Nathan Van Coops lives in St. Petersburg Florida on a diet comprised mainly of tacos. He enjoys old planes, motorcycles, and Volkswagens; and contends that there is such a thing as "dressy" flip-flops. He is the author of two time travel adventure novels: In Times Like These, and, The Chronothon.
Nathan Van Coops lives in St. Petersburg Florida on a diet comprised mainly of tacos. He enjoys old planes, motorcycles, and Volkswagens; and contends that there is such a thing as "dressy" flip-flops. He is the author of two time travel adventure novels: In Times Like These, and, The Chronothon.
Find Nathan and his work at https://www.nathanvancoops.com/
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
travel, writing, book, people, future, fun, character, genre, question, series, point, big, author, story, nice, readers, tropes, put, nathan, multiverse
SPEAKERS
Kevin Tumlinson, Nathan Van Coops
Kevin Tumlinson 00:06
Hey everybody, thanks for tuning in to another D2D Spotlight. And today we're chatting with author Nathan Van Coops. Let me bring Nathan in here. There you go. That's like a fresh sunrise.
Nathan Van Coops 00:20
Hi, Kevin. Good to see you.
Kevin Tumlinson 00:22
Hey, man. I'm gonna read your bio real quick. So, Nathan Van Coops lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, on a diet consisting mainly of tacos. He writes speculative fiction adventure stories that explore imaginative new worlds, and his newest series, Kingdom of Engines, has new installments coming July 1. And you can learn more at nathanvancoops.com. So there you go, new stuff! You've been working hard.
Nathan Van Coops 00:47
Yeah, I have been. It's a big, big, big month for me. Getting something done.
Kevin Tumlinson 00:52
Getting something done. Oh, they didn't update the URL there. I'll have to update that in a second.
Nathan Van Coops 00:59
That's all right. Trying to send people to Ernie Dempsey? Oh, no, that can't be good.
Kevin Tumlinson 01:02
I know, can't send them to Ernie. Although I did want to point out too, we have former guest Michael Bunker, I got his face on my chest today. So, yeah. I'm trying to figure out why your site didn't save when I did that. So I'm gonna fix that right now, man.
Nathan Van Coops 01:22
That's all right. We like Ernie too. So it's fine.
Kevin Tumlinson 01:25
Yeah, we like Ernie. Ernie's alright. He's been a guest on the show too. He was a trooper, man. He came on when I was having some serious connection issues. And he just kind of kept rolling with it. So.
Nathan Van Coops 01:39
The last time I had him on the show, he actually had a power outage and we had candle-lit Ernie Dempsey. It was my first ever candlelit episode of the podcast that we did, which was fun. So yeah, he'll go through any conditions. It's pretty amazing.
Kevin Tumlinson 01:53
Yeah, that's pretty cool. So you, now, I read your bio, but what we all know you for is time travel books. And that's a big favorite around the Draft2Digital offices, man. Our CEO actually said he really enjoys your books. So there you go.
Nathan Van Coops 02:11
Oh, well that's high praise. That's great. Yeah, I love them, they're fun. And of course everyone—all of us who grew up in sort of the Back to the Future era and dreamed of hoverboards—knows, you know, what it's all about to be a time travel fan. And that's really what I was looking to write. Because I was growing up, you know, reading books, and of course, I'd go out there and look on the bookshelves and try to find time travel adventure stories. And you'd get H.G. Wells, you'd get the classic stuff. But it was hard to find something with that sort of a vibe. Like the fun, Back to the Futureish, just like ongoing adventure story. I hate it when—I don't hate it, but a lot of time travel stories are just, somebody conveniently gets time traveled somewhere else. They have a whole story happen to them in that other location. And then they just come home at the end. And that was, I mean, that's kind of the case with Back to the Future too, because they, you know, he just spends most of the time in the 50s. But he also has a car that can time travel, like he can have more adventures. It's not just a one-off. And that was what I was really excited about, about that idea. I was like, "Well, what else could he do? You know, what else? Where else can he take the DeLorean?"
Kevin Tumlinson 03:22
Yeah. And it always kind of stinks when you—because we tune into that kind of stuff because we want to know … Secretly, what we're looking for is: how do I time travel? So if all you did was rub a magic rock, and you're in the past …
Nathan Van Coops 03:37
Yeah, exactly. That's the hard thing. So a lot of time travel novels just sort of do that hand wavy magic and poof, you're there. And there's not really a lot of science to it, or even, you know, plausibility to any of it. And I mean, that was one of the things that I really wanted to fix. One of the reasons why people like my books is because I geeked out and went into the weeds about how a time travel system would work. And so I think the reason the whole reason why I have a career at all is because I spent so much time noodling it around, and kind of coming up with a system that people were like, "Oh, that that makes sense." You know, like, you know, accounting for space in addition to time, and the fact that the earth's moving, and all this other stuff that most movies and fiction don't really account for. They just sort of have you magically show up. I remember getting really frustrated watching The Time Traveler's Wife. And he just like would appear naked, which was fine because his clothes didn't go with him, and I'm like, well that makes sense. But he would show up in a field of grass. And it was just like, well, who moved the grass for him? Cuz like, the grass was there and all sudden he shows up, so it's like, who moved the blades of grass so that the grass didn't like end up fused into his legs when he shows up. That sort of thing, like, would annoy me, so I made sure to really deal with all those things in my series.
Kevin Tumlinson 04:56
So you literally got off into the weeds on that whole thing.
Nathan Van Coops 04:59
Yes. I literally went into the weeds, yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson 05:02
How's it handled in your stories? How do you handle that?
Nathan Van Coops 05:04
I have a really fun system. It's called anchor-based time travel, where basically the idea is that … Because like, the big problem, of course, is that if you were to time travel from where you are right now, to three days from now or three days in the past, and just relocated in time and space, you would just end up in outer space floating around because the Earth has moved and you're still there in the same location. And so in order to actually travel in time, you have to move incredible distances. Or, in my case, I decided, well, what if you time travel in relation to something that's not time traveling? So you have to like anchor yourself basically to, in your case, maybe a vehicle or like a chair or whatever it is. But even then you run into problems. Because like, I time travel out of my chair right now, to three days from now, the chair could have moved, and like the cushion on the chair is no longer pushed down. So I'm gonna end up with like, chair stuck in me. So you gotta be kind of careful about like what you're touching, what you're around. And so what I did is, I came up with this sort of imaginary particle called "gravitite," and things that have gravitites in them can time travel. Things that don't, can't. So basically, it's like anything you want to take with you: your clothes, objects, things like that, you have to be able to put this particle in there and kind of infuse it and then they can go with you for the ride. Or then sometimes you take those things back out. You can de-gravitize things and then leave them behind. And it makes for some fun, like, spatial play that I get to do where sometimes my hero is trying to chase someone and doesn't want to, you know, go the entire way to follow their car, he can just like touch the car, time travel to where the car will be in the future, then just skip over all the interim travel parts and—
Kevin Tumlinson 06:49
Yeah, that's handy.
Nathan Van Coops 06:50
Yeah, you just skip over a lot of like, the plot problems of like, oh, well, how do I get him there? Like, let me just instantaneous travel him there and it's a little easier for the plot. So, yeah, I had a lot of fun with it. And it's, once people understand the basics of it, they're on board, and they're like, "Oh, yeah, this works."
Kevin Tumlinson 07:08
Yeah, it does. It's really kind of interesting when it comes to that sort of fiction. Because there's that, you're trying to get people to suspend their disbelief, right. But if you can present them with the rules, even if the rules may not necessarily abide by the laws of physics, it's sort of, you know, they'll gloss over it. As long as you're obeying your rules.
Nathan Van Coops 07:30
As long as it's internally consistent. Yeah, exactly.
Kevin Tumlinson 07:34
That's a much better way to put what I was trying to say.
Nathan Van Coops 07:37
I think it acts like, the movie Interstellar is that way. Like people were like, "Oh, no, the physics of this wouldn't work." And I'm like, "Yeah, but according to their own rules, it works." So that's why I'm so satisfied with that film, is because they made the rules and they stuck to them. Same with, you know, Harry Potter, anything. Anything you make, as long as you stick to your rules, you're good.
Kevin Tumlinson 07:56
Right. So ever since Avengers Endgame, the big conversation about time travel is how nobody gets it right. And do you, what sort of model of time travel do you subscribe to?
Nathan Van Coops 08:07
So I subscribe to a fractal multiverse. So it's—
Kevin Tumlinson 08:11
I should have known you'd already put thought into it.
Nathan Van Coops 08:15
You know who you're talking to, Kevin. I've spent years on this stuff. So yeah, so basically, there's a couple different styles. There's linear time travel, where people like, go backward and forward in one line, and nothing they ever do ever changes anything. Because if you go back to the past, you're always in the past. And no matter what you do, it's still going to equal the same results, because maybe you're going to go back in time and cause the thing that eventually leads to the future. And so like, trying to change things around is a moot point. Or, you can do sort of like the magical erasing version of like Back to the Future where things just get erased, and I never really bought into that. I was like, "Well, why would it get erased? Just because you did this thing, that stuff never happened?" What I buy into more is the idea of this kind of parallel alternate universes, where you go back and change things. If I go back in time, and I say, "Kevin, come along with me on this adventure," and we go off and do something that we never did before, now we're living in a universe where that happened. But the problem is, this universe still exists. Like, I'm still gone, you're still gone. Everyone's like, what happened to Kevin? And like, well that's because Kevin's over there in Parallel Universe B. But problem is, there might already be a Parallel Universe B Kevin, the original, over there. So now there might be two of you. And now you've got to be like, "Well, man, you know, Parallel Kevin's already dating my girlfriend, and I got to off him to like, get back to my life." There's a lot of complications that happen in time travel, and all of a sudden, you open this Pandora's box. And once you let all that stuff out, it's really hard to get it back in again. So one of the things that I really wanted to do with my series was, like, just keep the box open, deal with the mess, and like not neatly sweep anything under the rug and just understand like, what the absolute chaos of what the world would be like if there was a whole bunch of time travelers bouncing around.
Kevin Tumlinson 10:03
Well, yeah, it's harder to come across anything that adds complications to your story than having that sort of open concept about time travel that comes out of it. Okay, so that begs the question, man. How do you keep all this straight? Do you have like special software you use?
Nathan Van Coops 10:23
I have definitely had to learn to be more of a plotter. When I first started writing the first book, I was just like, yeah, let's just see where this goes. And I got about eight chapters in and just fizzled. Like, oh my gosh, what am I doing? And then eventually, I kind of, you know, fought through it all for a long time, really got my rules down, and then came back to it and then wrote some more. And then I have four books in that original series and a couple of novellas. My most recent one was fun because I did it from a linear standpoint. Like from the point of view of someone, an FBI agent, who was trying to figure out what was happening, but she wasn't a time traveler. And she was seeing things happen that didn't make any logical sense whatsoever, and having to piece it together as a normal person. And I thought that was fun to add on. But yeah, I just, I think I've just gotten used to it over time. And now I'm much more of a plotter. I definitely lay things out, make sure they're consistent. I have to re-listen to my own audiobooks frequently, just to make sure I'm not missing something major. Characters that I, maybe, you know, exist in a different timeline than they should have been. And I need to not have them where I have them. There's some issues for sure you gotta watch out for.
Kevin Tumlinson 11:35
[inaudible] So you're listening back? You're not keeping some kind of record or anything?
11:42
Well, I mean, I write in Scrivener. And I do have some notes in there, of course. And I have, I'm actually branching out now. I'm going to be starting a new series kind of in the same universe. I have the idea of writing a, kind of a P.I. mystery series, but that exists in this, in Times Like These world. And that's going to be a lot of fun. But again, yeah, I have to like go back, if I use existing characters and things like that, I've got to be real careful about what year they existed and when.
Kevin Tumlinson 12:17
[inaudible] That's the beauty of time travel, right? Those aren't mistakes. Those aren't continuity errors. That's time travel.
Nathan Van Coops 12:26
Right. Yeah. And the one nice thing, the nice saving grace about having a parallel universe is, if anything happens, and people were like, no, that didn't happen. I can be like, well, they're not in our timeline. They're not in this timeline. I never specifically say that the timeline they live in is anywhere related to ours. I think I made a mistake at one point. In one of the books, I'm pretty sure they refer to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. And, of course, now that never happened, you know, so I'm like, dang it. As soon as they cancel that, I was like, I knew this could be a glitch. And it's just hard to predict the future. It's very challenging as an author to have an accurate sense of what the future will bring, especially when you have things like a pandemic come along and just totally throw you off.
Kevin Tumlinson 13:13
Right. Yeah. That's been a challenge. I try to keep it [inaudible]
Nathan Van Coops 13:36
Yeah, you're kind of breaking up a little bit. I didn't quite catch all of that.
Kevin Tumlinson 13:42
Yeah, sorry, we're having some technical difficulties [inaudible]. Are you dealing with the pandemic in any of your fiction at all?
Nathan Van Coops 13:55
As far as in the fiction? In the storyline?
Kevin Tumlinson 13:58
Yeah, in your current stuff.
Nathan Van Coops 14:00
I think it'll have to get mentioned at some point. Maybe just as a reason … Actually, I've thought about it as like, you know … I've been thinking a lot about why people would live in specific times if you're a time traveler. Because like, we as linear people only have one time to choose from. But we can also, we can always choose where we live in space. We can, you know, relocate to a different state or different country or somewhere else on the planet. Go live on the space station if you really want to. But we're stuck in one time. Whereas people who are time travelers would have the option of living in different times. And I've thought a lot about why people would go and live in certain decades and what it was about certain decades that would attract them. What they'd be able to put up with. I think it would be very difficult for time travelers from the future to come back past a certain point, because of how they would perceive our culture and the issues with it. Things that like, you know, if you were to go back and try to live in the 50s or 60s, you know, before the Civil Rights Movement, for example, like, it would be incredibly difficult to put up with that amount of, you know, racism and some of the issues that we've since then, you know, faced a little better, and at least acknowledged. Like, it would be really challenging for a time traveler to go back. I think that we tend to gloss over a lot of the past and go back and look at things with, you know, rose-colored glasses. But if you were back in the 20s through the 40s, like, the whole place would smell like an ashtray. I mean, everyone was smoking all the time. And it was just, I think that we've gotten … We get used to where we live. And I think that one of the reasons why you wouldn't have nearly as many time travelers as the future as we think we would, is because of the inability to tolerate that for long periods of time. People would probably come back to our time and be like, "2020? Ugh. No, not a chance." You know, it's kind of like offseason for tourism in time travel.
Kevin Tumlinson 15:55
I could see that. Yeah, that would be … I could see plenty of eras in my lifetime that would just be skipped. You know, the 90s. Like, you know, there's not even that hot of a music scene at that point. So like, there's no real reason to be there. So I want to real quick tell everybody if you're watching, and hopefully you are watching on Facebook and YouTube respectively, that if you—I'm trying to find the little thing—go ask your questions in the comments and they'll pop up and later, in the last 15 minutes of the show, which is coming up in about 15 minutes now, we'll get to your questions live. So make sure you do that and ask Nathan anything. About time travel, about you know, whenever you want. So, um, I want to talk to you a little bit about your process. We kind of talked somewhat about it. You use Scrivener, that's always good. So what is your kind of daily routine when it comes to your writing? Or do you have a daily routine?
Nathan Van Coops 17:00
I think it obviously depends on the phase you're in. A lot of people don't think and talk about the pre-writing phase of writing. A lot of times we focus on like, what your writing routine is, once you're actually started writing. And you happened to catch me right now, where I'm in between. I'm publishing one thing, so I'm already past the writing phase. I've been finishing revisions. And I'm actually at the final proofreading stage now, and just about to publish. And then my other book, my next book, is still in the idea, outlining, plotting phase. And because it's book one of a series, it's taking a little longer because I'm actually going to start to think about, hey, what about other books in the series? Like, how much of this series can I plot out in advance? Maybe can I kind of loosely outline a couple books? So my process right now is, of course, is reading. It's also a new genre for me. So I'm reading a ton. And it's just taking a lot of research, and fun research. I'm reading a lot of other books in the genre, which is, you know, part of the process of course, That's an important part of the process. You can't just dive into a brand new genre, expect to be good at it without …
Kevin Tumlinson 18:05
Challenge accepted, Nathan.
Nathan Van Coops 18:10
For me, it's actually a fun part of the process right now. Because I'm trying to write like a private investigator type book, I'm watching a lot of Magnum, P.I. right now. I'm, you know, watching like Rockford Files and like old P.I. TV shows. Yeah, a lot of classic stuff, watching some really good car chases. So that's just fun.
Kevin Tumlinson 18:33
Now is this gonna be, is this speculative fiction too? Is it gonna involve time travel?
Nathan Van Coops 18:37
It will be, yeah. It is, yeah. So that's gonna be fun.
Kevin Tumlinson 18:42
I have a confession to make, man. When I first met you, and we met at NINC in St. Pete's, a few years ago now. I just jumped to the conclusion that you wrote, like, beach detective-type stories. That's just what I figured you wrote. So the fact that you're starting to finally write some P.I. stuff.
Nathan Van Coops 19:04
I could, yeah. He actually will live in St. Pete probably for most of it, so. Finally coming around to what you already knew about me.
Kevin Tumlinson 19:14
Well, that's time travel.
Nathan Van Coops 19:18
See, you had secretly met the future me and I just didn't know it.
Kevin Tumlinson 19:21
Go ahead, man. I'm sorry.
Nathan Van Coops 19:24
No, it's good. Yeah, it's, and there are a lot of people writing it. It's a very popular genre. I think the kind of beach detective idea is solid. Time travel is a small niche. It's not a super lucrative sub-genre of sci fi. So I mean, there's—I do well in it, as far as people who read time travel, know my books. But there is room for branching out into some of the other bigger mystery thriller categories. And that's kind of where I'm headed, I think. Because my other series have gone the other direction. I've gone into, like, kind of Y.A. steampunk with one of my series. And then what my other series is, is a completely brand new genre mashup of modern medieval Arthurian Knights meets Mad Max war cars. So it's a really different … I mean, where the Venn diagram is, there's a lot of circles that intersect right at that point, but I've put a pin where no one else has put a pin in that diagram for that series, but I've had a blast doing it. That's, the book I'm about to publish is the second book of that series. And I've actually added in western into that as well. So, it's …
Kevin Tumlinson 20:35
That is the good thing about time travel stories though, is like, you can branch. Like I sometimes feel like I'm a little locked in on what, I know I'm writing about history. I feel like, you know, there's only so much I can cover. But with yours, you can do anything.
Nathan Van Coops 20:52
Yeah, one of my books—my second book I ever wrote, The Chronathon—one of the reviewers called it "the sampler of time travel" because they, it's a time travel adventure race where they go back in time. And then they just have to, each level of the race is a different time period. So they go from ancient Egypt all the way through, like, pirates of the Caribbean, the Wild West. Like they just are touring through, kind of like The Amazing Race. Each level takes them through different eras of time. They're on the Hindenburg at one point. So it's really fun. But it's like, well you don't have to pick any particular time period. Just have all of them. Just throw them all in one book.
Kevin Tumlinson 21:26
Yeah, exactly. A smorgasbord of eras.
Nathan Van Coops 21:30
So that's what I'm doing with genres, with my Kingdom of Engines series. I'm like, what, you like this genre? Sure, that's in there too somewhere. Just, it's just a big genre mashup.
Kevin Tumlinson 21:39
That's very cool. Go ahead, go ahead.
Nathan Van Coops 21:43
No, it's fine. I lost the train of thought, actually, I don't know where we were going with this.
Kevin Tumlinson 21:48
I derailed you. I do that to people. I'm sorry, man. So how do you, so you're working on new stuff and the vibe I'm getting is, you tell me if I'm wrong here, is that you, once you've published, you go into another cycle of sort of research and digesting material and that sort of thing. So how do you keep the fire stoked between releases? Because I know rapid release is kind of the only way people make money. So how are you kind of keeping the income rolling when you're researching?
Nathan Van Coops 22:19
You know, I think it's a lot of … I use the analogy, a lot of times, that basically, we've all got a juice machine. That's, our author business is this juice machine. And you either need a lot of oranges, or you need to squeeze a lot of juice out of the individual oranges that you have. And while I think probably it might be better just have a lot of oranges, some of us don't have the capacity to do that. Some of us have to just spend time on, grow one big juicy orange and then put that in, and juice it really well. And then, but over time you learn, because of that, you learn to kind of tune the machine to be more efficient. So my four book series, the time travel series, is probably the my biggest earner. And it funds the rest if I'm … Because I have that series, it's got a couple novellas in there. There's a lot of stuff, the audiobooks do well, because sci fi is a great genre for audio. Because of those options, it gives me the chance to do other things and experiment until I land on another hit. So that's part of it. I am learning to write a little bit faster. This book, I started it on January 1, I want to say, and I'm putting it out by the end of June. So that's six months, which is probably the fastest thing I've put out. Which would give me time to write another one, theoretically, this year, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm having a baby in a couple weeks. My wife is pregnant and we've got a new kiddo on the way. We're a little over three weeks out from our son arriving. So that's gonna slow things down a little bit in terms of process. It was also a great fire to be lit underneath me though in terms of finishing this book, and getting it out before July. Sometimes having a life event like that is a great motivator for you to be like, well, wherever you're at now, just ratchet up this machine and get going a little faster and spit this book out.
Kevin Tumlinson 24:11
Yeah, nothing sets a fire under you like that, man. Okay, I haven't talked to anybody at Draft2Digital about this, but I'll make you an offer. If you name your kid Draft2Digital, we will pay for a year's worth of diapers.
Nathan Van Coops 24:27
That is an excellent offer, actually. Diapers are incredibly expensive right now.
Kevin Tumlinson 24:31
Draft2Digital Van Coops has a nice ring to it. Just saying.
Nathan Van Coops 24:35
I will throw that up to the wife and see what she does with it, you know. Nothing's set in stone yet, so it's a possibility. You've got a slim chance.
Kevin Tumlinson 24:42
I'm gonna wait right here. A very slim chance. Free year of diapers though, so.
Nathan Van Coops 24:53
It's a solid offer. Better than naming your kid COVID or something, which I've heard that's been happening, so.
Kevin Tumlinson 24:57
Oh my God.
Nathan Van Coops 24:57
I would rather have Draft2Digital Van Coops than COVID Van Coops.
Kevin Tumlinson 25:02
That actually sounds kind of cool though. COVID Van Coops. I'm gonna have to name a character in one of my books COVID Van Coops. And murder the crap out of him, too. So, now what's your kind of daily—I mean, we asked a little bit about your daily routine. But do you have like a daily target or something you aim for?
Nathan Van Coops 25:25
I do. It ranges, when I'm writing, you know. I like to have at least 1000 word minimum, per day, just so there's always something getting done. But mostly I can get a little more, you know. A productive day for me is 2500 to 3000 words, and then I start to burn out a little bit after about that, after about 3k. It's, you know, I've had days where I've written more. I've had 5000 word days, but it's rare. It's also because I'm not exclusively full time at this, either. I do this a few days a week and then I also have another business that I'm also self-employed with, where I give exams to people who want to be airplane mechanics. I've been an aviation for a lot of years. I've been a flight instructor, a mechanic. I take care of some planes. So there's, I have an aviation business as well. So that's nice, where I'm able to kind of balance both. Right now, there's not too much of that going on, because flight schools, mechanic schools, a lot of them are closed. So it's just been writing right now. But having multiple streams of income is nice, takes some of the pressure off here and there. And being your own boss is great. So even when I am doing both, on days when I'm doing that job, I still give myself like a three hour lunch break where I can go get some tacos, sit down, get my words done. And then also be able to shift gears and go back and go work on something. But the nice thing is now with Bluetooth, and I can be listening to podcasts like this one or Wordslinger or something like that, and be learning and kind of keeping my head in the game, even though I'm putting spark plugs in an engine, or you know, doing an overhaul or something like that. So that's, it's a nice lifestyle to be living.
Kevin Tumlinson 27:10
Yeah, it is nice. And I do, I'm on board with you, with the having something else that kind of takes the pressure off. You know, I think too many authors are too concerned with, if I can't go full time, then I've failed. And I think that's not necessarily true. Like, I don't feel like a failure. I could go full time and do nothing else. I mean, I certainly make enough money to do it. But I like the variety of what I do, and I love the company I work with. And I think you have a similar, like you have something you love, so that's …
Nathan Van Coops 27:48
I enjoy my job, I've always enjoyed aviation. It's one of my first passions. And people have to remind themselves that like, writing is not the only gig. It's not the only thing that's worth doing. You know, there's a lot of worthwhile professions out there that are fun, that give back to the community, that give you an outlet that's not just all so mental. It's great to be creative and it's awesome to have a creative outlet. But I also do enjoy sort of the hands on, physical work. There's so many different ways you can kind of make this lifestyle work. And for the most part, most authors, prior to this—other than the really big names—very few authors only just did the writing in the traditional situation either. Like before indie publishing. I don't know why indie authors think that they have to be full time, all the time, when traditional authors aren't. There's a lot of them that are have teaching jobs or professors or doing other things as well. So I'm not sure where that kind of idea originated.
Kevin Tumlinson 28:43
Yeah, it's that idealized version of the author's life. Sitting in a, you know, a study, in a leather chair, in a smoking jacket, and a pipe, you know.
Nathan Van Coops 28:53
Yeah. I can see you in a smoking jacket and pipe. I can see you pulling that off. Many leather-bound books in your environment.
Kevin Tumlinson 29:02
I could do it. I really kind of do want to do the pipe. Like, I like pipe smoke and everything, but I would probably just chew on it. Like Papa Hemingway or Popeye or something.
Nathan Van Coops 29:12
Just to have the way of, you know, expressing yourself and looking contemplative. When someone says something you can "Mm hmm, yeah," and ponder everything with your pipe.
Kevin Tumlinson 29:22
Exactly. Pipes are for pondering. So we're here at the last 15 minutes. And we've had one or two questions pop in, but I'll pop those up and we'll kind of keep this rolling. I want to say hi to everybody. We got Tory Element, says "Howdy gents." There we go. Yeah. Hi, Tory. James Russell, I want to say Glashawn? Glashan? I'm sorry, man. James says hi. Richard says cheers. So we got folks tuning in. Good to see that. Now, Elyssa has asked a question. And to caveat this is her next comment, which says, "Hopefully you don't have to give away any of the secret sauce to answer this question." So, "What are some of the tropes that readers expect in time travel?"
30:12
Okay, that's a good one. First off, you should identify which sub-genre of time travel you're in. Because if you're in time travel romance, for example, that's kind of like its own category. And there's a couple of other sub-genres in time travel as well. One is the sort of mental time travel. Like, the go back and relive your own life over again. Sean Inman's good at that, there's books like Replay by Ken Grimwood. Yeah, famous, great book. Those are, that's a particular type of time travel where you just have one time traveler, and they go back, and they do something over again, and they're usually the only one who can time travel. So that's going to be a little bit different than if you're writing like a multiverse of time travel, like I'm doing, where all kinds of people can time travel. So identify which sub-genre you're in and make sure that you're reading the books that are like the one you want to write, first of all. That's always advice for anybody I guess. But as far as other tropes, yeah, I think you should clearly identify whether you're a single timeline, or whether you're a multiverse, whether things, whether your heroes can change the future or can't change the future. Those are things you got to really nail down.
Kevin Tumlinson 31:25
Don't be like Back to the Future and do both at the same time.
Nathan Van Coops 31:28
Yeah. Yeah, there's some major plot holes in there. It's fun. And of course, you have to keep it fun. And you have to kind of find where the line is, where your readers will take that leap and be like, "Okay." I've had occasional complaints where, I had a reviewer early on, and they're like, "Well, yeah, but you didn't account for the amount of air that would be sucked into the vacuum that they left behind and how they'd have to displace that air when they arrived." I'm like, yes, I thought about it. I understand what you're saying. But I just didn't want to go there. I had to like, draw the line somewhere on how detailed I was going to get in my time travel method. And that's another thing, like, understand your own time travel method. Because time travel readers, especially science fiction time travel versus fantasy time travel, have a different level of investment in the science part. So if you're going to put it in science fiction, make sure that the method works and has some sort of at least sciency-sounding background to it. Do a little bit of research there. If you're writing fantasy time travel, where there's magic involved, just go nuts. You got a time traveling magic dagger, whatever, we can just magic over anything. So that's a little easier. If you've got Druids or, you know, somebody doing your time travel for you, I wouldn't stress about it too much. I would mostly just concentrate on the setting in that case, the environment, what people are trying to get out of it. Are they really in it for the romance element? Are they really in it for the action adventure? Try to find what other genres you're working with and make sure you do those really well. And then the time travel becomes just a vehicle for the story. So hopefully that's helpful, Elyssa.
Kevin Tumlinson 33:07
No, I think … That helped me. So I'm sure it helped Elyssa. So we got a "Hey!!" with two exclamation points. That means that she's very excited.
Nathan Van Coops 33:19
Oh, Dara. That's extra exclamation points, that we've communicated before.
Kevin Tumlinson 33:26
So, this is similar to the tropes question, but what are some of your personal tropes? Like, what are your routines? Like, is there something you do to get yourself in the right headspace? Is there a, you know, do you drink a certain beverage, or wear a hat, or you know, is there anything like that going on while you're writing?
Nathan Van Coops 33:48
Maybe. Well, for me, it's about an idea. And usually, if it's a time travel idea, a lot of times it's a circular idea. When you're writing, this is a good idea anyway, in any writing, where you look at your opening image of your story, and you look at your closing image, and they should be kind of mirrors of each other. The only thing that's really changed is the character has grown as a result, hopefully the reader has had this amazing experience. But you kind of always end up back where you started. The basic hero's journey is you end up back home, but you've brought back this gift of having had this adventure. In time travel, you have a little bit of bonus there, where you can literally end up back where you started in time as well as space. So there's, a lot of times I think in circular ways when I'm when I'm trying to write a story. How will things be different, but the same? The character's wants, needs, things like that. And so a lot of plotting for me and outlining a book is figuring those things out. And just like with any writing advice, you know, figuring out what your characters want is, what their need is, helps you determine what the dark night of the soul is. Because like whatever they want, they've obviously not gotten it. They've gotten the opposite of that. And that's why they're down here in the dark night of the soul. And that's what they have to, and they have to get over their flaw to get back to where they want to be. So, understanding structure is … I'm a major story structure nerd, if you can't tell already. I will nerd out all day about story structure. So for me, it almost always comes back to understanding your genre expectations, and understanding what your reader wants before you write the book, and knowing that you're going to deliver. Because once you have the ending, and you know that it's going to hit all these tropes, you know, along the way, the structure is sound, you know, the house isn't gonna fall down when they when they walk into it, you can do whatever you want at that point. You can fill in all the details differently. You can make everything fancy and pretty and do something completely different than anyone else has ever done. As long as the basic bones of the story work, you're all set.
Kevin Tumlinson 35:51
Yeah. Again, it comes back to, you know, internal consistency, right? As long as everything is working, everything works the way it's supposed to, you can go far afield. So Dara has asked, and this is a question specifically for your work, "Are you planning on doing any more with Ben's daughter?"
Nathan Van Coops 36:14
I am, actually. In the next book I write, she will be making an appearance as an adult. She's not the main character. But I'm actually going to be writing Ben Travers's son. Ben Travers is the main character of my series, and his son is actually going to be the main character in the next book I'm writing. And his sister Piper will be a key character as well. We may see some point of view from her perspective as well, I'm not sure. But yeah, I'm expanding the family tree a little bit, because the main character has kind of gone through a lot of adventures. We've had four books from his point of view, and now he's like a dad with kids, and there's only so much danger you can put a dad with kids. Like, as a dad now, I'm like stressed out about it. Like if I, if a kid's in danger if there's like stories, like it affects you differently being a parent. And I guess I'm more comfortable now putting a younger character in mortal peril and having it not be as much of an issue.
Kevin Tumlinson 37:20
Yeah, yeah. When I was writing YA fiction, that was a problem I kept having was, I had these young characters who were constantly facing like, death, and big ethical and moral questions and yeah, stuff you don't want kids to go through. So it's tough. I mean, so how do you balance that? So you're creating a whole new character. Are you basically, has that original character Ben, has he run his course?
Nathan Van Coops 37:51
Not necessarily. I mean, he's still interesting. It's possible that I could still write more from his point of view, but I really want to kind of just explore other characters in the world. The world that I've created is so much fun that I want to spend more time in it. But I also want to be able to have an outside perspective, I want another character to be able to look at that character, and maybe explain them a little bit differently. Like if we see the eyes, see our character through the eyes of his son now, it's gonna be a completely different point of view than we've had being inside his head. So I think I'm gonna have fun with that, just sort of playing around with the family dynamics of … Because one of the fun things about it is, having a family full of time travelers is a mess. Like I said, like you, this lifestyle that you live and having to understand where everyone is all the time. And people can literally disappear for years and just not be on the face of the planet because they've just, you know, relocated. There's things that that family dynamic can do, that I've never seen done before. And I'm really excited to write it, because I'm always trying to write things that I haven't seen done. And it's not the best marketing advice. I don't recommend it, in terms of trying to like, go find other books that it's like. You try to go find some comp authors and you're like, oh, let me find some Facebook targets. Uhh … no one's writing this. And then you just have to basically start over from scratch, but I'm having a good time.
Kevin Tumlinson 39:19
You gotta write it so well that eventually people have to target you. That's the goal. So you brought up the dirty word, the author swear word, which is marketing. How are you handling your marketing?
Nathan Van Coops 39:34
Poorly, probably. No, I think I do all right. I do a lot of Amazon ads. I do, I think I'm pretty good at my book descriptions and I have a great cover designer. I use Damonza, and they have been nothing but amazing for me. I really like them as a cover designer. And so I think nailing the those core things are really huge: getting a good cover … Obviously writing a good book is number one, but … Actually it's not number one. It's actually like number three, because no one will ever read your great book if they don't like your cover and they don't like your ad.
Kevin Tumlinson 40:12
People forget that, by the way. And that's a key thing to bring up. There's multiple steps before anyone even reads the book.
Nathan Van Coops 40:16
Yeah, people have to find the book, like the description of the book enough to read the book, and then having a good book matters. Doesn't matter how good your book is if no one reads it. So. Yeah, I don't know why. I guess we always say that's the first thing is, but it comes first. Right? The good book comes first, but it's not the first thing from a reader's journey. But yeah, I think, a lot of getting those things nailed down. I had the privilege of getting to talk to a class the other day, who was like, you know, fifth graders, and they were writing books, which is amazing. It's so cool. That one of these kids was like a fifth grader and already had several books on Amazon. And just, you know, I don't know if he was through other distributors too, but he was just, he had this stuff up and I'm like, that's amazing. If we had started when we were that age and actually [inaudible], it's a brutal crucible to go through, but, I was able to explain to them a little bit that like yeah, you wrote the book. Granted at that age, you may not be that great. So maybe I'll spend a lot of time on it, as far as cover design and all that stuff. But you have to get those right. Because he was asking me questions about like Amazon ads, like, do you think Amazon ads are worth the investment? And this is a fifth grader. And I'm like, yes, but with an asterisk. Like, you got to make sure all this other stuff is right first before you start throwing any money at something because they just …. Yeah, they will get people to the page but it won't make people buy your book if they don't want to. And that's kind of a big caveat that any marketing question comes back to: understanding your genre expectations. Did You meet them? Did your ad copy say that? And does your cover match? That's probably the most important thing to concentrate on.
Kevin Tumlinson 42:05
Yeah. I apologize for the sound of rain hitting me right now. That's what's going on. We got a question from Tory. "So how important do you think readers consider the technical aspects of a time travel method, versus it just being a thing the characters can do?"
Nathan Van Coops 42:26
So, again, I think this comes down to who do you want as a reader? Which part of the genre are you going after? Are you going after … take a look at your book. Is time travel the main point of the book? Or is time travel a trick that you use to employ to like, make the rest of the book work. If you're watching Star Trek, the one from 2009, for example, it's a space fleet movie. I mean, it's a Star Trek film. It has time travel in it, but it's not necessarily about time travel. It's about, you know, a reboot of the Star Trek universe. So you've got to really write a really great Star Trek story to make that work, which they did. It's a phenomenally well-plotted and paced movie. It's probably one of the best ones they've done. Because of, there's just no slow parts in that film. But if you're watching X-Men: Days of Future Past, for example. Again, it's a great X-Men movie. It's not, it has time travel in it, and you get to see the 70s and you're using it as setting, using it as scenery, things like that. I couldn't tell you exactly how—I think that was mental time travel. I think Professor X just like zapped Wolverine back into the past on that one. So it worked. Like it made sense within the world. Professor X has telekinetic powers, or you know, and Wolverine looks the same in the 70s as he does now. So it doesn't really matter. It works within the bounds of the story, but it wasn't the main part of it. If you're going to write a book that's about time travel, if you want to be like the main thing about this is for people who like time travel. The more towards that end of the scale it is, the more technical the time travel needs to be, in my opinion. Because you're going to spend so much more time doing it. My time travelers don't travel just once per book, or are twice per book. They time travel the entire way through it. They use it for things like drying off. You know, I mean, they'll just like be soaking wet and like jumping to the future and all the water will fall because the water will stay where it is and then they'll show up dry. Like that's, they use it that casually in this universe, that I have to really think through the physics of it. So that's my answer is like, the more towards the time travel end of the genre spectrum you are, the more technical it is. If you're mostly a romance that just happens to involve time travel, concentrate on the romance part. And target, do all your marketing towards the romance, you know, design your cover towards the romance. If you're more time travel, put a clock, make sure there's like some sort of time travel element on the covers. And that's another thing, time travel is hard to put covers on, because there's no commonly accepted look. If you go and look at time travel books, they all look different.
Kevin Tumlinson 45:14
Yeah. For all the tropes of the of the genre itself, there's no trope for the cover. Well we're at the end of our time, man, which is ironic considering we travelled forward to 12:45 Central. But I want to remind everybody, go check out Nathan and his work at nathanvancoops.com where you can find, he's got a beautiful website and I was gonna try to share it, but something has glitched so we're not going to do that. But go check him out there. And since you are here watching us on either YouTube or Facebook, make sure you subscribe to us on both. You can subscribe to this at youtube.com/draft2digital, or facebook.com/draft2digital. It's funny how those URLs worked out. And make sure you bookmark D2D Live because you'll get more of these kind of broadcasts. If you're listening to us on the podcast, thank you for that. And you can find these live broadcasts at D2DLive.com. Nathan, man, I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me. It's always fun to talk to you, man. And I hope we do get a chance to see each other at NINC this year.
Nathan Van Coops 46:26
I hope so too. Kevin, it's always a pleasure hanging out with you, I'll do it anytime. This has been a blast.
Kevin Tumlinson 46:32
Well, everybody, thank you for tuning in. And we will see you all next time.