Jason Shaffner graduated from Harvard, magna cum laude, and spent
seven years traveling the globe as a project manager for an IT consulting firm before “retiring” to focus on his writing. He recently completed a literary thriller, and his short fiction can be found in The Shore Magazine and The Beat. In addition, his story “Pink Tutu and Hillbilly Teeth,” was a finalist in edficeWrecked’s first 666 contest. Visit Jason’s website and his blog, The Thrilling Travels of Normal Guy and Girl .

You describe your recently completed novel, “Things Like That Don’t Happen Here,” as “Nicholas Sparks meets Dennis Lehane.” Love and murder. What could be juicer than that? Give us a brief synopsis of the novel’s plot, and tell us about your adventures in trying to get it published.

“Things Like That Don’t Happen Here” is a tale of lifelong love, serial murder, and how a small town copes with the unexpected.

When Harvard freshman Billy Jones returns to his hometown of Memphis, Maine, for what he expects will be his final summer at home, he takes an uncharacteristic risk and pursues Ginny Doogan, the girl he has loved from afar since grammar school. Encouraged by his wisecracking best friend Charlie, Billy asks Ginny on a date, and he soon discovers they have a stronger bond than he could have ever imagined.

Billy’s good fortune turns, however, when he finds the dismembered body of a high school classmate along the Penobscot River. When another victim surfaces beneath the town marina three weeks later, Billy sees a thread connecting him to the two fallen men, in a dark secret he long ago chose to forget.

I began the project in March 2004 and finished in January 2007. Since then, I’ve been learning the frustrations of finding an agent. It is a messy process, and I struggled at first to understand that rejections are inevitable, frequent, and you can’t take them personally. I remain hopeful that my next wave of query letters will yield a hit!

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Once you completed “Things Like That Don’t Happen Here,” you jumped right into a new novel. How important is it to keep up that momentum? Do you find that the daunting task of novel writing gets easier as you continue to do it?

“Things Like That Don’t Happen Here” was actually my second attempt at writing a novel. Although my first novel didn’t survive to the querying-agents stage, I learned tons from the process that in turn made this project easier. Similarly, lessons learned on this novel are already helping me draft the newest one.

One difference I notice is that the scale of the project does not frighten me. Many would-be novelists embark on their projects fearful of leaving the relative comfort of the 5,000-word short story. The first complete draft of “Things Like That Don’t Happen Here” contained 110,000 words, so now I know what it feels like to hold a completed manuscript in my hands (and to make ruthless cuts—the final version is 20,000 words shorter). Knowing you have done it before provides a huge mental boost.

Similar to athletic activities, I believe that as I write more consistently, my instincts sharpen and my prose strengthens. When I finished the rough draft of “Things Like That Don’t Happen Here” and read it from beginning to end, the first thing I realized was how much stronger the writing was in the latter chapters, and I had to substantially re-write the first half.

“Fifty-One Stars” (my new project) has benefited from the momentum I gained over the second half of “Things Like That Don’t Happen Here.” But more than that, I realized that this is what I love, and I can’t imagine a day where I don’t have an in-progress novel. I already have the seed for the next one!

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Is it your primary goal to be a novelist, or do you also want to be known as a short story writer?

I enjoy writing and reading flash fiction, and would love to publish more of it. Several chapters of my novel began as flash fiction pieces (“The Missing Girl,” published in The Shore Magazine, appears in altered form there), and I sometimes write throwaway flash pieces to help me build my characters.

I struggle with the traditional-length short story, however. Building vibrant characters thrills me, and once I reach the midway point of a short story, I tend to start thinking about a bigger project… That’s where my heart is. Few things motivate me more than the daydream I’ve had since I was in junior high school, of seeing my name on a hardcover binding. First and foremost, I see myself as a novelist learning his craft.

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You write about, as you say, “people who narrowly miss each other and later come back together.” How does this theme relate to your own life?

When I was ten, a new girl moved into my hometown. Keryn and I were in show choir together (there’s video footage), and for ONE WHOLE DAY she was my girlfriend (whatever that means at that age). Midway through seventh grade, she moved away. We exchanged letters irregularly for two years before falling out of contact. Then, in February 2006, Keryn found me online and sent me an email. We chatted back and forth for six weeks before meeting in Boston. Within days we were inseparable. On March 5th of this year, I proposed. There’s a photo in our living room of our fifth grade homeroom. Gives me a chuckle every time I walk past it.

A lot of people hear the synopsis of “Things Like That Don’t Happen Here” and give me this knowing smirk. I have to explain that the fundamental plot of my novel was in place TWO YEARS before Keryn and I met; most folks don’t want to believe me.

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You recently started writing concert and CD reviews, which vary widely in musical taste—from the hip hop band The Roots, to B.B. King. How did you get into this, and what is the market like for such reviews?

After leaving my consulting job last summer, I began exploring the world of freelance writing before deciding that it would be best to focus on my novel. However, I came across Being There Magazine, a cool online music publication open to all genres and types of music. They accepted a piece I had planned to post on my blog, and I’ve been published every other month since then. My musical tastes are eclectic, and my reviews reflect that.

As with travel-writing, tons of markets publish album and concert reviews, but there’s ample competition for limited pay. These pieces provide me a perfect excuse to buy concert tix and they’re fun to write. Another perk is that record labels send promotional materials out for review; these sometimes end up in my mailbox. Great way to discover indie bands I might not have otherwise known about.

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As a teenager, you attended the Breadloaf Young Writer’s Conference. That’s incredibly ambitious! What was the experience like? Did you know from a very young age that you wanted to be a writer?

As a teenager, I was 100% certain I would be a novelist when I grew up. Hell, I gave short stories to friends on their birthdays!

In 1993, I was one of a handful of sophomores selected for the conference. My strongest memory, other than the rustic conditions on that mountain, is being awe-struck by how many kids my age were excited about writing. Until then, I had never met anyone who shared my enthusiasm for holing up for hours on end with my fingers on keys. The workshops and readings are blurry now, but I left that conference even more certain that I would be a writer someday.

For reasons I’ll never quite understand, I lost sight of that ambition in college. Whoops.

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So, Harvard. You must be a pretty smart guy to get into a school like that. But what’s really interesting is the obsession that led to you applying there. Tell us about that.

When I was six-years-old, my favorite book was The Book of Presidents. Yup, I was a dorky kid. Anyway, I noticed that a disproportionate number of presidents went to Harvard, and I decided that’s where I would go, too. (My presidential aspirations have LONG since faded). My parents didn’t know what to make of me, and I don’t think they expected that I’d make it happen! Nobody from my hometown had ever gone to Harvard, but I never considered the possibility that I couldn’t be the first. From that early age, that desire motivated me to achieve.

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For your former job, you traveled extensively, and spent a good deal of time in Puerto Rico. Have you ever thought about travel writing?

My fiancée and I have posted some travel pieces at our blog and I hope someday to find the time to pay my dues in the travel writing market.

Traveling for business has given me an unusual perspective—I tend to explore cities more as a local than as a tourist, and have usually spent several months (or years) at each destination. So far, the biggest benefit of this travel has been its effect on my fiction.

My new project is set in Puerto Rico, and I lived there long enough to understand not only the geography and physical beauty of the island, but many subtleties of the culture.

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You’re a blogger. What are some of the perks of blogging? The drawbacks?

The perks:
1.) Blogging can be a lot of fun, and a good stress reliever
2.) It’s a good way to refine your craft (by writing so often on so many topics)
3.) Strangers read your work, and sometimes comment
4.) Friends and family keep pace with your comings and goings

The drawbacks:
1.) Sometimes the whole thing feels too much like “work”
2.) Each post requires so much effort, and you don’t know whether
anyone will read it!
3.) Friends and family keep pace with your comings and goings

In general, I have fun with the blogs and don’t think too much about whether it’s being read or what people think. I wish I were more religious about posting!

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What’s your favorite sport, and why?

I recently rediscovered college wrestling upon learning that Comcast added college sports channels to my cable package. In the past month, I watched the NCAA championships and a bunch of random dual matches and conference tourneys. I’m somewhat ashamed to admit I even watched Wisconsin’s high school championships the other day. Why the interest? Well, ten years and 60lbs ago I was captain of my high school team.

Since we live five minutes from Fenway Park, I have to mention the Red Sox… And if you look back through my blogs from last fall, you’ll learn that my fiancée loves football and more or less insists that I watch all day on Sunday. Am I a lucky guy, or what?

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Contact Jason

Read:

“The Missing Girl”
published by The Shore Magazine


“A Friendly Game of I-Never”
published in The Beat


“Pink Tutu and Hillbilly Teeth”
finalist in edificeWrecked’s first 666 contest




Filed Under: The Writer Profile Project |