Official Interview: John Tolliver

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ALynnPowers
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Official Interview: John Tolliver

Post by ALynnPowers »

Welcome to another interview! This time I had some questions for John Tolliver, author of The Reflection of Innocence, which received a positive rating here at OnlineBookClub.org from reviewer @"kimmyschemy06". Check out the official review here.

Q: Tell us a little about yourself and your background.
A: Born and raised in New York, spent 6 years in the Navy after college serving on board a nuclear submarine, settled back in the Hudson Valley of New York after leaving the Navy. Have worked in nuclear chemistry since I moved to this area in the early 1980’s. About ~20 years ago I started my own online business called Simply Sapphires buying/selling precious gemstones. It’s given me the opportunity to travel the globe, and expand my own horizons.

Q: Aside from reading or writing, what other hobbies do you have?
A: In terms of hobbies, I’m a consummate collector. I’ve collected autographs, coins, stamps, precious stones, and art at different periods in my life, and when I get bored with one, I return back to another. I am also an avid animal lover, so I generally have a doberman or two roaming the halls wanting my attention.

Q: What do you think makes a good story?
A: To me, two elements. I think it has to have characters that are thought all the way through; rather than just placed in a scene, you have to understand the complete character even though you might only use a small part of them in your writing. You have to understand their nuances and what makes them tick before you can write about them. Secondly and probably more importantly is a cohesive story line with clear definitions of the basic elements. For example, this past weekend, we saw “Eye in the Sky” with Helen Mirren at the movies. Essentially watching the movie was viewing a dozen people stare at various computer screens for two hours, BUT because the movie itself had such a strong well thought out script, it made it a fascinating watch.

Q: As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?
A: Too many things. I was a fairly bright kid in school (lazy but bright), so after high school I attended college with really no idea where I was headed. I think my goal was to to a Psychologist, as I was always fascinated with other people’s thoughts and rationalizations. I think I switched majors several times though, from Economics, Accounting, and General Business before deciding.

Q: On to your writing, what all have you written?
A: The Reflection of Innocence was the first time I ever really wrote anything of substance. In my earlier years I wrote some short stories, but until recently, I have always been more of a storyteller than a writer.

Q: Tell us about The Reflection of Innocence.
A: The Reflection of Innocence is a book about the struggles one man faces after he is “gifted” the ability to see other people’s memories and emotions life most of us would see products on a supermarket shelf. I like to think it’s different, as the character can’t “read minds” per se, but can actually visualize the memories and intensity of emotion inside people’s head. As you might imagine, he finds it a double-edged sword. While it might be wonderful and stimulating to see and understand the memories of how a brilliant theologian, philanthropist, doctor, or good soul is put together on his inside, what if the price you pay for seeing all that good is seeing the opposite as well. If you had no choice but to just see all the terrible, vile, and unpleasant memories, and all were stuck with you forever. This is the dilemma the character faces.

Q: This book is classified as a historical fiction on our site. What inspired you to use this genre?
A: Just love using history and historical fiction as a back drop. Thinking about how real people could have reacted differently if one or two things had been changed, or an influence or two added or taken away.

Q: Why did you choose this time period?
A: I like the 1980’s for this book especially since the Cold War was going strong, and it’s a critical piece of our history. It provides a great backdrop to the whole story. It’s also the period that I saw firsthand in the Navy. Probably most important for my book though was that during that time period the US Military/US Intelligence agencies were actively conducting programs and trying to learn if paranormal phenomena actually exist, and if they could militarize its use.

Q: Have other writers of historical fiction influenced you? How?
A: Yes. When I was in the Navy, we had a ships library that consisted of about 100+ paperbacks that people would contribute. I couldn’t tell you the name of the book, but its premise was that Hitler had survived WWII and was prospering in the 1970’s after taking over Europe. I was truly fascinated by the writer’s ability to make it believable. I felt the same way when I read the book The Martian by Andy Weir; you could possibly say it’s historical FUTURE fiction. Strong basic story line (Astronaut goes to space and gets stranded), with a lot of “what if”s thrown in that pull your imagination and thoughts all around as you relate to his struggles.

Q: Have you ever written historical fiction prior to this book?
A: No, I haven’t. I wrote a few science fiction paranormal type short stories but never historical fiction.

Q: What was the most challenging part of writing a book in this genre?
A: Research. I really tried my best to be accurate about the time frame. To have points of reference to know exactly what a building mentioned in the narrative would have looked like (inside and out) in the 1980’s versus today. What scientific programs the military used. Trying to find the data on the active research the military/CIA did in regard to Psychic/Paranormal and the Star gate projects was challenging.

Q: How much of the subject matter were you already familiar with? How much research did you have to do to successfully accomplish writing a historical fiction novel?
A: I was familiar with some as I’ve read up on it quite a bit over the years, but didn’t really know the depth of the material until I started writing the book. Even the submarine service sections, even though I lived in that submarine service environment, most times you had no idea of the larger picture of why you were at a location and what you were doing there. You just did your job and rarely knew the bigger pieces of the puzzle.

Q: What’s the most surprising thing you learned writing this book?
A: That I found creating a character from scratch utterly fascinating. It was interesting putting a character into written words, but I felt very attached to the characters by the book’s end. I felt like I have known them all my life, and found that very surprising.

Q: How long did it take you to write this book?
A: I started in early last year (January 2015), piecing together fragments of a story, then in April I started writing, and finished in mid-December.

Q: What other feedback have you received about this book?
A: I was really grateful on two levels. People seem to connect with many of the characters’ struggles. We all have struggles, and I was glad to hear people felt his fears and saw him as a complete person rather than just a one-dimensional man with powers. The other part that I never expected was how grateful people seem to be towards the men/women that serve in our Armed Forces. I was so happy that many people understood the sacrifices, long hours, and little pay these men/women make to protect their freedoms. Receiving an email or letter saying, “Thank You, Sir, for your service, and a great story,” is a priceless gift.

Q: What does your family think of your writing?
A: One of my brothers said something that I really took as a compliment. He told me, “Did this really happen? I don’t remember, did we really do this, or is this just made up?”

Q: What do you hope readers will take away from your book?
A: That as much as we all feel we are so different from each other, we’re not. It’s our commonalities that bind us both nationally and globally, and we should never lose sight of that.

Q: Are you currently working on any other projects?
A: I’ve got an outline for a second part of the same story, and also an idea for a semi science fiction tale with the basic premise: absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Q: Do you have any suggestions or advice for other writers who are looking to tell their stories?
A: Ask for help in putting together a storyline. I was fortunate to find two great people who helped me string all my thoughts together.

Q: Is there any other information you would like us to know?
A: Support your Armed Forces members locally, and thank them for their time and commitment when you see them. It means more than you’ll ever know.

----

Thank you so much to @"johhnnyt" for this interview. Also an extra special thanks to OBC members @"gali" and @"hsimone" for providing the majority of the questions that I used (word-for-word) for this interview.

----

The Books

The Reflection of Innocence by John Tolliver ~ View on Bookshelves | View on Amazon

Being Medusa: And Other Things That Suck by A. Lynn Powers (interviewer) ~View on Bookshelves | View on Amazon
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Post by gali »

Great interview and great answers! :tiphat:
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Post by johhnnyt »

I agree, great questions. Writing is certainly an ongoing learning curve, and really been enjoying the experience
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Post by Heidi M Simone »

Wonderful interview! Thank you for sharing! :)
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Post by ALynnPowers »

I hope people enjoy! I actually really enjoyed these questions and everything just flowed together so nicely. :D
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Post by lizzurppp »

Thanks for sharing! I agree, show your appreciation for our service members!
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Post by kimmyschemy06 »

An awesome interview. When I reviewed his book, I was very impressed with Mr. John Tolliver's knowledge and apparent enthusiasm in writing about the Navy, the descriptions of the submarine, the training and the people working there. However, when I read this interview and I learned more about him, he seems to me to be even more impressive and bigger than life. He is such a smart and talented person and I'm looking forward to reading more of his books.
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Post by johhnnyt »

Thank You kimmyschemy. I actually took some of your comments of the review and made some changes in the current revision to the book as i agreed with them as well. There wasn't space to advertise it on OBC, but am also dropping the price to $1.99 for a few starting May-10th-May15th for a promotion
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Post by PashaRu »

As always, nice job. :wink2: This is a nice platform for the authors who are fortunate enough to be interviewed. And it's nice that those in the OBC community want to contribute. Plaudits to @"ALynnPowers" for another great interview!

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Post by Metka »

Nice interview! It's always great to be able to find out what's behind a story, how the story progressed,... The background that makes us think about the plot of the book.... I think that the main idea is awesome! Thanks for this interesting information! It makes me want to read the book right now.
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Post by babika1962 »

Good interview all around! In terms of the elements that make for a good story, I agree that characters and story line are important. However, I think there is one more element that's vital to the mix and that's conflict. Without conflict, even the best story line won't have impetus to drive it and move it forward.
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Post by hantt163 »

great post! thank you for share
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Post by johhnnyt »

babika1962 wrote:Good interview all around! In terms of the elements that make for a good story, I agree that characters and story line are important. However, I think there is one more element that's vital to the mix and that's conflict. Without conflict, even the best story line won't have impetus to drive it and move it forward.
You certainly are 100% correct about the importance of conflict in a story line. Going into the story I didn't realize what a challenge conflict would be in regard to transforming the emotions of conflict to words.

I'm sure for a more experienced writer it gets easier with time, but I found some types of conflict were easy to write about specifically external conflict, character against character, authority figure versus sympathetic soul

The tough part for me anyway was writing about internal conflict, and translating it from thought to words/paper.

Moral, sexual, addiction, and soul searching conflict was much more difficult to write, especially when I wanted it to be a subtle type of conflict where the character doesn't necessarily see it as a conflict. Some of my early writing sounded to much like a pity party, so it took many revisions to help get it where I wanted it.
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Post by babika1962 »

As you correctly stated, conflict presents itself in many different forms and being able to "show" conflict rather than "telling" the reader about the conflict is the key. I also think the type of book you're writing will also play a part in the challenge of presenting conflict. For example, if you're writing an action-themed book, the conflict becomes quite apparent from the get-go because it's more or less in your face (ie. kill the bad guys before they kill you). However, when you are writing a book that is character-driven, the shades of conflict tend to be more subtle, making it a more difficult challenge for the writer, as a whole.
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Post by TrishaAnn92 »

Great interiview! :D Loved the answers!
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