Q: If you could have a fantasy pet, what would you have and why?
A: Probably that black hole thing from The Cipher by Kathe Koja. If you haven’t read that book, it’s about this strange black hole that appears in a storage closet that the main character and his girlfriend discover. When the main guy sticks in his hand, it mutates. They get this crazy, nearly sexual obsession with it. It’s a trip of a book. I think it’s described as the funhole and it makes everyone obsessed and violent in the neighborhood. I pick that because it would help me make friends.
Q: What makes you unique as an author?
A: I think on a superficial level, I’ve really taken ergodic techniques into all of my layouts. When I first started writing, which was when I was 12, I did things the standard way which is what 99% of books in fiction do. Starting with 2023’s By The Ocean, I started implementing unique formatting into my writing. I learned how to use InDesign for layouts to give me more customization options because I wanted to really reward people for buying my work and produce a product that is unlike anything else on the market. When you flip through By The Ocean, you’ll see that the beginning of every chapter has reverse colored text and a distorted version of the cover to produce this sort of damaged media effect. This effect grows with each chapter. I also used spiral shaped text and text in the shapes of waves. I don’t do it so overbearingly that it’s a pain to read, but enough so that when I really want to put emphasis on a passage, the reader really gets drawn to it. I guess like most people, I was really impressed with House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. It’s not supposed to be a gimmick to replace good writing, I just think it adds a certain flavor that can’t be found in many other places in a meaningful place.
In terms of writing, I think I’ve found the balance between writing horror that is horrific and things that actually have a really important message. My current project, which is called When Bad Dogs Do Good Things, is really inspired by splatterpunk but one major criticism that splatterpunk gets I think unfairly is that it is senselessly violent. In the case of that story, it’s one of the most horrific and violent things I’ve ever written, but it has a really important narrative about the male savior complex, narcissm, and misogyny. I think it also touches on a societal issue where we are very focused on self improvement without accountability as to how we treat others. That’s not to say that mental issues or trauma is anybody’s fault, but it certainly is your responsibility to make sure you don’t use it as a crutch to treat the people around you like garbage.
I also jump genres a lot. Weeping of the Caverns, which I published at 15, is an almost fantasy horror epic. Grey Skies, which came out when I was 15, is surreal allegorical horror akin to David Lynch or Silent Hill. The Vampire of Koln is a historical fiction slasher set in World War 2 where each chapter has a different main character to really capture that “war is hell” perspective.” My fourth novel, which i put out last year, is a very depressing drama called By the Ocean and that’s about a man going on drug fueled death binge.
Q: What type of music best describes your writing?
A: I’d probably say something intense and full of tempo changes like Dillinger Escape Plan or maybe something super weird like Mr. Bungle. For my darker stuff, I’d say noisier metal like Whores or Knocked Loose which is full of vitriol and chaos. I love music that is chaotic and doesn’t ever stop to let you feel comfortable.
Q: Tell us about your writing office/space and why it’s special to you.
A: Maybe I’m crazy but I don’t have a set writing space. I’ve written stuff while using voice to text on my phone notes in the shower, I’ve written stuff after I’ve tucked my toddler in on my phone, I’ve written on my laptop at a nice big wooden desk in the middle of the day, and I’ve even stayed late after work at my office to write. I have memories of being in Atlanta and being on the 26th story looking over the city and writing a chapter on a $200 ThinkPad. That being said, I prefer writing in the dark and/or with colored lights, not as much in the daytime.
Q: What is your favorite piece of visual art that has inspired a story or two?
A: David Lynch’s Lost Highway and Eraserhead have both had a tremendous impact. When I was in high school, I remember having a blast with friends trying to discover the meaning behind the films. While I could never dream of creating something as ambiguous and inaccessible as a Lynchian piece, I enjoy leaving breadcrumbs in the narrative that aren’t actually immediately answered, the kind that you really notice upon re-reads. I can’t compare myself talent wise to Lynch but I’ve always appreciated how he sort of rewards the fans that watch all of his works and re reads them
Q: If you didn’t write full-time what would your day job be? Is writing a hobby for you?
A: Writing is more than a hobby for me but definitely not a career. I work a job full time (in addition to being a 23-year-old parent) that allows me to be social and creative. I would go crazy if I only wrote.
Q: What is your writing schedule and how many words do you write in a sitting?
A: This alternates from project to project. In 2019 when I was in school and before COVID, I wrote 200 words every day. In the Summer of 2020, I did 600 a day. I write less frequently now but I’ve become more of a fan of the writing sprint: where I’ll take thirty minutes or so and write as many words as possible. It usually helps me get out of sections I’m stuck in.
My policy is that I generally write as many words as I need to while maintaining a certain quality. There’s no answer to this. I wrote Something Wrong with Max in three sittings in entirety. I wrote New York Onions in one sitting. I probably took 30 sittings to write When Bad Dogs Do Good Things. The smallest session probably generated about 200 words, the largest around 7,000.
Q: How do you celebrate publishing a new story?
A: Usually by telling every person on the face of the earth.
Q: How do you balance your outside life with your writing life?
A: Because I piss excellence, I have no problem doing this. I could write in my sleep. When I’m demotivated, I have a really good support system of friends and family who always remind me that I matter. That’s why when I put out a book, there’s always a lot of people thanked in the beginning sections.
Q: Write your eulogy in three sentences.
A: William Becker was proud father who ran every step that he walked. Sometimes he wrote books. He’s thankful for his family and friends.
Q: What project are you most proud of completing?
A: I’m proud of them all. I’m proud of writing and editing Weeping of the Caverns when I was 14 and publishing it when I was 15. I’m proud of publishing Grey Skies while I was applying for college and had just turned 18. I’m proud of publishing The Vampire of Köln while I was 22 and dealing with a crazy court battle while working my first months of my career job. I’m proud of publishing By the Ocean just seven months after The Vampire of Köln when I had just turned 23. I’m proud of coming up with the concept of Something’s Wrong with Max on New Years Eve of 2023, then having it written, edited, and accepted for publication by the 10th of January in 2024. Maybe my most impressive nonrealized achievement so far is what will be my fifth full length novel, An Act of God. I came up with the original concept when I was 13 back in 2014. For the massive scale of the novel, I didn’t feel ready to put pen to paper, so I spent the next five years until mid 2019 just jotting down ideas that stuck.
I wrote 200 words a day of the novel until late 2020 roughly, when I was 19 about to turn 20 and found out I’d be a father. I started writing again in December of that year and January of 2021 until at the end of that month, when I was driving home one night, a man threw himself in front of my car while I was going 50 miles an hour. This put a wrench in the writing plans. My daughter was born in April of 2021. I put the finishing touches on the final draft of the story in June and May of that year. Now it’s 2024. I’m about to start heavily editing with a goal of release in November or December, 10 years after the inception of the story.
Q: Do you have any projects you would like to tell your readers about?
A: in addition to An Act of God, I’m working with a publisher to put out When Bad Dogs Do Good Things in August and September. It’s a novella that’s about 20,000 words long and heavily inspired by splatterpunk punk legends like Judith Sonnet, Daniel J Volpe, and Aron Beauregard. It’s about a misanthropic depressed incel who finds himself taken by the most violent night of his life. It’s sexual, drug-fueled, and uncomfortable beyond words.
Q: Who is your favorite character from any of your stories and why? If you had to choose a popular author to continue writing this character in another book, who would you choose and why?
A: My recency bias tells me about the protagonist from When Bad Dogs Do Good Things. He hates himself and is perpetually lonely, but that comes with a sense of black humor and disdain for the world that really makes the character shine. He’s not written to be a shining example of a good person but he represents a lot of the worst tendencies in people. He’s constantly miserable and he was a blast to write. I’m sure we’ve all met someone like him.
Q: Where can your readers find you on social media?
A: @TheWilliamBecker on TikTok and Instagram.
Bio: William Becker is an author of transgressive, provocative, and dark novels with roots in the horror genre. He has been writing horror stories since he was 12, with his first book, “Weeping of The Caverns” published just a month after he turned 15. His work is frequently influenced by the universe of Silent Hill, the surrealism of David Lynch, and most importantly, subverting expectations.
While still a figure in the indie-author underground, his accolades are numerous, from “New York Onions” being published twice in Atlantis Creative Magazine and featured by Wattpad, to the film adaptation of “For We Are Many” playing in festivals across the globe, to “The Egg” being prominently featured on the Written in Red Podcast.
After his second full length, Grey Skies, was released in 2019, he became a staff writer for the Seahawk, the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he won the “outstanding rookie” award in 2020. What followed during the Covid-19 pandemic were a series of free short stories on his website, including the “romance” with elements of social-critique in the form of “Seventh Circle,” the surreal-body-horror of “The Egg,” the brutal take on suicide of “For We Are Many” and the realities of heroin addiction in “The Soil of God.”
2022 and 2023 saw the film production of “For We Are Many,” a productive internship at NBC WECT-6, as well as the release of his third and fourth novels, “The Vampire of Köln” and “By the Ocean.”
William currently lives in Boone, North Carolina with his family and his daughter, Valentina, whose favorite show alternates between “Paw Patrol” and “Rubble & Crew.” He works in marketing for a newspaper that has been publishing without interruption since 1888.
Image credits: The Soil of God – Silas Ayers, By the Ocean – Silas Ayers, The Vampire of Koln, Silas Ayers, Grey Skies – William Becker, Weeping of the Caverns, William Becker, Something’s Wrong with Max – Silas Ayers, New York Onions – William Becker
She Writes Fast 
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