despair, etc.) in this story, and how do Will Brody and Claire McCoy’s life experiences allow them to appreciate both sides of such complexities? What do you see as the role of paradox (love vs. Plus, it’s just the best thing in the world. It lets us make sense of senseless things and experience lives not our own. It’s a method by which the chaotic world can be put into a sensible structure. Fiction can personify, orient, collate, and organize. To my mind, there are few better ways to capture the real world than via fiction. The mere act of casting a story around it, like a net, puts form to the world. Consider the Ancient Greeks-do you really think they believed the sun was a god in a gilded chariot who crossed the sky daily? I don’t. The magical thing about myths is that they can be true without being real.

How did the current world climate inspire your conceptualization, and why is the lens of fiction a powerful one to use in exploring “real life” issues? Though the story is “otherworldly,” it has many timely and relevant elements. As a writer, I like a beginning, middle, and end, and then I like my imaginary friends to clear out and make room for new ones. The Brilliance Trilogy is the exception for me, and it’s really one story told across three novels. The kind with enough juice that I knew I had to write it.Īs for it being a standalone, that’s always been my preference. Being near her but unable to speak to her, touch her, or interact in any way.Īnd it became a nightmare. Then, I woke up and saw my wife of 20 years sleeping beside me, and I imagined being in this world but at a 90-degree angle to it.

And with that dream certainty, I realized I was dead. I was in Chicago, a perfectly familiar Chicago except that everyone else was gone. It’s usually hard to pinpoint where ideas come from, but this one I know-it came from a dream. What was the initial impetus for writing Afterlife, and why did a standalone appeal to you after concluding the Brilliance Trilogy? Recently, the Chicago-based author generously made time to answer questions about creative inspiration, the importance of setting, genre classification, and the challenges of turning a full-length novel into a screenplay, among other topics. Sakey’s newest, Afterlife (available July 18, 2017), is a standalone thriller that’s already been optioned for film by Imagine Entertainment with the author attached to write the screenplay. His titles include The Blade Itself, Good People (which was adapted for film and starred James Franco and Kate Hudson), and the Brilliance Trilogy: Brilliance, A Better World, and Written in Fire. Markus Sakey is a novelist and screenwriter whose books have sold more than a million copies and been translated into dozens of languages.

The blade itself barnes and noble