Chuck Tingle is the USA Today bestselling author of Camp Damascus and Straight. He is a mysterious force of energy behind sunglasses and a pink mask. He is also an anonymous author of romance, horror, and fantasy. Chuck was born in Home of Truth, Utah, and lives in Los Angeles, California. Chuck writes to prove love is real because love is the most important tool we have when resisting the endless cosmic void. Not everything people say about Chuck is true, but the important parts are. His latest novel is Bury Your Gays and he recently talked about it with Daryl Maxwell for the LAPL Blog.
What was your inspiration for Bury Your Gays?
when im writing my horror novels i spend a LOT of time just thinkin on them, letting them swirl around in my head and build and grow on the ethereal plane before inviting them onto this one. honestly, this IDEA STAGE is the most important part of the process, so it's no wonder it takes the longest to get right. every morning i take my morning trot up into the hills of los angeles for about an hour and this is where i do my planning. i have a lot of ideas rolling around in my skull, and a lot of feelings about a message i want to deliver. it has to be something i care deeply about and want to put onto this timeline, and the moment those two things crash together is when i know that i have a concept worth turning into a novel. Bury Your Gays came crashing together pretty quickly like this.
i also think the Bury Your Gays phenomenon is just something all queer buckaroos are aware of, even if the pattern was never specifically pointed out. if you interacted with television or movies in a certain era, then you just KNEW what was coming on an unspoken level. its still around today, actually, but not as much as it was during those formative years for many buckaroos.
Are Misha, Zeke, Tara, Jack, or any of the other characters in the novel inspired by or based on specific individuals?
they are not necessarily INSPIRED by specific queer characters that were killed off, because they all have their own unique personalities and traits, but they are named after them. characters from Supernatural, Buffy, Lost, The 100 are all mentioned in some way, and plenty of others. i kind of wanted it to trot like a 'past lives' kind of thing, like the soul of each character was given a second chance in a new story.
How did the novel evolve and change as you wrote and revised it? Are there any characters or scenes that were lost in the process that you wish had made it to the published version?
the finished book is very similar to the original draft, which is usually the case for me (i think this is because i take so much time during idea and planning stage). there is only one scene that was cut and it involves a character named THE BRIDE. in the original version, the scene i had planned became an example of a DIFFERENT problematic trope called 'fridging' which is when a woman character is killed off for no other reason than to drive the male lead forward, and i did not want to do that. i especially did not want to do that in a book about defying tropes, so it was cut.
Are you a fan of vintage or classic cartoons? Who are some of your favorite characters?
yes. i had a buckaroo family member who has since ridden the lonesome train, and they were big fan of YOSEMITE SAM. sam would make them laugh and laugh and laugh. so now i love yosemite sam, and those cartoons make me very emotional. it really is incredible how much these unusual things can take on meaning as we move through our lives
Early in the novel, you illustrate that a lot of the violence in older or vintage cartoons is actually quite gruesome if they actually happen. Do you have any other favorite cartoon acts that seem funny within context but wouldn’t be in real life?
i have always found in fascinating how much the MEDIUM that a story is told in changes the perception of the story itself. we like to think of art as PURE is some way, like it cannot be changed by the circumstances that we AS A VIEWER bring to it, but cartoons are a perfect example of how this is not true. there is lots of extremely graphic violence in cartoons that would otherwise make us sick, but instead we laugh. Bury Your Gays touches on this a bit, but honestly there are SO many different classic cartoon injuries that would not be funny at all. probably very little to laugh about when someone actually takes a giant mallet to the head
In Bury Your Gays, Misha, the protagonist, has real-life encounters with some of the characters he has created in his writing. Is there a character that you’ve created that you would never want to actually meet or confront? One that you might actually want to meet?
there are quite a few monsters in Bury Your Gays and i feel like it is an interesting personality test to see which one scares you the most. personally i think MRS. WHY would be the worst to be caught by, although in some ways she is the easiest to avoid
The way you describe AI in the novel is interesting. Do you think the current concerns about AI and it being a threat to creatives (writers, actors, etc...) is overexaggerated? Do you think we will soon reach a point where that threat is real?
i think threat of AI is over exaggerated in some ways and woefully ignored in others. there should be more attention paid to the trot of large language models stealing the work of human artists at a massive scale without any repercussions. it is the next step in a long line of devaluing and underpaying artists across pretty much every dang art form. then on the other hand, there is this exaggeration of what AI even IS. lots of companies tryin to pump up their stock prices with this HOT NEW WORD even though the technology is the same stuff we have always had like TEXT PREDICTION on your phone. i think part of this is due to things like the SCIENCE FICTION GENRE itself because for so long we painted AI as something that would become this hyper-intelligent sentient being. the legend is that AI is dangerous because it is so smart, when in reality it is dangerous because it is very very dumb. that is a point i tried to get across in Bury Your Gays
Your biography says that you currently live in Los Angeles. Do you have any favorite places? A hidden gem that someone visiting should not miss, but would only learn about from a resident?
that is correct i am a PROUD LOS ANGELES RESIDENT, even have my LA public library card right here with me as i type. i have a lot of favorite places around the city and i think there is something wonderful to find in every little neighborhood or pocket, but my main part of town is LOS FELIZ, which is why a lot of Bury Your Gays takes place there. even before i lived in los angeles i would look forward to visiting and having a classic evening of dinner at FRED 62 then browsing books at SKYLIGHT followed by a movie at the LOS FELIZ 3. that is just about the most classic night i could imagine. but as far as hidden gems i would say my number one is THE FRANKENSTAND which is a vegan horror-themed hot dog stand that i love. gotta follow them on instagram to know where they are trotting around town on any given weekend
What’s currently on your nightstand?
right now just a GIANT GLASS OF WATER gotta stay hydrated
What is the last piece of art (music, movies, TV, more traditional art forms) that you've experienced or that has impacted you?
this is good question because as year comes to an end i am considering my BEST OF THE YEAR thoughts in various art forms. i think Strange Darling was my favorite movie of the year. Tangk by IDLES was favorite album. American Rapture by CJ Leede was favorite book.
I remember from our last interview that you don’t like to talk about your art until it’s finished. Is there anything you feel comfortable telling us about your next project?
yes i like to keep all that fire and excitement and put it back into the art, and sometimes i fear that DISCUSSING it before it is finished lets off that energy like a steam valve. so i try my best to not talk about things until they are mostly done, but fortunately i am mostly done with a LOT OF THINGS right now. most exciting is probably the fact that i have signed another four book deal with nightfire for even more horror novels. the next one is called LUCKY DAY and it takes place in las vegas, and after that is FABULOUS BODIES which takes place in palm springs, so even though the books are not exactly stayin in LA, we are keepin it within DAY TRIP rangeyes i like to keep all that fire and excitement and put it back into the art, and sometimes i fear that DISCUSSING it before it is finished lets off that energy like a steam valve. so i try my best to not talk about things until they are mostly done, but fortunately i am mostly done with a LOT OF THINGS right now. most exciting is probably the fact that i have signed another four book deal with nightfire for even more horror novels. the next one is called LUCKY DAY and it takes place in las vegas, and after that is FABULOUS BODIES which takes place in palm springs, so even though the books are not exactly stayin in LA, we are keepin it within DAY TRIP range
Chuck Tingle is back and his new novel, Bury Your Gays, was well worth the wait!
Misha Byrne is a talented screenwriter and, with a string of hits, a successful one too. His last meeting at Harold Bros. Studio, however, could have done better. Misha is working on the script for the season finale of his successful television series Travelers. Misha has used the entire season to build up to a finale where his lead characters (finally) admit that they are attracted to each other and begin to explore a relationship. Studio executives are suddenly not on board and give Misha a choice: he must remove the romance, or he can keep it only if both characters die by the end of the episode.
Misha refuses, saying that he won’t participate in another "gay tragedy" in film or television. The studio executive with whom he is meeting clearly threatens Misha with legal action and subtly implies that there may be even worse consequences. How far will the studio go to convince Misha to write the episode that they want?
In Bury Your Gays, Chuck Tingle takes readers into what must be every Horror writer’s nightmare: what if you had to confront the monsters you created when you were writing? And what if the creativity you used while writing them, where you provided your script’s victims with no easy way to defeat them, left you essentially defenseless? Throughout this story, Tingle expertly weaves in commentary on the current state of the entertainment industry, the importance of representation in media, and how writers often draw from their own experiences in their creative pursuits. The result is a tense and terrifying novel that is ultimately more than a bit fun and hopeful (Tingle LOVES to ridicule, poke at, and subvert established tropes). This is another marvelous follow-up!