 The author of Grandmaster talks about the world of his book, his characters, his novel's narrative style, symbolism and messages, literary influences, and the point at which he decided to become a writer.
How would you explain the world of The Grandmaster?
In The Grandmaster, as well as other stories that take place in the same universe as the novel, the supernatural and paranormal play a significant role in our society. Dr. Wagner states it perfectly to Dieter (the young boy) in The Grandmaster: “I just possess a talent which uses energies we all have. I simply have access to a special...doorway into my mind. Many people do not have access to this portal.”
What I’m presenting are stories that delve into the lives of people who do have access to those special energies and how they use--and, in some cases, abuse--them. Officially, The Wagner Institute for Mental Treatment and Investigations is publicly known as a hospital and research facility for rare psychological disorders. Unofficially, the Wagner Institute is also known for solving crimes and exploring supernatural phenomena, and the investigators who are assigned to these projects happen to possess paranormal powers themselves. This “unofficial” purpose of The Wagner Institute is strictly limited to the corporate, private and law enforcement sectors, whose influence is powerful enough where The Institute is not targeted by the media. The supernatural universe of The Grandmaster also includes special creatures or entities; spirits and golems are two examples that feature prominently in the story. However, in other “Wagner Institute Stories” (those that have been published, as well as those that are still in progress), other denizens of the Wagner Institute supernatural world include demons from other dimensions, vampires, werewolves, pyrokinetics---one of these “firebugs” (Danny Dracken) has a cameo in The Grandmaster---and other unusual creations I’m still exploring and researching.
To put it all in a nutshell, in the world of The Grandmaster, the supernatural and the paranormal figure more prominently in day to day society than our own “normal world,” if that makes sense.
How did the story come about? What inspired it?
While earning my undergraduate degree at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles (1990), I wanted to write a series of stories about a special hospital that specializes in unusual cases of mental illnesses, as well as the supernatural. The crux to these stories is the investigators have to possess powers of their own, thereby possibly adding more complexity to the stories. I randomly named the hospital “The Wagner Institute for Mental Treatment and Investigations” after a childhood acquaintance. I know this may seem anticlimactic, but I chose the name “Wagner” because it simply sounded like a good name for a research institute. So, I wrote a number of stories that dealt with the psychic investigators and their cases. Three of those examples include “A Bottle of Jyn,” which is published as an e book through Bards and Sages Publishing, “Lessons in Aviation,” which was published in the e-zine Sages of Consciousness, and “The Chameleon’s Addiction,” also by Bards and Sages, but the story is told through the point of view of a patient at The Institute.
As time went on, I created a character bible and timeline for The Wagner Institute Stories, very similar to what Robert Heinlein did with most of his works. Every story was outlined and each character had a bio. All except Wagner. He was only a peripheral character, making a cameo here and there. He served as the origin of The Institute, but he remained an enigma as a character, both to the reader and to myself.
However, in 1999, I returned to L.M.U. to earn my Masters. The first class I took was Literature of the Holocaust. World War Two, especially the Holocaust, always fascinated me. Reading such powerful works by Elie Weisel and Primo Levi opened my eyes as to the horrors they faced, both physical and psychological. But it revealed a lot of their fears and their strengths. For this class, one of our assignments was a creative project of our choosing, utilizing what we had learned during the semester. Some of the students wrote poetry, others created sculptures and dance routines. I was originally going to write a twenty-page supernatural short story that takes place in a concentration camp. But the more I thought of it, I soon realized that this was the perfect opportunity to finally tell the story of the originator of the Wagner Institute. As I do with a majority of my stories, I researched what is considered one of the most horrific parts of our history--trying to make every historical aspect about the Holocaust accurate to a T. I also researched all scientific and theoretical documentation regarding all kinds of supernatural and paranormal phenomena. I then created the story outline; I usually write outlines for most of my stories. I soon realized what started out as a short story turned into a short novel. After finishing the class, The Grandmaster was then featured in a creative writing workshop class (Writing for the Novella), which led to me deciding to use The Grandmaster as my Masters Thesis. And after a number of years of an occasional edit and revision, Bards and Sages Publishing notified me that The Grandmaster was going to be published as an individual book. It was during Thanksgiving Week, 2006--the seven-year anniversary that I completed the first draft of The Grandmaster for the Literature of the Holocaust class.
The character of Dr. Wagner isn’t your typical protagonist. You don’t find a lot of horror fiction told from the perspective of older characters. What went into developing his character?
I think the best way to answer this question is to deal with the challenges Wagner faced during two parts of his life: the horrors he faced when he was a young man in the camp, which serves as the main narrative of the novel, and the horrors he was presently confronting while writing his story, which serves as the frame for that narrative.
As I was researching The Grandmaster, I discovered that long-term survivors of the Holocaust would always be haunted by the horrors they faced during that time. Unfortunately, many of them eventually commit suicide because 1) they cannot handle the memories or “demons” of their past or 2) they are inflicted with a type of “survivor guilt,” where the survivor questions why he or she survived and many others (especially their loved ones) did not.
But we also have a type of Holocaust survivor who perseveres, who doesn’t allow the demons of his past to consume him. With regard to Johann Wagner, here is a man who is haunted in many ways. He not only experiences alienation for being a Jew, which resulted in him being a witness to the near extermination of his people, he also faced alienation for possessing supernatural powers. Even though Johann’s father--also a doctor--used his powers to heal, he had to perform his talents covertly because he was being labeled as a practitioner of the Dark Arts. Young Johann had to hide his talents while imprisoned in the labor camp, not only because of fear of alienation from his fellow Jews, but he also feared his powers would be discovered and exploited by the Nazis. And to add to the complexity of his situation, Young Johann faced temptation in the worse sense: the desire to become accepted by another who possessed the same talents as he---Karl Reinhardt. And the fact that Reinhardt is consumed which such self-loathing adds to Wagner’s conflict even more. Although he resists that temptation during his imprisonment, he experiences both physical and psychological tortures from Reinhardt. The Nazi not only mutes Wagner’s powers, he utilizes his own talents to inflict his psychological tortures on the rest of the camp, intensifying Wagner’s own helplessness.
And then there’s the topic regarding Wagner’s familial connection with the famous composer Richard Wagner, a staunch anti-Semite whose music was perverted to fuel the rise of the Third Reich. The younger Wagner felt absolute shame that 1) his grandfather hated followers of the Jewish faith, a faith Johann follows with strong devotion, and 2) his grandfather’s powerful, complex music--music which Johann deeply loves--was being used to stimulate a campaign of hate that almost conquered the world. So, Wagner as a young man experienced every kind of adversity--natural and supernatural--and the reader discovers how he overcame those extraordinary obstacles.
But does he truly overcome them? That is where we come to the older Wagner. After all the research I had done about Holocaust survivors, I could hear his voice in my head, which I funneled onto the page. His voice is of a survivor: weary, wise, conflicted, determined, and afraid. A ghost or--more appropriately--a demon from his past haunts him. And with everything that happens at The Institute--the tragic failures that occur to his colleagues who possess the same powers as he--he is finally driven to write about his experiences as a way to confront the demon of his past. And while telling his story, the reader is uncertain until his last entry which category of survivor Wagner fits in: one who perseveres and confronts the past or one who is consumed by that fear and puts a gun to his head. And it’s through these two narratives--the story of the character’s past and the story of the character’s present--that I hope the reader will be able to “hear” Johann Wagner, to embrace his story, to care what happens to him in the end.
You chose to tell the story by way of Wagner’s personal diary. It seems a peculiar way to approach the subject. How did that decision impact the story itself?
When I first presented The Grandmaster to the novella workshop class, a majority of my classmates had problems with the journal format for two reasons: 1) They found it hard to believe that a person who’s almost seventy years old can write so much in such a short period of time, and 2) they found the journal format limiting, that it would have been more freeing if Johann simply recounted his story through a simple first-person narrative form. I, as well as the minority of the class--including the instructor--disagreed with them.
Addressing the first critique: I feel the minute any writer is so immersed within the story he or she is telling, the outside world disappears, including his own physical state of being. I wrote the first draft of The Grandmaster (which, at the time, was 180 pages) within a week. The beginning of the work was rather difficult because it was all a matter of re-creating a moment in history and establishing the character’s voice. However, as I continued to write the work, a type of “creative insanity” was born and I just plowed on through, so much so that I wrote during all the five-minute breaks and lunch breaks at work, where I hid myself in an equipment office that was blasting cold air from the air conditioner. When the breaks ended (I’m a freelance camera technician for NBC Studios), I was writing the story in my head until I came home. And the moment Thanksgiving Break began, I holed up in my apartment to complete the story. I apply this kind of dedication to all of my stories. In a way, I reflect this form of “creative writing insanity” through Johann. In the beginning stages of his own writing, his entries are short and almost reluctant because the world he is about to re-enter is one of chaos and brutality. And he still feels the “side-effects” of his age, as he humorously puts it. But when he continues on with his tale, the entries are longer and his use of language is more impassioned, as though he not only wanted to tell his story to us, but to also finally confront was has haunted him for so many years. And he even indicates that he doesn’t even feel the arthritis and other maladies of his health. So, I tried to illustrate that when a storyteller begins a story--whether writing in a journal or writing a story--nothing will hold him back.
As far as writing The Grandmaster in a straight first-person narrative form, I feel that it would have hindered the story in many ways. The one facet about this form of writing concerns the reliability of the narrator. When you read a story in the first person, you have to decide if the narrator is reliable, that the details of what he or she is experiencing is legitimate or is the point of view slightly “bent” because of the character’s frame of mind. That is the true beauty about this narrative form because it’s the reader’s job to discover if what the narrator says should be trustworthy. Horror writers such as Poe, Lovecraft and King were masters in this because many of their characters were damaged in many different ways. Yet, we cannot help but find out where the journey is taking us, whether their tales should be believed or should be taken with a grain of salt. If I did this with The Grandmaster/ I feared that his reliability would have been questioned throughout the entire piece, distracting from the main themes I wanted to illustrate (fear, doubt, temptation, etc). With the other first person narrative stories I have written, the level of uncertainty was appropriate. Not with “The Grandmaster.” I wanted to establish off the bat that Doctor Johann Wagner is a person to be trusted so the reader can focus on the overall arc of the story he creates.
Which brings me to the art of journal writing. There’s a type of honesty about it. You can “lie” to the reader, but unless the character is a complete psychotic--and again, I wanted to establish that Johann wasn’t--you write from the soul when it comes to your journal. Although he does indicate early on that he wanted to leave a record on how The Institute was created, he--and the readers--soon realize that he’s writing this story to discover why he is haunted by the memories of the past, memories which intensifies and becomes even more frightening after each entry is written. And showing that threat--the demon eyes--grow throughout the journal helps magnify the suspense for the reader even more.
Obviously, this isn’t just a story about a vengeful demon. There seems to be a lot of symbolism in the story. What message do you hope the reader will walk away with when they finish the book?
Thank you very much for noticing all of the imagery I created for the book. A lot were unintentional and unconscious choices, with the exception of the “Demon” eyes. And I think the best kind of writing comes from that trust in your own creativity. Although the frame of the story was outlined, specifically the plot and characters, the rest of the work simply wrote itself. Many writers I know and respect don’t utilize that kind of structured format, and I applaud them for their God-given talent. I’m still learning my craft, and I will continue to do so till the day I die, but I’m confident enough in what works for me in the present time until my learning curve takes me to the next level.
I think the primary message that I would very much like the reader to grasp involves the strength and courage to face any adversity that would prevent the evolution of the soul. The adversity is usually in the form of a “demon,” whether it’s literal--like Karl Reinhardt--or metaphorical--like the demons within you that feed on doubt and self-hatred. These spiritual demons are born from traumas in the past. These monsters from the past haunted both Johann and Karl. Karl allowed his spiritual demon to consume him because of his self-hatred, resulting in him becoming a literal demon to all he persecuted, including Johann Wagner. As far as the doctor is concerned, he was hit with both kinds of demons: the literal one that was Karl and the figurative one within his soul because of the doubt of being accepted by his people and the doubt of maintaining the strength to resist Karl. As a younger man, he defeats the literal demon. But as an older man, it isn’t until he tells his story that we discover if he conquers the ever-resilient demon within himself. And if the reader can sense the importance of maintaining that inner strength and love for one’s own identity, as well as being entertained by my story, than I accomplished my job as a writer.
Who are some of your literary influences?
While I was very young, I became a lover of films as well as books. I wanted to simply disappear into worlds that were different from my own, especially when it came to the old Science Fiction and Horror films. But I would have to say the very first author that opened my eyes to Fantastic/Speculative Fiction was Ray Bradbury. The October Country and The Martian Chronicles were the first two books that created a desire within me to harness my own imagination as a storyteller in some fashion. After Bradbury, all the other authors fell into place: Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, the list goes on. I read authors who, with incredible craftsmanship, created normal, yet conflicted characters and threw them into extraordinary circumstances. The “literary backdrop” or theme (horror, science fiction, supernatural, thriller, etc) may differ, but the circumstances are the same: protagonists who face overwhelming obstacles in order to discover the truth within themselves or the world they live in.
But I have another important influence when it comes to my writing: screenplays and plays that possess the sharpest dialogue. My forte’ is dialogue, and I’m basing that conclusion on the ease in which I write the story. For lack of a better term, I hear the voices inside my head and place them on paper. No matter what the circumstance is, all the dialogue I write is like a literary dance. There’s a rhythm, a special intimacy I love creating between the characters as they speak, whether it’s nurturing (like Johann’s friendship with Heinz) or confrontational (the debate between Johann and Karl). For me, dialogue and character are the main driving forces for my stories.
At what point did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I was always an avid reader, but my love for writing came very late, while I was going for my B.S. Degree in Chemistry at L.M.U. I took a creative writing class during my Junior Year and I wrote a little stream of consciousness story that eventually became my first “Wagner Institute” story. It had a psychic investigator, his patient, the psychic linking, and so on. And I realized that while I was writing this story, I could transport myself into the world I was creating. I could see this new imaginary world and its characters. I enjoyed writing about strange, conflicted characters existing in stranger worlds and circumstances. I declared my minor in English (Creative Writing Emphasis), wrote 4 more stories for my minor and that was it. For several years I wrote intermittently, mainly as a hobby. It wasn’t until I changed careers from Chemistry to the Entertainment Business (for health reasons) that my desire to become a writer blossomed. But I needed the proper tools and training. I returned to LMU, earned my Masters in English (Double Emphasis in Creative Writing and Literature) while working as a camera technician at NBC. It was there I focused my desire and harnessed my writing techniques. I learned about my narrative voice, but I especially honed my techniques as an editor. The creative writing workshops were helpful, but the literature courses were just as essential because they expanded my knowledge regarding different types of literature. Half the stories I wrote during my stint there are now in my first short story collection “In Our House.” But I would have to say The Grandmaster is the best example of how I benefited from the Master’s Program.
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