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ENTRY DATE:  JANUARY 2020

CHANGED FATE - Author  
Lance Stouffer Interview with Orange Splash Magazine - March 2016
                                                  Literary News                       

WITH Carmen Rochelle   

Splash – Tell us a little about the story?

Author – This is a love story that exemplifies the best in romantic time travel novels and is in the same genre as the book Bid Time Return by science fiction writer Richard Matheson, which was made into the 1980 movie classic Somewhere in Timestarring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. My central characters, Nan Orland and Ed Drummond, have been unknowingly searching for each other their whole lives, separated only by time. They are finally brought together by the incredible circumstances of a 1952 airplane crash at Denver’s Stapleton Airfield.

Splash – How did the subject and location of your story come about?

Author – I was traveling on business to Denver for several days in May 2007. At the end of my first day I was invited to dinner at Casey’s Irish Pub in the new town of Stapleton which I learned was sitting on the old closed Stapleton Airport. I was intrigued by the area and the next evening I came back alone to explore the entire Stapleton redevelopment. Somehow I wound up in front of the old Stapleton Airport control tower amazed that it was still standing. After retiring to catch a 7 am flight the next day I woke up at 2 am dreaming this fantastic story of a man who moves into a new condo built right on top of where a plane crashed and burned 55 years earlier killing 13 people. Eventually he dreams himself back to that day several times. The epiphany process compelled me to begin writing the story down, which I started and finished by the time I got back to Orlando.

Splash – Did you have all the details of the story handed to you this way?

Author – Heavens no. I have been researching the subject matter conjured up in this story for over one and a half years. I have even had interviews with people gifted with paranormal abilities. Since I am not a professional writer I have also been learning how to get my story ideas down on paper. It is not an easy process to write a book as you know!

Splash – Who would be your ideal reader?

Author – Anyone who enjoys action adventure novels with a large splash of romance and science fiction or paranormal activity tossed in. I barely scratched the surface of all the concepts involved in writing the story, but focused on bringing my central characters together across time against all odds, with a twist of fate also tossed in. As Americans we always like a winner and the underdog overcoming extreme obstacles. If readers like a positive outcome against impossible odds, then this story will make them smile.

Splash –Your Ed Drummond character is especially interesting. His Big Leg Emma bicycle accident somehow tunes his brain to receive that 55 year old “SOS” signal only on his futon. Why can’t he see the crash ghosts in his apartment all the time?

Author – Good question. I don’t exactly know. I have never personally seen a ghost day or night. I guess Ed’s conscious mind blocks that type of vision. Perhaps it’s not as fine tuned or sensitive as his dream state mind. Remember, my story is based in Ed’s dream state. It is not a haunting or poltergeist event.

Splash – Okay, what is your stories premise, what are you trying to tell the reader?

Author – My story is about love across time and bringing together two people destined for each other. It focuses on character choices and decisions. I have turned Ed’s mental time travel gift into a way to rescue his true love knowing full well, at the beginning of his thinking anyway, the impossibility of their ever being together. The unique premise of my story is that a change of fate is possible across time.

Splash – You present your story first as reality, then repeating in dream segments with Ed Drummond getting smarter and ultimately understanding his strange gift after that thorough explanation given by your psychologist character Brian Edmond.  Could you explain why you chose this method to cover such meaty topics?

Author – Time. Reader time. We all seek out professional advice when confronted with things we can’t understand. Have you read the US tax code lately? Seriously, the Brian Edmond character gives instant credibility, plausibility and believability to the paranormal concepts discussed. Ed has to get fully knowledgeable about his mental gift in just one evenings discussion. Otherwise Ed would have to research all this for a year to become competent himself. Now in the end, Ed goes against Brian’s advice to leave the dream alone and turns his knowledge into the ultimate rescue mission across time. He thinks he has the perfect plan to save Nan, however, we know it’s flawed, but still root him on!

Splash – Ed thinks he’s in total control of his final rescue dream, but that is far from the truth. Did you give him a false sense of invincibility?

Author – I think we’re talking about Ed’s selfless decision to try and save his true loves life without messing up the grand time continuum we all exist in. He concludes he can’t save everyone, but perhaps he can try and squeeze one more person to the living side in 1952. Its wishful thinking on his part to start with and turns out to be true in the end by his transfer to 1952, but not the way he intended.

Splash – I’ll buy the ‘love across time’ concept, but how does Ed get actually get back to 1952? Will anyone reading your book suspend their reality enough to buy into that one? Will they think this is corny, unbelievable, and not possible?

Author – There you said the word possible. Yes anything is possible. I want you to suspend you belief in the impossibility part of all this for a moment.  The story has his connection to the SOS message terminated by the punch inflicted on him by Captain Jamison and by his physically being tossed from the plane. Both events he did not plan. I can only guess the intensity of dream three was equal to any waking reality experience Ed ever had. I mean his mind could not differentiate between wakeful reality and the intense dream which was reality to him, only 55 years earlier. He was convinced he could change the dream and change reality at the same time and change the fate of Nan. Breaking the connection, when his mind was across time has unknown consequences.  Now, we can only speculate how he wound up back in 1952 and disappeared from 2007, but that’s what makes a great story, and this is a great story. From a technical standpoint, maybe it was a worm hole that pulled him back, or a star trek transporter experience, or a HG Wells time machine experience, but it happened proving that love is stronger than fate, in my opinion anyway.

 Splash – Do you think your readers would want to go back to 1952, if placed in the same circumstances and they could make it happen?

Author – Now you’re getting at the heart of the larger subject and that’s escape from our current reality. Well, I know many

folks who are not happy with their present circumstances and can’t seem to break-out from where they are to where they want to be. I am not one of those, by the way. Perhaps life has taken them in a direction they regret or wish they could change, but know they can’t. So you ask me if there is someone on this planet who would gladly give up everything for a one way trip to the past and I would have to say, yes, those persons exist. I suggest you pole your readers to see who would like a one-way ticket to 1952 or 1957 or 1965. You may be amazed!

Splash – Interesting analysis of the possibilities of going back in time.  You mention many things in the book, but your title, I guess says it all. Can you elaborate on changing fate?

Author – Sure, I have an opinion on just about everything, including fate. I have been trying to determine if fate is male, female or God. Is it good or evil? Do you know for sure what it is?  One thing I have concluded in my research of the subject is that fate is pretty much the status quo. Meaning, when fate is known, fate, whoever, or whatever it is, does not like being changed. Especially meddling with the past, which my interloper character Ed Drummond does. One thing is clear you can’t cheat fate. No way can that happen. Again I accept fate, but think it can possibly be bent, which this story certainly does.

Splash – Tell us a little about yourself.

Author – Okay, my day job is CPA and financial consultant., which I have been  doing for almost thirty years. My night pastime and joy is writer, author and publisher. This is my second book, the first was a children’s book Ode to Miss Jasmine Cat which was featured in CAT FANCY MAGAZINE.. As you see I do not have the typical writer’s profile.

Splash – Anything you wish to add to our conversation today?

Author – Rescue missions are heroic. Answering a SOS call across time and attempting a rescue mission takes kahunas. Can I say that? I wrote this book for all you lovers and dreamers that can see all the possibilities out there with a smile! You will thoroughly enjoy Changed Fate.