• The Story Behind the Book

    August Falling: Music and Its Role

    When I was younger, I was able to write through anything. It wasn’t uncommon to have the radio blaring in the background. As I got older, the ads started to irritate me – well, those annoying ones (“Hello! Hello!”) where somebody was talking right at you. They always broke my concentration. Listening to CDs helped solve that problem. Originally, I’d just play anything. But as I grew more experienced and idiosyncratic (as a writer) I’d chose music that tonally suited whatever I was writing. It helped get me in the right mood and created a mindset that contributed to the story. When I was thirty, I went through terrible clusters…

  • The Story Behind the Book

    August Falling: The Story and the Characters

    Going into the novelization of “House of Cards”, I again went into planning stage. I thought the story would rotate between several groups of people: August and Julie August’s sister and her partner August’s workmates Julie’s school crowd Julie’s workmates the nursing home where Julie’s aunt lives the café where August hung out during lunch breaks. Lots of these groups involved blocks of characters, e.g. the workplaces, and Julie’s school. Most of them would be supporting or peripheral, but I wanted (and needed) them to all exist. I drew up eighty characters, assigning them different roles. In the book, I used only about twenty of them. The story never went…