Interview with GENESIS author Matt K. Turner

“Are you human? How can you be sure…” Genesis is Matt K. Turner’s debut novel and we have talked to him about the release and how his background as a screenwriter has influenced his writing.

Welcome to SFFWorld, Matt. Many thanks for giving us some time here. I’ll start with a rather big question. In your own words, who is Matt K. Turner?

Thanks for having me. Yes, that is quite a big question. I suppose I’m a lot of things these days. I’m a dad, a music nerd, a smoothie addict, a champion thumb wrestler, and a novelist. But I spend most of my time being a screenwriter. I worked in independent film for a number of years with a dramedy called Family Weekend being my most recent project. After that I did some studio gigs and then ended up getting into television where I’m working now. Last year I wrote for a dark ABC drama called The Family. But I’ve always been a huge fan of science fiction. I think reading sci-fi novels as a kid sparked a passion for storytelling that drives me today. I’ve always wanted to take a shot at writing one of my own and the more I worked on the idea behind Genesis, the more I knew it had to be a novel.

First of all can you tell us a bit about GENESIS?

Genesis is a science fiction novel set in the near future that blends a lot of things I love. It begins as a psychological thriller. My lead character Aiden is living a pretty spectacular life with an amazing lakefront house, a beautiful wife and a thriving tech startup. But he starts to experience a variety of strange physical problems. He has bouts of blurred vision, acute head pains, and most disturbingly, spurts of abnormal physical ability. He also thinks someone is following him and he dives into a paranoid tailspin that has him questioning every detail of his life.

As Aiden finds himself in the crosshairs of a multi-national biotech corporation that seems hell-bent on capturing him, the story breaks out into a sci-fi thrill ride through a world of ruthless mercenaries, hacker enclaves and the bleeding edge of body modification. While we get into some pretty epic action, Genesis also explores some interesting theoretical territory as Aiden and other characters face questions of their own humanity and the future of the human race. But under all the explosions and existential examinations, you could also say Genesis is a love story. It’s about the lengths Aiden will go to save the woman he loves and, in doing so, hang on to his own humanity.

How did you come up with the idea in the first place?

I was actually walking my kids in the stroller one day and I had a vision of an action scene where the hero was basically losing his mind while trying to fight off some attackers. I guess that’s a weird place for your mind to go while walking your children, but anyone who’s taken care of twin girls for a day will understand why I might identify with someone going crazy while under siege. Anyway, I loved the idea of something being violent and explosive, but surreal and beautiful at the same time. That prompted me to think of different scenarios in which a character would have increased physical abilities, but some sort of psychological issue to contend with. Somehow that led me to the character of Aiden Markusson.

Tell us a bit about your main character, Aiden Markusson? Did the character change a lot during the writing process?

Aiden needed to start from somewhere pretty damn good in order for it to matter when he gets knocked down so I gave him the kind of life many of us dream about. The looks, the career, the beautiful wife – the whole package. But it was equally important to humanize him so that we don’t immediately want to punch him in his perfect mouth. So he has abs you could shred carrots on, but he also has a sugar addiction and a sense of humor. Having a sense of humor does wonders for your characters! (And humans in real life) Over the course of the novel, Aiden loses everything a person can lose. The most damaging is his sense of self. I can’t think of a more horrific thing to go through than suddenly realizing everything you’ve ever known about yourself is a lie. Someone once said, “Create great characters and then put them through hell.” Or maybe I said that, doesn’t matter. It works. I put Aiden through some serious shit in this one and I loved every bit of it. But Aiden’s a fighter. The one thing he won’t let them destroy is his love for his fiancé, Ever. She’s the single most important part of his life and he’ll do anything to protect her. So while Aiden has to rebuild himself from the ground up, he always has that one thing that he knows is real and he can use that as a foundation.

What goals might you have set for yourself when writing GENESIS and how do you feel about the end result?

I really just wanted to write a book that I would enjoy reading. For me, that means interesting characters, compelling plot, and some sort of spark in the writing. I think style is something that seems to be in short supply these days. Storytelling is a compound word. It combines “story” and “telling.” A lot of writers have the story part down, but forget to put effort into the “telling.” I tried to remember that and have fun writing the novel. If it’s fun to write, it has a better chance of being fun to read.

What is it with Science Fiction you find fascinating?

Fiction writers are always asking “What if?” When writing science fiction, the outer limits of that question grows exponentially. It’s like a key that unlocks a creative door that could lead just about anywhere if you put enough thought and research into it. The sci-fi I dig barges through this door and conjures exciting or scary futures that reflect on what is happening in our current society. It’s funny that sometimes the most effective way to comment on the here and now is by jumping into the future. But the future is where we’re headed so I hope that by shining a light on it we can learn something useful before we get there. At the same time, I try not to get bogged down in the science of the story. I prefer the technology to be in the background as much as possible, serving the story and pushing the characters into new and interesting places.

How did you start writing? Was there a particular book or moment in your life that spurred you on?

My mother was a poet and taught creative writing in elementary school so I grew up writing. I think I started to get serious about it in high school when I had a teacher encourage me to give some thought to being a writer. Shout out to Mr. Pelletier at Mira Loma High! In film school I wrote a lot of theoretical analysis papers, but not a lot of fiction because they didn’t have a screenwriting course at the time. After college I took a detour into music for a while, but eventually writing pulled me back in. My path was pretty circuitous, but I can definitely point to reading Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game as a kid and being totally blown away. It was a game changer for me and I still think about that feeling when I write.

How has your background as a screenwriter influenced your writing? How different do you find the two?

Screenwriting is all about econmy. It’s like long form Haiku. The art is to convey the greatest amount of story, emotion, etc. with the fewest number of words. You have to remain vigilant, constantly trimming off the fat to keep the story lean. In prose, brevity isn’t as important. The strength of prose is in the depth of the storytelling. Suddenly you can actually write out the backstory that you created for a character instead only using it to inform the actions of the character in the present as you would in a screenplay. In prose you can go on tangents, describe in detail, and add layer up on layer of character. In some ways writing prose felt like taking off the blinders and running free through a grassy meadow. So there were a few days of gloriously self-indulgent pages full of complete bullshit. But I got it out of my system and then found a place where the two could come together in harmony.

I think being a screenwriter helps me keep pace in the novel. Of course I take advantage of the ability to expand character and go on the occasional tangent, but I try to keep the story moving. If I go off on a character tangent, it should expand the character in a way that adds fuel to the main story. Because I like action in my screenplays, I find myself putting a lot of action in my prose as well. But the storytelling I respond to focuses on character, so I tried to stay in touch with the emotions of the characters throughout the story.

What’s next? What projects are you working on at the moment?

I’m working on a new television pilot that explores the future of crime fighting, but that’s all I can say about it right now. Of course, the sequel to Genesis is something that I’m very interested in working on. I have a good idea of where I want to go next and what I can do with Aiden, Ever and the G2s to expand the story into a trilogy. I’ve really just begun the journey. We have a long way to go.

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