Jasper Barlowe is the author of The Red Crow, a novelistic blend of mystery, horror, and history. The page for the book can be found here.

Wallace: What made you start writing?

Barlowe: A pathological need to share the bizarre fantasies that fill my mind. At a certain point, I said to myself, “Hell, I could write a better novel than this!” Don’t know whether I’ve succeeded, but at least I gave it the old college try.

Wallace: What got you into Alternate History?

Barlowe: I don’t know; I suppose if you’re interested in history, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll start asking yourself “what if...” and then it just snowballs from there. I’d already been into alternate history by at least a decade before I discovered AlternateHistory.com, reading people like Harry Turtledove, Harry Harrison...all the Harrys, really.

Wallace: What made you interested in Imperial Russia during World War I?

Barlowe: There was no one incident, but I’ve always had an interest in Russian history and culture. Russia is a very interesting country historically, because although it’s had some absolutely critical impacts on the flow of world history, it then withdraws into itself. There’s this tension between isolation and engagement that’s fascinating. Then you add in the fact that the Russians have taken in cultural influences from Turkey, Greece, the Baltic, Scandinavia, the Mongols, Germany, and then melded together those influences to create something altogether new...despite its reputation for stagnant autocracy, it’s actually a very dynamic country in many ways.

I’m also a World War I geek. I greatly prefer it to World War II, because in many respects the conflicts that shaped and produced World War I are much more fundamental than those of World War II. The First World War is both the first modern war and the last 19th century war, and it lies like a great black line across European—and indeed world—history. The culture in 1938 was not spectacularly different from that of 1948, and yet we cannot say the same thing of 1913 and 1923. History was on one course, and then it was suddenly and rather brutally shunted onto another course. All thanks to one bullet at the right place and the right time.

So taken together, these interests naturally produce an interest in the Russian Revolution. I’m interested in revolutionary periods in general, but what really interests me is the lead-up prior. What causes the revolution? Or the war? Why did it happen at this time, and not at another? My focus on Imperial Russia just prior to the Revolution is a natural outcome of that.

Wallace: Where did you get the idea for The Red Crow?

Barlowe: The word “zomrades” just popped into my head one day, and I said, “You’re going to kick yourself if you don’t write that. You’ll really regret it.” So I did. And I’m an anti-communist, so the metaphor of zombiism for communism seemed very natural. Others might not agree, but there’s a certain logic to it—we’ll all finally be equal when we’re dead.

Wallace: Did your novel's blend of history and the supernatural pose any challenges?

Barlowe: Occasionally I had to fudge the facts when I couldn’t confirm certain details about St. Petersburg in 1914 that were essential to the story. Most of the source material is in Russian, which I don’t speak or read. But overall, the two slotted together very well.

Wallace: Has writing this novel had any effects on your broader life, real or online?

Barlowe: Ha, not really! I’m not famous or anything. I’m not even Internet famous. There is, I suppose, a certain cachet in finishing a novel and publishing it, even if only self-publishing it. When I mention I’ve written a novel—which is rarely, because I’m not much of a self-promoter—people are usually impressed. “Oh, I could never write a novel,” they say. Sure you could. Just start at the beginning, and when you get to the end, stop.

Wallace: You're a longtime member of alternatehistory.com. Has the community there affected this novel?

Barlowe: Several of the posters there were gracious enough to proofread it. In addition, the positive response I got from the original thread gave me encouragement to proceed with writing the novel.

Wallace: Are there are any particular influences on your novel (authors, books, etc.)?

Barlowe: HP Lovecraft has been a huge influence, I won’t lie. The man was a brilliant writer of evocative prose, and the horror genre owes him a huge debt.

Wallace: Was there any difference between writing this novel and writing your work on AH.com?

Barlowe: This required a lot more planning. It’s possible to write by the seat of your pants on the Internet, and due to the just-in-time nature of the format, your readers are usually more forgiving of a lack of focus or...connectivity, for want of a better term, because you’re essentially writing a serial. But a novel needs to be of a piece, a single contiguous work that feels as though it’s arrived ex nihilo, with no seams or visible brushstrokes. So I had to plan out in detail where I wanted to go with the story, what scenes I wanted to feature, what themes I wanted to highlight, and so on.

Wallace: Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

Barlowe: Write, write, write. Somebody once said that every writer’s got a million words worth of lousy writing inside them, so it’s best to get it out now. It’s advice I agree with.

Read a lot, and read a lot of different authors. You’ll pick up their voices as you read, but the more you read, the more their voices will blend together and form your own, unique voice.

Play “What Would I Do?” a lot. It’s a simple game, but it’s amazing how many people don’t play it. You’re standing in line at the bank. Ask yourself, “What would I do if the bank were robbed?” You’re flying to another city. Ask yourself, “What would I do if the plane was about to crash?” You’re at a doctor’s appointment. Ask yourself, “What would I do if he told me I had six months to live?” Every day, you pass by a thousand prompts that could lead to stories. Don’t miss them. Learn to look for them, and learn to elaborate them.

Writing is work. It is hard, hard work, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. For every hour you spend actually writing prose, you spend probably ten hours planning, researching, just thinking about your story. You’ll hear professional writers say that they just start writing and see where the story takes them, but keep in mind that they’ve had years to develop the good habits to make that style of writing work. Also, you’ll hear “My characters just wrote themselves!” That’s a lie. You write the characters; they do what you tell them to do. That means you have to put thought into what they’ll do, how they think, and how they speak. That thought is more work, but it’s worth it.

At some point during your writing career, you’ll get a sudden surge of godlike authority, and then the bright, blinking temptation to include A MESSAGE will appear. Resist this temptation at all costs. A little voice in your head will be telling you, “Now we can write the story that will finally demonstrate the truth of communism/capitalism/vegetarianism/atheism/Christianity/Masonry/etc.!” Ignore this voice. Here’s the thing about fiction: it’s all made up. It’s lies. They’re entertaining lies, but they’re still lies. You can’t prove anything with fiction, because you’ve made the universe inside it and you’ve set its rules, which means that the Ism of your choice will of course work, because you’ve arranged things that way. Listen to Jack Warner’s sage words: If you want to send a message, use Western Union. Focus on telling a good, entertaining story. That’s the only real truth in fiction.

Avoid fan fiction. Fanfic is like chocolate: okay in moderation, bad for you if taken in excess. Develop your own characters. Develop your own setting. These are vital skills you need to hone. “But I just love The Herculoids so much!” you say. I know you do. But fan fiction is like training wheels: it can help you with the very basics, but after a certain point you’re going to need to ride on your own. So fan fiction is like chocolate training wheels. I think that simile got away from me.

Finally, I’m going to tell you something hard, something you’re not going to want to hear. And it’s this: you’re never going to get rich doing this. You’re most likely never even going to make any money doing this. Due to e-publishing, we’re entering the post-professional era of writing. In a few decades, the idea that people actually got paid to write will seem terribly quaint. E-publishing means the barriers to getting your book out there have vanished. “Great!” you say. Except they’ve vanished for everyone else too, which means that now the number of books out there is going to increase a thousandfold. You’re in competition for market share with those books. And the worst thing? The size of the market’s pretty much stayed the same. So instead of fifty big bestsellers being read by a hundred million people, now there will be a hundred million tinysellers, each read by fifty people.

All those books flooding the market? A few of them will be the new War And Peace, yeah, but the vast, vast, vast majority will be crap. So you’re going to be struggling to stay afloat in a sea of crap, hoping to get your book or short story or what-have-you into the hands of that one person who will read it and love it.

Which brings me to the advice portion: you’re going to have to be tough. You’re going to have to toughen up and get used to the idea that you’re Sisyphus pushing a 100,000-word boulder up a hill from here on out. And you’re not going to make any money off it. Sorry. E-publishing means that the cost of publishing is now essentially zero; anybody with fifteen minutes and a computer can put a book on the web. And in a robust marketplace, prices always race to the bottom, stabilizing at the cost of production. So: zero. You’re going to be competing with millions of authors so desperate to build an audience that they’ll give their work away for free, which means you’ll have to give your work away for free, too. Because “cheap” is always beaten by “free”.

But cheer up. All is not bleakness and misery. If you have the toughness, if you have the fortitude, if you have the grit, you’ll survive. And the majority of those crap-spewing masses who are drowning you out will give up after awhile. The number of writers will drop, down to a manageable number, and you’ll have outlasted them. Because you were tough. And you’ll get noticed...maybe. And somebody clever will think of a new way to make money writing, because history has shown us that if there’s a way to make money doing something, someone will figure it out. And there’s always a way to make money doing something. So be of good cheer.

And keep writing!