{"id":7365,"date":"2018-09-11T06:45:27","date_gmt":"2018-09-11T10:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tellest.com\/?p=7365"},"modified":"2018-09-21T08:40:52","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T12:40:52","slug":"interview-b-c-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/interview-b-c-johnson\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with B.C. Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"
Intro: Hello everyone, and welcome to our interview with B.C. Johnson, the author of Dytin\u2019s Stones: Windrider<\/em>, a fantasy story that begins a series that you should really consider diving into.\u00a0 Read on to see what makes Johnson tick, and also to see how he\u2019s brought his stories to life.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tellest<\/strong>: I\u2019m sure you\u2019re busy writing or out there saving lives as a paramedic, so we really appreciate that you\u2019re able to give us some time.\u00a0 One of the first things that I usually ask storytellers is how they started off writing.\u00a0 You\u2019ve been going at it since the third grade.\u00a0 What set you off and made you put pen to page?<\/p>\n B.C. Johnson<\/strong>: Thank-you for having me. Is this where I start off with \u201cIt all came to me in a dream\u2026\u201d or \u201cI had something inside me that JUST had to get out!\u201d? Nothing as theatric as that I\u2019m afraid. Just your routine case of an over-active imagination and the inability to sit still in class. I had a wonderful, safe childhood that allowed for hours of adventures when my parents would yell \u201cGo play outside!\u201d and teachers who loved to foster creative expression. My third-grade teacher especially started my love for writing when she gave us papers with prompts as the first sentence, and I just devoured every one of them.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n T<\/strong>: Well, I appreciate that, because that\u2019s how I got my start, too, really.\u00a0 Are there any prompts that you can recall from back then that stuck with you?\u00a0 If not, are there any stories that you remember writing?<\/p>\n BCJ<\/strong>: Some that jump to mind were pretty goofy prompts, but they really got the juices flowing. Stuff like \u201cYou just discovered your mother is a robot\u201d or \u201cWhen I was walking to school, I saw an alien land in the football field\u201d. Things like that. I know there were all kinds of prompts from all sorts of genres, but those are the ones I remember the best because I specifically asked for extra paper cause the stories just went off the rails.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n T<\/strong>: Do you recommend writing prompts as a good way to get people started on writing?<\/p>\n BCJ<\/strong>: Absolutely, I suggest any tool or trick to get the ball rolling. That hardest thing to do is start, but once that hurdle is crossed, it always gets a lot easier.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n T<\/strong>: When you were in high school, you were writing longer stories.\u00a0 Is there any chance that we\u2019ll see any of those stories in some form?\u00a0 Have any of the events in those tales been reintroduced or integrated into either of your two currently published tales?<\/p>\n BCJ<\/strong>: You\u2019ll actually walk through that same world in the Dytin\u2019s Stones series. The whole adventure has gone through some massive rewrites but the geography and major events in the stories have remained the same. The rest of my short stories were the equivalent to what fan fiction is today, and trust me, they\u2019re so bad that no one would want them to see the light of day.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n