Jeremy Bates has spent the last ten years traveling the world, visiting more than thirty countries.  He has lived in Canada, the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines.  Bates is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario with a degree in English literature and philosophy and is a teacher in international schools.  Where’s home for Jeremy? Canada, the United States, and Australia.

His frightening debut novel, White Lies, is set in a small village in the Cascade Mountain range of eastern Washington.  In the book, he succeeds in bringing world class terror to this tranquil community.

 

}

}

}

}

}

CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHOR
JEREMY BATES

}

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF, HOW AND WHEN YOU STARTED WRITING.

The first time I thought about writing a book would have been back when I was in grade nine. I’d just finished reading a certain fantasy novel which I really enjoyed. It was part of a planned series, only the sequel had not been published yet (there have been more than ten sequels/prequels to date, I believe). But at the time there were none, so I went about trying to write it! It was truly cringe-worthy stuff, but I was only twelve at the time, so I believe it is forgivable. I started taking things more seriously ten years down the road, after I graduated university. That’s when I got into the habit of writing every day. That was the real start, I believe.

}

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE YOUR NOVEL?

Scott Smith’s A Simple Plan was part of it. I’m a big fan—in fiction and film—of what I call situational thrillers. That is, a simple What If scenario. The key word is simple. Start off with a simple plot and let it get more and more tangled as it goes, rather than starting off with something complex and trying to juggle all the balls. I really liked Smith’s premise: What if someone found four million dollars? What he do? What would you do? The same thing goes for Speak No Evil. What if someone told a white lie and was forced into telling another and another? How far would she take it? How far would you?

}
HOW DID YOU USE YOUR LIFE EXPERIENCE OR PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND TO ENRICH YOUR STORY?

Well, I’ve been teaching overseas off and on over the years…it’s been a very convenient lifestyle to lead while working on getting published. One, you get to travel and work wherever you want any given year. And two, the hours are usually pretty good so you get a lot of time to write or do whatever. So when I was thinking of a job for the protagonist, Katrina, I followed the advice aspiring writers hear all the time: write about what you know. So I made her a teacher. The novel also has a bit of an existential theme: you are what you do, not what you say. That’s something I’ve always believed.

}

IS THERE ANYTHING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL IN YOUR NOVEL?

I’m certain there’s always something autobiographical in a writer’s writing whether it’s in the characters or the setting or the plot. Even so, nothing I write really screams this is from my life. Just bits and pieces from different experiences and beliefs. Stuff hanging out in the psyche, both the good and the bad. And that’s part of the fun in writing, I think. You probe these parts of yourself that you usually wouldn’t probe to discover fodder for your characters. I guess you sort of get to know yourself better in the process.

}

ARE ANY CHARACTERS BASED ON PEOPLE YOU KNOW?

I have one friend who keeps insisting on being himself in a future novel! But the truth is, I feel uncomfortable basing anything too much on people I know. Like I said above, just bits and pieces, whether from me or from someone else.

}
WOULD YOU SAY THAT YOUR NOVEL IS MORE PLOT DRIVEN OR CHARACTER DRIVEN?

I’d say it’s a bit of both. Having a wild or engaging plot is one way to entertain. But if your plot gets a little too crazy, you don’t have the magic of special effects to rescue the story and distract the audience. So I think you also need well-developed characters to draw the reader in and keep him or her invested and hooked.

}
WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE OR MOST SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER? AND WHY?

My favorite character would likely be Jack. He’s the one I had the most fun writing. I’ve heard some actors say something along the lines that bad guys are usually more fun to portray than good guys because you can really let it go with them. Jack might not be the most sympathetic character—I’d say that hat lands on Zack or Katrina—but I don’t think he’s completely unsympathetic either. He was at least trying to do good, even though it all turned out very bad. I have a thing with villains who are bad just for the sake of being bad. I don’t believe anyone wakes up in the morning and says, I want to be evil today. That’s not human nature (unless they are genuine psychopaths). So I try to make my villains relatively normal people who do bad things because of the circumstances they land themselves in, not because it’s something they get off on doing.

}
WHAT PART OF WRITING YOUR BOOK DID YOU FIND THE MOST CHALLENGING?

Let me flip that around and say what I find the least challenging, which is the rewriting. I’m not sure about other writers, but I really don’t mind the rewriting/editing process. It’s a lot less draining than the creative aspect. The most challenging part of writing then would be simply filling the pages. When you’re on page three, and you realize you have another three or four hundred ahead of you, it can be rather daunting and sometimes exhausting work. Having said that, seeing a blank page fill up with words and come alive in a way you never fully planned is also the most rewarding part of the writing process for me.

}

WHAT DO YOU HOPE THAT READERS WILL TAKE AWAY FROM YOU BOOK?

Enjoyment. If people like it, that’s all that really matters.

}
HOW DO YOU DIAL UP THE TENSION TO KEEP YOUR READERS ON THE EDGE OF THEIR SEATS?

To begin with, I think it helps tremendously to have a plot that is inherently suspenseful. It makes the writing itself that much easier. That’s why legal thrillers work as well as they do: a trial, courtroom drama, it’s all inherently suspenseful. But to keep things moving along you also need the liberal use of the proverbial cliff hanger. You put a character in a sticky situation and have them struggle through it. By the time they reach the end of the scene, just when they think they’ve made it, you hit them with an even bigger disaster. A kind of one step forward, two steps backwards approach. This keeps the plot moving ahead while making things worse and worse for the hero. I also think endings have to be big and spectacular to make the entire struggle worth it.

}
WHAT WRITERS HAVE INSPIRED YOU?

I’m sure every writer I’ve read has inspired me to some degree. That first fantasy author I mentioned because he got me wanting to write. All the big names I read growing up, such as Koontz and Crichton and Sheldon, for developing my imagination. Even the bad writers, or writers I personally haven’t liked, inspired me, because they made me think, yeah, this isn’t impossible, I can at least do it better than that guy. But if I had to mention one name it would be Stephen King. He’s simply the best popular writer, in my opinion, of the last thirty years, which is about my entire lifetime. The Tommyknockers was the first Big Book I ever read and it blew me away. Since then I’ve read more of his stuff than any other single author’s. To date The Shining is probably one of my all-time favorites.

}
WHAT IS THE WRITING PROCESS LIKE FOR YOU?

If I had the luxury of writing fulltime I would probably have a regimented schedule worked out by now, but as things stand I pretty much write whenever I have the time. In coffee shops, at work, at the gym. My one golden rule is to write everyday…or at least six days a week. The creative stuff comes in the morning, usually with a few cups of coffee and loud music playing in my headphones (it helps to block out everything else around me). The afternoon or evening tends more toward the rewriting/editing part of the day, when I go over everything I had put down in the morning, sometimes with a beer or two.

}
WHAT IS THE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE ABOUT WRITING THAT YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED?

Don’t give up. I heard an author describe it something like this: when he was unpublished, he used to compare himself to a guy pumping coins into a slot machine one after the other, hoping to hit the jackpot. The odds were not necessarily in his favor, but the thing was, he believed himself to have a limitless bucket of coins. And if you look at it that way, it’s only a matter of time.

}
WHAT IS THE WORST PIECE OF ADVICE ABOUT WRITING THAT YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED?

Give up!

}
WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU? ANY NEW BOOKS IN THE PIPELINE?

I always have a few ideas rolling around when I’m thinking about the next book. The tricky part is picking the right idea. But the one I’ve chosen is similar to Speak No Evil in that the protagonist is an ordinary person who finds herself in an extraordinary situation and must battle through to the end while hopefully learning something about herself along the way.

}
ANY FINAL WORDS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SAY ABOUT YOURSELF, YOUR NOVEL, OR LIFE IN GENERAL?

}

Find something in life to take very seriously, and it will give you the freedom or peace of mind to take everything else a little less seriously.