Today we have the pleasure of interviewing RG Wittener (Witten, Germany, 1973), Spanish writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories and novels; and known since 2018 for his book Monozuki. The fox girl, an history about oriental fantasy.
RG Wittener, the author and his work
Actualidad Literatura: First of all, and for those who don't know you, can you tell us a little? who is RG Wittener, your origins, and what do you do today?
RG Wittener: My name is Rafael Gonzalez WittenerI was born in Germany in the mid-seventies and, at a very young age, my family moved to Madrid, where I have grown up and lived.
My contact with literature was at an early age, because I started reading when I was four years old, I dared to write my first novel when I was about fifteen and I managed to be short story award finalist The Fungible, granted by the Alcobendas city council, at the age of 25.
However, my dedication to writing ran between many ups and downs until 2010, when I published for the first time with the now defunct Grupo AJEC publishing house. Since then I have participated in multiple anthologies, such as The Best of Spanish Steampunk from Nevsky publishing house, to name one, I dared to give a twist to the classic stories in a collection of stories entitled Neither colored nor red, and until now, that I present the novel to you Monozuki. The fox girl, edited by Carmot press.
I currently live and work in Madrid, and on my days off it is not uncommon to see myself writing in one of the cafes in the Maravillas neighborhood.
AL: What made you want to be a writer?
wittener: Those same novels that I had been reading since I was little were the ones that pushed me to write. 20.000 leagues of underwater travel, The black corsair, The Neverending Story, the saga of Dragonlance... I really enjoyed them, but I also liked to sit in front of a notebook and invent my own. From there to wanting to be a professional writer is something that, I imagine, happens to many of the people who write organically. You end up cherishing the idea of bringing your stories to readers and take a more serious step.
Although, since I am not bad at drawing, I started by focusing on the world of comics and graphic storytelling; more as a cartoonist than as a screenwriter. Only as a result of publishing my first novel did I understand that I narrated better by writing than by drawing.
AL: Your style, as can be seen in Monozuki. The fox girlIt is simple, not simple. You manage to convey a lot with a few words, and without being elaborate, which not many writers achieve. There is a aesthetic intention behind this, or is it just the kind of prose you feel most comfortable with?
wittener: As I have already said, my relationship with comics has been very long. And from her I have inherited the habit of thinking of scenes as a series of vignettes, so that when writing I try to convey what the readers would be seeing in each of those shots. Although I am very visual in narration, I avoid dwelling on descriptions to ensure that the result has a fluent reading, which is my ultimate purpose. Something to which I try to follow a literary advice that says that you should focus on what is important to the story and eliminate the accessory.
One of the main tools to convey the story in such a concise way is to try to have lexical wealth in the history. That means that on more than one occasion I spend a good time finding the exact word that describes what I want to convey, and in my manuscripts you can see many annotations that I leave myself to, when it comes to clearing the text, check if there is a term that works better.
On the other hand, it is also true that Monozuki was written with a young audience in mind And that also had a certain influence on the final result, of course. So in short I would say there is an aesthetic function, but above all a functional one.
AL: Speaking of this very novel, what led you to write it? What was the origin of Monozuki's story?
wittener: Monozuki started as a children's story, a short story with ecological touches, written at the request of a friend. At that first moment there was no Monozuki and neither was her universe that of the world we all know.
Some time later, a call for short stories arose in a publishing house and I thought that its plot would serve me perfectly as a basis for writing a longer story and that was where Monozuki and his world of Japanese inspiration emerged. A friend, who was part of the jury, He told me that the story had potential and recommended that I give it more space, that I turn it into a novel. Although I did not know very well how to do it, I was adding passages and enriching the background of his universe, a bit like a challenge or a literary exercise, without knowing where it was going to end or if it would stop at some point. Until, one fine day, I told the editor of the Carmot publishing house what I was doing, she liked what she read, and with her help the novel ended up becoming the book you can read now.
Cover of «Monozuki. The fox girl.
AL: Since you have experience in both cases, what do you consider to be the main differences between writing a short story and a novel?
wittener: The main difference lies in the writing discipline required to write a novel. There are a lot of anecdotes about how classical authors used to focus on writing, or modern cases like Stephen King and his two thousand words a day before leaving the office. Examples that only come to tell us, in short, that 99% of what you write or ramble during that time must be focused on the novel, its plot, its characters, if the narrator is correct ..., etc., until you let's put the final point. Even if you have a good writing rhythm, you have to know that a novel will take us several months in its entire process: planning, synopsis, writing, rewriting, various revisions ..., and what the best way to avoid being left in the middle is to write every day.
The story, on the other hand, asks you to be more specific and not to dissipate in the narration. You have to catch the reader on the first line and keep him trapped until the last page. To achieve this it is very important that you know what you want to tell, in what tone you are going to do it and what kind of sensations you intend to awaken in the reader. If you are not sure where you are going to pick up the pen, it is difficult for the final result to meet your own expectations. So, although sometimes I can write a draft of a story in a few hours, what I do when I don't have that urge to vomit a story that burns my imagination, is to prepare a short and simple synopsis of what the story is going to tell. And what is the ending I have in mind
TO THE: Which of your works are you most proud of? and because?
wittener: My first novel, The secret of the forgotten godsIt was a definitive before and after in my aspirations as a writer, as well as allowing me to meet several authors with whom I now share friendship. That makes it very important to me.
However Monozuki. The fox girl It is the novel that I am most proud of right now, for what it represents in terms of qualitative progress in all aspects.
AL: Can you tell us about your both literary and extra-literary influences?
wittener: Are you sure there is space here for me to talk about everyone?
In literary terms, the authors who made me a reader, and the first ones I wanted to imitate when writing my own stories, were Verne, Salgari, and Asimov. Those would be joined in adolescence King, Margaret Weiss y Lovecraft. Later, as an adult, they were followed by other authors whom I have admired and from whom I have wanted to learn: Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Shirley Jackson, Vladimir Nabokov, Jon Bilbao, Joe Abercrombie, Joyce Carol Oates y Greg egan, especially.
My long relationship with the comic left me the ability to visualize a scene in vignettes, and a very strong fixation for misfit heroes and antiheroes after years of reading the X-Men. Although, in addition to superhero comics, over time I have also been fascinated by works such as the adventures of Valerian, V de Vendetta, Top ten, Hellboy, Fables or, very recently, monster.
As for my extraliterary references, I always find them in film and television, in audiovisual production. I think the list would be endless ... and the most varied! Matrix, Fringe, Ghost in the Shell, Million dollar Baby, Without forgiveness, La princesa Mononoke, Aliens, Sherlock, Doctor Who, to name a few. Sometimes it is because of its theme, other times because of its visual development, others because of its characters ... All of them, consciously or unconsciously, have influenced what I write.
AL: It seems that you like the Japanese animationWhat series or movies have marked you? Do you recommend any? What do you think of this medium as a vehicle to tell stories?
wittener: I consume less anime than it might seem and, right now, I am far from the time when I followed series on a daily basis, but it is a medium that I really like. As a child I hallucinated with Mazinger Z and Command-G. Then I lived the boom of Dragon Ball, Knights of the Zodiac and all those romantic series linked to baseball, volleyball, and so on. It all came to a head with Akira and later on, Ghost in the Shell and feature films of Ghiblias Princess mononoke y Howl's Moving Castle, especially.
Regarding recommendations, I am afraid that I will not discover anything new to the most fans of the genre: perfect blue, Paprika, planetes, My neighbors the Yamada, and the aforementioned Princess Mononoke, Ghost in the Shell, and Howl's Moving Castle.
Animation, and not just anime, has great narrative power. You have total freedom to manage plans and your own time, which allows you to convert words into images almost literally. Any universe you imagine can be captured in anime. And, of course, it is a more than valid way to tell stories. With its technical and visual language quirks, but just as good as the others.
AL: Your habit of don't write linearlyHow do you then manage to connect the different scenes, and for the reader to experience the story as a solid, seamless block?
wittener: The truth is that, After my first novel, I have been leaving non-linear writing aside as a working system.. With Monozuki I used it again, but only to add scenes to the original plot. In my case, I have come to the conviction that it is a procedure that gives me better results if I approach it in the way of writing a trailer for the book: developing those parts that I have clearer, so that later they help me to shape the elements more fuzzy when I start writing linearly.
Of course, writing an entire novel in this way requires me to have a well-defined synopsis first., if not definitive and untouchable, and then to review very carefully that the continuity of all the elements of the narrative is not affected. Something that makes the process of reviewing the manuscript even more important after finishing it. But that is the price to pay in exchange for having the luxury of writing according to the mood you have that day and being able to decide what to do. For example, if I don't want to get into an action scene but rather delve into the romance of the protagonists or describe their world, I do it.
RG Wittener.
AL: Could you give some advice to new writers who aspire to follow in your footsteps?
wittener: I cannot be too original, because it is a piece of advice that you will read in any manu
AL: write everything you can, if it is daily, better, and read everything. Practice is what allows you to improve and, when you review what you have written months ago, you will end up finding brilliant texts among a majority that you yourself will know that you have to touch up to reach a good level.
AL: What is it? what you enjoy the most, and what you least, of the writing profession.
wittener: What I like the most about writing is talk to readers later. I have already attended several book club discussions, and it is very enriching to see how they have interpreted this or that scene, answer questions about what inspired you some element of the story, discover that there are references that you did not perceive while writing, or know what it has made them feel generally. Not all comments are positive, of course, but you can also learn from those.
The other side of the coin is accept according to what criticism. Writing a novel requires a lot of time and effort, and it puts your skin and soul, and it is not always easy to receive comments from people who have not made a conscious reading or who have certain basic prejudices. It is necessary to temper nerves and take the opinions of others in stride. In my case, I try to review what they say about each work, see if the criticism agrees with other people's when talking about this or that point, and I wonder what I could do about it. If I think that the criticism is founded and that it could be a change for the better, I try to apply it.
AL: Leaving the literature aside, what hobbies do you have?
wittener: Cinema is my main hobby. If I'm in the mood, I can go to the movies up to two or three times in a week. Also, every year I try to reserve days in my summer vacations to attend the Zinemaldia in San Sebastián. Other than that, still I read comics, I play board games when I have the chance, and I like to collect fountain pens.
AL: How is the RG Wittener's day to day?
wittener: My day to day is quite boring: I get up a lot early, I go to work, I come home to eat and I distribute the afternoon the best I can between writing, catching up on television series or readings, and socializing.
AL: One date that you like especially.
wittener: "A man doesn't know what he's capable of until he tries". "Charles Dickens."
AL: One word that defines you.
wittener: Tenacious. I have it tattooed on my forearm, in case I ever get lazy.
AL: And finally, could you tell us something about your next project?
wittener: My latest project is not too secret. For those who do not follow me on social networks, it will be enough to read the flap of monozuki and discover that it is a second. The truth is that it was not something I had in mind when I put an end to the novel, but my editor persuaded me to give more air to the Monozuki universe in more books. The first novel is self-closing and it is not necessary to read this second part to understand the first, but all those who are enjoying the world of Monozuki will be happy to know that the adventures continue and that the plot becomes very interesting.
AL: Thank you very much for the interview, Wittener. It has been a pleasure.
wittener: Thank you very much already Actualidad Literatura for giving me this opportunity, and I hope to be able to repeat it one day in the future.
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