Q&A with Scorpion author Christian Cantrell

This entry was posted on 28 May 2021.

Christian Cantrell is a software engineer living outside of Washington, D.C. His self-published fiction has sold more than a quarter of a million copies, and three of his stories have been optioned for film or TV. Beyond his writing, he leads a team of designers and engineers who prototype the future of creativity at Adobe.

 

In this Q&A with him, he chats about the parallels between writing and coding, resilient women and his gripping new novel, Scorpion.

 

Q. What first inspired you to write the original The Epoch Index story?

 

A. I usually have a few concepts in my head at any given time that interest me, and my stories often arise from trying to find creative ways of bringing them together. The Epoch Index was the result of three ideas that I thought were especially compelling:

 

  1. Nine-to-five spies (as I call them), or people in the Washington D.C. area who work in the high-stakes world of intelligence during the day, then go home to their families at night. They remind me of the drone pilots in Nevada who may eliminate a target on the other side of the world during the day (often resulting in “collateral damage”), then read their kids a bedtime story and tuck them in a few hours later.
  2. Someone being so rich that, instead of owning multiple homes all over the world, they don’t bother owning much of anything at all, instead preferring to think of the entire world as their home. (Of course, inherent in the mystery around such a person is what motivates them to keep moving, and what they are running away from and/or toward?)
  3. And finally, the idea that people don’t change as much as they develop. There's a well-known metaphor that describes the inner conflict between our good and dark sides as two wolves fighting inside each one of us, the winner being the wolf you choose to feed. I thought it would be interesting to create a situation in which a character needed to feed both.

 

Q. How was the process of expanding Scorpion into a novel? Did you find it very different than writing a story from scratch?

 

A. Scorpion is my fourth novel, but the first one to begin its life as a short story. I was nervous about the process initially because I felt like The Epoch Index was fairly complete. But starting from the core of a solid short story turned out to be a surprisingly productive framework. It felt like writing both the prequel and the sequel to the story, then getting to combine them into a single narrative. It also gave me the space to dig into all the things that you have to either avoid or just barely touch on in order to keep a short story short, and allowed me to get to know the characters much more intimately.

 

But my favourite thing about expanding the story into a novel was writing Part Three. The short story ends with a huge twist, and the first thing everyone always asked me after reading it was “what happens next?” Scorpion answers that question, but not in a way that I think anyone was expecting.

 

Q. You’re currently the Director of Prototyping for Adobe Design, which includes very interesting sounding work in development and product discovery. Has that work had an impact on your writing? Would you say that your work has helped your writing?

 

A. Running a prototyping team at Adobe allows me to work on inventing things that are just over the horizon; writing science fiction allows me to invent things that lie far beyond.

 

Both require curiosity and creativity tempered by pragmatism. It would be easy for my prototyping team to indulge in explorations that could be a decade or more out, but I prefer to focus on prototypes that I believe could have a clear path to productization — even if that path hasn’t yet been discovered. Similarly, I don’t write science fiction just so I can indulge in the superfluous manifestation of seemingly magical futuristic contraptions. For me, science fiction is a tool that I can use to create situations in which characters can learn about themselves in ways that would otherwise be impossible.

 

There’s a quote I love that’s usually attributed to a computer scientist named Alan Kay: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Whether you’re creating it literally, or in literature, the process requires a delicate balance of imagination and restraint.

 

“Just as I’m not the type of writer who outlines plots and arcs in great detail before starting to write, I’m also not the type of programmer who spends time diagramming before coding.”

 

Q. You’ve commented about ten years ago on the similarities in the process of writing software and writing a novel, saying “both processes are organic”.  Do you still find that to be true?

 

A. I do, and even though I have a huge international team to manage, a family, and books to write, I still carve out time to program. To me coding and writing scratch very similar itches and seem to come from the same parts of my brain — or rather, require the same sorts of connections between different parts of my brain. Both require you to vacillate between creativity and rationality in ways I find rewarding. Just as I’m not the type of writer who outlines plots and arcs in great detail before starting to write, I’m also not the type of programmer who spends time diagramming before coding. The organic process of discovery is what I enjoy most. Of course, there is a time to harden and refactor your code just as there’s a time for rigorous editing of prose, but in my experience, you don’t want to start that process too early.

 

Q. Scorpion has lots of fascinating science in it – understanding how it works is part of the plot. How difficult is it to write about the technology, or scientific concepts, in a way that’s accessible to readers?

 

A. This is a skill I’ve had to develop and hone over time. My first novel, Containment, was considered “hard science fiction”, which I think was a euphemism for “unnecessarily technical.” But I’ve had the good fortune of working with some excellent editors over the years, and thanks to their guidance, I think I’ve finally found the right balance.

 

When it comes to technical or scientific explanation, I will probably always overwrite initially, then go back and edit passages down to only what the reader needs to know and will find engaging. That’s just part of my process.

 

Learning how to weave science and technology into storytelling is part of becoming a good science fiction author. It’s part of what you sign up for. If you’re writing textbooks, you can get into all the detail you want because your audience has to take it all in whether they want to or not. If you’re writing something more in a literary style, while there are dozens of other pitfalls you have to step over, getting too technical usually isn’t one of them. But if you’re going to invent out of whole cloth, you better also be willing to become a master tailor.

 

Q. Quinn Mitchell, our hero in Scorpion, is a woman – what drew you to writing her as a woman?

 

A. When manifesting a new character, you often do consider different gender identities and then finally decide which one fits best. But I think that’s less true for main characters. At least for me, gender identity is somehow inherent in the expression of the story. In my mind, the hero of Scorpion was always going to be female.

 

Maybe it’s because, throughout my life, I’ve seen more women overcome adversity than men, and more men succumb to it than women. I’m not at all suggesting that that’s a pattern beyond my own personal circumstances and observations, but I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by strong and resilient women my entire life, including my mom, my sister, my wife, and my two amazing daughters. I think that dynamic will forever shape my worldview.

 

Q. Scorpion has been sold for screen adaptation, which is really exciting. How do you feel about your words being turned into a screenplay? Is there anything in particular you’re looking forward to seeing on screen?

 

A. I can’t wait to see how Scorpion gets adapted to a completely different medium. More than anything, I’m looking forward to seeing physical manifestations of the characters and watching them interact. There are plenty of settings which will be really fun to see come to life (The Grid, The Antecedent, Kilonova, etc.), and, of course, several high-energy and suspenseful action sequences. But I have no doubt that watching Quinn, Ranveer, and Henrietta play off of one another will be what makes it.

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by Christian Cantrell
 
 
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