Author Interview: Will Ruff

Tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from? 
I grew up in Fishkill, NY, which is a world away from Austin, TX where I live now, but I love both. This is my first novel, and I went at it with more vigor than any other short story I've ever written, but I'm getting back to that and writing screenplays. in college I used to write for a TV show whenever they'd let me and I wanted to write a novel with the mindset that everything I write might some day make the big screen. The first job I really loved was working at movie theater back in the day when film projectors were still the primary means of showcasing movies. I loved threading up the projector, cleaning it, putting the film together, and I said to myself someday I'll see my own work turned into something like this. Although whether that'll be in film or digital doesn't really concern me as long as I can chomp away on some movie theater food and watch it on the big screen in some cheap second run dollar theater.

How long have you been writing? 
I've been writing in some form since I was a kid. I came up with the idea for a video game when I was around ten years old, but it was a blatant rip off of the Legend of Zelda. When I went to college, I decided to study history because I was fascinated with real stories. 

Example: my grandfather fought in the Hungarian army in World War II and was set to flee the country to escape the fascist occupiers when his building was bombed. His nurse was my grandmother and that's how they met. They eventually moved here with my mother while 200,000 Hungarians fled the country and the Soviet occupiers. 

When I went back to study history after nearly failing out twice, one of my favorite books was People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn and that turned out to be the text book in my first class. We watched a documentary on Howard Zinn's life narrated by Matt Damon and at one point in the film he mentions that Howard Zinn went on bombing missions in World War II in Hungary... At that point I became obsessed with the idea that story isn't just a series of events but it's the series of events who make you who you are no matter how illogical. 

When I started to write this novel, I had this attitude that the story would come from an unexpected call to action that drew the main character into this already developing sequence of events and his goal would be to change the course of history.

What was the inspiration for your most recent book?
I was reading a text book in my Traditional Chinese history class. The first section was about Emperor Qin Shi Huang of China, and at the section that talked about the Terracotta Warriors and his mausoleum, the text had a parenthetical aside that said "itself not yet excavated" and I started researching. It still wasn't opened and it turned out it may never be, so I decided to write a novel about people who became obsessed with it and how they might want to find out what's inside. Those four little words from that historian ignited this fire in me to want to answer histories unanswered questions or to at least draw attention to them.

What was the hardest part about writing this book?
"Where to begin?" was the first question, and since this was my first novel I thought you had to write something like this sequentially. After several failed attempts, I think 20 or so... and years after the inception of the idea, I put pen to paper and started writing this scene where two characters met. 

From there I reverse engineered where they were before that, and where they were going. The other side of it is that China has such a tremendous history and it's easy as someone from the United States to misrepresent them—today or in any period really—and to make them seem fundamentally different because their writing system is character based, or their government was founded on Communist principles, but the reality is that they're not much different from us. I wanted to write about those moments I had in Beijing and elsewhere in China and instill that in the reading experience without making it seem like a world away or like it was weird. It was such an incredible experience being there.

Do you often develop characters from your personal experiences or draw from that of others?
These characters all have traits I can personally relate to that drive them and experiences that have meaning for me, so when I'm writing, I think about that and not so much their individual physical makeup. A lot of that is ambiguous in the story, and I can imagine a thousand different actors (maybe an exaggeration) of all different backgrounds playing the characters and that's deliberate. The core of each character is in the moments they experience throughout the novel and what leads up to that moment. Some of it I have definitely not experienced, but it felt like the right direction to go in so I just went with it. I'm sure I'll probably adapt if I write a sequel!

Are your comfortable writing in different genres? What is your go-to genre?
This is my first genre, and when I wrote it I didn't think about the genre. A publisher I submitted it to (who rejected me) classified it as mystery/thriller and that made sense. I think a lot of it came natural to me to write in that vein, but I'm not at all planning on staying within that genre for all time. I want to write Americana, I want to write Contemporary, I want to write comedy, I want to write romance... and then break the rules within those genres. We'll see whether people recognize any of those individual elements, and whether I have that kind of flexibility in me.

Is your writing genre one that you read a lot of? 
Probably not as much as I should. Who likes to try the same thing all the time? My favorite books are The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, People's History of the United States, Jurassic Park, Brave New World, Foreign Babes in Beijing, and On the Road. All of these in some way challenge society to not follow the rules, so I think when I write I just go and try not to think about whether this sentence is going to create suspense or intrigue. I'll figure out the genre once I have the semblance of a story.

Do you have a favorite writing theme?
I gave a talk at SXSW about "The Place of History in a Technology Driven World," and I hope it's not the last. We're constantly adopting new technologies and blasting ourselves with information but we're losing the art of storytelling. If you think about it, Homer's Iliad was sort of lost to history, but because that story was told by bards, written down, and carried through the ages, Heinrich Schliemann eventually discovered the physical remains that proved it wasn't just an epic poem—that it was based on real history. I hope as long as we have these incredible tools for communication and as they develop that they don't leave the critical stories behind, otherwise it wouldn't be hard to imagine an alternate universe where Troy is never discovered...

When did you decide that it was time to take your writing public?
I kept telling people about the story and they could feel the excitement. At some point, hearing, "I read your novel with interest, but didn't feel passionately" felt like it didn't have anything to do with me, and I committed to the idea that I would be able to sell this. That's when I decided to go it alone on Amazon, and get as much out of it as possible which has gotten me a small amount of press. The conversations about it matter more to me than anything.

Is writing your first job?
I've been in tech sales for the last few years and started out helping business authors write content for their personal websites. Sales & marketing will always be a part of what I do, and it's one of the best paths to take for any writer to get into it.

What’s something that you do to help find new inspiration?
Write whatever's on your mind. Let yourself write something awful. Most of it is anyway, and until you get that horrible nonsense out of your head, you're not going to be able to move onto that thing that all of a sudden ties your random thoughts together. I wrote a backstory on one of the characters in this before I went back to rewrite the novel, and I didn't use a single word of the backstory, but I tried not to contradict it. That worked pretty well. 

What is your next writing project?
Might be a sequel, might be an entirely separate project about working in a rapid growth startup that crashes miserable, might be a few other things. I'm also pitching a TON of people, so it might be a few months before any of that really gets going.

Now for one of my favorite requests - tell us a random fun fact about yourself.
I was placed on academic probation in college for being a miserable student, and I started my own radio show called "Academic Probation," as a joke. I don't think it was out of malice, but I definitely had trouble finding my talents when I went to school and I didn't know how to deal with it. Fortunately, I eventually found that I loved history, and I went back with enough vigor to excel. I'm grateful nobody ever found out about the show.

Purchase on Amazon

Can cold wars ever really end? In 1972, Richard Nixon travelled to Beijing to meet with Chairman Mao after backchannel communications opened up an opportunity to speak directly with the Communist Party. Their meeting changed the balance of power throughout the world, and with it, the course of history.

Now, the Cold War, thought to be over, may have taken a new turn as Arthur Biers, a young historian, discovers a shadow organization has tried to illegally raid the tomb of China’s first emperor. And to complicate matters, Arthur has no proof that he wasn't part of this organization, and Beijing wants answers.

On a mission to preserve history, Arthur learns he may have forever altered its course. Now he’ll have to convince the American Ambassador to China that there’s someone still at large trying to renew old conflicts.