After escaping the monstrous kaiju sent to destroy them, Neo-Khaos and the stragglers moved to the abandoned Yamamoto Naval base to regroup and strategize their next move. The Natural Selection Retaliation gets harrowing from there.
What will the next moves be? To find out, I’ve caught up with Kyle Robertson, author of The Natural Selection Retaliation, who has taken time to offer us support while we take steps along this harrowing journey. Kyle, what inspired you to delve into this darker world?
This story began with watching the news and listening to conspiracy theorists online. I was just surprised at how radically different we are from one another. That sparked this tale.
How did you build characters around this spark?
I have a method. My protagonist cannot be the cookie-cutter Hollywood type, so I research different races and study them. I locate their native names and customs to craft my characters. I know this will sound funny, but you have to be voraciously real when you ‘make stuff up’. If you don’t get that aspect correct, your suspension of disbelief skills will be shattered. Then I fill out dating sites like them to flesh out their characters. If they don’t feel real to me, how could I make them feel real to you?
*Laughs* Well, that’s one use for a dating site. I’d love to know if any of your characters have managed to pick up a date, but perhaps that’s a question for later! In addition to the dating profiles, did you try and inject a little more reality into your characters by including your past experiences in their lives?
I was picked on in high school because I was considered a comic book nerd. Now I’m witnessing the MCU being a movie production powerhouse right now. The odd aspect of what’s happening now is I read those stories 20 to 30 years ago. It showed me time and genre medium made my ‘kid’s books’ cool.
Do those kinds of thoughts help energise your writing approach?
I actually like to write stories. The reason it excites me to finish is that it’s a new book I haven’t read before. That keeps me going.
But before you get to sit down and read it from cover to cover, you need to write it. What goes on in your head as you’re writing?
I have a regiment while writing. I’m a movie nut and to make them more impactful, they have amazing soundtracks. I’m eclectic from NLN to Gustav Holst. I put on my headphones to my book’s soundtrack to write a great book.
I love a good soundtrack. Now that you’re at the end of the combined music and writing journey of this book, what message do you feel that it tells readers?
I think we need to live without animosity towards each other and stop the paranoia, bullying. and the discounting of another because they don’t ‘look like you’.
Those are some big ideas to confront. What things that you learnt during the writing process to make sure that these ideas were presented in a way that readers could digest them well?
I had to learn demographics and simple initials we say every day, but don’t know what they mean, like MP3, .jpeg, or USB.
*Laughs* Those crazy jpegs! I’m glad to hear that you’ve got better command of some of the most techie terms, and I hope they serve you well into your next book. Can you tell us a little about your next book?
I just completed this current book. It will be a 3-part series, so after Christmas and my birthday, I’ll go back to the ‘salt mines’ to complete the series.
Enjoy your time off, and I’m sure with the refreshed mind you’ll be raring to go in 2019! As you look forward towards your future writing journey, let’s take a moment to reflect on where you’ve come from. How has your writing progressed over time?
It’s a slow process. I’ve done adequately with 800 followers, but I want to break through. Competing with 41,000 new pieces of medium a day can humble you. You have to learn your craft well to be in the upper echelons of those 41,000.
Yep, I firmly believe if you keep on crafting you’ll get closer to the top. Have you considered how the impact of creating an author brand might take you closer to the top?
In this cut-throat business of independent authors, you have to have a brand. I write fiction, so my brand is called PIMI. That stands for Play in my imagination. That’s my website and where anyone can come to sign up. http://pimiebooks.com/ (shameless plug). When you get there, you can get a free eBook by signing up. Of course, I can say I’m great, but a book can validate my claim.
*Laughs* There’s nothing wrong with a little self-promotion, especially when you keep refining your skills, whether they be marketing or writing, along the way.
All I can say about being an indie author is that writing the books is the least stressful aspect of creating a successful book. YOU MUST learn how to market. Stephen King just didn’t slip, trip, and became a successful author. He received a few thousand rejection letters before a magazine published his story, Word Processor of the Gods. That lets me know you can have talent, but if you don’t have an important entity listen to you, your eBooks will collect digital dust on a virtual book. Your job is to relentlessly get out there and with the internet, you just have to learn how to do it.
Taking your talent to the internet is a fantastic opportunity. I’m sure Stephen King would have taken a hold of it, if he was just starting now. On the topic on the journeys of awesome writers, have you ever been on a literary pilgrimage?
Just virtually. I wouldn’t call my military overseas stint and learning electronics and intricate sakes a literary pilgrimage, but I’ve used all my past events before.
It’s not really a pilgrimage per se, but you never know, maybe it will be one for one of your readers in the future! But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s focus on the fun on the present, with questions like can you cry underwater?
Hey, you can blow in air, what’s the difference?
There’s none in my eyes, but you never know what others might think! Let’s get thinking some more with the next question, if money doesn’t grow on trees then why do banks have branches?
In my case, they’re deciduous winter branches.
Ahhh, that doesn’t sound good. Hopefully, you’ll see Spring soon! If space is a vacuum, who changes the bags?
It’s that new bagless type.
Was it always that bagless type, or is that just a new thing? It’s something to think about, along with why is a square meal served on round plates?
Idiom cunundrums.
Solid choice, and with that answer I need to ask, what is your favourite word?
Too many to choose from. And you haven’t speculated in what language.
Any language you’d like, as long as it’s interesting to you, that’s all that matters! That and monsters. If you invented a monster what would it look like and what would you call it?
I would create a mind-controlled Mech called the MCRD-52. Oh, wait. I made that already in my book The Final Option.
*Laughs* Is that a shameless plug I hear? As a lover of comics, I’m sure you’ll have fun with the question, what happens if Batman gets bitten by a vampire?
Bruce is still human, but he’ll make an antidote before he turns.
That’s not really as much fun as I thought it would be. Boring Batman! Let’s get better than Batman, pick your favourite line from The Natural Selection Retaliation, and get us excited for an exciting adventure.
“Grab some extra oil canisters. Linda. I need to stay limber when I physically rip out its core.”
*Laughs* You don’t want to get stiff ripping out cores! And on that image, I think we’ll have to wrap it up, Kyle. Thanks so much for chatting with me today, and I can’t wait to hear more about the third book in this series.
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Excited to read the book we discussed today? Find it here on Amazon: ‘The Natural Selection Retaliation OCyber Thought Police Book Two) ( ASIN: B07KLY6BV7 )‘.
Want to find out more about Kyle Robertson? Connect here!