TIH 592: Brian Asman on Exploring Family in Good Dogs, Writing Engaging Action Scenes, and Writing Routine

Michael David Wilson 0:27
Welcome to This is horror, a podcast for readers, writers and creators. I'm Michael David Wilson, and every episode, alongside my co host, Bob Pastorella, we chat with the world's best writers about writing, life lessons, creativity and much more. Today on this is horror. It is part two of the conversation with Brian Asman. Now Brian is the author of a number of books, including, I'm not even supposed to be here today. None Chuck city Man, fuck this house. And most recently, good dogs. And good dogs was one of the reasons that we got together for this conversation. It is a fascinating one that I think you're going to love. But before we jump in to the second part, a quick advert break

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Michael David Wilson 2:34
Okay? With that said, Here it is. It is Brian as man on. This is horror. So you were saying before about there being a point with man factors house, where you were selling 5000 copies a day. So I mean that, combined with how viral it went. I imagine that this book must have changed your life in some way. So I want to kind of talk about that. And I wonder, has it changed your approach to your writing routine? Did it mean that you quit a job that you previously had. I mean, what does this look like? Because those are some good numbers. Yeah,

Brian Asman 3:27
so I wouldn't say it changed anything too obvious. So I still have my same day job and no plans to leave that. I really love my day job, and I'm lucky in that they're super supportive of my writing career, so I really get the best of both worlds here. So yeah, the success of Man, fuck this house, didn't really change anything on the ground for me. But I think the biggest change was the way that I felt about myself honestly. Because, you know, as you know, as a writer, we're looking for that external validation, and, you know, people go into our careers without really getting it. And you know, when the book started blowing up, I was like, oh, man, this is just, you know, this is the dream right here. You know, it just made me feel a little bit more free with my writing, actually, just knowing that I had already accomplished something that I had set out to do, and from here on out, like everything else is essentially gravy. Like, I definitely want to continue growing and expanding and, you know, finding new, fresh approaches to storytelling and things like that. But it did. It did free me up a little bit. I didn't have, I, like, lost the anxiety that I had about like, oh, will I ever do anything that's worthwhile or that anyone gives a damn about, you know, yeah,

Michael David Wilson 4:48
and I suppose what we didn't touch on before was you obviously said, Now, Man, fuck, this house is out of print because it's gonna be re released. But given. It was presumably by a significant margin your best seller was there reluctance to put that out of print. I mean, because on one hand, you're getting a great deal with a Trad publisher, but on the other you know that that's over a year of potential sales that you're now not getting.

Brian Asman 5:22
That's true, but you have to think about the long game in this business, and sure, like the book continued selling throughout its entire lifetime, up until the moment that I took it down, basically, which was, you know, definitely nice to have that little extra income coming in every month, for sure. But it didn't bother me at all to take it down, because the future is going to be much brighter, and the I'm very excited for people to experience the new version of it.

Michael David Wilson 5:50
All right, well, shifting back to good dogs. I mean, a lot of this is about family, and specifically the family that you choose. So I want to know broadly. I mean, what does family mean to you?

Brian Asman 6:09
What does family mean to me? So I think, you know, the book is really about finding your people. And sometimes, when you think you found your people, it things aren't perfect. You know, there are still personality conflicts, and you still question your place in the world and how you relate to other people. And I think the message of the book is essentially that that's a journey. You know, even, even when you find people like you, no one is ever going to be completely like you. You know, there will still be those conflicts that you have to have to have to deal with. And you know, it's just a matter of learning to accept yourself and be happy with who you are, no matter what situation you're in or who you're with.

Michael David Wilson 6:52
And I mean, in terms of writing a book that was so concerned with family, I mean, if we were to ask you about influences, in terms of werewolves or slashers, then that that would be the obvious direction to go in. But I wonder whether there's some kind of hidden influences in terms of the family and the tribe dynamic to the book.

Brian Asman 7:16
That's that's a good question there. So there probably were, but I can't think of anything that comes to mind at the moment. Some of the dynamics, though, for the family in the book were taken from wolf pack dynamics. So I did do some research on that, and tried to, you know, kind of import a little bit of that. And during the days of the change, they're kind of, they're in this kind of liminal space, right? Where they're, you know, they're a little bit closer to their wolf selves during the day, and it influences their thoughts and behavior, and it's all about how they cope with that, right? And, you know, how do you, how do you deal with having a condition where you black out and lose time and become a danger to the world around you, and then, you know, you are not quite yourself. And I think we've all had times right when we have things going on in our lives, and we've had experiences where we're like, oh man, I feel like, I don't feel like myself right now, you know. And you know, stresses get to you, and you have like, kind of, like, a blow up or something with someone, and you're just like, oh, man, that's really, that's not the person I want to be. That's the, you know, that's not who I am. You know, it's all about just kind of reorienting and going and trying to become the person you want to

Michael David Wilson 8:33
be, right? And it's interesting that we're touching on this, because I think all of us, at some point, we have crisis, crises of identity, but that, you know, being a werewolf is the ultimate identity crisis. Because, I mean, you know, then who are you? Because at one point you're the werewolf. At one point you regular Brian and yeah, it must be something very difficult to grapple with, yeah, and that's

Brian Asman 9:08
why I think the werewolf is such an appealing trope to people similar to like the Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde trope, right? Where we all feel like we have this animal nature, this instinctive nature inside of us that will react, that's reactive, right where we will we will react to situations that we put in and we were put in, and we don't always react well. We don't always react the way that we wish we had, right? And it's sometimes we're just grappling with this battle, internal struggle between, you know, the the person that we want to be, and the person that we sometimes can't help but be,

Michael David Wilson 9:46
yeah, and I think there's an even deeper struggle. Because if you're to ask, Who am I, and it's like, well, in what situation? Because you know the person you are with your colleague. Is going to be different, to your friends, to your partner, to your mother. So it just opens this entire kind of philosophical musing that could become a kind of crisis and a panic, if, if one isn't careful,

Brian Asman 10:20
yeah, absolutely. You know, it's, it's just the deepest question of the human experience, right? Like, who am I? What am I? Where do I fit?

Michael David Wilson 10:28
Is it something that you bet, always relax? Oh, of course,

Brian Asman 10:31
yeah. I mean, I like to say I, I've always felt like a bit of an outsider all my life. And even when I find people who are, you know, share interests with me or other things like, I still feel like a bit of an outsider. And so a lot of Delia struggle in the book is directly imported from my life. Essentially,

Michael David Wilson 10:54
yeah, yeah. I even find, you know, thinking about where I fit in terms of the horror genre can be a confusing one, and I imagine perhaps for you as well, because we, you know, our work doesn't necessarily fit in this neat box and this neat section. So even looking for belonging and and where your place is within a community that you're so embroiled in can be tough. It really

Brian Asman 11:27
can. Yeah. I mean, I certainly have days where I look around at the at the community, I just feel like, wow. I just feel completely on island by myself. You know, maybe

Michael David Wilson 11:37
that's it. Maybe as long as our islands are just near each other, and then we can call over, Hey, Brian, how's it going on your little island?

Brian Asman 11:46
Yeah, exactly,

Michael David Wilson 11:48
yeah, yeah. But, I mean, I know with good dogs that you said that you initially, or at least early on, into the process, you not only envisage the sequel, but an entire trilogy. So I mean, how much of that is fleshed out, and what kind of has to happen? I suppose this one has to sell a lot of copies, you know, for for the sequel to occur, and is that a conversation that you've had with Blackstone or your agent at this point? Is that just something where we're far too early to even begin that discussion?

Brian Asman 12:33
I mean, I think it's a little early right now. So to your first question, yeah, I essentially have concepts for what the second and third books would be if we were to go down that road of doing doing a full trilogy. I certainly have titles in my mind, which I'm really excited about. The titles. If you you know, you can probably guess what the title of the second book would be. If you look at the title of the first one, there's kind of a natural title there. And even, you know, even the third one kind of flows from there as well. So yeah, I really, I do envision a trilogy here, because I think there's a lot more to explore it, both in the world and with the these particular characters. I kind of look at it becoming almost sort of like an X Men type thing, you know, where there's, you know, you had this group of outsiders, and there's a, there's a conflict within them, amongst how they should exist, or co exist with the rest of the world, right? So I think there's a lot of fertile ground for potential sequels here. But, yeah, what would have to happen this book needs to sell really well in order to justify a sequel, let alone two. So yeah, that's pretty much it. I think probably the next, next book after man fuck this house, will probably be a standalone. Those are the ideas that we're going through right now. But like I said, anything's possible, and sequels would definitely be on the table if this one does well,

Michael David Wilson 14:06
yeah, I suppose as well. You know, you spoke before about not wanting to be typecast, then there's kind of an art in terms of the release schedule, because if you put out too many back to back werewolf books. Well, now you've inadvertently been typecast into the werewolf guy, but yeah,

Brian Asman 14:28
that's what you know. That's why I'm hopeful that, like the next, next book will be a standalone, and then perhaps return to this world, and hopefully that won't be too many years in between this one and the in the potential next one that would put up audiences. I think this one does come to a solid closure, so it doesn't necessarily no one's going to be it's not like Game of Thrones where, like, you know, people are going to be waiting 15 years to find out what happens next. But yeah, we'll see.

Michael David Wilson 14:56
Yeah. And in terms of your current writing. Routine. I mean, we spoke a little bit about it two years ago, but I don't know if there have been changes, you know, with the new publisher and the new way of doing things. So what is that looking like for you right now?

Brian Asman 15:14
My writing routine is fairly the same, so I do have a day job, and so I'll, you know, work all day, and then take my dog for a walk to the beach, come home, eat dinner, and then I usually try and write for between half an hour to an hour every evening. Just depends on what what I have going on, and that could vary widely depending on the specific project that I'm working on. So if a you know, if it's something that I'm very enmeshed in that hour a half an hour to hour could stretch out to the entire evening, basically. And then on weekends, I can obviously devote a bit more time to writing. And so, you know, it just depends. Although as the years go by, I find I am giving myself more permission just to kind of chill and I don't feel the same. I think when I, when I first started, Michael, when we were first getting to know each other and YouTube, Bob, I felt a lot of desperation. That was my primary emotion when it came to writing. I felt like, I think we always feel like we're starting too late in life, no matter when we start, you know. And even though I was kind of like just prime age for, you know, for getting into writing. I was very, very desperate to achieve things right, to see those publications, to see books on the shelf. And now I getting over that hump. I don't feel that same desperation. I feel like I can, I can take a breath and just sort of enjoy things now, which is really nice. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 16:42
I think even if statistically, we see that we're getting into writing at the prime age, or even younger than other people, will always look at those outliers and we'll be like, Oh, but, but there's this, this one person called Eric la rocker, for example, who's just, you know that they're at that stage a little bit above, and it's like, well, don't look at the outlier. Look. Look at all the other people, or better yet, just concentrate on yourself. You don't need to be concerned with what other people are doing. But I do think it's human nature, and it also seems to be human nature to have that, that little doubt goblin in your head being like, oh, you're a bit shit because of blah, blah, blah. It's like, no, fuck off, doubt Goblin, I don't want to hear from you.

Brian Asman 17:35
Yeah, yeah. I try not to think about that stuff too much and just focus, like you said, focus on my own journey. I think as writers, if we begin, if we begin comparing ourselves to others, that's really, that's not really a good place to be. I think because, you know, you can never see what all the work someone has put in, right and so I never feel jealousy towards anyone else or enviousness towards anyone else. I don't like allow myself to feel those emotions because I think they're counterproductive. But I do sometimes have times when I was like, Man, I wish I had developed more discipline when I was younger. You know, I think back on, on, you know, all the nights that I decided to go out drinking for seven hours instead of, you know, being like, Oh, I'm just gonna stay home and, like, work on my craft or something like that. But then again, like, all the things I experienced during my, you know, my 20s, when I was living in San Diego and partying all the time, I'm like, all that stuff informs the person I am now, right, like, and, and I think even thinking back on all the time that I feel like I quote, unquote, wasted. That's one of the things that made me the writer I am today, and helped me develop that discipline, right? And, you know, I think also some people, for me, I needed to read a lot of books in order to become a writer, right? And I always read voraciously, but I've managed to develop a pretty intuitive sense of story, which is why I can pants things is like, I kind of feel the rhythm as I'm writing, right, and I know the sorts of things that need to happen next, right? You know, because I can, I can intuitively feel the structure of the book as I'm writing it now. And I think, you know, when I was younger, I couldn't do that, you know, and I think that's a lot of my early attempts at writing failed, because I, most commonly, I would be writing something and I I'd be like, I have no idea what should happen next, right? That was the thing that stopped me. And, you know, as I got older and read more, well, I know how plots work now, and I know essentially there are, there are a handful of things that can happen next in any given story, right, depending on what's gone before, right? You get to a certain point, you're like, Okay, I the characters need to learn some new information, or they need to go into a different situation, or there needs to be some reversal in. A relationship or something, you know?

Bob Pastorella 20:02
Yeah, I know exactly where you coming from. On there the thing that I'm 57 so I've probably got maybe 2025, 30 years, if I'm very, very lucky, of a career ahead of me, which is a long time. Yeah, you know, I didn't sub for 1210, to 12 years because I my skin was thin, and I got a painful rejection, and I beat myself up over it, and but I used that time to learn craft, and like you, I had to learn how to plot. I had to read a lot, widely, invariably, with, with all kinds of stories, you know. And so it's being 57 I don't, I don't feel old. At least I don't now. So I still feel as though, I mean, I mean, you're you, you and Michael's age group, and so, because we're all kind of coming up at the same time, yeah, so the age part doesn't, doesn't bug me. It's, it's, am I gonna have enough time to do all of the things that I want to do, and I could sit there and beat myself up over things that I regretted in the past and things like that, or I could put my butt in the seat and do the work I need to do. And that's that's my game. That's my that's my game right now is putting my butt in the seat and doing the work that I need to do, because if I don't do the work, then I'll never accomplish anything, yeah, and I have to accomplish something. I feel like that. That's, you know, that my my time, of what I want to do with my writing is, is not, is starting to happen. I'm just getting started.

Brian Asman 21:59
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with you. And I mean, I think it's, it's counterproductive to sit around and think, Oh, I wish I had done X, Y or Z 10 years ago, right? That's, that's not helpful thinking. But what is helpful is to capture that feeling, right? And then go, Okay, how would I feel in 10 years? If I like, what? How can I prevent myself from thinking the same thing 10 years from now? Right? What can I do today to ensure that 10 years from now I look back and feel like I use this time wisely? So that's kind of more the way I look at it.

Michael David Wilson 22:31
Well, what I want to find out a little bit more about is I know that you've got a film deal that you've alluded to in the past. So is there anything you can say about it right now?

Brian Asman 22:47
Unfortunately, no updates. This is, I can tell you, this is the second film deal I've gotten from man fuck this house. The original one was in development for like, a year, and then the writers strike happened, and then a bunch of projects got canceled by that studio, and I was one of them, but we got the rights back and sold them again. So that was about a year ago. So it's been in development for about a year. There's two years left for them to start to do stuff or extend it. So no updates, unfortunately, on that. But you know, it's it's Hollywood, it's all good is, I tend to, I tend to put that out of my mind, like, I don't think about it. I only think about when someone brings it up and I'm like, hey, yeah, I got a film to over that, don't I like, Huh? Or if there's, like, an update from my agents, or something like that. But overall, I think if you, if you you have to learn how to be patient in when playing the writing game, you know. And so I think what, the thing I've developed is, whenever I finish a project, and it's like, truly out of my hands, I just don't think about it. So, like my, you know, the first novel that I got my agent with, you know, I gave to her, and she started shopping around, and then I just kind of forgot about entirely, you know, and it'll, you know, if it's because it's out of my hands, if there's something needed for me at some point, then I'll think about again. But otherwise, like, it's just out there, I'm on to the next thing. Like, we have to do is just kind of, you know, give your all to every project, and then when it's done, release it into the world and let what will happen, happen, and move on to the next thing, so that you don't just drive yourself crazy waiting for updates and refreshing your email constantly.

Michael David Wilson 24:28
Yeah? Yeah. That seems a wise approach. And I always think with film news, it's like, celebrate the stage that you're at, but don't jump any stages ahead. Yeah,

Brian Asman 24:42
exactly. And for me, it's like, yes, I want more to happen, right? I want this to get made. I want to be super popular. I want to go to a horror convention and see people dressed up as characters from the film, whatever. But also I am, I tell my. Off. You know, I have made it so much further than so many people who pick up a pen and decide to start writing right? And I am so, so thankful every day for the success that I do have. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 25:13
yeah. That's certainly a good and a grounded way to look at it. And in terms of your film deals. Am I correct in thinking that your film representative is also connected to your publishing house, or have I completely made that up?

Brian Asman 25:32
No, that's correct. So Brendan Danine is my editor at Blackstone, and he also represents me for film. So

Michael David Wilson 25:39
did Brendan begin representing you before the deal, or did that come as part of the deal? It

Brian Asman 25:47
was essentially before, but it was essentially all, all essentially around the same time. So he has a kind of an interesting role of Blackstone. He specializes in selling Blackstone properties to Hollywood Studios. So he's, he has a lot of experience in film world and a lot of contacts. And so he's, he's kind of in a unique position as a as an editor at a publishing house. It's not really a thing that most publishing houses have. So

Michael David Wilson 26:15
So I wonder too. I mean, does that mean when he's editing, does he occasionally think of the story when particularly developmentally editing, in terms of how this might translate to the screen, or in terms of how he can pitch it to houses? Or does he try to kind of turn off that part of the brain while editing the story?

Brian Asman 26:39
Yeah, that's part of every conversation, but it's it would be anyway, because that's how I write. So when I sit down to write something I am I'm always thinking about what it would look like as a movie and how this would translate to the screen. And so I, he and I are very much on the same page there. And you know, the thing is, there's never come a time when I felt like we have to do something in order to make it more palatable for Hollywood that would compromise it artistically. So, you know, it's never really been like a like a choice

Michael David Wilson 27:17
between one or the other. And so what is it that you're writing at the moment? And in addition to you know, your fiction work, are you also Screenwriting at the moment?

Brian Asman 27:31
I'm not doing any screenwriting right now. I'd like to get back to that eventually, but when I'm ready, what I'm working on right now is we're still working through edits on the last couple stories that are going into man Park, this house, the expanded version. So that's been, you know, over the last couple months, and this month that's really been my, my focus. It's kind of funny. So we went. He had when we were first talking about, what stories do we put in this collection? Right? Brendan may had me drop a list of every short story I've ever written with a log line. And then he went through and was like, Okay, these are ones that I think could fit in the collection. And so there was like, maybe 20. And so we pared it down from there. And it's interesting, because some of the stories are actually stories that I wrote for the story a week challenge in 2017 strangely enough, and it's been fun revisiting those. There's a couple that I essentially rewrote from the ground up. And one thing I've noticed about me recently is I am, for some reason, completely just writing novel at length things at this point in my career. So I can, I can do short stories if needed, but like everything I sit down to write turns into like, 16,000 words or something like that, which is great when you're doing your own collection. And can just do whatever you know, but it's just kind of funny that I've hit on this ideal length for me right now is something that's not traditionally saleable.

Michael David Wilson 28:57
Yeah, yeah. I tend to find a number of my stories coming at that length as well. I know that John langen has had the same happen. You know, with him, like a short story by John langen is not a short story, yeah, yeah, that's it. And yeah,

Brian Asman 29:18
I think I'm finding more and more with just every idea I have, I just want to, I want more room to play with it and ease into it. And like, I don't know, like, it's just I can still, I have, I've done a couple short stories for various things that, you know, people ask me to do, but you know that that novel at length, or, you know, novel at length, is just kind of my sweet spot these days.

Michael David Wilson 29:42
So then does that mean with Man, fuck this house, the short story collection you've got about what 50 or 60,000 words for Man, fuck this house, and then what another 30 or so of short stories? Something,

Brian Asman 29:58
yeah, something along those lines. So we've got, I mean, I'd say the new version of man fuck this house is about close to 50,000 words, which the original novella was 40,000 and then we've got, you know, we're still finalizing what, what exactly is going into the new version, but it's going to be a very, very packed volume. You know, we've got probably six or seven short stories we're including, and least two of those are novelette length, so like about 15,000 words, and then the others are I, like I said, I tend to go long, so even my short stories tend to be a bit longer than just average.

Bob Pastorella 30:36
So this can be a considerably sized tome, yes,

Brian Asman 30:42
well, that's, that's part of the goal. Is like, you know, when you're re releasing something like this, I want everyone who bought the first version to go, oh shit, I need this, right? And it's like, how do you, how do you make it appealing to the people already on the book? Well, it's like, well, it's an expanded narrative. So if you like the book before, this is a better version of it. And then also, hey, if you like my writing, here's some exclusive short stories you can't get anywhere else. You know,

Michael David Wilson 31:07
there you go. I'd say for people tuning into the second half. Only remember, if you sell 10 million copies, you're buying someone a haunted house.

Brian Asman 31:18
I am buying someone a haunted house. Yes, exactly. So the other thing is, with, with adding short stories, and, you know, these are all potential properties that we can sell to studios, right? And we've, we've, we're shopping a number of those things right now, actually, and so hopefully we'll get some nibbles, right?

Michael David Wilson 31:38
I mean, that that's the great thing as well, like a studio, you know, they're not so constrained in terms of the length for the story. If it's a compelling enough idea, then they'll consider adapting it into a film. And I often think it's easier for them to adapt a short story or a novella, because it's a tighter concept.

Brian Asman 32:02
Yeah, that's what they're looking for these days. And so, yeah, it's definitely, definitely a lot of opportunity there with shorter fiction. And that's so that's what we're doing, essentially. And I will say the the one thing I think I am quite good at, if, if nothing else is hitting on, like, a concept that's just like, oh damn, that's a cool idea, you know. And so all the short stories in there are just, you know, I don't want to spoil anything yet, so I can't talk in specifics, but, like, they're all like these just, really, when you hear them, just like, oh shit, that's a pretty cool idea, you know, because so much of what I do is just taking two different concepts and mashing them together, right? So, which is great for, you know, selling stuff to Hollywood, because I've got natural log lines in my head for literally everything I do.

Michael David Wilson 32:52
Yeah, yeah. I can't wait to read these stories, and I'm glad that there's only gonna be a year until, you know, it's out in the world. And, I mean, it is that kind of a pattern that you're aiming for, to put out at least one book a year. Would you put out a couple a year? I remember Stephen Graham Jones being told by, I think it was either his agent or editor. It's like, whoa. You got to slow down. You're putting out too many, yeah, and

Brian Asman 33:22
but then now this year, he has he had multiple books come out that we, you know, did really well. So it's like the market dictates, essentially, how often I can release stuff, and I've got to work in concert with my agents and my publisher and everything like that. So ideally, I would love to have a new book come out every year, or a new novel come out every year. And perhaps, you know, some years have a novella come out at, like, the six month mark, you know, in between. So, you know, we'll see what happens. I mean, that would certainly be the goal is to have that level, to be that prolific.

Michael David Wilson 33:58
Oh yeah. Well, you're certainly going in the right direction for that. And I mean, we've touched on this before, but, I mean, I know there are a number of people who are listening, and they're trying to kind of take things to the next level with their writing. And yeah, we've said you've gone from indie to thread publishing and kind of a hybrid model. But I mean, what advice do you give to those people who are looking to reach that next level as a writer, and what are the sorts of things that they should be doing right now?

Brian Asman 34:35
Sure, definitely. So I think my number one piece of advice for anyone who wants to write is to read a lot, write a lot, and don't be a dick. I think if you can do those three things consistently, then you will eventually have some sort of success, like I mentioned earlier. The 2017, story a week challenge that we did through this is horror. And I met a lot of people who are around the same, you know, same level. Was me back then. And, you know, I look back at that group like so many of them have gone on to publish short stories or publish a novella, and they, what they had in common was that they just didn't give up. You know, the writers they're successful, are the ones who did not stop writing, essentially. And so if you, you know, if you write for a year or something like that, and maybe submit a couple things, and they get rejected, and then you give up. Well, you know, that's your career, right? But if you keep doing that for five years, if you keep doing that for 10 years, I mean, you know, show me the writer who's written 10 full novels and not gotten an agent or not gotten any smaller press to publish one of those, right? And I'm talking about, literally, soup to nuts, 10 full novels, you know, that's the, that's the the order of magnitude of what you have to do. When I was starting out, I heard this guy talk about, you know, right? And he mentioned, like, write a million words and then you're ready to begin, or something like that, right? And because I am very literal, I create an Excel spreadsheet, and I tracked everything I wrote in the word count, and I hit a million words in a couple years, like as I was really writing furiously, the story a week challenge was one of the reasons I was able to do that. And, you know, I do think when you do it that much, you will you, can't help but learn things right? You develop a sense of what sounds good, and you develop a sense of rhythm and things like that. And then the other thing is, I think the most important sense you can develop as a writer, if you want to be successful, is how good your own work is in relation to others. I think you see this a lot with newer writers, where they come in, they're like, I'm the most brilliant writer ever you know, and you have to or they're like, my writing is complete shit, and you have to develop that in between sense of, okay, here, here are my strengths as a writer, and here's what I do need to work on. I mean, there are, I can give you a long list of things I think I need to work on as a writer. But I do have a couple strengths that I am very I truly believe are true strengths of my of what I do. And so you just, you just have to develop that. I think back on my first couple stories I submitted, and the first projections I got, and I was like, What the hell, man. You know, these are, these stories are brilliant, like, blah, blah, blah. And then, like, you know, go, you go, you wait a couple years, you get back, and you're like, oh, that kind of sucks. And, you know, as you grow, you will be able to look more objectively at your own work, the more you write. And so I think that's, that's, that's an important sense is like, how good your own stuff is. And then again, you can't compare yourself to other people because you don't know. You can't you can only see the finished product. No one ever sees all the work that gets put in to things. And so you just have to think about where you're at and where you want to go, and you know how you get there?

Michael David Wilson 37:58
Yeah, I think as well, like people can see a rejection, or they can see low sales, and they they feel okay that this is a failure, or this is, you know, a terrible thing, but actually, they're not seeing it in context. They haven't seen the kind of wider vision. And I mean, what one of the short stories I wrote that I thought is probably the best thing that I've written, in terms of short stories like I kept getting really close to different markets that were really good markets, but then kind of being shortlisted, and then it didn't work out, and then eventually I landed the short story with no sleep podcast, but then that was behind their pay wall. But, you know, it's still a pretty sweet podcast story on and now fast forward, because I I wrote that around the time of one story per week. It may have even been, you know, I think the first story on that challenge where I don't, oh, now we're singing. Now I found my voice. So if we fast forward now, what, seven years later, I can't believe it's been that long, by the way, that's crazy. And now I've expanded that into a novella. So I'm looking at publishing that either this or next year. I've also written a script for it, so I'm looking at shopping that around. So this initial perceived failure is like, give it some time, and actually it's turning into a good thing. So I think we should never see things as a failure just because we think they're bad in the moment. You know, even you mentioned before that black hearts beat as one is your least popular book, but it only. Takes, like, a moment for something to go viral, or, let's say, you know, your other book to become a movie, and then somebody reads that, and, you know, the sales pick up. So I think as as long as our black heart is still beating, then we've still got a shot of making it. Yeah,

Brian Asman 40:21
I completely agree, you know. And the other thing is, you have to take the win, like you said. You have to take the wins when you get them. So for the example of our black heart speed is one, yeah, that hasn't done as well commercially as I wanted it to, but I've had a couple people tell me that it's like, one of their favorite books they've ever read. So, like, that's completely worthwhile to me. You know, even if it doesn't ever do anything. And, you know, like you said, you never know what can happen. Like, you know, a book can become popular, like, years after it, after it comes up, people can always rediscover it. And as I do more stuff, like good dogs, I'm hoping that people go back and take a look at some of my older work, and, you know, have some fun with it. You know. I

Bob Pastorella 41:04
want to go to something that you said earlier about especially with new writers, they don't never, they see the finished product. They don't see the nuts and bolts behind it, and they don't, you know, everyone has to come into their own process to find their voice, and that's probably the most important thing that a young writer can do, is to try to identify and find their voice, or voices that they would like to use. You know. I mean, think about like William Burroughs, who wrote Naked Lunch. Naked Lunch was a cut out novel. He found pieces of articles, of newspapers and magazines, and blacked out words and constructed them and found, found a story in those, in those found words, and then he wrote Naked Lunch he can talk to that list, and then actually added his own stuff, his own spin, and that's how he developed his voice. You have people like Dean Koontz, who writes, you know, 1015, 20 drafts of the same book over and over and over again, just to get it into into into shape in his voice. And so there's a lot of nuts and bolts. I'm not saying you got to pay your dues, but in the sense it would help that, if you could find a way to identify what you want to do with with fiction and what you want to do with story, and hone in on that and that that's your strength. You're always going to have a weakness. You can write for 20 years. Your list of weaknesses should, should maybe get a little smaller, but you should still have them. You should always be growing, but find your voice. It's whatever it takes.

Brian Asman 42:48
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think a lot of people start out copying the voices of writers they admire. I know when I first started, I was writing like, almost like parodies of Thomas legatti, right? Because that was, I was very enamored with his style, with his voice, and with his his approach to horror, and so I was writing like I, you know, I think if you write a ton, your voice will eventually start coming out, right? It's just, it's just consistency and repetition.

Michael David Wilson 43:17
Well, on social media, I asked different writers and listeners of the show to talk about what some of their writing struggles were, so we could perhaps address some of them. And Kev Harrison said that landing the ending is always something that fills him with dread. So I wonder, do you have any thoughts or any advice for those looking to really stick it with that ending?

Brian Asman 43:49
Oh, that's a good question. Yeah. So I think for me, at least generally, endings, there's really only ever one end into anything I'm writing. And because, and what I mean by that is the book sort of tells you how it needs to end, right? There's you like, based on everything that's happened before, who the characters are, what they care about, what's going to resonate with them, how they change, etc. I think you get to the end, and there's, I mean, there might be different decisions that could be made. But really there's just one essentially fulfilling ending that can happen, and it's generally something of a reversal of their initial circumstances, or it's, it's, they're back in their initial circumstances having changed themselves a bit. So, you know, I think you see this is one thing where, like studying screenwriting, really helps a lot. You think, Okay, let me, let me use John Wick as an example, right? You know, in the beginning he's got, you know, he loses his wife, but he's got this dog, and then he loses the dog, and then he has to go on this whole journey to essentially kill the entire Russian mafia. And that the end of the end of the. Is like he gets another dog, right? And he he's, he's going from being alone and having nothing in the world but violence to having some hope in his life, again, right? And I think the only, the only ending for the first John Wick there. There's certainly many ways it could have ended, but I think the only true ending for it was him finding something like that, something like another dog, in order to, in order to, you know, live a full life again.

Michael David Wilson 45:28
Yeah, so you almost have to interrogate your story. And, you know, ask yourself, Is this the kind of authentic ending? Has this in some way gone, not exactly full circle, because there needs to be a change. There needs to be a fundamental shift. But I suppose there is some sort of symmetry or some poetry to it.

Brian Asman 45:54
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I think if you look at the kind of what's the mirror image of their initial circumstances, that's that's one way to do it for sure.

Bob Pastorella 46:05
Well, you want to mirror. You want to to basically, you know what I call fulfill the totem, because you're going to have some type of totem, something that's going to come back, back again. I think that you want to be something that's unpredictable, but completely logical. And to me, those, those are the endings that I love the most, because I it's like, I didn't see that coming, and it makes perfect fucking sense, yeah, and so, and I love that, and that's, that's what I strive for when in my own stories is like, How could, how could this, you know, with scared, with careful and skillful misdirection, how can I make this ending happen, you know? And so the answer is, at the beginning of the story, you know. And so it's like, you know, that's, it's, it's like screenwriting, you know, the problem with your second act is your first act, you know, and that's you have to learn how to recognize that. It's hard to do, but you sometimes you screwed up at the beginning and you just need a little fix, and wow, man, now everything just fits together. Yeah,

Michael David Wilson 47:18
which of your stories has been tough is to end,

Brian Asman 47:23
ooh, that's a good question. I'm trying to think, I mean, so I think I will get with Man, fuck this house there, because I won't spoil anything for the audience, for those who haven't read it. But there is a point near the end where, as a writer, I had a decision to make. So initially, I had a very different ending for the book in mind, and I get to this point where it's like the decision points, right? And I, you know, I had this idea for, like, something crazy that could happen, or I had an idea that was a much more kind of, like normal thing that could happen, and I just decided to swing for the fences. So I think, I think generally, as a writer, if you go big and fail, then that's fine, because you won't regret trying, right? But if you go for something safe, then I think that's something that you may regret, is not giving something really your all.

Michael David Wilson 48:21
Yeah, I definitely like to go with the more explosive ending, you know, yeah, using explosive in as all encompassing away as possible, you know? Yeah, well, another problem that a writer has had is from Laura sent and she wants to know, you know, any tips for juggling projects and deadlines and not only logistically, but making that kind of mental space to be able to hold on to multiple projects at one time? Ooh,

Brian Asman 49:06
yeah, that's a really good question. I think if you can having some dedicated time, you might have a similar deadlines for two different things and going, Okay, this is the thing I'm going to work on, first thing I'm going to work on second. Or if you really have to work on them in parallel, just going, like, Okay, I'm gonna do a 20 minute sprint on this, and then shift gears and do a 20 minute sprint on that. Also, I think, as a writer, often there's something that we're like, that's coming a little bit easier, and don't be afraid to do the one that's like a little bit easier and race through that. And then I think the other thing is that it's, you know, just remembering that this is, this is a craft and writing books or works of engineering, as much as and as as art, and sometimes you just have to put something together that's going to hold together and feel good enough about it.

Michael David Wilson 49:56
Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean. In it. The other kind of aspect of that as well is balancing the writing time with the social time with the time with family and friends. And I mean, we can feel guilt if we neglect either our social circles or indeed our writing. And you know, the whole aim is to to not feel guilt at all. But it's like just, just finding that rhythm, and it's a difficult thing to talk about, because I think, you know, there's no formula. It's not like, right? 60% family, 40% writing. If it was that easy, then that would be great, and we'd probably make a lot of money from just giving that formula. I guess it's finding what is right for you and right for you at that time. You know, if there's a deadline, then I think your family and friends are going to understand that you're putting a little bit more time into the writing equally, if there's a family crisis or emergency, then it's not only completely reasonable, but expected that the writing and other commitments are gonna temporarily disappear.

Brian Asman 51:17
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think it's also important to remember that writing like but in chair time has diminishing returns. You know, I think for me, I find that a good hour is about my limit, and then I need to get up and do something else. Because, you know that next half hour is going to be less productive, and the half hour after that will be less productive. So, you know, giving yourself breaks. And then I think the other thing is, if you have deadlines and you really have made, you know, given it your best shot, and you're worried about making a deadline, you know, just have an open and honest conversation with your editors. And most of the time I find in publishing, deadlines are a little bit fungible. You know, I try to make all of my deadlines. But, like, there was a situation over the summer where I was invited to do a story for this anthology, and we're coming up on the deadline, and I'm like, Hey guys, you know, can I have an additional two weeks? Is that gonna put you out if I have some extra time to work through this story? And I was, I had my backup plan in mind already, that I had a way I could just kind of quickly end the story. Wouldn't be the best thing I've ever written, but I would get, I would meet the goal, but I had a better version of the story that I could write with more time. And so I just asked them, and they're like, Sure, no problem. So I think a lot of the time in publishing, you know, people will say, Sure, no problem. As long as they met, they're not going to process, like, the following week or something like

Michael David Wilson 52:40
that, you know? Yeah, yeah. It would be pretty bizarre for a publisher to be like, you know, what, just send a lesser story,

Brian Asman 52:49
yeah, yeah, exactly. And, but, you know, I think the key there is just open communication, really, and that's the key to a lot of life, frankly, is, you know, talking over expectations, making sure everyone's on the same page. You know, most people are very easy to work with, so but as long as you're communicating,

Michael David Wilson 53:10
well, I wonder, what are some of the best horror films and horror books that you've experienced this year? And they don't necessarily have to have come out this year, but just that you've personally read or watched,

Brian Asman 53:27
Sure, definitely, I guess. Let's start with books so American narcissist by Chandler Morrison. I was, I'm a huge fan of Chandler's work. That's a very it's kind of a take on Great Gatsby set in LA with a bunch of you know, characters struggling with the rapidity of modern life, essentially into some very dark undertones throughout the book. So I really enjoyed that one. Another one I dug a lot was deliver me by El Nash. So highly recommend that to everyone that's kind of about the horror of, you know, pregnancy, and there's some bug stuff, and it's just really, really cool, fucked up book. Definitely more about like, I learned more about, like, you know, chicken processing than I ever wanted to another one I read recently was I finally read House of Leaves. I tried to start it before, a couple years ago, got, like, 50 pages in, and it wasn't the right time. And I this, this, this year, I decided I was going to give it another shot, and I really ended up loving it once I got past the first, you know, 5060, pages and a lot of the preamble stuff, and I started, you know, there are multiple narratives. And once you allow yourself to get used to the multiple narratives and switching back and forth between, like, the voices and everything like that, it really, really began to work for me. And then, you know, you hit these spots where, like, it's very so. It's a very dense book for a lot of it, but then you hit these spots where you'll just, like, they're like, 50 pages go by and there's like a sentence on each page or something. And you get some momentum from those like bursts of like, I just, I just, I'm 50 pages further into the book than I was before. So yeah, I think those are the those are three that I would certainly recommend that I've read recently.

Michael David Wilson 55:21
And what about on the film side of things?

Brian Asman 55:23
Yeah, then movies, I'm trying to think so oddity. Have you guys seen that?

Bob Pastorella 55:28
Yes, yes, from the same guy who did a caveat,

Brian Asman 55:33
yeah, it's on shutter right now. I really enjoyed that one. There's another movie I watched recently, and it's called, I think I need to look it up real quick, because I don't remember the exact title. It's a very long title. See, oh yes, it's onyx, the fortuitous and the talisman of souls. So it's about this guy who's like a wannabe wizard, who works at like a burger shack, and he gets there's this famous Satan is too, like, has a contest and brings all these people to his mansion in the middle of nowhere to, like, summon a demon as horror comedy, it was a lot of fun. The guy who plays the main character just cracked me up. He's got this, like, you know he he's got this, like, funny manic energy, and he constantly lapses into like, announcer voice when he's like, talking just in real life, like that kind of thing. And I just, I adored that movie. So, yeah, those are a couple of recent ones I'd recommend. Are

Michael David Wilson 56:33
you sure that you didn't write that movie? It totally sounds like a Brian Esther

Brian Asman 56:38
much because I because I see, yeah, I'm watching this movie. I'm like, Oh man, I feel like I would really get along with the guy. I'm

Bob Pastorella 56:50
about to check that one out, ascending just from the title. That sounds great. Yeah,

Brian Asman 56:55
it's, I feel like it's not really getting any play on, like, you know, movie, Twitter and anything like that. So, yeah, I definitely recommend people check it out.

Michael David Wilson 57:05
Yeah, did you watch that on Amazon, on Shadow

Brian Asman 57:10
Amazon right now? Yeah, I always have to, like, try and remember where I watched whatever, you know, because I have all these different streaming services, and I'm just bouncing between them trying to, you know,

Michael David Wilson 57:22
yeah, yeah. Well, before we wrap up, do you have a final writing tip or piece of life advice that you'd like to impart to our listeners? Hmm, yeah, I

Brian Asman 57:38
will actually give the listeners something very specific that I found. So I found, when writing action scenes, if you look at three act structure and apply that to your action scenes, that it actually works really well. And so essentially, I like good action scenes will often have, like, all of the beats that exist within three and three act structure, right? So there's, like, an inciting incident, there's a reason why the action kicks off in the first place, right? And there's like, you know, at the after about a third of the scene, right? When you enter the second act of the action sequence, right? You want to have, like, a bit of a reversal, right? You know, you want to have, like, fun and games where you're delivering, if you're saying, like, you know, a ninja is playing a bear, there's, you know, you better have a section there where it's just bear a ninja action, and it's just fun, you know. And then you know, towards the end of the action sequence, there needs to be, like, an all is lost moment where the protagonist is going about, you know, how are they going to get out of this one? And, you know, then eventually, you know, they try out. So, you know, you just, you know, throw in different reversals. And I think that's what helps action scenes remain interesting. Because I can, I actually get bored reading action scenes a lot if they're not written well, which is funny, because it's like, oh, this is the most exciting stuff in the book. But if it's not delivered in a way that okay, so I always this is my favorite example of an action scene that I feel doesn't work. So in the second matrix, movie Matrix Reloaded, when Neo is fighting like the 100 agents myths, right? I was bored to tears during that scene, because there's absolutely no stakes to the scene whatsoever, right? Like they like, he can't really hurt any of them. They can't hurt him. You know, it's just action for the sake of action. And so I think, you know, you want to deliver stakes, and you want to have you want to beats, and you want the action sequence to also be about something, if you can. So my favorite example of this is in Lethal Weapon. There's a scene where rigs and Murtagh go to a drug dealer's house to take him down. And you know, the drug dealer resists, and an action scene pops off right? The the scene actually serves as a debate between Riggs and myrtha based on their different styles of policing. So, like, everything Riggs does is like trying to kill the guy and take him out, right? Everything. Warta does is to try and like, essentially capture him semi peacefully, or at least alive, right? And so the I think when it when you in each back and forth, there's a back and forth action between each of them during the sequence, and it works just so well as, like, a debate between these two, a physical debate between these two characters. So I think when you're writing action, if you just think about things like that, it's like, how can I make this more than just a car chase, and how can I, within the car chase have all the different beats that would that make this a satisfying sequence to read, where there are it's not just cards go vroom, but there are reversals. There are unexpected things happen. There's, oh, all of a sudden, a sudden, a monster truck has joined the car racer car chase or something, you know, oh, there's a bridge out stuff like that. You know, that's my brain advice that gives to people that

Michael David Wilson 1:00:52
is a phenomenal tip or section of tips, and hopefully all of the this is our podcast listeners are now immediately going to become better at writing action scenes. Because, you know, like I I know when I read a good action scene and I know when I read a bad one, but nobody has quite distilled the reason or the essence as well as you just did there. So thank you. So thank

Brian Asman 1:01:21
you appreciate that.

Michael David Wilson 1:01:24
Well, where can our listeners connect with you? All

Brian Asman 1:01:29
right, so I'm on all social media platforms as at the Brian as man. I am still on Twitter. I refuse to call it x. It's going to be Twitter until I the day I die. So I'm still on that platform. I'm on Instagram a lot, and I generally post to Facebook from Instagram. I also have a Tiktok, but I don't really have much content on there. And then my website is Brian Asman books.com I do sell signed copies of my books on there. So if you're looking for you know, to get my signature on anything you can grab it through the website, all

Michael David Wilson 1:02:04
right, apart from immediately buying good dogs, which is out right now. Do you have any final thoughts for our listeners?

Brian Asman 1:02:16
Just it's always a pleasure to come on this podcast, and it's especially cool just because I've known both of you guys for so long now, ever since I first you were some of the first people I met when I entered the genre. Frankly, and the podcast was a great resource for me as far as learning about the craft of writing and learning about people's journeys. And you know, it was a source of inspiration hearing from so many different writers at different stages their careers, and going well if, if all these people can do it, I can do it too. So it's always Yeah, this podcast, this podcast kind of feels like coming home when I come back on it, and I'm definitely looking forward to talking to you guys on this thing again at some point in the future.

Michael David Wilson 1:02:59
Oh, hell yeah. Thank you so much for joining us.

Brian Asman 1:03:03
Yeah. Thank you guys for having me.

Michael David Wilson 1:03:09
Thank you so much for listening to Brian Asman on this is horror. Join us again next time when we will be chatting to David das mulchen. And if you want to listen to that and every other episode ahead of the crowd, become our patron a patreon.com forward slash. This is horror. Not only will you get early bird access to each episode, but you can submit questions to an array of interviewees, writers such as LP Hernandez, Richard chisma, Ross Jeffrey and Eric la rocker, to name but a Few. You can also get access to exclusive discord channels, videocast, the full interview ahead of the crowd, with no advert breaks, a lot of different perks, and you're also helping to keep the show alive, to keep me and Bob doing what we love to do here at this is horror. So that's patreon.com forward slash. This is horror. Check it out. See if you like it, and if it is a good fit for you, then I will see you there. Okay, before I wrap up, a quick advert break.

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Michael David Wilson 1:05:38
now, in addition to becoming a patron. There are a multitude of ways that you can help the podcast absolutely free of charge, and one of those ways is to leave a review over on the Apple podcast website or on Spotify. You can also follow us on one of our social media platforms. We are now on threads as well as blue sky and Twitter. As this bizarre dance, this battle for social media dominance takes full force, and I wasn't planning on getting on threads, but Stephen King joined. So what other choice did I have? So if you're there, if you're on blue sky, if you're on Twitter, come and say hello. We are either at this is horror or at this is horror podcast, depending on the platform. Well, that about does it for another episode of This is horror, and I can't wait for you to tune in next time, because I am very excited for you to hear our conversation with David das mulch and an absolute horror legend. He was in one of the standout films of last year, he really is a horror sensation in the horror cinema world, and he is taking the graphic novel horror scene by storm with the likes of nights versus samurai and count Crowley. So get ready for next episode with David dasmul, but until then, take care of yourselves. Be good to one another. Read horror, keep on writing and have a Great, great day.