BEHIND THE WORLDS
ABOUT ALEX ALCOR
I've been making up stories for as long as I can remember. At eight, I published a neighborhood newsletter and filled it with my science fiction stories.
Science fiction hooked me early—Star Wars, comic books, strange worlds, impossible situations. But what has always fascinated me most isn't the technology or spectacle. It's the people caught in the middle of it. Give me a flawed character, put him somewhere he doesn't belong, and take away his ability to control what's happening. That's where the story gets interesting.
I've almost always had a book in progress. For years, writing was something I fit around the rest of my life. Then COVID arrived, and I decided it was time to stop talking about finishing a novel someday and actually do it.
DARKLIGHT STARTED WITH A FALL
One morning, I was sitting outside a small restaurant having coffee and reading something on my phone when a man suddenly fell beside my table. I jumped up to help. Other people did too. Some moved toward him; others stood back and stared. For a moment, everyone was focused on this man who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. We helped him up, and he was on his way.
When I sat back down, my imagination took over:
Where did he come from? What if he'd fallen through a portal?
What if he'd escaped from someplace terrible and had no idea where he'd landed?
What if the place he'd escaped to was just as dangerous as the place he'd escaped from?
That moment became the seed for Darklight.
TECHNOLOGY, STORYTELLING & A LOT OF “WHAT IF?”
I spent more than two decades working in technology, including leadership roles supporting Walt Disney Studios, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Bros. Entertainment. I later worked in data privacy, information security, and artificial intelligence.
That experience taught me that technology designed to solve one problem has a remarkable ability to create another. We're very good at asking, Can we build it? We're not always as quick to ask, Should we? What happens when something goes wrong?
Those possibilities have a way of finding their way into my fiction.
I earned a Certificate in Screenwriting from UCLA Extension and continued studying fiction writing at UCLA, Gotham Writers Workshop, and other writing programs.
My writing process begins in perhaps the least romantic place imaginable:
Microsoft Excel.
I outline the major story beats, character goals, and obstacles before writing a deliberately messy first draft. The first draft doesn't have to be good. It has to exist. Once it exists, I can pull out the carving knife and get to work.
AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD
I spend my time with my partner, our two bulldogs, and friends. I love epic movies, binge-worthy television, and characters I get far too attached to. I also love hiking, where some of my best story ideas seem to arrive when I'm out on a trail.
And I'm up at 5 a.m. every day writing because I love it that much.
WHY I WRITE
Ultimately, I write science fiction because I'm driven by two words:
WHAT IF?
What if the impossible happened? What if our technology got ahead of our ability to control it? What if someone escaped one terrible world only to discover the supposedly safe one wasn't safe at all?
I hope my stories give readers characters worth caring about, worlds worth exploring, and an intriguing adventure they can disappear into for a while.