Meet C.C. Adams

Every Friday, we meet a member of the BFS and peer deep into their soul (or, at least, a form they filled out). Want to be featured? Email us: online@britishfantasysociety.org

Name: 
C.C. Adams (he/him)

Which region are you based in? 
London, UK

If you write, which genre: 
Horror

Are you drawn to any specific SFFH sub-genres? None in particular.

Author pic: Clem Onojeghuo at www.clemono.com.

Your influences

Tell us about the book/film/thing that got you into SFFH: What was it? How old were you? What impact did it have on you?

Film-wise, probably a film called Night of the Demon – I actually watched it on an old-school projector (which I still have). So, even though the film didn’t have sound, apart from the whirr of the reel, the narrative really pulled me in. Paper on the train track, materialisation of a thirty-foot demon clawing the man to death.

Overall, though, that influence would have to go to my oldest brother, who we know as Fred. As I’m the youngest of three sons, no daughters, it fell to the oldest – again, Fred – to lead the charge, as it were. All the cool books that came into the house: Dr. Who books, the ones mostly written by Terrance Dicks. The horror novels, Stephen King or otherwise. Film novelisations, like Alien, and The Thing. The video nasties from a place called Electrobug Video, long before the rise and fall of Blockbuster Video rental. And Fred’s efforts had left me ‘damaged’ to the point where I couldn’t and can’t watch horror films anymore, because they genuinely scare the shit outta me. And not in a good way.

That said, I still love horror stories. So, when my brothers had a new horror video, I’d wait upstairs in my room until they were done watching the film – then I’d come out. Fred would then give me the blow-by-blow of what happened, because I’d still want to hear the story.

How does that early influence show up for you (in life/writing/agenting/publishing/editing/reading) now?

You know what? Night of the Demon is the film that probably got me intrigued in those horror narratives (and I also have to give Them! an honourable mention), but I wouldn’t say that’s the film that had any real bearing on my creative sensibilities. No, that accolade goes to John Carpenter’s “The Thing” – and for so many reasons. The sense of intrigue. The sense of pace. The cinematic sensibility – there’s more than one scene in the film where the camera pans across an environment; I’ll do the same in my work. Those reasons, just to name a few.

In terms of Fred telling me those stories, I guess that does inform how I write a synopsis for my work. Because even without watching the film or reading the book, you want the synopsis to be engaging and draw you in. Hell, you want the elevator pitch to be engaging and draw you in.

Where do you draw your creative inspiration from?

I guess, like a lot of authors, I have an active imagination. There are certain things where I might see an idea, like a werewolf story, and then think, ‘now if I did a werewolf story, I’d do x, y, and z instead’ or some such. Or, at a more simplistic level, I think in terms of what I’d like to see. Or what I think would make for a good story – or a disturbing one.

There’s nothing in my work, I hope, that’s exploitative or done for shock value, as it were – I still want to tell an honest story as well as a good one. But one thing I keep returning to is this: I want to disturb you. Unsettle you. Maybe even scare the shit outta you – seriously. And, as such, I take great pains to not just write a story, but craft one that does just that. Something that you need to revisit because you didn’t catch all the nuance the first time around. Something that lingers after you’ve read the last page. Days, weeks, months, years later. Seriously.

Who do you look to as a genre hero? Why?

Gotta give John Carpenter the nod. Not only for The Thing, but also for Halloween – and for one particular trope: the monster gets away. Don’t get me wrong; Halloween is a solid film, but watching that film as a kid for the first time, and seeing Dr. Loomis’ reaction when he looks over the balcony? Oh, man – that’s the feint, the sucker punch you want to hit your audience with, stagger them with. Where the surprise is then left to fade into the ramifications. That’s the sweet spot.

Also give the nod to Stephen King for not just some strong stories, but building a body of work. And give the nod to Brian Keene for his sense of hustle and work ethic as an indie author.

(John Carpenter photo credit: CC BY 2.0)

Your Work

You’re stuck in an elevator for 60 seconds with that hero, and they want you to describe your work. Give us the pitch.

Primarily supernatural fiction set in and around London; a range of modern and diverse settings where my work ranges from eerie to horrifically violent.

What are you working on right now?

Currently writing up this bad boy! – thanks for your patience – before getting back to another beta for another author. And then, onto another round of clean-up on the new novel before I finally get to basic research and outlining on the next novel.

Thinking about all the stories/work you’ve done, what sticks out most in your mind? Why?

Two works tied for first place with this one.

The first one is the novella But Worse Will Come (pictured below), which is currently out of print. Before writing it, I’d started to build a body of work getting stuff published in various magazines and anthologies – but knew I wanted to step things up a notch, and get published where my name was on the cover. It’s a big responsibility but, at the time, I really felt that responsibility – because it’s your name alone on the cover and your work alone on the pages.

When there was a submission call – and I forget what press (Harlequin, maybe?), but I remember that horror editor Don D’Auria was presiding over the submissions – so I figured, “let’s get it done.” I already had the idea, but now I had the driving force to run with it. And I wrote the first draft in three weeks, even finishing it up while standing in a Best Buy superstore in downtown Toronto; one of the staff let me use a display PC because I couldn’t find an internet café with a keyboard.

And because this was my first published solo work, I was mindful to make sure everything was on point. From the story to the bonus material with the Author Notes; like with a DVD where you’d have a bonus disc with extras. I even sourced and paid for the cover artist myself. Bringing that novella to life was a win in so many ways; a validation of my process, that I had an audience that were on board with my work. Plus, that story is the reason why I now sleep with the light on. So, yeah, notable for a number of reasons.

The second one is the collection Misery and Other Lines. And the back story ties into the whole ethic of never wanting to just write something, but to craft something. I’d had a conversation at a BFS gathering some years earlier with Phil Sloman and Ben(edict) Jones, where both of them had the pitch that I had enough short stories that I could put them in a collection – but that didn’t sit right with me. In much the same way that if a friend that dabbles in photography does your wedding pics, those pics are done by a dabbler – but they don’t have that level of polish, that excellence, that finesse.

One of the things I take great pride in is that London comes across as a character in my work – the richness, breadth and diversity of it. I wanted to do a collection where each story stood by itself, but also in a collection which would be greater than the sum of its parts. Films like Trick ‘r Treat (which I’m aware of, but haven’t seen) and Pulp Fiction and Memento (both of which I have seen) were those examples of storytelling where they weren’t just bog-standard linear narratives.

Wanting to write something so uniquely London lead me to using London Underground as a backdrop. And since the Northern Line used to be known as the Misery Line on that perception of faulty trains, delays and such, I figured I’d call the collection Misery and Other Lines – yeah, the title’s a play on words; a double meaning. In fact, a number of stories in the collection, including the first and last, have a double meaning. Again, I wanted to craft something – and from scratch. The only exception here was the second short Delightful, which is a short I’d been trying to place for a while. It’d even made the penultimate cut for a press where they whittled some 1100 submissions down to 100. Even then, I’d worked hard to weave Delightful into the collection.

The entire book was truly a labour of love – I knew it’d be exhilarating for the reader, but I fought hard to be patient, and build suspense until me and Justin (then-publisher at Sinister Horror Company) were ready to drop it on the masses. Now it’s been reprinted by Demain Publishing, and it’s cool to see it finding a wider audience and have people buy into the mythos. It’s just humbling and cool.

Where and when do you create/are you at your most creative?

Inspiration pretty much hits me wherever, whenever. But, when it comes to crafting those ideas? I need not only quiet, but solitude. That’s when it’s easier to tune out the rest of the world and immerse myself in the one I’m creating. Generally from evening to night is the sweet spot, where sunset brings night, shadows grow long and consume everything. All the little noises during the day are just fraught with nuance and implication in the dead of night.

What’s the best advice you’ve received about creativity?

From my earliest forays, Ian O’Neill (who I knew from author Kelley Armstrong’s message board and online writing group) would tell me, “Now go write something.” He didn’t give a whole lot of advice – we can all be busy with life and such, I get it – but I always valued what little he did give.

My first beta from another author was brutal and unforgiving, so that was a wake-up call. What I subsequently got from Ian as the second author was a more tempered assessment. Not just calling out the bad, but calling out the why, along with what could be done to improve it – as well as calling out the good, sparse as it was. That approach, coupled with his frequent sign-off of, “now, go write something” landed with me. It was everything from ‘let’s see what you got’ to ‘keep doing what you’re doing’ and ‘go kick their ass.’ The sweet spot there was having written There Goes Pretty, hitting my stride and dedicating the book to him. Which is why it says, “To Ian O’Neill. I went and wrote something.” That was cool.

What’s your writing soundtrack?

I don’t write to music, because I need that quiet and solitude in order to craft something. That said, before I start writing, I might set the tone by listening to the likes of the Violent Delights / This World theme from the HBO series Westworld. Vastly superior to the 70s film – which I love, by the way. Or listening to the Phantasm piano theme. Or, if things are to be really insidious, listening to the Joseph Loduca opening piano theme from The Evil Dead.

The Quick-Fire Round

Sci-fi, fantasy or horror?
Horror.

Quiet or loud?
Quiet.

Dark or light?
Dark.

Strict lines or genre blend?
Blend.

Awards or bestseller?
Awards.

Fiction or non-fiction?
Both.

Poetry or prose?
Prose.

Plotter or pantser?
Plotter.

Reading or listening?
Reading.

Notebook or computer?
Computer.

Favourite SFFH book of all time?
Currently Thor, by Wane Smith.

Last book you read?
Dead Inside by Noelle Holton.

Any SFFH author on auto-buy?
No.

Favourite podcast?
Happy Goat Horror (pictured below)

The Home Stretch

What’s the best thing about being part of the SFFH community?

Just that; the sense of community, of camaraderie. Those like-minded people that you talk genre with; everything from your process to your take on a certain book, film, or whatever.

Time to plug your stuff! Where can we find you and your work? What have you got coming up? Consider this your advertising space.

• Website: www.ccadams.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/MrAdamsWrites
• Twitter/X: www.twitter.com/MrAdamsWrites
• Amazon U.K: amazon.co.uk/CC-Adams/e/B00J438GCI
• Amazon U.S: amazon.com/CC-Adams/e/B00J438GCI

Thanks for having me – it’s appreciated.