I was lucky to get an interview with Dave Dobson, the author of The Woeling Lass, one of this year’s #SPFBO8 entries.

Please, tell us a bit about yourself…
I’m from Iowa originally, son of two academics. I went to college thinking I’d be a doctor, but a bio lab that involved cow hearts demonstrated to me that the inner workings of organisms are actually pretty gross, so I ended up diving into my major, geology. I got a Ph.D. in marine geology, specializing in ocean sediments and climate. I always loved computer games and programming, so while in grad school procrastinating from swirling mud around in little tubes, I published a few shareware computer games, and one of them, Snood, got pretty big in the 2000’s. It was downloaded over 30 million times and made it into some movies and TV shows of the time (The Sopranos, SNL, 30 Rock).

After grad school, I started a teaching career at Guilford College that lasted 24 years, until the college ran into some trouble and my department ended up getting shut down. By then, I had a few books published, and I’d also published a couple of puzzle card games (the Dr. Esker’s Notebook series), so I figured rather than look for another academic job, I’d try doing writing and game design full time.

Why should I buy your book?
The Woeling Lass, like my other Inquisitors’ Guild books, is a mystery story set in a fantasy setting. Each book is a self-contained mystery with a new narrator and a new case. In The Woeling Lass, there are two very different protagonists who alternate chapters as the mystery unfolds for them. One is Gueran Declais, a jaded mid-level inspector who’s also a minor noble in Frosthelm, and the other is Urret Milton, a scrappy young apprentice just finding her way in the Guild. As the book opens, there’s an unexpected attempt on Gueran’s life, and he’s forced into hiding. It turns out there were simultaneous attacks on many other targets in the city, so the rest of the book splits time between Gueran trying to figure out what’s going on from the remote village he’s been sent to and Urret tracking down clues in the city. There’s magic, spycraft, investigations, betrayals, politics, bloodthirsty enemies, and ancient legends, including the sad story of the Woeling Lass, who may or may not be causing havoc from beyond the grave.

The story is one of high adventure, with intrigue, fights, magic, weird artifacts, struggle, loss, and a lot of humor mixed in. I like to think of the series as Princess Bride meets C.S.I.

What got you into writing? And how long have you been doing it?
I fell in love with stories of magic and adventure very early on, initially with the Oz books and fairy tales, and later with a lot of fantasy and sci fi. My mother was a librarian, so we would head to our local library at least every other week when I was a kid. Reading was just something we always did, and writing was a natural extension of that. I always wanted to write stories with magic and monsters and spaceships and all of that, because that’s what I loved to read.

I’ve been writing most of my life, both stories and academic works. I have written a number of scientific papers and articles, and I published a children’s book on endangered species back in 1996. I published my first novel in 2019, one that took 14 years to write and edit. Since then, I’ve picked up the pace considerably, and I now have four fantasy novels and a sci fi novel published, and I’ve got another sci fi book and a thriller on the way. Now that I’ve adopted writing as my main gig, I’m really enjoying it, and I’m having a great time coming up with new ideas and adventures.

Why did you choose to write fantasy? And why pick this particular subgenre?
Fantasy has always been my favorite, so it made sense that I’d start there. Those were the books I loved most as a kid, and my deep dive into D&D and other RPGs cemented that, along with a ton of movies (I watch a lot of movies, many of them pretty terrible). I’ve branched out a little genre-wise since then - I have a sci fi space opera novel, Daros, published, and it’s been doing pretty well. It has actually made it to the semi-finals of the SPSFC, Hugh Howey’s competition for self-published sci fi. I have another sci fi book now about 80% done.

For The Woeling Lass and the other Inquisitors’ Guild books, I have always loved mysteries and police procedurals, so it seemed natural to try to cross that genre with all its fun mechanics and tropes with the fantasy stories I love.

Last November, I shifted gears a little to write in the real, modern world for my thriller. That was a big challenge - I figured writing in a world where you don’t have to make everything up would be easier, but actually, you have to make the whole story work in a world that everybody knows and where there are all the rules of reality and society to follow. I had to do a lot more research for that book than I have for some of the others.

Which other author has had the biggest influence on your writing?
Oh, that’s a toughie. So many to choose from. I guess currently, I can name two favorites. I will always read whatever John Scalzi is doing, and I’ve really enjoyed diving into Nnedi Okrafor’s work. In terms of influences, it’s a lot of folks from my childhood - Tolkien, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Heinlein, Harry Harrison. The author I’d most like to emulate is William Goldman - I absolutely loved The Princess Bride, both book and movie, and that rich combination of character, story, and humor is what I’m after.

What’s the best thing about being a writer?
The absolute best part of it is connecting with readers. When you see a review or a comment (or even better, get a note) from somebody who’s really enjoyed spending time in the world you worked hard to build, rooting for the characters you came to love, there is no better feeling. If you know anybody doing anything creative that you enjoy, let them know. They’ll be walking around ten feet tall all day, and you’ll inspire them to do more of what you like.

What’s the hardest thing about being a writer?
For me, there are two main struggles. One is that it’s so solitary. I started writing while I had another job, so I still had lots of contact with my colleagues and students every day. Now that I’m doing it as my main thing, I have to make an effort to spend time with friends and other people – to get out of my basement and interact with other folks. The other is that you really are your own boss – that comes with a lot of great bits, but you also have to keep motivated and working all on your own, which can be a struggle.

Do you have any tips or an author app, tool, or resource that you can really recommend we try?
I’ve formatted my last several books in Atticus. They’re still working on it, but it’s quite fully-featured and intuitive. I’ve found it far easier to use than Calibre, which I still use for tricky formatting pieces. Calibre has the huge advantage of being free in addition to being extremely powerful (though less intuitive).

And now it's time to yank out your Palantir! Let’s talk about the future. What new projects are you working on?
I’ve got my thriller done. I’m shopping it around to agents, but if I don’t get anywhere with that, I’ll release it myself, probably by the end of the year after another round of revisions and edits.

 Right now, I’m finishing up a story about a former space marine with a checkered past who ends up as security on an archeological expedition to a recently-discovered fringe world. Stuff starts to go seriously wrong, and she has to figure out who’s acting against her and why, and whether that relates to the alien ruins on the planet. It’s really fun stuff to imagine and write, and I’ve not often written a character so troubled and damaged, so this is a new challenge for me.

I’ll start something new for NaNoWriMo, but I have no idea what. Last year, I wrote the entire thriller (100K words) in November, which was the fastest I’ve ever gone. Not sure I can match that, but I’ll try.

Do you expect new technologies to come along soon that will have a huge impact on self-publishing? For instance, when will we see a decent novel written by an AI author?
That’s a really interesting question. I’ve been a bit obsessed with AI illustration, and I’ve been playing around with MidJourney quite a bit. I find it fascinating. I think it’s actually far easier to create something interesting visually than it will be to create a satisfying story that reflects actual human characters. With the AI illustrator, it combines visual ideas and themes created by actual skilled artists, and it’s not so big a challenge to have the result be at least thought-provoking, even if it’s all derivative and imitative. I think it might be harder to do that with a book, but who knows? Maybe a pastiche of recycled schlock will be good enough to spend a few evenings with.

Do you have any dreams you’d like to share?
There are a lot of dreamy milestones I’d like to reach – more reviews on literary sites, more readers, more sales, doing well in a competition (although I accomplished some of that with Daros in the SPSFC), finding an agent and shifting to traditional publishing for at least one project. The biggest one would be having something I’ve done adapted for TV or a movie. That would be impossibly wonderful, and is undoubtedly the biggest dream I have at the moment.

 What I’ve realized, though, after a couple of years into this, is that the best way to any of those goals is to just keep writing. The more books you have out, the more chances you have to snare a reader into your work, and the more you have to offer them once they know about you. You also have more shots at all the special extras I mentioned above. And much more important, writing more makes you better – you develop your skills, hone your language, discover weaknesses and strengths in what you’re doing, and get better. All of that should lead to more success and satisfaction, even if it doesn’t take the exact form you pine for in your dreams.

Anything else you would like to say before we close?
Thanks for the opportunity! This has been a pleasure. Interacting with readers and fellow authors and hearing what they think about books and writing has been the best part of this whole process. I’m just really touched whenever somebody spends some time in one of my worlds and enjoys themselves.

Thank you for some good app tips and interesting answers, Dave. Such an impressive number of genres you’re writing in! I wish you the very best of luck finding more readers.