Author to Author with Matthew Cirson

I met Matthew years ago at Book Fair Australia, his stand opposite mine.

We got along really well and we have a lot in common, particularly good books, great writing, and beer.

We catch up at least a couple of times a year now at various events, and socially afterward. He’s great fun, and always keen for a chat.

I asked him if he’d like to share his top 5. Here’s what he came up with.

Why do each of us go to stories? For me, it is to find myself waist deep in the world and become lost amongst the pages. Jurassic Park was a part of my life as a child. I grew up marveling at how the Tyrannosaur levelled the fence and came forth.

Then as I renewed my passion for reading and consuming novels through Audio, Jurassic Park immediately succeeded in teleporting my adult self into a work of fiction horror.

If anyone has read a Crichton novel, they would know that the level of detail and research that goes into each book is difficult to surpass. As an author, I idolise Crichton and his ability to explain politics, marketing, and science so that I find it interesting.

This novel is one of the best sequels I have ever encountered. Moreso, the struggles that the protagonist endures throughout this novel is something that the author himself has battled through his life.

Seeing the way the author uses his life knowledge of his vices and rather than being on himself, he projects his own failures forward into characters which gives them such depth and relatability.

King is the master of this in my opinion, and it is what keeps me reading and gives me the courage to pour my own weaknesses into my character development

This was a film that I studied as an impressionable high school student. The film leaves the viewer questioning who the victims are and who the “bad guy” is.

Even through our studies, the question was raised whether Deckard was a replicant himself, which raised arguments.

I think what this really achieved was to spell out that different individuals would take different things from stories, their own lives would lead them to come to their conclusions and that it was fine to leave questions unanswered within a novel, as the reader would come to their own conclusion.

Character progression is a goal of mine as author. For someone to see the character grow through the pages and as the story unwinds.

For me, it is difficult to go past the character progression of Kratos within this story. You see anger, regret, and then his acceptance of his past and his wish to be better.

I find it easy to be inspired by this, and it has helped me to shape certain Characters of mine within The Depths Within novels.

The series that got me so hooked on horror.

Even just the surroundings that the protagonist finds themselves in.

This was a massive inspiration for me just in terms of how to make the goriest of horrors work with a story line.