Luke Romyn

This week’s author interview spotlights Luke Romyn. Author of the paranormal horror, The Dark Path, Luke is another one of our very talented Down Under writers. We have quite the contingent..

Thanks for joining us, Luke.

Luke: Thanks for having me, Marci.

WCP: What was the inspiration for The Dark Path?

Luke: I set out to create a novel which would really impact on the reader. I wanted a massive amount of action including characters which you could really care about. A lot of the storyline unfolded on its own after I set up these parameters, and just seemed to get larger and larger each time I sat down to write, but in a great way.

WCP: Vain is a scary character. One of the things that I find fascinating about this book that you’ve added a twist to the Armageddon novel and used evil to fight evil. How did you come up with this idea?

Luke: I don’t believe your stereotypical hero could compete with the things Vain has to face in The Dark Path; he’d be running away to his mommy to have a cry. I wanted to create a character with massive flaws, an antihero, who wasn’t even searching for redemption – in fact Vain rebels against it every step of the way. The hard task after creating Vain was to make him likeable, for the reader to care about him and root for him in his quest to protect Sebastian. His sardonic humor helps in this, along with the burning need from his past which haunts his every step – even when he doesn’t know it.

WCP: With Vain being so evil, you would think he’d want the evil to win Armageddon. Without giving it away, what is it about Vain’s character that compels him to hinder instead of abet the dark forces?

Luke: Vain’s actions are what make him evil, not his inherent nature. The events of his past created within him an immense rage, and a need for revenge. However, he never hunts innocent people; he takes his wrath out on those who actually deserve it. As such, when coerced properly, he finally agrees to assist the people seeking to protect Sebastian. There is one spark of good left within the Dark Man, and throughout the story this spark is forever in jeopardy of being snuffed out.

WCP: What do you think is the most appealing aspect of Vain’s personality?

Luke: The conflicting nature and duality of Vain is what draws you in. On one side he is the perfect killer, amoral and untouched by the violence of his life. On the other, there is an intense driving need to protect and to combat evil; a subconscious legacy from his lost past. He is constantly forced to question his actions as he attempts to protect Sebastian from foes against which his skills as an assassin are almost useless.

WCP: Do you share any of Vain’s traits? Or, does he share any of yours?

Luke: After the death of my father in my teens, I enshrouded myself in rage, although I never realized it at the time. My early work as a nightclub bouncer was very violent, and many of my associates at the time were, shall we say, of a darker side of life, a side most people never see. Vain was created from a combination of these things. I used the memory of that rage, along with some of my own experiences and experiences of those associates to create the man I needed to succeed in a quest no one else could accomplish.

WCP: This story is set in New York–a bit of a schlep from Australia. Did you travel to New York for a little bit of research to make the settings authentic?

Luke: I have spent some time in the USA, but unfortunately I was never able to make it to New York. This made it difficult when it came to writing The Dark Path, because I wanted it to be as authentic as possible, wanted the reader to feel as though they were following Vain as he creeps through the streets and alleyways. I spent a lot of my time researching the different areas of New York in order to create this feeling, and hopefully succeeded. A lot of the other locations are places I have travelled through – apart from Hell, that is. At least not yet.

The Dark Path by Luke Romyn

WCP: I personally have a hard time reading horror. Just the other day, I was reading a paranormal with a hint of horror in it, and I had nightmares. Yeah, I’m a wimp. I don’t care to be scared, but many, many people do. What do you think it is about horror and paranormal that attracts people? And do you ever get nightmares from the stories you write?

Luke: People like to glimpse things which they don’t see in their everyday lives. Horror and paranormal stories transport them into a realm away from the normal, seeing things that take them away from the tedium of everyday life. As to my own writing, I never set out to be scary; it’s just that the storyline decided to go that way. You can’t very well write about intense evil without touching on some aspects of horror. My nightmares are limited to politics, which to me are much more terrifying than beasts from Hell.

WCP: I would have to agree with you about politics being scarier than horror. LOL Would Vain like to add anything?

Luke: No. He lets his actions speak for him.

WCP: Do you have anything else in the works?

Luke: I’ve recently finished my second novel called Blacklisted and I’m currently going through rewrites and edits. It’s an action thriller based much more in reality than The Dark Path was, while in another book I’m writing, I’m delving once again into some paranormal and mythical aspects. I’m also toying with the idea of a sequel to The Dark Path, but that’s a long way off at this stage.

Now for some fun questions:

WCP: What about writing life/being an author took you by surprise?

Luke: I find the whole exercise of writing to be incredible. I never realized how much I need an outlet for my imagination – heck, I never even knew I had an imagination. The ability to create anything I want with a few keyboard strokes is something nobody can ever take away from me.

WCP: What one modern technology do you think you could live without? (Not that you’d like it, but you could if you had to.)

Luke: Mechanical bulls.

WCP: LOL It sounds like you’ve had some experience with them, but I’ll leave that one alone. LOL If you could be any woman, living or dead, who would you want to be? Why?

Luke: Any woman? I’d have to say Ellen DeGeneres. She has great wit, star power, a fantastic TV show, and I wouldn’t have to change my sexual preference.

WCP: Freddy Kruger, Vain, Jason, or Frankenstein. Which of these horror “heroes” do you think you share the most characteristics with? And what are they?

Luke: I’d have to say I relate myself most with Frankenstein. A big goon, who is often misunderstood as evil, but realistically just wants to live his life with bolts in his neck and a glued-on butt.

WCP: Any last words? Um, for the interview, that is. (grin)

Luke: I want to thank you, Marci, along with the entire Wild Child team for making my publishing debut a truly wondrous experience. The Dark Path has so far surpassed all my expectations, and it just keeps growing. The feedback has been phenomenal, and I know it’s just going to keep getting bigger.

Wild Child Publishing books by Luke Romyn:

The Dark Path by Luke Romyn

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.