Better Know An Author – Paul Draper

Our weekly spotlight series on authors from around the world. This week we sat down with Paul Draper!

Please give a brief introduction, including your name and where you are based

Hi, I’m Paul Draper, an author and screenwriter from Dorset, on England’s south coast.

What book or books have you published or are working on at the moment?

At the start of this year I published Black Gate Tales, a collection of short stories I’d written over the previous four years. I’ve summarized it as “stories of dread, hope, death and wonder”. The most common genre in there is folk horror, reflected in the woodcut-style cover, but in some ways they are all short stories about an older, greater force vs human folly. The book has sold really well, approaching 1,700 copies in all formats, with a high average rating on Amazon and GoodReads. I’m hoping to hit the 3,000 sold mark by the end of the year. Some of the reviews have been so lovely.

I have a number of projects in the pipeline. Along with Black Gate Tales volume 2, I am writing a novel called The Clubman, about witchy goings on around the English Civil War period, centered around a neutral village militiaman. I’ve planned the first book in a light fantasy trilogy, called The Parish Knives, and a novella titled A Landing at Portsallos, a Lovecraftian tale about a fishing boat that brings to harbor something sinister that it should have left at sea.

Along with all of this, I’ve also recently written and produced a short 1960’s-set spy film called Hawks, and I produce audiobooks for other authors.

What drives you to write?

I’m not horn-tooting, but I think I have the most appropriate driver for any author, which is having something to say. This for me is why authors need to live full lives away from the keyboard, and absorb and process all the places, people and events around them. A writer can have all the technique in the world, but without wanting to say something – not necessarily something new, but something fresh from their perspective – there will be sugar in the tank from the outset.

I want to make people feel something, and achieve that with the best economy I can. This is why I have been so drawn to short stories and flash fiction. That economy has to be there, you just don’t get the space to pad or dawdle. I find I switch quite easily between dark stories of doom and comedy – I think if a writer manages to achieve either authentic fear or laughter in a reader, they have managed to provoke two of the oldest and hardest to fake reactions that there are. Both take a lot of skill to pull off properly.

Where can folks find you online and on social media?

I have a website which can be found here, Twitter @TheBlackgate, Instagram @BlackGateSight and Facebook. The Black Gate thing has nothing to do with Mordor or Tolkien and has just been something that has followed me around for a while now! All of my writing and production is done through my company, also called BlackGate. It’s just a conceptual doorway to my little thought world of shadows and light.

What is one piece of advice you would give to another author out there who might be struggling?

I would say to get things finished. Most creatives have ‘monkey minds’ that will swing about from one thing to another, which is the enemy of application. Finish that book or script. Give yourself something to fix in redraft, then get it out there into the world. It’s the only way to move on and you owe it to your art. Also, never take feedback personally, there is always someone who will love or not love your work. One other thing – to overcoming feeling disheartened about the quality of your work, search ‘Ira Glass The Gap’ on YouTube – the best two minutes to orientate a struggling author’s mindset I’ve ever seen. Sorry that’s three pieces of advice! 🙂

What are some of your five-year goals with writing?

I want to get three or four books out there in that period, and obviously I’d love to get a big hit with a novel. My long-term aim is to show run a TV series based on my own original novel. I have experience in management and production, and to bring all that together with my source material – that would just be a dream come true.

Final thoughts?

Thank you for giving me this platform to chat about my work. Being genuinely interested in other creatives is so valuable and enriching. Not only can opportunity spring from it, but those connections can last a lifetime. Ultimately a happy life is what it’s all about.

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