One on One with Aaron Frale
My interview with one of the contributing authors to Feral Lands
Samak Press published its first horror anthology, Feral Lands, in June. All through July, I will be spotlighting contributing authors in exclusive one-on-one interviews.
We’re continuing the interview series this week with Aaron Frale. His contribution to Feral Lands is Containment Protocols — a suspenseful tale blending terror with just the right dash of humor as it chronicles a rescue mission which forces a survivor to return to a hellish parallel Earth overrun by vicious monsters.
On rare occasions, Aaron Frale can be spotted roaming the wilds of Montana. A self-described “whimsical being,” he plays heavy metal guitar in an indie prog band called Spiral and writes humorous fantasy novels.
Aaron has written several popular book series including Time Burrito, Misfits of Carnt, Teristaque, Tuners, and Office Maxi.
Tell us about your story in Feral Lands. What stands out about this story among the ones you've written and published?
Aaron: Containment Protocols is a prequel to the Office Maxi series. It’s a series about a corporation who safeguards the Earth from living nightmares and simultaneously pokes fun at corporate culture. During the first book, Maxi discovers that her mother used to work from the company and was one of the mysterious Power Twelve (the top 12 employees in the company). Fans wanted to see Tara at the height of her power, so I wrote this for them. It just so happened that Feral Lands was accepting submissions when I wrote it, so it worked out quite nicely.
Which of your characters would you want to spend an entire day with and why?
Aaron: Being that most of my characters can kick my ass and I don’t make life easy on them, probably none of them. But I do sort of answer this question in Time Burrito 5 where I appear as the author and decide to throw my lot in with the villains. So, I suppose as the architect of an unfair and unjust system fictionalized in my books, that makes me a villain.
Who are your primary literary influences as an author?
Aaron: Douglas Adams was the first time I read a book and was truly engaged with every word. There is always a streak of comedy in what I do as it runs in my veins, but more recently I’ve come to appreciate the Wheel of Time series as it was ahead of its time. It took fantasy books in a new direction and opened the way for more types of stories to be told.
In the horror genre, I would say Stephen King, while I have read a fair number of his books over the years and come to appreciate the phrase “it’s like being in a Stephen King novel.” I don’t think I really appreciated him until I visited a small town in Maine where the general store/single pump gas station/town hall/diner was the single decrepit building on main street. While the two guys dressed in hunter orange with thick New England accents and the waitress who said “we don’t have nothing fancy just sugar and cream” seemed friendly enough, the whole thing felt like there was something sinister going on just below the surface that felt well, frankly, like being in a Stephen King novel.
What are your main dreams or goals as an author?
Aaron: They are simple, earn a paycheck that can sustain me and my family in our current humble lifestyle. Mainly so I can write more stories. Being a “nights and weekends” writer, there are so many more stories that I would tell if I had more time to write more. While I do enjoy what I do in my day job, I’ve always been a creative person and always dreamed of what it would be like to just create.
What draws you to write stories in the horror genre?
Aaron: Horror and comedy are like peanut butter and jelly. They just fit well with each other. It really doesn’t take much to nudge a scary scene into a hilarious one. For example, there was a horror movie released in the 70’s called The Geek. It was a circus geek (the bite the heads off of chicken’s kind) who killed people. This serial killer geek would cluck like a chicken, that’s how you knew he was close. There were sequences in the movie where the heroine is in a long dark hallway, and she hears, “buck, buck, buck, buck.”
It’s supposed to be scary, but my horror movie friends, and I were in tears we were laughing so hard. Now I know the filmmaker probably didn’t intend it as a comedy (although she did save herself in the end by clucking back to him like a chicken and there is an entire scene where they are conversing in chicken), but it worked so well as a comedy. That’s where my brain goes to, the inherent humor in horror situations that can be so easily flipped from funny to scary back to funny.
I think it’s because comedy and horror almost function in the same way as a release of energy. A good scare will energize a person as much a laugh. It’s our bodies way of processing what would otherwise be stressful situations. The scare and the laugh function in such a similar manner in the hard wiring of our body, I’m not surprised that horror and comedy blend so well together.
What influenced you into becoming an author?
Aaron: I’ve wanted to be one for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I wrote a two-page story about a guy being chased by skeletons and he drove up to the edge of a cliff and slammed on the breaks to get rid of them. My classmates loved it so much that I was often asked to tell it at sleepovers.
Fast forward to my teenage years and I hand wrote a novel in spiral notebooks that was basically a mash up of Aliens, Predator, and The Terminator (three of my favorite movies from my youth). I just wanted to tell stories like that.
Then in college, I took a comedy writing class, created a sketch comedy group, and found out that I had a talent for it. There is no better feedback for a comedy writer than a live audience. They are laughing or they are not (and I’ve written sketches in both categories). I don’t even know how dramatic writers do it. A quiet audience could be loving or hating your play. A comedy writer always knows how the audience feels.
After the sketch comedy group went their separate ways (I tried to push them to put sketches on this newfangled thing called YouTube, but there wasn’t much motivation. In hindsight I should have just put material up there myself). But I was anxious to do something creative, and getting into the film industry as a screenwriter just felt like a mountain I didn’t want to climb. My spouse suggested I start writing novels. So, I did, and then another and another and here I am, about to break 30 novels.
What adventure or activity tops your bucket list?
Aaron: Space, I’ve always wanted to go. Perhaps on one of those short ones at first just to make sure it’s not a 24/7 vomit fiesta, but after a brief trial run, I’d love to hang out on the international space station or even just a space hotel for a few days.
Also, not an activity but certainly an adventure. I would like definitive proof of intelligent alien life within my lifetime and even better if we can talk to them.
You're trapped in a horror movie. What's your plan for making it out alive?
Aaron: Being aware of tropes. Don’t go upstairs. Avoid the basement. Don’t read any ancient scrolls even in jest. Stick with the heroine because she’s most likely to make it. Avoid premarital sex. Don’t split up. If it’s a torture puzzle dungeon, the evil mastermind is a non-threatening white guy. The ghost is never put to rest on the first attempt. Listen to creepy old dudes who tell you to turn around or beware. And most importantly, if you hear the clucking of a chicken, run.
Thank you, Aaron, for taking time to answer a few questions and giving readers of this newsletter a chance to get to know you better.
Go and check out a full selection of Aaron’s stories over at his official author website, books.aaronfrale.com, where you can also delve further into the Office Maxi universe where Containment Protocols is set.
