Interview with author Cathryn Louis

By Sarah Schiavoni and Christopher Stokum

WritersNewsWeekly recently spoke with Cathryn Louis, author of Sunrise on the Pier, published in eBook format on Smashwords. Sunrise on the Pier is the tale of Gabrielle Winston, an intelligent business analyst, and the discoveries she makes that thrust her into the middle of a war among ruthless, ultra-rich industrialists.

WNW: You’ve clearly blended your passion for writing and technology into this piece. Do you worry that people with little knack for technology might get lost in the jargon?
Louis: I'm trusting that people are adventurous and would like to try something different. I use the language of technology to establish that Gabrielle is an accomplished technologist. Then as soon as the story allows, I give the reader a visual - the 'downward spiral graph' - to capture the essence of her discovery. As for the rest of the book, I think the terms I use are familiar to many people.

WNW: What writers have influenced your work? Are there any that also include modern technology in their novels?
Louis: I think it's likely that every author I've read has had some influence on my work. Everyone from YA authors such as JK Rowling and Meg Cabot, fantasy authors such as JRR Tolkien, George Martin and Gail Z. Martin, as well as a wide variety of other authors such as Katherine Neville, Stephen L. Carter and Judith Krantz. As for novels with modern technology, of course, I've read almost every Jack Ryan novel by Tom Clancy and I'm a big fan of Robert Ludlum's earlier work. The Materese Circle is still one of my favorite rereads.

WNW: By mixing it with a plotline, your book presents technology in a less imposing light, especially for someone unfamiliar with it. Was this one of your goals in writing the novel?
Louis: That sounds really good! I ought to just say yes and claim that I meant to do that. But the reality is that for a long time, I've had a scene in my head where the people I've named Gabrielle and Jarin (the J pronounced as a Y sound) met at a breakwater fence on a cove somewhere. I felt driven to build a story around it, and technology is what I know best. I have to say though that the way the fence scene played out is not even close to what I started out with. I originally saw it as the end of the book.

WNW: You published your book in eBook format, which seems to be a testament to your love of technology. What made you decide to publish it in this format?
Louis: Being in software development, I get immediate feedback on what I write. I finish a project, give it to people to use, and they either rave - or rant. Sometimes it's both! In any case, I know fairly quickly what to change and what to keep. So when I finished Sunrise on the Pier, I gave it to family and friends, and I also wanted feedback from people who had no interest in sparing my feelings. So I had a dilemma. I have a very demanding day job, and a family. My daughter is involved in all sorts of activities that involve time and travel. There's another book in my brain that is trying to get out. With all of that going on, how do I establish the contacts to get my book in front of an agent? I also had to ask myself if Sunrise on the Pier was a once in a lifetime thing, or whether I am going to be a novelist. Once I decided I'm an author for life, I took the chance to publish it as an eBook this past April. My goal was to get it in front of an audience as quickly as possible. I would dearly love for it to be a hit. But even if it isn't, publishing it has helped me learn so much already. Being able to say I'm a published author has given me the confidence to pursue opportunities to get it in front of readers. Best of all, I still have time to write.

WNW: Do you plan to publish your book in print format?
Louis: Of course! First, I'd like to see how much of an audience it gains as an eBook.

WNW: Since you’re self-published, did you ever wish you had help from a publishing house, especially in the editing process?
Louis: Absolutely. Now that I'm learning the business with Sunrise on the Pier, I'll be in a far better position to pursue those relationships with my next novel.

WNW: How did recent economic issues influence your book?
Louis: Significantly. The book is about the actions that various fictional people took prior to the real event of the stock market meltdown in 2008. I recently read Michael Lewis' non-fiction work The Big Short. It details the events leading up to that meltdown. I was surprised and pleased to see that even though the meltdown isn't the main plotline in Sunrise on the Pier, what is there tracks with his reporting.

WNW: How do you think working as a technical writer has affected your fiction?
Louis: Believe it or not, technical writers make notoriously poor novelists. We are trained to KISS (keep it short, stupid) and use bullet points. I had to learn how to give feeling and depth to my writing. I guess you could say that the effect was that I knew I needed help and got a writing coach. I would never have written anything I felt that someone might want to read without his help.

WNW: Are you working on any new fiction now?
Louis: Yes I am. Skye Pointe and its surrounding area live in my mind. The story that I'm now writing is also about people in that area - and there's a murder. It's unclear yet whether or not the characters in Sunrise on the Pier will make an appearance in that novel. If they do, it will be as minor characters.

Cathryn Louis spent much of her career in the technology industry. She began building chips and computers before riding the dotcom wave into software development. She currently writes desktop and web applications but has worked on fostering a writing career as well. In Sunrise on the Pier, she hopes to have combined her passions for technology and writing into an entertaining piece. For more information about Ms. Louis, visit her Twitter page or her blog. If interested in reading Sunrise on the Pier, please view her book on Smashwords.