Scribe's Hollow Author Interviews

BOTM Interview: SonOfMelbourne-Persona Non Grata

This interview was conducted on March 3rd, 2024 with the author SonOfMelbourne for the March 2024 Book of the Month contest. Congratulations to SonOfMelbourne and their book: Persona Non Grata: A Red Dead Redemption Fan Fiction.

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Scribe's Hollow: Who are some authors that inspire you?

SonOfMelbourne, Author: The obvious ones have to be J.R.R Tolkien and C.S Lewis, but at the moment it's George R.R Martin. I don't really have many authors that remain constant inspirations as a result of my book tastes changing - but Tolkien has been the major inspiration throughout.

SH: What is your favorite childhood book?

SOM: "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" by J.R.R Tolkien - I know that people say it's the worst out of the trilogy, but I'll die on this hill.

SH: What is your book about?

SOM: Persona Non Grata is about an outlaw gang in the American West being slowly pursued by the law, with a fledgling romance that is being threatened by the ever-present threat of death, imprisonment and the risk of the gang imploding. If it isn't painfully clear from the title, it is focused around the Van der Linde Gang from Red Dead Redemption 2.

SH: What motivated you to write your current book?

SOM: It started when me and one of my friends were messing about on Red Dead Online together, when he asked how our two in-game characters would have met. I suggested that his character (who became Sergio Madrazo in the book) and my character (who becames James Moss in the book) were part of the same gang at one point in time. He jokingly suggested that they were part of the Van der Linde Gang from Red Dead Redemption 2, and I decided to riff on that, and a couple of hours later, we'd mapped out the entire story from start to finish.

SH: What themes do you want to convey with your book?

SOM: To be entirely honest, it was initially placing James into the Red Dead Redemption 2 story as a way to insert myself into the world of Red Dead, but it's now swollen to have themes and ideas bigger than I thought at the time. If I will cut it down to one major theme, it's "how far will you keep your love safe when your world is collapsing around you."

SH: Do you have a favorite character in your book?

SOM: That's a really tough question, because I like all of the characters that are in my book - but if I have to narrow it down - the intricacies of Dutch and his mental state are really fun to explore and write; Sadie's anguish and grief are also really interesting to explore how deep love and grief can take you; and Arthur's sarcasm and wit are just brilliant. If I have to narrow it down further, I can't ignore the story's love couple of James and Mary-Beth - the contrast of James' "been there, seen and done that" Old-World perspective and Mary-Beth's youthful "innocence" typically associated with the New World makes them both my favourite characters to write.

SH: What is your go-to snack/drink when writing?

SOM: I don't really feel like eating whilst writing - mainly because I'd probably get my keyboard greasy and God knows how much I hate getting my keyboard messy. My go-to drink is simply water - mainly because drinking anything else will distract me from my writing, which isn't conducive to getting a chapter written.

SH: What do you consider the hardest part of writing?

SOM: Writing the filler between scenes. For Persona Non Grata, it's typically when the characters ride from camp to somewhere else when there isn't much dialogue that would seem natural, so I mainly try and avoid writing in the filler - unless I have to. Also trying to find a natural ending for a chapter is difficult, as I actively want to keep on adding to the chapter, so it's mainly a game of restraining myself from writing too much.

SH: What do you consider the best part of writing?

SOM: Mainly scenes with little action but heavy dialogue - you can add so many intricacies or false flags into the dialogue that allows both the writer and reader to explore the relationships that each character has with another. I also enjoy writing action, as the character's actions in fight scenes/robberies can be used as metaphors for their state of mind

SH: What is a book you think is underrated?

SOM: I'm going to split this into 2 parts - fiction and non-fiction - because there's too many books that I feel are underrated. Regarding fiction, I'd probably say "An Inspector Calls" by J.B Priestley - yes, I had to study it for school, but it's a genuinely interesting book that calls into question many aspects of society pre-WW1. Regarding non-fiction, I'm a massive fan of autobiographies, and I'd highly recommend "Top Gun: An American Story" by Dan Pedersen.

SH: How many books do you currently have in progress?

SOM: One's that I have actually started writing - 2; but if we're talking about ideas for books - it's probably about 5-10.

SH: How do you overcome writer's block?

SOM: The main way that I combat writer's block is by doing something else for a couple of hours, or if I'm writing just before I go to sleep, I find sleeping is a really good way to combat writer's block - quite often I can end up dreaming about my book (as cringey as it sounds) and I can unlock ideas that I probably wouldn't have given a second thought to.

SH: Thank you for your time! Do you have anything else you'd like to say?

SOM: Just want to say a massive thank you to the mods/community of Scribe's Hollow that put this together. Hopefully I'll actually find some sort of schedule so that I can actually get publishing again rather than having about 20 drafts on one book, and maybe I'll get another opportunity to be interviewed again.