KP Spotlight! J. Tobias Buller

We are so excited to bring you our second KP Spotlight, this one featuring a KP subscriber who was a finalist in our Begin Your Novel contest, J. Tobias Buller. Enjoy!

 

Kingdom Pen: Tell us a little bit about yourself. What are three interesting facts?

 

J. Tobias Buller: I have lived in West Africa for nearly four years, I am over six feet tall, and my favorite musical album of anything ever is John Powell’s How To Train Your Dragon soundtrack.

 

KP: Homeschooled? Public-schooled? Tell us the tale.

 

JTB: I was homeschooled off and on in grade school, before transitioning one hundred percent to homeschooling.  Pretty awesome.

 

KP: What do you consider your biggest accomplishment? (It’s okay to brag a little on this one!)

 

JTB: It’s hard to say.  I’ve done a lot of little things in my life, and some of my biggest accomplishments (such as writing a short story several years back that has become one of the best things I’ve ever written) are quiet things that matter mostly to me.

 

But I’d say that finishing a certain novel of mine is my biggest accomplishment.  When I started, it was a sprawling, epic story, and one that I was emotionally invested in.  Two years later, it was over one hundred thousand words, but I had finished it.  It’s still rough, and needs to undergo a lot of revisions, but I was able to articulate what I had envisioned two years earlier, even if it was messy and disorganized—and that means a lot to me.

 

KP: What is the best part about writing for you? How did you become a writer?

 

JTB: I love the act of creating a story.  The actual writing is tough work, and although revision is fun, it sucks the energy out of you.  But standing knee-deep in story guts, in characters and emotions and imagination and possibility—that’s why I keep going.  It’s something utterly entrancing.

 

And that is actually why I became a writer.  I was entranced by stories, by the concept of imagination.  I could think of something, write something, and it could become real, in a sense.  It is mental exploration.  It’s finding something amazing.  I had to try it for myself.

 

KP: What is the best writing advice you’ve ever received? What has helped you the most in your growth as a writer?

 

JTB: I think that the best writing advice I have received can’t be summed up in a single rule or idea, but it can be summed up in a single word: story.  Story is an extremely complex and dynamic idea, but over the years I’ve learned how to see the good stories, study what makes a good story a good story.  Finding out what a good story looks like has helped me implement that in my own writing.

 

The two main sources of instruction I’ve found in the art of Story are The Art and Craft of Writing Christian Fiction by Jeff Gerke, and the high school writing curriculum The One Year Adventure Novel by Daniel Schwabauer.  The latter especially has been huge for my writing life, since “OYAN” is not just a curriculum; it’s also a vibrant storytelling community.

 

KP: What is your biggest struggle as a writer? Biggest fear?

 

JTB: My biggest struggle is probably being simple.  I know what makes a good story, but it is just so hard to put it into practice with simplicity.  My ideas tend to spiral out of control, and while it’s good to have plot twists and character motivations and all of that jazz, I struggle with keeping the core of a story at the forefront.  I look at some animated movies—Pixar comes to mind—and I marvel at the simplicity, and the power, of their storytelling.  And my biggest fear is that I won’t be able to learn how to write that simply—that I’ll stagnate at my current ability, doomed to write complex fantasy novels that just feel a little off.

 

KP: Are you an outliner, or more of a “Pantster”?

 

JTB: A bit of both.  Three or four years ago, I was a passionate pantster—I believed that structure and outline would inhibit my writing and prevent me from writing something unexpected and fresh.

 

But as my novels grew longer, I learned how to outline properly.  I still don’t believe in total control—I prefer to do something I call “storyboarding,” in which I draw a line and plot out the general direction of my story, with all of the important turning points mapped out.  My latest novel, however, is so complicated that I had to write out something similar to a screenplay treatment: a summary of the whole plot, so that I could keep track of everything that needed to happen.

 

I think there is a lot of good in writing by the seat of your pants.  But it can bring some serious problems: foreshadowing almost disappears, plot twists can seem fake, and the story can wander and lack a clear goal.  I’ve found that my best writing happens when I write in between the two extremes.

 

KP: Any big writing milestones coming up? Word totals, novel(s) completed, publishing, etc.

 

JTB: I’m hoping to finish my current novel—the opening of which, by the way, received 2^nd place in Kingdom Pen’s Begin Your Novel contest—before the end of July.  It’s called Chromeheads—it’s a time travel science fantasy murder mystery, and probably my most ambitious project to date.

 

KP: If you could give one piece of encouragement to other writers your age, what would it be?

 

JTB: Don’t stop writing, and don’t stop studying.  Don’t stop writing, because writing is the best way to get better at writing.  And don’t be afraid to expand your horizons, exploring different genres, characters, and settings.  Don’t stop studying, because there are a wealth of incredible stories out there, and by studying them, you can learn how to make your own stories better.

 

KP: What do you like the most about Kingdom Pen? If there was one thing you’d like to see added, expanded, or changed at Kingdom Pen, what would it be?

 

JTB: Kingdom Pen is really well put-together; oftentimes, when a community like this is started, it has an air of informality or the website looks like you put it together in Microsoft Paint.  Kingdom Pen, in contrast, is pretty slick!  I honestly can’t think of anything I would change about it.

 

KP: How did you find out about Kingdom Pen? How long have you been a subscriber?

 

JTB: Several of my friends are contributors and/or follow it.  I’ve only been an official subscriber for probably less than six months (ish?) but I remember reading one of the early Kingdom Pen issues a year or two back.  It was the one with Braden Russell’s tree story.

 

KP: If you could say one thing to the Kingdom Pen community, what would it be?

 

JTB: The same thing I said about writing.  Exploring how story works is extremely important, and it’s something that has helped my writing immensely.

 

Just ‘cause we really want to know…

 

KP: What kind of reader are you and why? (Read a whole book in one sitting, read lots of books at once, only read at night, only read in the morning, etc.)

 

JTB: Depends on the book!  I read Chesterton books slowly, and often at the same time as other books; but typically, I only read one fiction book at a time.  But even there, there’s variation.  If it’s an exceptionally good book (see: Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings) I’ll plow through it in days, if not hours.  If it’s slower, I tend to read it over the course of a week or two.

 

KP: If you were a pizza delivery man, how would you benefit from scissors?

 

JTB: I’d cut planes out of the empty pizza boxes, because I wouldn’t have the self control to actually deliver the pizzas.  I mean, how do they do it?  Smelling those maddening pizza juices for fifteen minutes and trying to drive at the same time?  It would drive me crazy.  (Get it?  Drive?….uh, yeah.  Let’s forget I said that.)

 

J. Tobias Buller—“Jake”—is a missionary kid, a writer, and a strongly loyal Kansan. He has written eight speculative fiction novels and one historical fiction novella.  His other work includes a long-winded blog, snarky essays, and a memoir he wrote about his experiences during Liberia’s Ebola outbreak.

He moved to Liberia in November 2011—the beginning of three and a half years of adventure. Recently back in the USA, he plans to be eaten alive by American collegiate education in the fall of 2015.

Jake writes at Reflecting The Mirror and Teenage Writer.