Interview With Author Timothy Johnson

1. What made you want to be a writer?

It was probably a mixture of narcissism, masochism, and the right teacher in the right class telling me I had potential in something when I felt I had potential in nothing but had to decide what I was going to do for the rest of my life. 

I took a creative writing class in college when I didn’t have a major, and when I started writing, I thought I was brilliant. At the time, I had been writing songs, so it seemed natural that I’d become a poet (because that’s a practical decision in this world). Then I was in a room with friends who literally laughed at my work, and I realized I wasn’t good.

Why did I continue? Inertia, maybe? Delusion? I’m really not sure. I did subsequently take another class with a different teacher who really opened up my appreciation for literature, film, and storytelling in general. He helped me fall in love with the philosophical, cultural, and social aspects of it, and that was when I recognized writing had power to move people, to help them live through experiences that have profound effects on people, to use empathy as a conduit for understanding and growth.

So maybe it was an innate desire to control minds.

2. The most overrated (nonliving so as to avoid hurt feelings and/or possible legal repercussions) writer is…?

Gotta go with Salinger. I’ve only read The Catcher in the Rye, but I really thought that was a waste of paper. Generally speaking, classic literature doesn’t do it for me. There are some exceptions, of course, but I find most of the celebrated works to be flawed and lacking in relevance and/or power.

[Interviewer’s note: Tim, try Salinger’s NINE STORIES.]

3. Who are your top five writing influences and what did they teach you?

Chuck Palahniuk, Philip K. Dick, Ursula Le Guin, Stephen King, and Margaret Atwood. Chuck taught me a fluidity of thought and language. His work is both profane and justified. He sometimes writes like he is absolutely sick of writing, but he does it anyway just to mess with readers. He isn’t one of my favorite writers, because I find his work lacking in emotional investment, but he showed me writing could be cool and fun and stylish without being bananas in content. 

Dick because his sci-fi imagination was unparalleled. You can keep your Asimovs and Clarkes. Philip K. Dick was the first sci-fi writer that spoke to me on a narrative level instead of a place of “wouldn’t it be cool if…?” Science fiction should ultimately be about people. The technology should just be consequence. He was the first to do it right, in my opinion.

Le Guin goes with PKD, in my opinion. She also did sci-fi from a place of character and narrative. She was more concerned with how a changing world affected people instead of how people affected a changing world. For my money, she was a better writer thank PKD, too. She had a better understanding and command of the craft. She needs more film adaptations.

Of course Stephen King is on here. I feel like anyone writing in the 21st century has to include him on their list of influences, and I feel like anyone writing in the 21st century has to read him. It doesn’t matter to me what you think of his merit. What matters is he’s undeniably influential to our society and culture. His work has shaped contemporary horror and dark fantasy as we know it today, and I would argue his influence extends beyond those genres. What King taught me was to just shut up and write and to not take myself or my writing too seriously. Maybe that’s why literary types don’t like him. In honest, King may be singularly responsible for why I continue to write today. Under the weight of crushing pressure to produce perfect literature, his work got me to open up. He taught me to have fun above all else, and if a story doesn’t work, who cares? Ironically, King’s work got me to let go of my anxieties.

And then Atwood. In my opinion, The Handmaid’s Tale completes the dystopian trinity with 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 (You can keep your Brave New World out of this). Admittedly, I’ve only read Handmaid’s Tale by her, but I’m trying to read more (I just found some used hard covers that I’m planning to get to soon). But The Handmaid’s Tale showed me a feminist work that isn’t just about feminism. What makes The Handmaid’s Tale so great is it isn’t just about female inequality or social traditions and norms. It’s a much bigger story about the tragedy of what people are willing to do to each other in the name of belief, faith, and dogma. It’s about how we use other people’s ideas to justify our own actions. It’s about how dangerous demagoguery, anger, and fear are in a social order. The Handmaid’s Tale reads like such a simpler story than 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, but it’s so much more complex and grand. Atwood taught me the power of understatement and subtlety and so much more.

4. The biggest mistake a novice writer makes is…?

I’ve found most new writers either overwrite or underwrite. 

I was an overwriter, so I understand that place. I think it comes from an anxiety that the writing isn’t good, so you overcompensate with pages of dense prose to hide the weaknesses in the story. Overwriters lack coherence. It’s difficult to follow an overwriter’s story or line of thought. Overwriters need to sort through their darlings, find what’s important to the story they’re telling, and kill the rest. What helped me the most was coming to terms with the idea that the reader’s imagination is doing the work, not mine. The writer’s job isn’t to paint a picture, it’s to supply the paint. 

Underwriters I don’t understand beyond an inability to dive into ideas. Underwriters tell stories that are very snappy but lack rhythm and depth. These writers need to slow down and expand. They need to find the specific ideas in their stories and develop them. They need to study metaphor, theme, and character.

5. If you could play in someone else’s sandbox, i.e. write a licensed character or licensed universe, who/what would it be?

The X-Men. In my humble opinion, they’re the greatest comic book superheroes ever conceived. They’re socially and culturally relevant. They’re a team of heroes with limited powers who have to work together. And their stories are about what makes them human instead of what makes them exceptional.

Or the video game universe of Halo. I played a lot of those games, and I became enamored with the concept that we have this guy who was stolen from his family as a child, trained to be a ruthless murderer, genetically and cybernetically enhanced to do that even more effectively, yet those stories are about his surviving humanity. He doesn’t save humanity because he is ordered to. He saves it because he wants to, and in the face of everything he’s undergone as a person, I think that is profound.

Also, it’s the only space marine universe that matters. Don’t @ me.

6. The biggest misconception about being a writer is…?

That anyone is going to care about your work. You can’t get into writing for vanity. If that’s what you seek, do something more easily digestible, like music or painting. That stuff will get you updoots on reddit. Put up a novel, and people will be like, “What is this? I have to give more than three minutes of my attention? Nope!” or “Hey, great cover!” -_-

7. What was the most difficult thing you ever wrote? Do you think it came out the way you would have liked? 

My story “The Last Family Pillar.” It’s an extremely personal story, and I think it came out as good as I could ever expect myself to do it. It appeared in the June 2017issue of Gamut.

8. When it comes to movies and books, the one thing you get tired of seeing is…?

Writers who are tired of the very thing they’re writing but are unwilling to try something different. Topically, I never tire of anything, but it’s evident to me when the writer just didn’t care. I don’t understand. If you don’t care, why not write something else? Put your heart into your work. If you’re not able to do that, go spend time with your family. Why torture yourself? It’s not like you’re going to make money.

…Oh wait. I often see this in things that made money. Dammit.

Dear people of Earth: Stop throwing money at crap.

9. Do you think you have an infinite amount of stories to tell? Or do you think one day you’ll have said everything you wanted to say?

I feel like it’s a well. It can run dry, but life refills it. As long as I’m living, I don’t expect I will be finished.

10. What excites you most about your current project?

My head is kind of on several projects right now, but I just started a story about the California wildfires that I think is going to be pretty Stephen Kingian. It excites me because I feel like it’s a bit of a throwback stylistically for me. I don’t think it will be particularly noteworthy, but I think it will be cool. According to the School of Stephen King, that makes it a worthwhile tale to tell.