Douglas A. Van Belle is an award-winning author and screenwriter, and winner of New Zealand's prestigious Sir Julius Vogel Award. His recent work includes science fiction novels The Barking Death Squirrels, The Care and Feeding of Your Lunatic Mage, and the YA title, The Kahutahuta. He spends his days as a Senior Lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington, where his research includes the politics of crises and role science fiction in society, which are related in surprising ways. Also an artisan bladesmith, he is a passionate advocate for the therapeutic value of playing with fire and pounding the living daylights out of white-hot steel.Tell us a bit about your latest work.
A World Adrift was published by Wordfire Press in October, and I guess you could call it my breakout novel. Wordfire probably still counts as an indie but it has an established global distribution chain and a marketing program to match the big publishers. Perhaps more importantly, it’s run by a best-selling science fiction author, Kevin J. Anderson, who created it specifically for science fiction authors and fans. He knows the genre and its fans better than any other publisher out there so I suspected that I might have something special when he asked to see it even though Wordfire was closed to submissions. Then, just a few hours after getting his hands on a typo-laden monstrosity of a first draft, he emailed me a contract and I knew I’d finally managed to take that next step.
A World Adrift is set in the skies of Venus, roughly 800 years after humans first settled the habitable layer about 55 kilometers above the surface. It’s a steam-punkish world of Zepplin cities, kitesurfing airships, empires, war, and economic collapse. But unlike most things you might call steampunk, everything in the story is real or realistic. That habitable layer in the Venusian atmosphere exists, and all the steampunk elements are logical and realistic projections of the science, engineering, and socio-economic realities of living there.
The novel is about the people caught up in a coup, and again, every element is as accurate and realistic as it can be. I’m an academic who has spent decades studying the human side of the politics of crises and disasters, and that informs every aspect of the plot. Still, the politics and that plot are the framework, not the story. The stories are about the people; reluctant heroes thrown into the breach; decent people swept onto the wrong side; poor choices; plans that fall apart; improvisations that go wrong; and clever solutions that win reprieves but fall short of resolutions.
Drama is personal. Stories are personal.
What are the themes and subjects you tend to revisit in your work?
My first instinct is to say that I don’t revisit themes. I have an extended development process for novels and screenplays that involves a lot of exploration and a lot of writing of scenes that I think of as concept sketches, few of which ever make it into the novel or screenplay. Through that process, I discover the themes and the ideas I want to write about, and they reflect how the story evolves and how the characters take shape.
However, one of my more philosophically inclined friends recently introduced me to a small group of fans by describing my fiction as reflections of the tragic comedy that is humanity, and I’m starting to think he may have something there. Humor is and always has been a big part of my fiction, but when that friend referenced tragic comedy, he was talking about the countless ironies inherent to the clash between humanity and the human condition. I bring a lot of my background in politics, psychology, sociology, and the sciences into that, but that’s all stage and setting for characters trapped between what they think should be and what is, which is the tragedy comedy that is humanity.
What happened in your life that prompted you to become a writer?
Nothing. And that’s not a cop-out. Like someone who always had a flare for drawing, or could just always sing, I’ve always just been a writer. Fiction has always been the just-for-fun part of that, and somewhere along the way it evolved into something worth sharing. There’s been a hell of a lot of work I’ve had to put into learning the craft of writing fiction, and that came after realizing that I had stories worth sharing, but there was no big bang event.
What inspires you to write?
When it comes to fiction, nothing. And that’s an actual answer. I desperately want to spend every minute of every day playing with stories and ideas and the only thing it takes to get me writing is an hour or two when there’s nothing on the schedule that I can’t put off.
Honestly, I have to wonder why the people who struggle to find the motivation or the inspiration to write fiction bother. If you aren’t writing fiction simply for the pure artistic joy of creating something, why are you doing it? Spoiler alert, if you’re doing it for the money, fame, or the respect it brings your way, I have some bad news for you.
What would be your dream project?
A World Adrift is pretty close. Hard science fiction where I didn’t have to make a single compromise on the science to create a wow kind of world, and a story that just about wrote itself, that is my dream project. However, I’d have to say that if I could find that in a big TV project, that would be better. I’m a far better screenwriter than I am a novelist and to get the opportunity to write something like A World Adrift for the screen would be the dream. I’ve done a lot of uncredited ghostwriting and script fixing for a NZ studio, but that’s just work. Getting the chance to create something for the screen is the dream.
If you have any former project to do over to make it better, which one would it be, and what would you do?
That’s a good one, one I’ve never heard before, and the answer is obvious. My novella,
Breathe.
There are tons of little things I would like to change in my novel, Barking Death Squirrels, particularly some of the details around the central female character, but that’s just a re-edit with a competent editor. I received a lot of useful editorial input on the stories that made up the chapters in Barking Death Squirrels, so the editor for the novel couldn’t do much damage, but that also meant that I couldn’t see how unprofessional they were until after they edited Breathe. It wasn’t just the embarrassing mess they made of the copy-editing; they made countless editorial changes that they didn’t mark up. I probably still should have seen that her changes transformed the hapless, hopeless, and tragic romantic idiot into a creepy AF horror story cliché of a villain; or the way that cutting some of the clever little things that the overly chipper woman did turned her into a bubble-headed idiot; or worst of all, the way cutting a few critical sentences introducing the woman trying to keep the spark in her marriage turned her into a misogynistic cliché; but with all the drafts an author holds in their head when they’re reviewing copy edits, it’s pretty damn tough to spot things that are no longer in there when they aren’t signaled.
Fortunately, I just might get a redo on Breathe. A NZ filmmaker picked up an option on the story and I fixed the issues when I wrote the adaptation. It’s not clear if I’ll get to expand the novella into a novel, but so far, that’s part of plan, and if I do, I’ll fix the issues there as well as add the new story elements from the adaptation.
What writers have influenced your style and technique?
Unironically, I’m going to say “all of them.” Obviously, I haven’t read all of the authors out there, but when it comes to Fantasy and Science Fiction, I’m about as close to that mark as anyone might be able to manage. I’m also pretty omnivorous when it comes to reading and I get something out of all of it. Even the trashy stuff that’s so bad I can’t finish it has an influence. I can’t tell you how many novels I’ve abandoned and then subsequently I wondered if this, that, or the other thing might have made it work.
Having said that, Larry Niven was huge. I read Ringworld back when I was far too young to read Ringworld and the whole idea of building a world changed everything for me.
Where would you rank writing on the "Is it an art or it is a science continuum?" Why?
Art, no question, but like any form of art, there is a tremendous amount of craft, that you might call the science, involved. You can’t really paint in an artistic way until you understand layering, color theory, perspective, stroke, and texture. Writing fiction is the same. It’s an art built on a science of technique that we call craft.
What is the most difficult part of your artistic process?
The three weeks or so after finishing a big project. The stretch run on a novel, screenplay, textbook, or research monograph is so intense and so all-consuming that finishing it can feel like stepping out an airlock. Even after dozens of books, finishing that final draft leaves me lost and hopeless. I wake up the next morning certain that I will never again have a good idea and spiral down from there. A lot of the writers I know save some little projects for those dark weeks after the novel, but that doesn’t work for me. I just have to ride it out. I kind of sleepwalk through at least a few weeks where I can’t do anything and can’t get anything done. It’s pretty damn bleak.
How do your writer friends help you become a better writer? Or do they not?
In every way you can imagine, and this question is just begging for some name-dropping, so let me oblige. Robert J. Sawyer treated me like his equal from the moment I published my first story, and I can’t possibly say how huge that was. David Brin taught me more than I can say about being the professional writer that Rob inspired me to be. David Gerold taught me how to appreciate the community that is science fiction. Chatting black-hole physics and chaos theory with Stephen R. Donaldson back when I was in graduate school showed me how a writer extracts story elements out of knowledge. The entire team at Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine was always there to encourage me to play around with ideas, push things to the edge of absurdity, and take creative risks. Melinda Snodgrass was generous in helping me build a professional network at science fiction conventions. Greg Bear whispered in my ear that I needed to enjoy everything that went with being a professional, and then he went and showed me how. Larry Niven’s writings inspired me, and now that I can call him an acquaintance, his humility is just as inspirational as his writing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen him waiting in a queue at a convention when he could just walk up to the front and get waived through like a VIP. Steven Barnes taught me to find my own way, find my own voice, and find my own process. Kevin J. Anderson taught me more about the business side of the profession than most writers ever learn. And a special nod has to go to my fellow Kiwi, Lee Murray. Relentlessly supportive, she doesn’t hesitate to throw biting critiques at my work. She taught me the difference between style and self-indulgently bloated prose and for that, I will always be grateful.
What does literary success look like to you?
Pretty much, this. The instant you can say that writing fiction is a bit more than a hobby, you are a literary success, you are the one in a thousand, and I think I finally hit that mark with A World Adrift. I’d love to build a big audience. I’d love to have my agent land me a multi-book contract with one of the big publishing houses. I’d love to get a screen production of one of my works off the ground. I’d love to build my fiction into a second career, but I can honestly say that I appreciate this moment for exactly what it is.
Any other upcoming projects you would like to plug?
Zombies From Mars. It’s a reworking of one of my short stories into a scripted, radio-drama podcast and the first episodes should drop in early 2024. I keep saying I write fiction just for the fun of it and this version of Zombies is the most fun I have had in ages. It’s a biting critique of bureaucracy and capitalism, masquerading as over-the-top absurdist comedy. On top of that, not only did I get to be involved in just about every part of the production, I got to work with my daughter, who’s one of the co-stars. I knew she was talented, but I had no idea she was that talented, and discovering that was priceless.
I’ll shout out on social media when that goes live, but I’ve also just put my next novel, Killing Beauty in the hands of my agent. That’s a dark thriller set in a future where medical technology has advanced to the point where everyone can live forever. I’ve also just been offered the chance to adapt a prominent author’s biggest novel into a TV series, which isn’t quite getting something of my own produced, but it could be big if all the other pieces can be put in place. So, let’s hope.
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