Eerie (28 page)

Authors: Blake Crouch Jordan Crouch

I love the collaboration process, and despite the fact that you hadn’t written a novel, always loved your writing, so I thought it only made sense for you and I to work together one day. Then last fall, you hit me with a kickass premise …

Jordan:
To give credit where credit is due, the kernel that bloomed into this buttery piece of popcorn came from a close friend of mine named Bob. We’ve known each other for years, and his brain works at least twice as fast as mine so he often ends up being a sounding board for story ideas. The “monster-in-the-bedroom” premise happened during a phone conversation at the beginning 2011. In its earliest birth pains, it was about two hunters snowed in at a cabin with “something” locked in the bedroom. Then you and I ruined it.

Blake:
Yeah, I flipped when you told me about it. It truly was just a kernel, but it struck me as something I hadn’t heard before. And possibly as a vehicle to write a type of story I had never attempted: a ghost story (although by now, our readers know EERIE was only
dressed up
like a ghost story). But what attracted me initially to the concept was how confined in space and time it was, and with minimal characters. Almost like a play. I just thought it had tremendous potential. After that first conversation, I brought it up a month later (it really stuck with me), asking if you and Bob were going to write it. You said no, and then I asked if you might want to write it with me.

Jordan:
That was a no-brainer. It was a dynamite idea that needed to be written, and I would have been happy to see you tackle it by yourself. But the idea of working together is what put it over the edge for me.

Blake:
Now I’ve written ten novels and a ton of short stories and novellas. I’ve collaborated with half a dozen people. You had written some short fiction in college and after, but this was pretty much your first foray both into a novel-length work and into collaboration. Spare no punches. How was the process for you? The good, the bad, and the ugly?

ASIDE: Before you answer, for those interested, the way we wrote this was a mix of real time Google Docs writing (you and I writing simultaneously in the same document) and then you and I working on scenes in isolation and sharing them later. We also spent about a month hammering out characters and a 5000-word outline which served as our roadmap (although we were allowed to take detours, and often did).

Jordan:
I want to say first that I walked into this knowing that it was a golden ticket learning opportunity, and that whatever happened, the value of the experience would outweigh any of the bumps or bruises along the way. I don’t take for granted how lucky I am to love writing and also to have a brother who has built a career around it. But all modest stuff aside, the hardest part was trying not to step on your toes, while still attempting to plant my flag on the story
.
It was like sharing a room together again. Sometimes that claustrophobia would show up on the page, and I would watch you strike something that I really liked and think “Are you kidding me? That’s the best part!” But that’s how you make a cohesive voice in a collaborative story. You each hold your own light up to the other’s work and hope it evens out.

Blake:
Apt analogy, but you did far more than plant your flag. I would say most of the important plot moves came from you.

Jordan:
I’ll have to check the scoreboard. I do wonder if you would have been as ruthless if I weren’t your brother.

Blake:
Definitely not. And you bore my ruthlessness with total grace.

Jordan:
You mentioned earlier that we wrote most of EERIE simultaneously, in real time, using Google Docs. That was a tough learning experience too. You tend to think of writing as this very personal, monastic thing you do alone with the door shut, but when you’re forced to share the page with someone else, it exercises muscles you would never use otherwise. There’s a lot of pressure to keep the pace going and to stay out of your head which is an easy rut to get stuck in if there’s no one staring back at you from the other side of the screen.

Blake:
The most challenging aspect of this collaboration for me was our familiarity. When I’ve worked with past collaborators, even though (with some exceptions) I know them fairly well, everyone is still pretty much on their best behavior. But you and I are brothers. We love each other, we have a blast together, but there are also times when we fight, when we annoy the shit out of each other. So there were some occasions, on both ends, when we lost our cool and said things we wouldn’t have said to people who weren’t kin.

Jordan:
I only remember apologizing to you once. But I’m sure there were other times I should have. So sorry or whatever.

Blake:
Whenever we fought, it was always about the story. About wanting it to be as good as it could possibly be. And every time, we rallied, and truthfully there were only a handful of times when I wanted to throw my laptop at you.

One other thing … even though it’s a brother/sister relationship, the heart of this story is a sibling relationship. In the outline process, we didn’t realize Paige and Grant were brother and sister until very late in the game, but now that the book is done, I find it strange we didn’t come to it sooner. There were a few moments between them when I felt very strongly that we were channeling some of our dynamics (me trying to get you out of the male prostitution game) but seriously, it was kind of surreal. In the end, I believe it made for a far more intense emotional impact on the page than if I had been writing with someone else.

Jordan:
Yeah, it’s pretty funny that two siblings couldn’t figure out that they should be writing a story about two siblings. Originally, Grant was going to be this infatuated suitor who discovers that Paige, his high school crush, has suddenly breezed back into town. It’s gross now, and it didn’t work then either. It made Grant feel weak and Paige seem manipulative. You were the one who suggested the brother/sister angle. We were on the phone and you mentioned it in passing like it would never work, but as soon as you said it, it was obvious that it couldn’t be any other way.

Blake:
I’m already getting sentimental about our time writing together and wondering how long it will be before we get to do it again. Any successful collaboration is an amazing experience, but to be able to share it with your brother really makes it special.

Jordan:
As a kid, I always wanted to be doing whatever you were doing. Anyone who has an older brother that they don’t hate will tell you that feeling never changes. You grow up, but you still want your big bro to be proud of you. I said earlier that the value of the experience was in how much I learned. But that’s not even half the story. The best part was spending time with you, doing something we’re both passionate about.

Blake:
Back at you, bro. So what are you working on after EERIE, and when will you have a solo project to share with the world?

Jordan:
EERIER
.
Kidding. I have a few short stories lined up, and another novel that should be out later this year. What about you?

Blake:
We’ve talked about that novel, and it’s an AMAZING idea. My next novel, PINES, is coming out through Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint on August 28, 2012. Really, really psyched about that one. Like EERIE, it’s a bit of a departure for me, a side that I don’t think people have seen before, and it has the biggest twist ending/reveal I’ve ever written.

Jordan:
I’ve read it and at the risk turning this into a circle jerk, it’s my favorite thing you’ve done. I feel like it’s the story you’ve been wanting to write since our parents made the mistake of letting you watch
Twin Peaks
at the tender age of twelve.

Blake:
They had no idea what it would end up doing to me.

Well, as I write this, it’s midnight on March 22, 2012, and the book is technically not finished. We’re at the point where Paige and Grant are about to arrive at the cabin, and as they say, “all will be revealed.” It’s possible we’re doing this interview to procrastinate from actually writing, but I have a feeling it’s because we know the end is very close, and now that all the hard stuff is behind us, we don’t want it to end. At least, that’s how I feel. Let’s go finish this thing. Love you, bro, and until next time!

About the Authors

BLAKE CROUCH
is the author of ten novels and numerous short stories, including
Run, Desert Places
,
Stirred
, and the
Serial
series. His website is
www.blakecrouch.com
.

JORDAN CROUCH
was born in the piedmont of North Carolina in 1984. He attended the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and graduated in 2007 with a degree in Creative Writing. Jordan lives in Seattle, Washington. EERIE is his first novel. His website is
www.authorjordancrouch.com
.

Blake Crouch’s Full Catalog

Andrew Z. Thomas thrillers

Other works

Eerie
with Jordan Crouch

Draculas
with J.A. Konrath, Jeff Strand, and F. Paul Wilson

Abandon

Snowbound

Famous

Perfect Little Town
(horror novella)

Bad Girl
(short story)

Serial
with Jack Kilborn

Serial Uncut
with J.A. Konrath and Jack Kilborn

Killers
with Jack Kilborn

Killers Uncut
with Jack Kilborn

Serial Killers Uncut
with Jack Kilborn and J.A. Konrath

Birds of Prey
with Jack Kilborn and J.A. Konrath

Hunting Season: A Love Story
with Selena Kitt

Shining Rock
(short story)

*69
(short story)

On the Good, Red Road
(short story)

Remaking
(short story)

The Meteorologist
(short story)

The Pain of Others
(novella)

Unconditional
(short story)

Four Live Rounds
(collected stories)

Six in the Cylinder
(collected stories)

Fully Loaded
(complete collected stories)

Visit Blake at
www.BlakeCrouch.com

Coming Soon

Pines
by Blake Crouch

Sunset Key
by Blake Crouch

Wolfmen
by Crouch, Kitt, Konrath & Leather

EERIE is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the authors’ imaginations or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Blake Crouch and Jordan Crouch.

For more information about Blake Crouch, please visit
www.blakecrouch.com
.

For more information about Jordan Crouch, please visit
www.authorjordancrouch.com
.

Table of Contents

Thirty-One Years Later