Hugh Howey

Bestselling author of Wool and other books. Currently sailing around the world.

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A Few Links

As part of the Kindle Book Review’s countdown to their Indie Book of the Year award, we were asked to come up with our “Dream Interview.” Mine, naturally, featured Natalie Portman and some scented oils.

YA author Ksenia Anske asked if I would guest blog over at her website. I decided to write up my theory about why some books go gangbusters and some fizzle. As we all know, it isn’t always the quality of the writing.

Finally, Skyler West interviewed me on his website. You should check out his book as well.

4 replies to “A Few Links”

Just finished your post on Ksenia Anske’s blog and wanted to say that I couldn’t agree more. In fact, this specific thought about readers seeking a juicy plot over writing chops struck me with full force recently. Seems like such a no-brainer, but how many of us writers are trying to improve our sentences at the expense of what readers really want? Personally, I don’t want to be the Ron Sexsmith of the literary world. Loved by writers and overlooked by readers.

This might also be a case where Hollywood got it right. Those producer/writer round table meetings where they throw plot points around the way kids toss Frisbees at the park may have something to teach us all. But the trick is to make sure that high concept idea of yours shines through in the blurb or you may just have lost the 10 seconds you had to grab their interest.

Great post about storytelling. Your wool series is outstanding and you’ve managed to capture some of the essence of what made LOST (tv show) so compelling. All the mystery and cliffhangers and interconnected threads. The serial nature contributes to this and is a strength. I just hope you can wrap it up in a more satisfying way than LOST did. “No one really knows anything…. Its Magic!”. You can ruin a whole series doing that (it’s really hard to acknowledge how good some of the journey was with LOST knowing that we know how it ends).

Thanks for the great stories, no pressure on wrapping it up!

I think the beauty of Wool is that it doesn’t need a grand resolution to the entire story. For Hugh to do that, he’d literally have to pull a Six Feet Under “this is how everyone lives and dies” kinda thing.

Instead, the big resolution he needs to provide is to Juliette’s story. I think she will bring major changes to the world of most Silo residents, but do we really have to see the clouds part and people emerge from the Silos?

Wool is a bit like Dune and Star Wars or Star Trek to me. It could live on for ages in a way. There could be a large cave system some survivors managed to eek by in that create suits that allow them to freely explore and wage war on the Silos. China could be lurking around the corner waiting to take down the remnants of the US. That possibility thrills me.

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