But Where was the Cannibal?!?
Behind the Curtain
What Inspired the Book?
Innkeeper started as a very strange book. I knew I wanted to talk about racism and I was also inspired by a zone in World of Warcraft. The original first chapters were centered around literal undead in a haunted forest (an allegory for racism in America). I realized this story was too focused on philosophy early on and trimmed it to its human elements. However, it took three other iterations before I settled on the final form: a multi-POV psychological novel about three characters caught up in a murder.
Over Two Years in the Making
I wrote my first novel at the age of 19 over the course of a single summer. It had minimal editing because I believed so thoroughly in my own genius. Then, my girlfriend (now wife) read a chapter near the end of the book involving a man with an amputated arm. She muttered, confused, “Doctor Fusselquark clapped?”
Needless to say, that book did not do well. So when I began Innkeeper, I developed a mantra: “Every time you think you’re done. Do more. Every deadline you set, double it.” Every chapter was outlined in a journal. And then re-outlined. When I lost sense of who my characters were, or struggled to find their voices, I wrote newspaper columns in-universe from the townsfolk’s perspective. All this, plus a year of editing, produced a remarkably cohesive and error-free story.
Galahad: My Best Character Ever
I wish all my characters could turn out like Galahad. But, that would be incredibly redundant because honestly, Galahad was me. It was the closest I’ve ever come to writing in 1st person and the character flew from my brain to the page. His vices were mine, his mannerisms were mine. He was both clever and compassionate, cruel and caring. Easiest man I ever wrote.
And then I got sober halfway through drafting. And he became the anti-Jacob. He went from the easiest to the hardest character to write because I no longer related to him. I had been in the eye of my own storm and now, I had to describe addiction from outside of it.
I think I did a phenomenal job, personally.
Writing High vs. Writing Sober
I said already that I got sober while writing the story and this was evident when we went to edit the manuscript. It was hilarious, actually. You see, we’d be reading the first ten or so chapters and see numerous errors. Double the’s, odd grammar from old sentences now revised. Spelling mistakes.
Then around chapter 10, minimal errors. Coincidence? Nope. Drugs are great for stimulating creativity, but writing is a bit like driving a semi-truck. You’ve got all this cargo of grand ideas, but you’ve got to be able to steer them to their destination. While high, I seemed to swerve rather often.
Environmental Degradation, Misogyny, and Racism: Heads of the Same Dragon
Even after I trimmed the philosophical elements, some main themes had to stay. Chiefly, I wanted to express the idea that the plundering of nature, the demeaning of women, and the repression of races—they are all the same manifestation of the human need for power. However, I don’t often like expressing such high-brow ideas without giving evidence. So, I constructed a narrative where each POV character embodied one aspect of that struggle to overcome. And that is how we get the ending of the book, where…
NO SPOILERS!
Shipping the Story to Agents
After finishing the manuscript, I began querying literary agents. I had little success and even went to writing workshops and conventions to try to figure out the missing ingredient. When that did not work, I trimmed about 80,000 words from my manuscript. This proved critical, as it got rid of unnecessary plot points that derailed my story. Moreover, I never actually had a cannibal plotline in the book until this last revision. After talking with my aunt, I realized it would be more poignant to have literal cannibalism complementing the figurative cannibalism in the book.
However, agents still did not want the story and so—I did things myself. I created my own publishing company for which I was honored in in Noco Style’s 30 under 30.