects that you’re involved in?
I have a website at http://shaunaklein.com and you can find me on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/authorsklein as well as Amazon http://amazon.com/author/shaunaklein
