Lost Man Interview

This is an interview about an upcoming short story entitled Lost Man that that will be included of the upcoming Western Maryland Writers Anthology that focuses on fairy tales.  Ashley Crookham will also be publishing a short fairy tale, and she took on the role of one of her characters, Elaty Riaf, in the interview that follows.

ELATY: How excited were you about this anthology’s fairy tale theme?
DALE:   I wasn’t excited about the theme at all, but that theme won the popular vote, so I made the most of it serving as Sharon’s main henchman in the Western Maryland Writers Meetup group.

ELATY: Your main character’s name is Winston. How did he get his name and did anyone in particular inspire him?
DALE:  I looked up the Etymology of Peter from Peter Pan.  Peter means stone, so I looked around at other stone names and Winston came up as a hit.

ELATY: Why did you choose Peter Pan as the fairy tale on which to base your short story?
DALE:  Peter Pan is an innocent story that many people are familiar with.  I did not want to get too close to that story, so I kept some distancing to make sure no one would come after me from a copyright perspective, particularly Walt Disney.  I may have to distance it some more.  The reason I picked it is because no one ages in Neverland, and it would be quite jarring for someone who has spent many years in that environment to come back to our world.  In Neverland no one faces the prospect of adolescence and growing up which most of the humor is based upon.  I also felt it would be fun to bring up pirates later on in the story.

ELATY: Why did you add so much humor in your story and how did you think it up?
DALE: It was my way of dealing or putting up with the main theme.  I probably would have difficulty writing a classical fairy tale, but by adding humor and by creating a fractured fairy tale, I was able to come up with something unique.

ELATY: Tell us about when/where you mostly spent your time writing this story? Did you do anything different from your using writing practices?
DALE:  I gradually puttered along with this one in between Outlier Revolution editing.  I don’t think I did anything different than usual.  The first concept of it actually took place at an airport as I waited for a flight which led me to thinking about flying and viola a story was born.

ELATY: Last question then I’ll let you get back to counting all of your patents. Do you believe in fairy tale endings?
DALE:   Part of me says yes.  I think we all want to have the perfect outcome to our various endeavors in life whether it is work, a hobby, a sporting match, or romance.  We all want to have and strive for the happily ever after ending, but life or God pushes us in a different direction than we initially set as our course, and sometimes our sacrifices either serve the world better or define our character more.  Looking back at my life, I realize that there has been some times where everything fell to bits and looked bleak; it’s really those bad times that shape character in the long run, and you may end up with an alternative ending that is much more satisfying.