Reed Stirling, my authored self, lives in Cowichan
Bay, BC, and writes when not painting landscapes, travelling, or taking coffee
at The Drumroaster, a local café where physics and metaphysics clash daily. Before retiring and taking up
writing novels as a past time, I taught English Literature. Joyce Carol Oates
oversaw my M.A. thesis. Several talented students of mine have gone on to
become successful award-winning writers.
My
wife and I built a log home in the hills of southern Vancouver Island, and
survived totally off the grid for twenty-five years during which time the rooms
in that house filled up with books, thousands of student essays were graded,
and innumerable cords of firewood were split.
Shades Of Persephone, published in 2019, is a literary mystery set in Greece. Lighting The Lamp, a fictional memoir, was published in March 2020. Séjour Saint-Louis (2021) resolves the drama of father-son conflict through lyrical, mythological, and biographical allusion. Shorter work has appeared over the years in a variety of publications including Hackwriters Magazine, Dis(s)ent, The Danforth Review, Fickle Muses, The Fieldstone Review, Humanist Perspectives, StepAway Magazine, and most recently in Mediterranean Poetry.
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https://www.reedstirlingwrites.com/
Do your characters come before or after your plot?
Characters evolve after the idea for the story has been established. Main characters tend to be protagonist-narrators in pursuit of truth as they understand it or as plot and theme define it. Simple observation of real people in real life exchanges (a young couple in a hospital waiting room, a tête-à-tête in a bar or restaurant, someone behind the wheel of a luxury automobile noticed at an intersection) will give birth to characters whose voices demand to be heard. That man wearing a Panama hat or that tiny woman wearing bright red shoes — very interesting! Imagination informs them with a personal history, with particular traits, with relevant choices. Action (plot) reveals character, true; but conflict implies decisions and consequences. Providing them with creditable motivation is essential. Verisimilitude is the objective of the exercise no matter the setting. The character I want the reader to identify with may not be likeable at all. As long as he or she is interesting, has a voice worth listening to, and is capable of reflecting authentic human instincts.
How do you choose a villain and how do you make them
human?
The term villain is too black and white for me.
I prefer the term antagonist. Antagonists in my fiction can be born out of the
observation that people, despicable politicians, for instance, lie repeatedly.
Antagonist can be well-meaning in their contrariness or destructiveness. They
can have malicious intent in their apparent goodness. Realistic personal
histories go a long way towards giving them standing. They help move the action
along from crisis to crisis. To humanize them, grant them plausible voice,
mannerism, idiosyncrasy, tic, flaw, aspiration, success, failed amorous affair,
ham hands, and diminished size of shoe. A golf game might indicate how downtime
is enjoyed. A black hat might just be in vogue at the time of the story, and
not symbolic of a really bad dude with a .45 in his hip pocket. Eschew the
stereotypical. A scar might be emblematic of love or a badge of honour. A
penchant for odd-ball humour can lighten what appears to be nothing but dark
and sinister. The antagonist can be a force-field of repudiation or disdain. A
troublesome memory. I favour antagonists that arise from within main characters
and shadow their every move.
Do your reading choices reflect your writing choices?
Absolutely, reading influences my writing. I read
widely, and have done so for decades, the classics included. The muse visits me most often when I read the
novels of John Banville — style, irony, imagery. Shakespeare continues to be a
source of inspiration in terms of character and theme. Jonathan Swift rules in
the domain of satire.
In particular, Lawrence
Durrell’s The Alexandrian Quartet
provided the impetus for Shades Of
Persephone. John Fowles’ The Magus gave
me the Greek setting, specifically Chania, Crete. Here I created plausible
characters of varying backgrounds, foremost among whom, Steven Spire, a young
expat as narrator and central character of artistic temperament in need of
purpose. Bar and café conversations led to hints of foreign intrigue. Ancient
ruins gave way to Nazi runes. Crooked laneways led to mountain retreats and
buried secrets. Hydra-headed truth demanded a place on the table along with the
ouzo and artichoke hearts. And love, naturally, raised all expectations with
the birth, mirroring Aphrodite’s rise from the sea, of Magalee De Bellefeuille.
Joyce’s Portrait inspired more than one scene in
Lighting The Lamp, as did the
philosophical musing of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Marcel Proust plays a part here as well, as do Richard Dawkins,
Emily Dickinson, and Albert Camus. The poems of Émile Nelligan worked thematically into Séjour Saint-Louis.
I attempt to write
literary fiction that entertains while being socially relevant. I sit down to
write every day and try to leave the desk having achieved at least a workable
page. Frequently what comes of my effort amounts to no more than a serviceable
paragraph, a single sentence, or a metaphor that might work in a context yet to
be imagined.
Which type of characters are your favorite to write?
A favourite character is an elusive character. What that character
might be depends on how the plot evolves and the themes that emerge from it. Having
a very definite voice is more important than being tall, dark, and handsome, or
beautiful in a stereotypical fashion. He or she possess a voice that is
engaging, exhibits a sense of humour (or sense of the absurd), and betrays a
philosophical frame of mind if not an ironic view of life in this world. That
character need not be heroic, just be ordinary within the framework of human
possibility. He or she has to be entertaining and intellectually stimulating in
the fictional settings they enter and exit. My favourite characters tend to be
articulate about the nature of the quest they have set for themselves. They
seek to understand, often what is totally incomprehensible; to know, often what
is beyond knowing.
What sort of research do you do for your work?
More recently I research things online. However, the
reference books I consult (be they literary, philosophical, or architectural) I
find on my own shelves or on those of our local library. Most enjoyable is
research done in situ, Greece for Shades
Of Persephone, for example, and Montreal in large part for Lighting The Lamp and Séjour Saint-Louis. Reading other
fiction can also be a source relevant information. Simple observation of
everyday human exchanges helps inform. I lean towards mystery in my writing,
with romantic entanglement often an integral part of the narrative. Allusions
to mythology, art, literature, philosophy, and religion underpin plot
development. Irony is pervasive.
What are you working on now?
Besides making
revisions to a fourth novel, I am presently
working on a many-layered, multi-dimensional, non-cosy mystery. It may take
some time!
Séjour Saint-Louis
Montreal
in late nineteenth century, a gifted young poet falls victim to madness.
Today, a struggling
father is driven to drink over the intransigence of his music-obsessed teenage son. An equally conflicted wife and mother
threatens separation.
What connects these two worlds?
The Victorian fountain in Square Saint-Louis, a series of seemingly random incidents in the city, and a school reunion where myth, art, and mysterious e-lixar fuse into dramatic reflections of family dynamics. Through mirroring, resolution proves possible.
https://books2read.com/Sejour-Saint-Louis
SHADES OF PERSEPHONE
Shades of Persephone is
a literary mystery that will entertain those who delight in exotic settings,
foreign intrigue, and the unmasking of mysterious characters. Crete in 1980-81,
more specifically the old Venetian harbour of Chania, provides the background
against which expat Canadian Steven Spire labours in pursuit of David
Montgomery, his enigmatic and elusive mentor, who stands accused in absentia of
treachery and betrayal. The plot has many seams through which characters slide,
another of them being the poet Emma Leigh, widow of Montgomery’s imposing Cold
War adversary, Heinrich Trüger. In that the setting is Crete, the source of
light is manifold, but significant inspiration for Steven Spire comes from
Magalee De Bellefeuille, his vision of Aphrodite and his muse. “Find Persephone,”
she directs him, “and you’ll find David Montgomery.” Her prompts motivate much of the narrative,
including that of the Cretan underground during the Nazi occupation, 1941- 45.
Shades of Persephone presents a story of love and sensuality, deception and war, spiritual quest and creative endeavour. The resolution takes an unanticipated turn but comes as no surprise to the discerning reader. Like Hamlet who must deal with his own character in following the injunctions of his ghostly father, Steven Spire discovers much about the city to which he has returned, but much more about himself and his capacity for love.
https://books2read.com/Shades-of-Persephone
