An Interview With
Joreid McFate

How did you get started?

KARL: We met in an online writing contest in 1997 and something clicked.
FRANCES: By the time the contest ended, Karl and I had discovered we liked writing the same kind of offbeat stuff--and that we sparked each other's ideas. I'd been writing all my life, but not doing anything with it.
KARL: I've been writing since I was a kid, too. I still recall one of my first attempts from grade school, a limerick:

There was an old lady from Wooster,
Who had an adorable rooster,
She fed it on corn,
It grew a large horn
And gave the old lady a booster."

I was sent to the principal's office and he called my mommy. I continued to write but didn't really get started until I met Frances. Up to that point, all my writing went nowhere. She lives in Georgia, I in New York; so without the Internet, it's pretty certain we never would have met.
FRANCES: Everytime I think about the chanciness of it, I'm amazed. It was synchronicity at its best. From the start, I felt as though Karl was the other half of my brain.
KARL: Soon after that, we collaborated on The Demon Plague, plotting it all over the Internet, writing and rewriting . . .
FRANCES: . . . submitting and resubmitting . . .
KARL: Until we got a publisher. Now, twenty short stories, a children's novella, a published novel and nearly six years later, we have still never met nor even spoken on the phone.

What type of writer are you? Do you plan ahead/plot or do you simply fly by the seat of your pants?

FRANCES: I used to get a glimmer of an idea and start writing with no clue about where I was going. Sometimes it worked. But it's impossible to collaborate without some kind of plan. Karl and I brainstorm a basic plot--nothing in stone--then flesh out our primary characters and discuss how the story's going to end before we start. It may change by the time we get there, but at least we have a direction.
KARL: If I don't know where I'm headed I can't write how to get there. I like to work with an outline that has an ending. When our characters don't like the way a scene is going we let them rewrite it. What's really weird is how often that happens.

Do you write best at a certain time of the day?

FRANCES: Usually my mind is fresher in the morning, but sometimes I wake in the middle of the night and the words flow. I can't type fast enough to get them down. Maybe it has more to do with a quiet house than the time of day. KARL: I'm definitely a morning person. At night though, the ideas hit me and I jot them down. I always keep a pad and pen on the nightstand. My story idea folder is bulging at the seams.

What type of writing schedule do you have?

FRANCES: Whatever we can manage. My time is flexible, but Karl has his own contracting business and must create opportunies to write. Once we plot a story, though, we can do a lot independently by dividing the scenes for the initial drafts. Then we email them back and forth, editing and suggesting changes until we're both happy with them. Of course, we have to be online at the same time to iron out plot problems and characterizations. We do that with instant messages.
KARL: The real world can be one big distraction to any writing schedule. You have no idea how many times I've been interrupted by Wifey's melodious voice asking, "Are you on that $#$#$@# computer again?"

How do you handle life interruptions?

KARL: I don't handle them well at all. I try to be like the proverbial ostrich, but that doesn't work. Perhaps that's why I like the mornings to write. It's quiet. Wifey and the boys are sleeping. I've let the five dogs out to do their morning business (yeah, you heard right: 5 dogs--plus two cats and a parrot. Wifey and I do a bit of animal rescue on the side). Often, I find myself sitting at the computer at four in the morning, writing.
FRANCES: If it's going well and the doorbell rings, I can lose my whole train of thought. But I grit my teeth, mutter, take care of whatever business came up and then try to get back to where I was. However, there are times when I welcome interruptions.

Do you get blocked? Any hints how to stave it off?

FRANCES. Of course--which is why I sometimes will the doorbell to ring. I don't just get blocked, I get walled in with brick and mortar. Most of the time Karl can talk me around, under, over or though my walls. Fortunately, we seldom get blocked at the same time.
KARL: Yes, I get blocked. What writer doesn't? I force myself to write. Suddenly the mind opens and words flow.

What authors do you look to as a role model and inspiration?

FRANCES: Number one is Dean Koontz. His characters are always likable, sympathetic and real. He's a master at blending eerie and impossible with normal and humdrum and making it all extremely entertaining. I also like Mary Higgins Clark, Patricia Cornwell, Stephen King, LaVyrle Spencer and many others. I read a lot and I think I learn a little from them all.
KARL: Ditto on Koontz and Clark, but add a host of sci fi writers too numerous to mention.

What's the best advice you ever received?

FRANCES: Great novels are not written, they are rewritten...and rewritten and rewritten and rewritten. When we first started submitting The Demon Plague (and collecting rejection slips) we adopted a motto that is excellent advice: "The difference between a writer and an author is perseverance." The P word kept us going.
KARL: Frances' husband, Fred, even sent me a plaque with our motto on it. It hangs right above the computer and I read it numerous times a day.

What sparks a story?

FRANCES: News items. Places. A smell. A sound. Sometimes a particularly irritating person generates an idea.
KARL: Ideas seem to come to me out of the blue. It could be a single word like robosapiens or a piece of trivia like the size of a sperm whale's tongue. And one idea leads to another. It snowballs. Where do you think that overflowing file of story ideas came from?

What was it about your genre that interested you enough to choose to write in it and not in another genre?

FRANCES: Our genre is difficult to classify. Officially, it's soft scifi, but it's also part thriller, part mystery and we included a little humor and a dab of romance. There are touches of fantasy, too, but with real people instead of fairies, trolls, and elves. Whatever you call it, it's never boring. Maybe we enjoy it because we both lead such conventional lives. It allows us to have vicarious non-conventional adventures.
KARL: I like the bizarre. Yet I like to write straight fiction, too.

Have you seen an evolution in your writing? What steps did it take?

FRANCES: Definitely. In my earlier writing, I tended to go off on tangents and overexplain everything. Also, my characters all sounded alike. Karl taught me how to weed my words, as well as subtle ways to make the different voices distinct. He has a natural ear for dialogue.
KARL: I learn something new every day. And I hope that never stops.

What have you always dreamed of writing, but haven't yet?

FRANCES: A modern day horror story that'll make people afraid to turn on their computers.
KARL: The Great American Novel. Something on the style of The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill A Mockingbird, or A Tale Of Two Cities.

What one thing do you like most about writing? Least?

FRANCES: Fun is brainstorming the plot, writing the story, and watching the characters become so real they take over. MOST fun is reading the scenes Karl writes. He has a weird mind, you know. LEAST favorite? Being rejected.

KARL: MOST: Getting lost in the world I create.
LEAST: Mental stumbling blocks.

What is your next project?

FRANCES: A modern day horror story that'll make people afraid to turn on their computers.
KARL: Like Jaws of the Internet.

What advice would you pass along at this point in your career?

FRANCES: When you write something, let it sit long enough to give you a little distance, then rewrite it. As many times as necessary. We fully revamped The Demon Plague four times. Parts of it have been through as many as 30 rewrites and I still want to tweak it. My best advice is to curb your impatience and always submit your best work.

KARL: To quote Commander Peter Quincy Taggart from Galaxy Quest: "Never give up! Never surrender!"

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