7 Questions For: Author Chris Grabenstein

Chris Grabenstein is the author of The Haunted Places Series, which so far includes The Crossroads (Haunted Places (Quality)), The Hanging Hill (Haunted Places (Quality)), and The Smoky Corridor (Haunted Places).

 Click here to read my review for The Smoky Corridor. 

His books for adults include The Holiday Thriller Series: Slay Ride, Hell for the Holidays: A Christopher Miller Holiday Thriller, and The John Ceepak Mysteries: Tilt-a-Whirl, Mad Mouse: A John Ceepak Mystery, Whack A Mole: A John Ceepak Mystery, Hell Hole (John Ceepak Mystery), Mind Scrambler: A John Ceepak Mystery (John Ceepak Series), Rolling Thunder: A John Ceepak Mystery.

Here is Chris Grabenstein's official bio:

Chis Grabenstein studied journalism and theater at college and then moved to New York City with six suitcases, a typewriter, and very little money. For five years, he performed and won awards with some of the city's top Improvisational Comedy troupes, making up scenes and songs on the spot in front of live audiences, just like they did on "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"

A young actor named Bruce Willis was also in Chris's comedy group, but nobody knows what happened to him. From time to time, Robin Williams would drop by to perform with Chris and his comedy gang. When not writing scripts for his friends to perform in the small Greenwich village theatre (which was actually another basement) Chris also wrote for Jim Henson's Muppets.

In 1986, he and his college buddy Ronny Venable wrote a TV movie for CBS called The Christmas Gift. It starred John Denver and can still be seen almost every year during the holidays, usually on the Hallmark Channel.

He won the 2006 Anthony Award for best first mystery for his first adult mystery Tilt-a-Whirl.

And now Chris Grabenstein faces the 7 Questions:

Question Seven: What are your top three favorite books?

Number one is A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY by John Irving.

Number Two PET SEMATARY by Stephen King (and just about everything else he ever wrote).

Number Three THE HUNGER GAMES

 

 

Question Six: How much time do you spend each week writing? Reading?

 

I try to write 2,000 new words a day, Monday-Friday. Some days that takes four hours. Other days eight. Dialogue days move the fastest. I read for an hour or two every day.

 

 

Question Five: What was the path that led you to publication?

 

Persistence. Keeping on keeping on. After working as an advertising copy writer for close to twenty years, I spent four years in a room writing screenplays and manuscripts nobody was interested in. Then, in 2005, my first mystery TILT A WHIRL was published. It won the Anthony Award for best first mystery. Now, five years later, my eleventh book (fourteenth if you count the short story collections) is about to come out!

 

 

Question Four: Do you believe writers are born, taught or both? Which was true for you?

 

Probably both. Writers are readers who don't want the stories to end so they start making up their own. I often credit my study of Latin in Catholic High School with making me fall in love with words and wordplay. I also had some terrific English teachers who encouraged me to keep writing.

 

 

Question Three: What is your favorite thing about writing? What is your least favorite thing?

 

The actual writing. Sitting down with a cup of coffee and my keyboard and letting the characters come alive in my head. The worst part is wondering whether what you've written is any good.

 

 

Question Two: What one bit of wisdom would you impart to an aspiring writer? (feel free to include as many other bits of wisdom as you like)

 

Read a lot. And then, take apart your favorite book the way you might take apart a clock to see what makes it tick. Read it three times. Once just for fun. Then, start reading it with a pen in hand. If it's your copy, make notes in the margins. What happens when? What did the author plant in chapter one that he or she uses in chapter ten. What kind of words does the author use? Completely deconstruct it the way we used to tear apart Shakespeare when I went to school. Read like a writer and learn the craft hidden under the art.

 

 

Question One: If you could have lunch with any writer, living or dead, who would it be? Why? 

 

Stephen King. He is, simply amazing. The Dickens of my generation. And Shakespeare could come along, too, as long as he didn't "hey, nonny-nonny" too much.

 

www.chrisgrabenstein.com

Book of the Week: THE SMOKY CORRIDOR by Chris Grabenstein

The Smoky Corridor is actually the third book in The Haunted Places Series. Though references are made to events that obviously occurred in previous books, The Smoky Corridor is a standalone tale and I had no problem jumping in without having read the first two books. Nor do I feel that the first two books have been ruined by my reading the third first, so I can go back and read them as well, which I plan to. The upside is that some of the major exposition is streamlined going into this third tale. For example, here is an excerpt from page 3:

Zack knew a thing or two about haunted places, because he had a special gift: He could see all sorts of dearly departed souls (even the ones who popped into paintings) whom other people, especially adults like his dad, could not. He always figured it was the kind of gift that should’ve come with a gift receipt so he could take it back for something better, like athletic ability or super-powers.

The fact that our main character has a sixth sense is sort of a big deal plotwise and if this were the first book in the series I would expect Grabenstein to take some time and really establish Zack Jennings’ ability to chat with the dead. There are certain obligatory scenes that go along with discovering a gift/curse like this one: Zack’s first chat with a dead person, the scene where Zack freaks out and is convinced he’s losing his mind, the scene where Zack accepts his ability and heads out to the graveyard to do some chatting the way Bruce Willis walks around bumping people in the crowded train station at the end of Unbreakable (a Ninja favorite). Having not yet read the first book in the series, I can’t be sure what variation Grabenstein took on these obligatory scenes, but I’m sure some version of them was employed.

That business is all good and well, but it’s a little bit like a superhero origin story, which are my least favorite superhero stories. It’s kind of fun to watch Spider-man learn to wall crawl and websling, but I prefer to watch him when he’s already figured all that out and is headed into a serious battle with Doc Ock. Once the obligatory origin is taken care of, a writer can really open up a story and show us what his protagonist can do with his powers.

Good thing too. The Smoky Corridor goes to some crazy places it probably wouldn’t have time for if Grabenstein had to spend a great deal of time establishing Zack’s ability. Instead, that one little paragraph from page 3 is pretty much all we get and then Zach is off and chatting with dead people he meets. Sweet.

The Smoky Corridor is a wholly original work. I honestly can’t recall reading anything just like it. There are familiar story elements throughout (zombies are more or less zombie regardless of the tale at hand), but I’ve never seen them arranged in quite this way. I know I should provide some sort of plot summary, but I’m afraid I can’t do Grabenstein's far-reaching plot much justice in a few lines. Even so, I'll give it a go: Zack Jennings has just started at a new middle school he believes to be haunted. As Zack’s specialty is ghosts, there wouldn’t be much of a story if it weren’t.

The school’s founder was Horace P. Pettimore, once a Captain in the confederate army—are any former confederate army members ever the good guys? Before he died, Pettimore stole a whole bunch of money from the confederate army and stashed it at the school. He was also a voodoo master with a particular skill in creating zombies (of course he was). Pettimore is still hanging around in ghost form, naturally, and he’s got himself a zombie hidden within the school to protect his treasure (awesome). It turns out Pettimore’s grand scheme is to come back to life so he can finally spend his gold. Thank goodness he kept it hidden at the school rather than investing it in the stock market or he might be stuck waiting for an economic recovery before resurrecting:)

Upon his death, Pettimore donated his estate to the community as a school. Why would such a dastartdly fellow do this? So that every year a crop of fresh children will come near enough that he can inspect them until he finds the one blood relative suitable for him to take over and return from the grave. He’s even set up voodoo charms to attract such a child:

All he needed was one very special child.

The one he had been seeking for more than a century. The one he had used a voodoo charm of magic powder, herbs, dove feathers, and a pint of his own blood to attract to this place.

A blood relative.

Just one!

Could this blood relative Pettimore so desires be our Zack? Maybe yes, maybe no. But wait! There is even more plot I haven’t touched on. And as I see we’re running out of room I suppose I’ll have to leave most of the plot for you to discover on your own. But there are two ghosts, the Donnely boys, who died in a smoky corridor (wink, wink) because they were playing with matches. Even in death they long to burn the school down and I had a good long laugh when plot elements (I won’t spoil them) conspired to give these boys their own zombie to do their bidding.

Okay, I’m signing off. Check out The Smoky Corridor. I guarantee you’ll have a few good laughs and you might just get a little scared. Don’t forget to check back on Thursday when Mr. Grabenstein himself will be here. And it’s good to be back, Esteemed Reader. I’m going to leave you with a passage of dialogue from The Smoky Corridor that made me grin from ear to ear:

"...a voodoo zombie has recently awoken in his nearby hidey-hole. I know this because, well, mine was the first corpse he feasted upon when waking."

Zack Urped. Almost tossed his cookies.

"Sorry," said Mr. Willoughby.

"I'm okay."

"Me too! Fortunately, being dead has one benefit: I didn't feel a thing while the beast ripped me apart

and gobbled down my brain."

This time when he urped, Zack had to put his hand over his mouth.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Book of the Week is simply the best book I happened to read in a given week. There are likely other books as good or better that I just didn’t happen to read that week. Also, all reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own.