Q&A With Allen Eskens

I am delighted to be doing this Q&A with the author of mystery and suspense Allen Eskens! Allen is the author of the novels The Life We Bury, The Guise Of Another, The Heavens May Fall, The Deep Dark Descending, The Shadows We Hide, Nothing More Dangerous, The Stolen Hours, Forsaken Country, Saving Emma & coming out on February 18^th The Quiet Librarian! 

Q: I enjoy reading anything that sounds interesting! Though one of my favorite genres is mysteries! Allen, what was it about mysteries that drew you into writing them? 

A: I didn’t set out to write mysteries. I came to writing as a hobby, a personal expression of creativity designed to scratch an itch. I was drawn to writing about more literary subjects with deeper themes and strong emotional arcs. At the same time, I practiced law as a criminal defense attorney, so I knew law and investigations. I wrote for 20 years for my own enjoyment before I decided to write a novel with a strong character story, but with a mystery as a vehicle to tell that story. That is how I came up with the plot for The Life We Bury, my debut novel. I found that I liked writing in that format, so I continued.

Q: Can you give a brief description of all your books beginning with your upcoming release The Quiet Librarian? 

A: I think, to get a brief description of my books, it would be easiest to go online to my web page www.alleneskens.com where I have descriptions of each. But I would like to talk about The Quiet Librarian and how it differs from the previous nine novels.

My first nine novels tell of a community of four characters who sometimes cross over into each other’s stories. These four characters (Joe Talbert, Lila Nash, Max Rupert, and Boady Sanden) first saw the light of day in The Life We Bury. After that, I wrote about them in their various lives and adventures. 

But The Quiet Librarian is a departure from that motif. My protagonist in The Quiet Librarian has no connection to any of my previous books or characters. She is a librarian from Farmington, Minnesota who has a secret past—she came of age in Bosnia during the war. Her exploits there made her something of a legend and a wanted woman, which caused her to flee Bosnia and go into hiding in America. The story begins when her past has come to find her.

Q: Allen, you have practiced criminal law for over twenty-five years & have recently retired. That is so impressive! Would you say that your stories & characters within those stories were inspired by your law career?

A: I wouldn’t say that my characters are “inspired” by my law practice–other than the character of Elijah in Saving Emma. Elijah (a man who believes himself to be a prophet) was inspired by a client I met early on in my practice who was a patient at a locked mental facility. My other characters come from my imagination or are inspired by people in my personal life.

With that said, having been a lawyer for twenty-five years, I use my legal knowledge in every book so that the investigations and legal predicaments are true and accurate.

Q: Can you reveal any details about your next novel you are currently writing?

A: I spend a great deal of time outlining a novel before I sit down to write it. I have a novel about halfway outlined, but it is far too early to talk about it as it could change completely before I sit down to write. 

Q: How long does it take you to write a novel?

A:  It normally takes me a year to write a novel, but some have taken longer. The Quiet Librarian, for example, took a year and a half because of the research I wanted to do before writing it. And in between novels I sometimes will write a screenplay for the fun of it, and that delays the writing of the next novel.

Q: Are there any lessons & emotions you want readers to feel and learn after reading your work?

A: It is important for me that readers of my work feel emotion as they read. The key to having a reader feel emotion is to have them relate to a character and then have the reader experience the scene standing in the shoes of that character. Because people come to a novel with their own experiences, some will relate more strongly to a character than others. Or one reader may find one scene emotional and a different reader another. My job is to use my understanding of the craft to give the story a point where emotion can break through. The art of writing is in the conveyance of the experience, not the telling of a story.

Q: Does Hollywood have the rights to your work? The entertainment industry needs original content and more books wouldn’t hurt! I’m sick of remakes, reboots, sequels, prequels and spin offs all the time. 

A: I have sold the option for The Life We Bury a couple of times with no movie getting made. I have been told that it is a difficult novel to turn into a screenplay. For that reason, I am currently working with another writer to draft a viable screenplay for that book. Because I write for the enjoyment of the act itself, I don’t really fret over whether a movie comes of it. I keep my focus on writing the best stories I can. 

Q: What are healthy ways you deal with self-doubt as an author, negative reviews, online trolls & family and friends who don’t support your dream and career as an author, that may help future writers out there?

A: Think of the best book you have ever read—a book so wonderful that no one should have a bad thing to say about it—and then go see how many one-star reviews it has on Goodreads. To Kill a Mockingbird has 117,000 one-star reviews. The Great Gatsby—152,000. The Poisonwood Bible—27,000. The Outsiders—19,000. The point is, there will always be people who don’t like a novel because of their personal, subjective perspective. That doesn’t mean that the book is bad, it just means that it wasn’t a good read for that person. 

I came to writing, as I said, as a hobby at first. I did it because the act of writing brought me a feeling of Zen. Self-doubt comes from the outside. It is that voice that warns you that others will not see the value in what you’ve done. Don’t write for others. Do it because it brings you happiness or peace. Do it because you want to tell a story in a way that has power and resonance. Do it for you and you will hush much of that self-doubt.