I’ve been running a series of interviews with authors that are releasing new books, particularly dark fiction. I hope you’ll take the time to check out their work. Today, please welcome the author of the ‘Jason Dark’ series, Guido Henkel.

————

To start, can you tell me a little about yourself.

Originally hailing from Germany, for the past 25+ years I have been working in the computer games industry where I developed and published games for PC, video game consoles as well as cell phones.

Among the many award-winning games that I've worked on are the “Realms of Arkania” series which was the official adaptation of the highly successful German pen&paper role-playing game series “Das Schwarze Auge.” However, I have also worked on titles such as “Fallout 2″ and “Planescape: Torment,” a game based in one of the more extreme and mature AD&D universes. All of those games were very plot-driven and are to some degree my storytelling roots.

I am also the owner and editor of "DVD Review & high definition," one of the Internet's longest-standing websites covering the digital home video formats and movies. It is there that I kind of honed my writing chops, writing movie reviews for almost 13 years.

Eventually I felt the urge to write fiction, and began putting together the "Jason Dark: Ghost Hunter" series. Since I've always been an entrepreneur and auteur, I've also decided to publish the series through my own company.

I've moved to the United States about 13 years ago and have since made a home in Southern California with my lovely wife and my son.

How long have you been writing and how did you get to this point in your career?

I've had the wish to write linear fiction – as opposed to non-linear fiction used in computer games – for many, many years, but somehow never had the time for it. About 2 years ago I felt this urge inside of me getting much stronger, and I thought about a project I could write. I was a little timid at the time to start a full-size novel for a number of reasons, foremost of them being that I had my doubts I would really be able to ever complete it. So I was looking for something that was a little smaller in scale. I remembered the dime novels I used to read when I grew up. Germany has long had a tremendous dime novel culture. During the 70s you could find them in every grocery and convenience store. They were 64-page booklets, filled with action packed adventures of all sorts. The series featured Horror, Fantasy, Detective Stories, Westerns, War Stories, Romances, Hospital Stories — you name it. As I was looking for a writing project it occurred to me that something like that might just be the thing for me.

So I started writing "Demon's Night," just to see if I have it in me to create a cohesive story that may actually be worth reading in the end. Once it was finished I felt great about it and continued on.

You have a new book just out, Dr. Prometheus. Tell me what inspired you to write this?

I'm always on the look-out for interesting stories with a bit of a twist. I like to take readers on a ride and throw them a good curveball once in a while. "Dr. Prometheus" is definitely such a story where nothing is what it seems at first.

At the same time I love to make historical and literary references in my stories. This whole business of grave robbing for science's purpose, and the Anatomy Act that was designed to put an end to it, always intrigued me. Real-life characters like Burke & Hare always fascinated me, who took grave robbing to new extremes at the time, murdering people to sell their corpses so they wouldn't have to actually dig them up. Talk about some lazy guys…

Every once in a while I look over the Jason Dark volumes I've written and ask myself, "Is this really horror?" I mean, one could argue that some of the stories are really just supernatural detective stories — and I would not necessarily disagree with that. It makes me rethink my approach sometimes, as I try to redefine horror for myself. In this case I felt that it was time to kick up the gore factor a little for a change. I simply wanted to write something that had a few Fulci zombie moments in it, while never losing the classic gothic horror touch.

I have a keen interest in dark fiction. Tell me how you would classify this book and what’s dark about it?

Well, the name of the series is Jason Dark, does that count?

Seriously, though, part of this story in particular that makes it dark in my opinion is the fact that it is an example how good intentions can turn bad. Originally Dr. Prometheus wasn't a bad guy. He tried to perpetuate life in order to save people's lives. He's a doctor and I guess he's had enough of seeing his patients die – yes, maybe he should have become a better doctor, but that's beside the point.

He becomes so completely obsessed with the idea that the lines between right and wrong begin to blur for him; his supposedly good cause justifying the means, essentially. That, I think is a universally dark theme, because we all get to ask ourselves sometimes, how far would I go?

In more visual terms however, the story also has an inherent gothic darkness. Filled with graveyard scenes and body snatchers going about their business in the middle of the night, the fog-shrouded streets of London with horseshoes clattering on cobblestones, to me all that is dark material. It may be romanticized, yes, but at the same time there is always something unsettling about it.

Sometimes we have to be ruthless in writing/editing. We cut scenes, eliminate characters or even kill them off. Tell me what was the hardest of these in this book.

For the most part, the editing and revision process here was limited to clearing things up; shuffling a few passages, just to get better flow. The revisioning and editing stage is a very important part of how I write. It is not uncommon for me to have something like eight revisions of a story before I look at it as finalized and ready for publication. That creates a big stress on the timely delivery of my volumes, but that's another story.

However, "Dr. Prometheus" story was a clear candidate of the "Start with chapter 2" rule. I had written an opening scene that, in the end, I felt was not as powerful as I had hoped, and it was not really doing much for the opening of the story. Therefore, I completely removed it and began the book with what was originally designed to be the second chapter. It created a much denser atmosphere and immediately set the tone for the story. Playing in a graveyard under the moonlight, it is simply a primordial gothic horror scene that immediately put you in the middle of things without having a lot of the furious action I typically use to start my stories. Instead, here it is all about the mood, and I liked that for a change of pace. However, it took some time for me to get to the realization that this might be the better opening for the story as opposed to the action scene I had originally written.

I have to admit that I am not one of those writers who are completely enamored with their words. I know of authors who literally sweat blood and wrest with themselves endlessly when they have to make a change or when someone points out a weakness or flaw to them. I love those things. It is a way for me to craft a better story. When my editor tells me "I think you should front load this story a little," or when my wife says "Jason Dark would never do this!" I am usually the first one to say" Heck yeah, why didn't I think of that?"

So, when I took my original first chapter and threw it out, it was an ad hoc decision that I spent no time pondering over. It actually felt good to delete it physically, because I felt something was finally gone that was holding down the entire story.

This blog is called Random Musings, so give me a random quote from the book – something you’re particularly fond of.

I have a knack for inserting historic and literary references in my stories. It is one of the key ingredients of the series, actually, and every volume is brimming with various little tidbits that you can actually look up in your history books or the Internet for that matter.

In "Dr. Prometheus" one of the references is a little more contemporary, but I found it very befitting. A body is delivered to Dr. Prometheus in the story, by the name of "Vincent Furnier." Now, that is the birth name of Alice Cooper, the shock rock icon, of whom I'm a big fan. Remember, the whole story is playing in Victorian England, and as the body is uncovered, someone says

"He was an artist… a musician with a knack for theatrics, bordering on the Grand Guignol."

For some reason that line always makes me chuckle, maybe because it is so timeless. I am not sure, but with subtle suggestions like these, I always wonder how many of my readers will actually get the inside joke, and how many will simply read over this one but catch a different one instead that other readers may miss completely.

This seems to be part of a series. What can you tell me about it and what can we expect from you next?

"Jason Dark" is a series yes, and one of the beauties of running a series like this is that it allows me to cover all kinds of subjects in very short order. I don't have to labor for a year or more over one story that covers a small fraction of the spectrum of things I love and might like to write about. What is so incredibly exciting about the dime novel format, for me as a writer, is the fact that every month I'm dealing with an entirely different subject. One month it's vampires, the next month it's demons, then I take a stab at Templar Knight legends and follow it up with a gory zombie story. "Heavens on Fire" on the other hand took a little bit of a religious approach whereas the upcoming "From a Watery Grave" is a ghost story about greed.

I can dabble in subject matters to my heart's delight, really, dishing out something new every month. To me that is somehow much more intriguing and fascinating that writing a full-length novel that forces you to stick to one subject matter for a rather long time. Not that I would never want to write a novel, just not at the moment.

The downside on the other hand is, of course, that I have to come up with something new every month. While I have tons of ideas that fascinate and intrigue me, it is not at all easy to create a cohesive story that makes sense around it, and sometimes that part is harder than the actual writing process.

Where can we find you on the internet?

The official Jason Dark website can be found at

http://www.jasondarkseries.com On the website we have trailers, wallpapers and things, but more importantly you can find all the stories there. For people who want to give them a quick try, there are free versions of the stories on the site that can be read in your web browser, but for a more convenient experience, we also offer print dime novels and eBook versions in a variety of formats for purchase.

There is also a Jason Dark group on Facebook as well as a fan page for myself.

Any final comments or thoughts?

Before jumping in and reading any "Jason Dark" story, I think it is important to get the expectations right. It is a dime novel. That means it is comparatively short with only 64 pages in the print version. As a result these stories can be read rather quickly when compared to a full novel. I find that appealing because it gives a new sort of audience a chance to experience these stories. I think the length goes will with our fast-paced lifestyle. It takes some serious commitment to crack open a 1000 page novel and decide to read it from beginning to end. Not to avid readers, but to many regular people. As such I am trying to tap into a "Casual Reader" market, one could say, which barely exists in this country.

At the same time, the limited length and the fact that it is a series also means that information is cumulative. I am fleshing out the characters as the series progresses. Every volume reveals a little more about their motivations, ideals, traits and backgrounds. This is important to keep the series lively and exciting. However, I can see that readers who are used to novels, will be surprised that there is no immediate backstory. If you open volume 1 of the series, you're in the thick of things right away. Jason Dark is being introduced of course, but there is not single chapter talking about where he grew up, how he became a ghost hunter, or exactly how his brother died. It is touched upon, but no more. The same is true for peripheral characters and certain events. The dime novel format simply doesn't allow for that kind of depth and that kind of information is revealed over time, one episode at a time.

On the upside, however, dime novels are a furious read because of it. They jump right into the action, grab you by the collar and pull you along for the ride. There's barely a breather, and the action dominates the stories, almost like a roller coaster ride, or as one reviewer put it: "Not a single unnecessary word."

————

Guido, thanks for coming by and answering these questions – great interview!!

For those interested, Guido will be appearing at the LA Weekend of Horrors on Friday May 21 at a dedicated “Jason Dark: Ghost Hunter” panel. There will be a live discussion of the series as well as a signing following the discussion and Q&A.

Purchasing information:

Visit the Jason Dark web site for info on purchasing the books in the series