INTERVIEW: IN BETWEEN: STORIES OF THE EVERVERSE by Darby Harn Plus Giveaway!

What drives your story forward in your books the most, the characters or the plot, or do you feel they are intertwined?

I don’t think there’s much separating them. The stories and novellas in In Between: Stories of the Eververse all concern some issue or problem; something happens and Kit Baldwin has to fix it. In that way, they echo the comic books I grew up on where every issue dealt with a new challenge. But every story relates to Kit personally. She has some stake in each, and learns something from every experience. Character drives the dilemma forward from the initial event as Kit tries to deal with it in ways only she can.

If you were a character in one of your books, which would you be? The hero/heroine, mentor, villain, love interest, etc.?

I don’t think I’d qualify as anyone’s love interest in any book, but I’d like to think I’d be a hero. Kit and I have a lot in common. We share the same values, certainly. We’re both autistic. She’s not an avatar for me in the story, but she does help me work out my thoughts and feelings about some of the issues in the stories. Kit takes on a lot of relevant social issues, even if they don’t outwardly seem obvious. “Troubled Graves” deals with gun violence and her anger and helplessness reflects mine in a lot of ways.

Do people you know end up as characters in your book? Be honest…

Yes and no. Everything inspires me. Everyone does. People in my life inform some characters in the story, but it’s not simply planting them in the narrative. You are a reflection of your experiences and relationships and your work is as well. People positive and negative influence the writing.

Was there something in your first edit that didn’t make it in the final copy?

The short story “Starter Home” changed substantially from its earliest version to the published one. There were some nice moments that got cut, including one scene in particular where Kit encounters members of her fan club. Kit struggles with being a hero and also the fact that she has a following, as any superhuman person would in modern reality. I want to revisit this scene somewhere, but I’m still looking for the right place.

What do you do to prepare your mind to write? To get into the mind of your characters?

For me, everything comes from voice. I listen to people, how they talk, what they say, and what they don’t say. The more I listen and the more let their voice run in my head the more I feel I can start to write from it. It’s finding the rhythm and melody and music of someone, and then hopefully, they start talking and you start listening. Then the story takes on its own life.

What’s one of the most important things you’d like your readers to know about you? What defines you most as an author?

I hope the intersectionality in my work defines it. I have broad interests and I love blending things. I want to write a story where it seems like Virginia Woolf wrote a Marvel comic. Issues matter in my work and that’s the things that we struggle with every day like inequality, and that’s all the comic book pop of reading something off the spinner rack. My favorite stories act as meeting places between genres and styles and considerations and I hope my work follows in that tradition as well.

What is one thing about you that may surprise your readers.

I once almost fell off a castle wall in Ireland. They shot some scenes of Braveheart there, but I wasn’t brave or particularly smart that day.

What’s next for you? What are you working on now?

Fans of the Eververse can look forward to Black Market Heart, book four, next year. I’m about halfway through writing book five and I’m very excited by where the story is going. I’ve also got a space opera I’m very proud of that I hope to find a home for in the near future. Beyond that, I’m eager to write something new and different, and continue to grow as a writer.