I have an ideal process … What usually happens is something a little different, because life often doesn’t let us achieve our ideals. But it’s very important to have goals, isn’t it?

Michael J. McCann – 9 May 2013

The Back Flap

First there was the car accident that claimed his beloved wife. Then came the gruelling months of recuperation from his injuries. Now his constant companions are ghosts seeking worldly release. His new home is haunted by the ghost of a young girl demanding his help. His friends and neighbours are under attack by strange, destructive forces. Who is the Angry Man who haunts his dreams … and what does the demon controlling him want of Simon Guthrie?

About the book

What is the book about?

The Ghost Man is the story of Simon Guthrie, a former celebrity chef whose life changes drastically when he’s involved in a car accident that kills his beloved wife and leaves him with a serious head injury. He undergoes a near-death experience in which he encounters a malevolent presence, and after his release from hospital he discovers he has become a passive medium who attracts ghosts trapped in this world. He moves to the country to build a new life, only to find that his new home is haunted by the ghost of a young girl begging for his help against the same malevolent presence he encountered in his NDE, and the demon spirit behind it all.

When did you start writing the book?

I began the research for the book in late 2006, but I didn’t actually begin to write the manuscript until March 2007.

How long did it take you to write it?

After beginning the manuscript in March, I worked on it full time until October, when I finished the first draft. Revisions took another two months, and it was completed in December 2007, meaning it took nine months altogether to write.

Where did you get the idea from?

After leaving public service, I took a year to research my family history. My ancestors emigrated from Ireland in the early 1840s and settled in North Crosby township, Ontario, Canada, just above the village of Westport. I gathered a great deal of information from census returns in the national archives, church records, and various municipal records stored in the basement of the local museum in Brockville and the library in Westport. When I was finished, I had a lot of material about the history of Westport and the surrounding township, and wanted to write a book about it. My son suggested instead that I write a ghost story because he was very interested in the paranormal at that time. So I decided to combine the two subjects into one.

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

Because it was my first novel, it took a little time for me to develop good narrative techniques. Last year I re-acquired all rights to the book from the original publisher, and this winter I spent a month revising it, focusing on tightening up the prose and improving the dialogue. I was surprised to see how few contractions I used in the original, for example, and I was equally surprised to discover how far I’ve come in terms of writing technique.

What came easily?

My stories are always driven by characters. Most of them begin with a character, and the plots follow afterward. The Ghost Man was no exception, in that the central characters came to me almost fully developed right out of the box, as it were, and their stories seemed to tell themselves.

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

My characters are almost exclusively fictitious. I would never write a “roman a clef” where the characters are based on real people because I believe this is an invasion of privacy. I may borrow one or two traits from someone I’ve seen in the mall or someone I’ve worked with in the past, but the characters as a whole are not based on these people at all.

We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?

Since becoming a full-time author I’ve cut down a great deal on reading the newly-published books that are out there because I want to focus on my own work without worrying about what other people are writing. One exception, though, is Lee Child. When I’m having difficulty writing a particular scene or chapter, it’s usually because I’m trying to do too much or say too much. I’ll grab one of Child’s Reacher novels and read a few pages to remind myself how to write simply. “The man pulled a gun. Reacher said nothing. The man stepped forward. Reacher kicked the gun out of his hand.” Great stuff, simply said.

Do you have a target reader?

Yes, I do. I’ve done a fair bit of research into the target audience for my work, whether it’s supernatural fiction or crime fiction. Sisters in Crime, for example, sponsored a study in 2010 that showed the target audience for mysteries is overwhelmingly women over the age of 50. The target audience for the television program Supernatural, as an example in the horror/suspense/supernatural genre, is women between the ages of 18 and 34. I think it’s safe for me to assume that my target reader is female and, depending on the genre, either middle-aged or at least college-aged.

About Writing

Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?

I have an ideal process, then there’s what usually happens. I’m generally a morning person, and so in my ideal process I hit the keyboard at around 9:00 AM, work until lunch time, browse the internet for forty-five minutes, then work until about 3:00 PM. Depending on the season, I then go outside to do background reading and relax, or catch up on book marketing chores on the Internet. What usually happens is something a little different, because life often doesn’t let us achieve our ideals. But it’s very important to have goals, isn’t it?

Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?

I’m a very strong believer in outlining. I don’t think that authors should write as though they’re the reader “discovering” the story as they go along. I think this approach leads to writer’s block, disjointed story lines and a lot of other traps that could easily be avoided with a well-crafted plan all set to go before you begin to tell your tale.

I actually do two outlines, a detailed outline in which I describe each scene as I visualize it, and a shorter one that’s more like a chart, in which I can see at a glance where I am in my plan. The longer one, depending on the novel, might be eight or ten pages long by the time it’s done. It’s very much like a visualization technique in which you imagine yourself succeeding at a specific task and visualize each step in completing that task. Professional athletes use this technique, and so do actors and musicians. Very important.

Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?

Once I begin writing the first draft, I try to push all the way through until the end. At this stage of the game it’s important to get the story down, to allow the characters to move through their scenes and speak their lines in a steady flow. Unless I realize I’ve just written something completely awful that needs to be thrown away and rewritten right away, – which happens, of course –  I leave the improvements to the revision stage. Get the story down first; then go through it again to make it look and sound better.

Did you hire a professional editor?

I was a professional editor in a previous lifetime, so I do the first copy-editing pass myself, before my beta readers see the manuscript. I want it to be as clean as possible for them. I then give it to my wife, who’s also my business partner. She was a professional editor as well, and she goes through it and makes an amazing number of corrections. She’s an expert on punctuation, for example, and for our house style we’ve decided to use the Oxford comma in the crime fiction but not in the supernatural fiction. Additionally, we use American spelling and usage in the crime fiction because it’s set in the United States, and Canadian spelling and usage in the supernatural fiction because it’s set in eastern Ontario. Editing, I find, occurs on two levels. One level involves correct use of the English language in its written form, and the other has to do with style choices. We make sure there are no errors in the former instance, and strive for consistency in the latter.

Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?

No. Early on I tried it a few times, but I love music so much I pay attention to it instead of my work. Ideally – here we go again! – my writing environment is silent and allows for complete and total absorption in the task at hand.

About Publishing

Did you submit your work to Agents?

Yes, I queried agents over a two-year period while looking for representation for my novel Blood Passage.

What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?

Agents are now the gate-keepers of the publishing business, having taken over that role from the publishers themselves. As such, they’re completely flooded with queries. I set a time frame for myself in which to find representation. When the deadline passed, I formed my own company and published Blood Passage. I’m not exactly getting any younger, and since I don’t write a particularly good pitch, I understood it wasn’t going to be in the cards for me.

Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?

I do them myself. Boy, I’m breaking all the indie rules here, aren’t I? I had to teach myself how to use InDesign to build the book blocks for my book, so I decided I might as well teach myself how to use it to complete the cover templates at the same time. I enjoy it very much. I use Photoshop and other graphics tools, and have discovered that stock photography is an important resource. This is where I make good use of the professionals.

Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?

A little of both, in all honesty. I’m just about to complete my second year as an independent author, and in that time I’ve published four novels, if you count the re-publication of The Ghost Man. Before taking the plunge I did a great deal of research on independents who had been successful in their careers, such as Amanda Hocking, Scott Nicholson and John Locke, and I borrowed things from their models I thought might also work for me. With each book I’ve experimented a bit with different marketing techniques and observed the results. I’ve discarded some things and added others, looking for the best combination of approaches. I’m still very early in the game, though, still building a platform from which to market future books. It takes a long time, and a lot of hard work.

Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?

Make sure you’re a good writer before you think about publishing anything. Put all your effort into developing your craft before you ask people to read what you write. Pay attention to detail in your prose. Write simple sentences in uncomplicated paragraphs that tell your story clearly and cleanly. Keep a dictionary at hand and use it without hesitation, along with a copy of Fowler’s Modern English Usage.  Don’t bother with a thesaurus; use words that everyone understands and appreciates.  Just use the dictionary to make sure it’s the correct word. With all my experience, I still keep the dictionary next to me and use it constantly. Writing is a craft, so approach it with the respect it requires.

Beyond that, persist. Keep writing. Bear in mind we all start out writing the worst drivel you could imagine, but the secret is to write yourself through that phase into a place where your natural storytelling gifts begin to dovetail with that craftsmanship I’ve been talking about.

About You

Where did you grow up?

I was born and raised in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.

Where do you live now?

I now live in Oxford Station, south of Ottawa.

What are you working on now?

I’m currently writing the fourth novel in the Donaghue and Stainer Crime Novel series, which should be published this summer. After that, I’ll write the next novel in the new line of supernatural fiction which we’re publishing. Hopefully, it will be available in time for Halloween 2013.

End of Interview.

For more from Michael, visit his website, blog, or Goodreads page.

Get your copy of The Ghost Man from Amazon US (paper or ebook) or Amazon UK (paper or ebook).