Stephen King. James Patterson. Patrick Ness. To a Binghamton High School student named Joseph Falank, those were the names of people who wrote books; he never thought that his name could be on the byline of a published novel. Sure, he wrote stories, but not ones that people would buy at Barnes & Noble. Fast forward 23 years after his 2001 graduation from BHS, and that’s exactly what people are doing.
Falank has always loved to write; he wrote stories as a Binghamton student, inspired and encouraged by teachers like Joe Wolfer, Amy Baumes, and Andy Mullen. He continued writing as an adult and it was during a conversation with his then-girlfriend, and now-wife, that Falank decided he would get his work published.
“We had this conversation about what was something we always wanted to be. I always dreamt of being an author, having my name on the cover of a book,” Falank said. “So, we decided from that point we were going to work towards our goals. She got me a notebook with a pen and I actually hand-wrote the first draft of a young adult novel."
That novel, Seeing, would be the first of six published works for Falank. While Seeing is “strictly YA (young adult),” Falank describes his other five books as “contemporary family drama, but some of them linger in the supernatural.” Despite most of his work fitting into a similar genre, the author says he doesn’t pigeonhole himself into any one particular kind of writing.
“I don’t sit down and think ‘oh, I want to write a romance story’ or ‘I want to write a sci-fi story.’ I just have an idea and however it comes out, it comes out,” Falank said.
That’s his process, and Falank notes that each writer has their own. He says some authors don’t plot or plan, they just write. Others, like him, map out ideas that assist in his writing process. But it’s all about being flexible and continuously working to make the next version of the story the best. Falank says he writes four drafts of his stories before anyone else reads it - advice he passes along to aspiring young authors.
“Get your first draft done; let it sit for a little bit, then go back to it and read it with fresh eyes,” Falank says. “The first draft is the most important because you want everything that’s in your head on that page. Don’t let anyone else read it because you don’t want to get discouraged by what someone thinks of it. So, make that first draft, set it aside, go back to it, and then change what you want.”
His latest novel, The Vanishing At Echo Lake, was just released this fall. With his sixth published work under his belt, he says he is already working on his seventh.