The Five-Questions-Challenge: A NEVER-ENDING STORY

Introduction

Gear up for the “Five-Questions-Challenge”, the latest sensation in the German literature landscape. This challenge will challenge both seasoned wordsmiths and aspiring writers to tackle five intriguing questions, showcasing their creativity and storytelling skills.

As much as I dislike interviews, I learned these challenges are perfect to give brief insights into our existence as authors and what defines us as literary creators. They are normally a mixture of private backgrounds and the presentation of the latest creation and stick strictly to the literary world.

Especially, we published authors have long been in the public eye, which means our protected privacy is very limited almost everywhere in the world. After my comeback as a writer in 2011, I had to learn the hard way that readers have an intense interest in the person behind the fictional stories. We are the brand that unites our stories and we have to sell ourselves as such.

These challenges are a good way to put the brand and the latest product in the public eye. I usually change the wording of such challenges so that they better reflect my values. I did the same with this “Five-Questions-Challenge”. However, the changes are minimal; I just replaced the word “book” with “stories”.

For me, a book is a man-made product that should and must sell, whereas a story is something independent, something living. If the story is terrible, no book in the world will perform well. Thus, the story holds greater importance than the medium in which it is presented.

With all that said, here comes the actual…

FIVE-QUESTIONS-CHALLENGE.

01. What was the first story you ever read?

To be honest, this is a very tough question because I have no clue what was the first book. Before I could read on my own, my parents were reading stories before bedtime. So I grew up with stories. However, there are a few books I have dear memories about it. And the first one is the “Never-ending Story” by Michael Ende. My father had an illustrated hardcover edition of the book, with a leather cover emblazoned with a metallic Aurin. The story itself had two colors, with everything that happened in the world of Bastian printed in red, and the storyline that took place in Phantasia printed in black italics. Man, I loved this book and the story. My father kept this book on his office shelf, kind of the adult section of literature in the house. I started reading this book in secret. I am not sure who, but I think it was my mother, discovered me reading it, tried to forbid me to go on with it but somehow my parents decided, since I found it on my own and they had no chance to keep me away from that book, the time to stop their parental control had arrived. After that, they allowed me to read whatever I wanted.

02. When did you have the idea for your first story?

Since I actually wrote my first stories as part of school lessons, I did not need to develop any of my own ideas. Already at that time, when I wrote those “stories”, my fantasy kicked in and I created something loosely based on the given prompts. Most of the time, it started with the thought: “Wouldn’t it be funny…” Just one of those stories survived.(“Submarine XY”) Yet, I know before I wrote it, there was another story, even longer and better, called “Superman in Duckburg”. It took me two DinA4 pages to tell the story, pretty long for a third grader.

03. Who’s your literary role model?

If I were smart, I’d definitely answer this question with a lie. Of course, I could point out that my role model was my grandfather Kurt Meyer, who taught me a tremendous amount about poetry and was himself a gifted poet, although not published. And during my childhood he actually was my role model for all the lyrics I wrote and I am still grateful that I had the change to co-author many lyrics and poems with him. I also could mention my great-cousin Frank Bass, who was a well-known author himself, yet I never met him; or my grand-uncle Frank Stroobant, who was not only a war here from Guernsey but also wrote a great book.

But, as a child of my generation, my role model was Stephen King. His extraordinary skills still inspire me today.

04. Who are your stories for?

Sometimes, I have a special person in mind, for who I write the story. However, most of the time, when I write, I am not interested in who might read it later. I only focus on the story. Everything else is unimportant. For marketing reasons, it is not really an advantage not to think about the target group. In fact, this is probably one of my biggest weaknesses. However, I believe that a good story always finds its readers and the less we influence it, the better it can convince an even bigger audience.

05. Describe your current story in three words.

Queer. Enchantment. Mystical.

Thank you for taking your time to read my creation. I’d like to invite you to subscribe my channel and never miss a story and also check out the other stories and poems I wrote. I’d appreciate your participation in this “Five-Questions-Challenge”; kindly share your link in the comments, really looking forward to read your answers.

01. What was the first story you ever read?

02. When did you have the idea for your first story?

03. Who’s your literary role model?

04. Who are your stories for?

05. Describe your current story in three words.