Marion G. Harmon, A Writer in Vegas.

One of the things I was warned about, when I started marketing Wearing the Cape, was that some nosy Parkers would actually want to interview me about the book. Why? I’m not trying to be obtuse; it’s simply that, as a reader, I was never that interested in authors or interviews with them. If I liked their book, great! My one question was “when is the next one?” As a writer, however, I began to take an interest; if another writer pulled off a cool idea, I was a bit more interested in what was going through his head. But now I’ve had my own interview–the follow-up to ComicAttack.net’s review of WtC.

And now I’ve discovered the benefit of interviews for the writer: feedback. Q&A tells you what at least one reader was interested in after reading your book. In other words, you get to know what bits of your story made him think. Can there be anything more interesting to a writer?

To refresh, Andrew Hudson reviewed Wearing the Cape at the beginning of June. His take? To paraphrase, “This doesn’t suck.” He also called it “fun.” Ah, the heady accolades. Keep in mind, this came from a guy who reads comics as an avocation (making it an Ebert thumbs-up). So what was Andrew interested in asking? How long have I been interested in superheroes, and which superheroes were major inspirations? What outside influences… influenced me? Did I need to censor myself to write a YA novel? What changes did I have to make when I decided to make WtC a YA story? Did I have a political message in mind when I wrote WtC? How much research did I put into superpowers, the city of Chicago, etc. You can read the full interview here.

So why is this cool? Because it means my depiction of Chicago was colorful enough he had to ask. Same with superpowers–hardly something that can be reality-checked. The politics informed the background without being obvious, or he wouldn’t have had to ask. And so on. Of course, what this really means is I’m incredibly narcissistic to spend time trying to decode what Andrew probably thought were a bunch of common-sense questions. Still, it was fun, and I’m looking forward to my next ego-boost–I mean next interview. Bwa-ha-ha-ha.