Creating Characters Makes Up For Real
World Shortcomings, Says Kevin Wilson

The Family Fang
by Kevin Wilson
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Kevin Wilson

Kevin Wilson’s masterful debut novel, The Family Fang, takes readers inside a unique and often unsettling world where life becomes art imitating life wearing the clothes of conceptual art. The family of Fang’s appears nuclear from the outside: father, mother, daughter, son. Four quarters of a whole that together do not create equal parts. Born into the world of outré performance art, the children Fang are taught to reside in a state of emotion being used as prop, and where love is served best as an afterthought. Flipping back and forth from now to then, Wilson seduces readers with the quirky and raw aftermath of what happens when stability is replaced with ambition. Genuine characters coupled with an honest voice and imaginative scenes lead the reader deep down the rabbit whole into an eye-opening and captivating story world. Wilson shares how important character is to a story, if he believes all dreams carry cost, and what the most important element is in his writing.

AUTHORLINK: As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

WILSON: I did not want to grow up. I wanted to be a kid. As a kid, my parents indulged me with any interest that I had. If I wanted to be a superhero, they bought me a cape and let me be a superhero. If I wanted to be a filmmaker, they let me use the movie camera and helped me make stop motion movies with my Star Wars characters. I had a sense, as I got older, that adulthood would not be fun, and I did not want it to come.

AUTHORLINK: This is your first novel, although you’re already an acclaimed writer for your collection of short stories and fiction. What dynamics separate the novel from the short, and do you prefer one form to the other?

WILSON: Your intent is still the same; you want to tell a compelling story that does something interesting. But the way in which you go about creating that story changes. With stories, I try to find a quick entry into the narrative and then make it explode before the reader has too much time to get settled. I end the story before the end of the character's story. With the novel, I understood that I had more space to explore more aspects of the characters and their concerns. I could spend more time letting the narrative unfold. But the end result, to move the reader, to unsettle them, was the same. Having written both, I love each of the forms, though I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the way in which the novel allowed me to spend so much time with a single narrative. It helped me grow attached to the characters in ways I hadn't expected.

AUTHORLINK: The Family Fang is dark, gripping and honest to the point of complexity. Does it all come from a place of make-believe, or is it also an exploration of the facets of Kevin? How much of yourself do you give over to your story?

WILSON: I try to cram as much of myself into the story. I think this is perhaps a rookie move that, for now, works for me. If I already have access to those emotions and experiences, it makes the writing easier in some ways, allows me to focus on other aspects of the story. More and more, I try to work outside of myself but I always find, no matter how different the characters are from my own life, that I connect in some important way with their interior life.

AUTHORLINK: (To this reader) The Fang’s (elder) are an interesting combination of courage, selfish and shamelessness. The Fang’s (younger) are a more empathetic bag – being a representation of the elder’s effects. How important is the familial chain, the echo of pain and shadows of confusion that parents can impart onto their children, to this story? Is there an intentional message here that you hope readers take away from the novel?

WILSON: The story really is about two things: art and family. For me, family is the most important thing in my writing, the ways in which we find ourselves connected to other people through sheer dumb luck and how we make peace with that. I can see so easily how my own upbringing shaped me and I can already see the ways in which the world that my wife and I are creating for our son will help shape him. It's inescapable in many ways and so I think about it constantly.

AUTHORLINK: Would you say all dreams have cost?

WILSON: I think there is a constant narrowing of options as you get older. To get the thing you most want, you have to give up something else. The elder Fangs might disagree with me, but I don't think the kids would.

AUTHORLINK: The various pockets of life that are conveyed in The Family Fang give these authentic characters a defined dimension. How did you prepare for these points of view – did you outline and research, or shoot it straight onto the page?

WILSON: I wrote this in a furious way. I did very little outlining. I try to do almost no research because I tend to spend so much time reading about the smallest details that it distracts from the story I want to tell. I just jumped into the characters and tried to find out how each one of them could help me tell the story.

AUTHORLINK: Is there a particular scene from the work that feels the most real to you, that affects you most deeply?

WILSON: The scene when Buster and Annie reunite with their parents and witness them try to create a chaotic moment like their older works. That moment when Annie and Buster see that their parents are fading in some ways, become less assured, I think helped me understand how the parents might be deserving of some sympathy, no matter how awful they were earlier in their lives.

AUTHORLINK: What do you believe makes a good story – what elements of writing are crucial to elevating a work from being a great piece of writing to an unputdownable book?

WILSON: I read across genre and, for me, what connects me to the story is character. I think language is important, a writer who can do something totally unexpected with a sentence or just flat out dazzle you with the strangeness of a line, but I always run to character. My first experience with narrative where I was aware of how the story was being told was probably comic books and they focus so much on the character. And my favorite detective novels are the books that may not have the best mystery or the best writing, but the most interesting character. And when I think of my favorite literary novels, the first thing that jumps out to me is usually the character that made me love the book.

AUTHORLINK: As the writer, how do you prepare yourself to enter the mind of a character? Is it easy to slide into the world of someone else – like watching a movie - or are you conscious of traveling alongside them at all times?

WILSON: Human connection is tricky for me. I don't think I'm very good at it. I'm anxious almost 100% of the time and other people exacerbate that. Creating characters and trying to understand them is one of the ways I try to make up for my failings in the real world. I think that getting close to a character, trying to understand all facets of their personality, helps me empathize with real people in ways I wouldn't otherwise.

AUTHORLINK: How important are readers? Do you write for others, or for yourself?

WILSON: I write primarily for myself. I like writing. I am happy when I write and I love spending time working on a story that feels larger than myself. But, of course, once the story is finished, I want to share it. I want other people to read. And I think I have an idea of the reader when I'm writing. But if it wasn't interesting to me, I wouldn't do it. It's not a job for me and I don't think it ever will be.

AUTHORLINK: If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

WILSON: The opposite of The Giving Tree.

http://www.wilsonkevin.com/

Paige Crutcher is a wordie, writer, book addict, blogger, National Authors Examiner and columnist for authorlink.com. Visit her articles at: http://www.examiner.com/authors-in-national/paige-crutcher, her blog: http://paigesprose.blogspot.com/ or follow her on Twitter: @PCrutcher.