Fresh Voice Kris Silva!

What is your ultimate writing goal?
I won't be happy until I know that the work I send tottering off into the mist is absolutely the best I could make it. And then I'll need to do something even better.

Why do you write?
Why do you breathe? It isn't really a choice for me. If I stop writing, my gills will seize up and I'll drown...wait. No. Sorry, that's sharks.

Have you worked to achieve your voice or is it just a natural style for you?
It took me years to learn to avoid being influenced by whomever I was reading and develop a style which works for the stories I want to tell. Of course every story's tone depends on the minds of the characters.

Who are your favorite authors and why do you like them?
Neil Gaiman, because he can give you a surreal case of the giggles on one page and then throw a sobering left hook. Ambrose Bierce, for cynical humor so dry it has to be the clacking of a laughing skull. And Ray Bradbury because F*ING RAY BRADBURY, people!!

What most attracts you to the life of a writer?
We get lives?? News to me! ...There was never a decision point, where I weighed the obstacles to publication against my meagre talent. It's just what I'm driven to do. Which means the old moth-battering-itself-against-a-lightbulb analogy is fairly accurate.

If you couldn't be a writer but knew you were guaranteed success at a different career, what
would you choose?
My degree was in tech theatre, and I do sometimes miss lighting design. The subtlety and ephemeral nature of that art still appeals to me.

If you had to describe your writing in one word, what would that word be?
Do the Germans have a word that means drysillyhorrifichumor? That. They're good at that kind of wordmashing.

What's the best writing advice you've ever gotten?
Eliminate the words "got," "like," and "that" from your vocabulary unless necessary for a character's dialect.


Kris Silva has only once achieved national publication, but hardly anyone still has that issue of "Playgirl." She prefers high body counts, deep intrigue, low morals, and shallow graves...and also enjoys reading and writing about such things. She is currently working on a novel about a clueless, loveable cyborg who has been programmed to destroy civilization. Pie is involved. Find Kris on Twitter @gravewriter71. Her art is on DeviantArt and RedBubble. She's also your girl for Muppet and Inspector Gadget fanfic.