Today we welcome author Steve DeWinter.
Steve DeWinter is an American born adventure/thriller author whose evil twin writes science fiction under the pseudonym S.D. Stuart. His latest novel The Wizard of OZ: A Steampunk Adventure will be available January 8th, 2013 in Kindle and Trade Paperback.
Don’t Cross the Streams
by Steve DeWinter
If you are as old as I am (or have an older friend who has shared this wonderful movie with you) then you know what I am talking about.
If not, I do not want to spoil the movie for you, but the general idea is that the device the Ghostbusters used to capture ghosts could destabilize the entire universe if they crossed streams with another of the devices. The idea behind this was that each device’s stream alone was powerful, but if mixed with another device’s stream, the results would be disastrous.
So, lesson learned.
Don’t cross the streams.
Writing teachers (and other established authors too) give this same advice to young writers just starting out. Write what you know. Use the genre you already read and write in that. Don’t cross the genres. Don’t write in a genre you know nothing about. The list goes on and on for what writers should and should not do when choosing what to write.
I, however, ignore this advice on a daily basis with my writing. I am a cross the genres author. I have two primary genres of books that I love to read. Science Fiction and Thrillers. When I write, I mix in the best of both genres. I “cross the streams” in my writing.
Have I destabilized the universe of storytelling? I do not think so.
As I entered into the steampunk fiction realm for the first time to write The Wizard of OZ: A Steampunk Adventure, I knew going in I was going to “cross the genres” once again and create a rip-roaring science fiction adventure with a thriller quality villain in a steam-powered turn of the century world. Oh, and there had to be robots (or automatons as they were affectionately called in the late 1800’s), lots and lots of robots.
While Amazon categorizes my books for a specific audience for the purposes of searchable lists, I pull on the resources and story methods from multiple genres to create stories that entertain and thrill readers.
And if you have never seen Ghostbusters, go do something about that today!
–Steve DeWinter
The Wizard of OZ: A Steampunk Adventure
Kindle E-Book Edition
http://amzn.to/TGJBhO
Trade Paperback Edition
http://amzn.to/RCcwDP
Thanks for having me as your special guest today.