Online Book Review Readers,
Today we have an interview with Kindle author Dave Dykema who has written two intense psychological thrillers that have done very well as online books. Stalker and Wrong Number are dark thrillers that probe the depths of unhealthy desires and the consequences of acting on those desires. Certainly thrillers like Basic Instinct and Presumed Innocent come to mind, and I believe it is in that very domain that Dave is carving out a niche for himself with these two ambitious novels.
Please join me in welcoming Dave Dykema to the Online Book Review. Thanks so much for speaking with us today, Dave.
- Stacey Cochran
ONLINE BOOK REVIEW: Please don’t take this wrong way. But your novels Stalker and Wrong Number definitely give off a seriously creepy vibe… so to start with, are you crazy?
DAVE DYKEMA: No more than the Joker.
Seriously, I’m glad you get that kind of vibe from them. That is the point: creepy things happening to innocent people.
ONLINE BOOK REVIEW: Okay (whatever your answer), we don’t believe you. So please tell us a little bit more about your novels. They look like kick-ass psychological thrillers. What are the stories about?
DAVE DYKEMA: Stalker came about in an interesting way. I was leaving a theatre showing a horror movie and saw a parent coming out with two small children. This happens in the novel too. Now I wasn’t as outraged as my character Dan Freeman, but I did notice that my pace picked up and I closed the gap between us. Whether I meant to say anything I do not know. Knowing me, I’m sure not. But they never heard me—or at least acted like they didn’t.
That got me wondering about how close I could get to someone. I was in college at the time and spent an afternoon following coeds around. It was surprisingly easy. Of course, back then everyone wore Walkmans, so that could have something to do with it. Therefore I took the next step and headed into downtown Lansing and one of the seedier areas. I wasn’t as successful, suffering from an extreme case of the creeps myself. But it got my mind working and my fingers excited. I started typing that night.
(After re-reading that, I may have to reconsider my “Are you crazy?” comment!)
Dan Freeman is a horror movie junkie. After seeing the movie “Stalker,” he gets very enthusiastic about it, emulating the title character and following innocent people around for fun and thrills. He wants to see how close he can get without getting caught. Close enough to eavesdrop on their cell phone conversations? Close enough to smell perfume? Close enough to touch?
Dan suspects his girlfriend of cheating on him. He decides to use his newfound skills to follow her around and see if he’s right. One night, Dan finds out the awful truth.
Now the stalker becomes the stalked.
Wrong Number tells the story of Brad Mullen, who finds a phone number scrawled on a cocktail napkin outside a “meat market” bar. On a whim he dials the number, connecting him in ways he could never have imagined with a woman named Julie.
Things move fast, culminating in sex at a local park. Trying to slow down the breakneck pace, Brad eases off a bit, but Julie doesn’t like that at all. She burrows into all factions of Brad’s life—invading his work and telling him to stay away from other women and even his best friend.
Julie’s suffocating Brad. But that’s nothing compared to when the handcuffs, knife, and tire iron come out. She wants to possess him in every way.
Wrong Number’s tagline is this: It was the right person, but the wrong number to call.
Kick-ass psychological thrillers is a good description, but I like to consider them non-supernatural horror novels. Meaning these events could happen to anyone, if they made the same choices.
ONLINE BOOK REVIEW: Would you say you are more influenced by film, television, books, or something else entirely? Who do you count as some of your influences?
DAVE DYKEMA: I used to work in television as a director, so visual mediums like TV and movies definitely play a big role in my influences. Before you get all excited, this was local TV news, not anything major. I still work at the station, shifting my work between directing a few newscasts and producing for our web page.
I’m also influenced by comics and graphic novels. I love the way words and pictures operate together. When I read, I always “direct” the scenes in my mind, usually enjoying my “movies” more than the filmed adaptations. I try to write the same way too, creating as vivid a world as I can.
Some authors who influence me are Stephen King, Michael Slade, early Clive Barker (“The Books of Blood”) and lately Janet Evanovich for her quirky situations and characters.
College courses such as Criminal Justice and Abnormal Psych play their part too.
ONLINE BOOK REVIEW: Wrong Number is about a guy who dials a phone number he finds in a singles bar, only to soon find himself entangled with a psycho. I’m curious, did something vaguely like this ever happen to you? Ever dial a stranger’s number on a whim and talk to them?
DAVE DYKEMA: It took me forever to finally get the nerve to call a phone sex line—for research, mind you—to write the scene that opens the book. And I never did get connected to anyone. I just listened to the “press 1, press 2″ options and felt my face turn red from the motherly credit card worker I imagined blushing with disapproval after seeing the charge on my bill before she sent it out. Since the first few minutes were touted as free, I quickly hung up before the time ran out and I got to a real person.
I did find a number once. It wasn’t addressed to someone else who shared my name like in the novel, but I was tempted to call it, just to see what the story was behind the crumpled piece of paper. Was it lost? Misplaced? Forgotten? Did the guy want to get the number and is now frustrated he doesn’t have it? Did he just smirk and toss it aside? Or was it as bland as he already called it and didn’t need it written down anymore? These kinds of questions are what usually spark my novels.
As far as actually calling strangers on a whim, the most I can cop to is prank calls as a tween, i.e.: Hello, this is the power company. Is your refrigerator running? Yes? Then you’d better chase after it before it gets away! Or good ol’ Prince Edward in a can. That sort of thing.
ONLINE BOOK REVIEW: Both books have at their core some pretty fucked up relationships, and ultimately are about the dangers of unhealthy desires. Do you consider yourself a particularly moralistic writer? That is, is there a message you want readers thinking about when they come away from your books … or are they just horror-escapist entertainments?
DAVE DYKEMA: Deep messages in my books? Not really. Stalker deals with some religious themes, and I tried to balance and represent all points of view. I can see how a heavy hand of moral purity could be interpreted: don’t give into your desires…you’ll die!
Ever since we crawled out of the primordial soup people have been grappling with temptations, wants, dreams and wishes. I find it fascinating the extremes some people will go to to experience the briefest glimmer of wish-fulfillment. What went through Ed Gaines’s head as he skinned his victims and the corpses he exhumed? Why do some risk everything to look at forbidden pornography? Are the momentary thrills worth it to them?
Aside from that, they’re quick, fast-paced reads meant to entertain far more than they’re meant to preach.
ONLINE BOOK REVIEW: Now a lot of our readers for these interviews are writers themselves. Tell us a little bit about your decision to publish Wrong Number and Stalker on Amazon Kindle? Did you try the traditional route first? Will you for future books?
DAVE DYKEMA: I submitted Stalker to agents about a decade ago. It never got picked up, but came close twice. After that, it basically sat on my hard drive, taking up disc space.
Earlier this year, a writer friend of mine, Patricia Sierra (who publishes as herself and with John Philpin as Sierra Philpin), suggested going the Kindle route. I knew of the Kindle, but hadn’t seen one, nor did I know I could publish to it. She explained that she and her writing partner put a book up they hadn’t yet sold and had some modest success. Her reasoning was: what’s there to lose? I would still own all rights, and if a publisher or agent came sniffing around, I could take it back down.
Following through, I figured I’d sell 6 copies, tops. One to my friend, one to a friend of hers, and four more by chance. In the first day I sold 71 copies and hit #240 on the Kindle bestseller list! Things have cooled off to more realistic proportions since then, but that certainly got me excited about the Kindle. It’s such a pleasure to know people are reading my work. That’s what writing is all about, after all, sharing our stories.
I put Wrong Number up about two months later. I figured for sales it would look better if I had two titles to offer than one. Granted, I was still on my Stalker high. With hindsight, perhaps I should have waited a bit. Now, I feel slight pressure to get something else done—and I’m not the fastest writer.
I didn’t shop Wrong Number around as much as Stalker, mainly because I was so eager to get it up on Kindle. I do plan on offering more Kindle books, and am undecided whether to try traditional publishing again.
ONLINE BOOK REVIEW: What are two of the most important lessons you’ve learned by publishing your novels on Kindle?
DAVE DYKEMA: Respect your readers and play nice.
This hasn’t happened to me, but I’ve seen a couple authors flame out as they take on readers on discussion boards. Everyone’s entitled to not like parts or your entire book, okay? Life would be pretty dull if we all agreed all the time.
When something does come along that you don’t agree with, smile and bear with it. Gain readers’ respect—don’t go on a tirade. Some people have pointed out a misspelling or two to me. I thank them, make the change, and move on. I certainly don’t try to have anything wrong with my books, but with self-publishing a little of that is hard to avoid, no matter how many people read it for you.
ONLINE BOOK REVIEW: What are your thoughts on the current status of major publishing? Do you have any ideas regarding how traditional publishers might improve their ability to find, nurture, and develop new writers and/or to become more profitable?
DAVE DYKEMA: I work in the TV medium. Our ratings are going down as people go elsewhere for entertainment and information. Newspapers and magazines are folding left and right. This is not a problem exclusive to major book houses.
Unfortunately, the canvas is spreading so quickly. New options for communication spring up everyday. Your phone used to just make calls. Now you can play games, surf the web, and even read Kindle books on them. Books haven’t changed—too much.
I think eBooks (something I used to scoff at) will continue to grow. Will they be the saviors of publishing? Too soon to tell, but doubtful. Trouble is, other solutions being bandied about, like putting ads in the middle, are things that book lovers hate and will drive more away.
Everyone’s always looking for the next bestseller. Books need to stay on the shelves longer to gain an audience. But the big box bookstores don’t want to do that, needing to clear space for the next celebrity tell-all. So much of that stuff is flash-in-the-pan. And how many of those end up in the remainder pile?
Honestly, I don’t have any solutions. I like to think that quality work will always find an audience, but a lot of it is who you know. It’ll be interesting to watch what happens.
