What would happen if a video game became reality? With YA author Bradley Caffee

Episode Transcript:

Introduction

CJ Milacci:

Welcome, my friend. You are listening to Read Clean YA with CJ, the podcast for teens and young adults who want to explore exciting worlds, deep themes, and epic stories without the objectionable content. I’m your host, award-winning young adult author CJ Milacci. And in this episode, we are going to dive into an author interview with my friend and fellow young adult author, Bradley Caffee.

Bradley Caffee discovered his love for storytelling during his twelve years of speaking and teaching as a pastor. He graduated at the top of his class in 2000 from the Moody Bible Institute before going on to complete his M.A. at Dallas Theological Seminary, ultimately pastoring churches in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Orlando, Florida. When vocational ministry ended in pastoral burnout, writing became a critical outlet for Bradley during his recovery, which resulted in the birth of his debut novel series.

Bradley and his wife of 23 years now own and run multiple small businesses, including Alexander Homestead, a nationally top-ranked wedding venue and was featured on Season 9 of Lifetime’s Married at First Sight.

When not managing his business, he enjoys losing himself in reading and writing fiction, especially YA dystopian, where he enjoys showing that hope can invade darkness. He is a stock-holding fan of the Green Bay Packers, a bit of a body builder and fitness freak, a complete Star Wars geek, and an avid board game player. He, his wife, their two teenagers, and the world’s three most unmanly dogs, live in North Carolina where they just finished work on their very own backyard hobbit hole.

Bradley, welcome to the show.

Bradley Caffee:

It’s great to be here CJ, thanks for having me on.

CJ Milacci:

Yes, I’m so excited to have you and to dive into this story. Today, we’re going to be talking about his new dystopian book. I love dystopian and so does Bradley. And today we’re gonna talk about his newest book, Sides. And I would love for you to just share a little bit about it with our listeners.

What is Sides about?

Bradley Caffee:

Yeah, so Sides was just kind of this story that was birthed when I had this idea of so much of our culture, we’re kind of focused on our phones, you know, kind of always looking down and I imagined what would happen if the tables were turned? What if our phones began to take over us? And I imagine this world, you know, seeing all these young people that play these games and are obsessed with kind of these online interactions that they have, what would happen if those online interactions began to dictate their actions? uncontrollably. What would happen? What kind of chaos would descend upon the world? So that’s really kind of where the story got its birthing place was what if this happened?

And so essentially Sides is about a game really a game that everybody’s obsessed with nationwide and the game begins to take over its users and they start turning into their avatars. So instead of hunting each other online They start hunting each other in real life. And the story is told from the perspective of a young man who his dad didn’t let him play. So he’s watching everything, you know, descend into madness around him and nothing’s happening to him until he finds out his young sister was secretly playing the game, but had just started. So she is a low level player. She is fresh meat for the kill. And so he’s got to run to protect her.

CJ Milacci:

This story is so exciting and it takes place like right at the beginning, right before this all happens, right? So the computer game hasn’t taken over anyone yet. The first chapter kind of opens with the main character a little annoyed that the rest of the world is as obsessed with this game as they are. So it’s intriguing to look at the story from that perspective. I love worlds that begin with a what if question that kind of just explodes it in the craziest possible way, which you definitely did with sides. So I started this book, I haven’t finished it yet, but I am already so into it and loving it. And I think especially for the male readers out there who are looking for that male protagonist in a story, they’re gonna love this book in particular.

We kind of already talked about how the story came about in your mind, that dreaming what if scenario that led to it. Who do you think is going to resonate the most with this story? Are there readers or book, readers who read certain books or readers who like certain things that you think would really love Sides and the elements you’ve put in there?

Bradley Caffee:

I mean, yeah, outside anyone who just loves sci-fi or dystopia and those kind of people who are going to pick up any book like this and read it. Really, I wrote this book for my son. My son does not read what I write. He’s not interested. He is not a reader, but he is a gamer. And his world and in fact, I’m wearing his headphones right now. His world is wrapped up in some of these online things. This is how he interacts with people. He and his friends are constantly online. And he said, Dad, if you write a story. that involves a game. I could get into that.

So I was really trying to reach this segment of readers or maybe even non-readers who, you know, they’re not opposed to reading, but they’re just looking for a story that appeals to them. And I think some of that young male demographic that this is the world that they’re into, might like to engage in a story that involves those kinds of things. They understand some of the terminology about users and non-player characters and… Some of these things that are introduced in this story, they’re gonna go, yep, I get what that’s all about, and I get why that would play out kind of funny in the real world.

CJ Milacci:

For sure, and it’s almost that demographic that maybe doesn’t have a book written for them as much because they’re in the gaming world, but they might enjoy separating from that for a moment to read a story that kind of touches on the things that they understand in their own life. Yeah, for sure, I love that. I’m not a gamer myself, so I’ve never been good at it. I’m a button masher and always annoyed the people I played video games with, but I have friends who love gaming and that world, and it is a world. There’s stories and friendships that develop just from being in these games. I love that you have a book that’s kind of targeted to that reader or even non-reader who might pick it up just because they resonate with that world.

Do you have a favorite character in your story that it’s like, oh, this is my guy or my girl that I really love writing about or thinking about?

Bradley Caffee:

Yeah, there’s two that come to mind. One is Carley, who’s Tyler’s younger sister, who was secretly playing the game. And that’s not a spoiler, that’s given away, like right at the beginning of the book. I love her character, but I can’t tell you why, because you haven’t finished the story, and I don’t want that to spoil anything. But when you finish the story, you’ll know why I love Carley.

CJ Milacci:

Okay.

Bradley Caffee:

The other one is Brooklyn. and Brooklyn is a character that Tyler meets and she’s part of a community that is trying to protect each other. So the game is divided. You’re either a predator or you’re prey. And so when the game becomes real, the prey start to almost have this herd mentality of protecting each other. And she’s kind of this tough as nails survivalist young woman who Tyler interacts with and she’s a prey player, but she’s very high level. And I just love the dynamic that she brings because one of the things that comes out in this story is she played the game as a predator and ended up quitting and starting over as prey. I won’t give away what that does in this story, but it creates this little complexity to her ability in the game, in the real life game, and what she is able to do that becomes absolutely pivotal to the story.

CJ Milacci:

Wow, I’m so intrigued. Another reason to pick up the book later today and keep going with it. Very exciting. I also love the name Carli selfishly because that is my name. So my family all calls me Carli. So I’m like, oh, that’s cool. Spelled differently, but you know, that’s great.

Bradley Caffee:

Yeah. Almost everyone in this book is named after someone I know. I’m sorry it wasn’t named after you, but you know.

CJ Milacci:

That’s so fun. So do they all know that they were named after characters in this book?

Bradley Caffee:

They do. They do.

For example, Brooklyn, that’s my daughter. Her middle name is Brooke. So it became Brooklyn. She’s like, Dad, I want to be inserted into one of your stories. And my son, who I wrote this for, his name is Hunter. And yeah, there’s a character early in the book. He’s a movie star and his name is, his last name is Hunter. So yeah, I told him you’ll be in there somewhere. If you want a bigger role, you got to read my books. So

CJ Milacci:

Yes. Hey, that’s a great ultimatum there. See the next story with your name in it and you just have to read my other books first.

How Hope Can Invade Darkness — Deeper Themes in Sides

Now let’s talk a little bit more about the theme behind your stories. So I know a big theme for you is hope. Even in your bio, you say that you enjoy showing hope that can invade darkness. And it’s something that I am so passionate about, something I believe is vital in our world today for people to understand and especially for teens and young adults where hopelessness seems to be abounding more than ever before. So I would just love to hear from you. Why is this theme so important to you? Why is it something you’re so passionate about?

Bradley Caffee:

Particularly with this story, I look at younger people today, and really people of all ages. I mean, gaming is not just limited to the younger generation, but it’s particularly prevalent there. There’s this sense of not knowing who we are as people. And one of the reasons the online world is so appealing is we can sort of reinvent ourselves. We can recreate ourselves into this fictional person in this fictional world where we seem to advance very quickly and we can do whatever we want. And we kind of understand that. We’ve created it so we can kind of wrap our fingers around what it is. But it’s to the detriment of coming to understand who we are. And I think that leaves a lot of younger people, especially just with this. sense of hopelessness when it comes to finding out who they’ve been created to be. And this book is a bit of a hyperbolic look at that. Like what happened if we fully went over the edge into our online persona and it took over us and we really became that person. And there’s really the sense of wanting to encourage people to look up from their devices and to see the world around them and to understand that they are an incredible person who was made to be creative and wonderful and beautiful and inventive and do things that nobody else can do. that that’s who they are. That’s where they will find hope for their future. That they were created for purpose and they don’t need to dive into this fake persona that at least they understand. That they can understand who they’ve been made to be.

CJ Milacci:

I love that and identity and purpose are so much a part of hope because if we think that we don’t have a purpose It’s easy to just become depressed and give up on life and want to create a world where we can understand everything and we just make it what we think is the “best” thing or whatever So I love that picture and that idea of like let’s look up. Let’s see the world around us Let’s realize that there’s a bigger purpose here than just you know this game or this thing that we thought was so cool for a while, which really leaves us empty at the end of the day.

Because like you said, we were created for more. So until we walk in that and embrace that, we can’t fully understand all that we were made for. And I hope many readers get that theme in their own hearts and lives. That that’s something that they walk away with because it’s so vital.

So this sounds like something you actually did on purpose, like that you had an intention when you went into the story with that in mind. Did you or is it something you kind of discovered after the book was written that you had woven that theme into it?

Bradley Caffee:

I think I found it part way. I really just went in to write a good story. I had this idea. I said, let’s run with it. That’s how a lot of my books begin, is I just kind of have a, I know where I am at the beginning and I kind of know where I want to get to at the end. I have no idea what the middle is going to look like. So I think about partway into the story, I started to realize that this was not just a survival story.

This wasn’t just a story about characters having to live out this game that had become very real. It was also trying to figure out who they are. And you see the game through the eyes of this non-player character that when the game suddenly becomes real, he doesn’t understand who he is in this new dynamic that the world operates under. He’s a nobody. There’s even one point where like, you know, this predator player comes up to him and like smells him and says, you’re a non-player, you’re nothing. And he doesn’t understand how to help the world around him because he cannot engage in this thing that’s going on.

And yet he discovers that being a non-player character has advantages and he’s able to use them for the protection of his sister and the other people that he’s met. So yeah, it was kind of a gradual sort of thing to where I got to the end of the book I was like, oh my goodness, this is really a story about identity and who we are. And I won’t give away the big ending, but at the ending, there’s a person who has to make a very important choice. And that what they choose is gonna determine who they are for the rest of their life. And without giving anything else away, I worked that in because I’m like that. That’s really what this story is about.

And I tried to write a little bit about it in my note at the end of the book of just letting people know you are so much more than this thing that you’ve created online. Yes, that’s comfortable, but there’s so much more outside of that is so much better. And we need to lift our eyes up from our device and see that person.

CJ Milacci:

That’s so powerful and it resonates with me for sure. And I’m excited for this story and how God might use it to really encourage certain people to see that they’re more than that.

And I mentioned this before, but I do believe that as much as the whether it’s an Instagram persona or a gaming persona or whatever online virtual persona there might be, there’s something that is fake there and we feel that. And that emptiness begins to really weigh on us. If that’s where we’re focusing and living and finding our identity and purpose, it’s just so much a shadow of what we’re supposed to be and who we were created to be that it leaves us feeling empty and lost. And I do think there are those vital decision moments. And so I love that there is a point in your story at the end, which I can’t wait to get to, where that character has to make that choice.

Because how often is that true in our lives where there’s a crossroads and the decision we make is going to have an impact on the rest of our lives? And I think what we choose to do, if I choose to always live in my persona online or if I choose to actually embrace who God made me to be, that’s going to make a difference on what actually happens over the course of my days. And that’s something that’s weighty but also kind of exciting because we realize, oh, there can be something bigger to my life than just this thing I’ve created. Because our creations are often feeble attempts at something so much bigger that we know in our hearts we were made for.

What started you on your journey to be an author?

Bradley Caffee:

Yeah, you know, well, you mentioned a little bit of my bio. My former career was as a minister. And unfortunately that ended in burnout. Topic for another time. Something I have a lot of passion about seeing happen a lot less. I believe it’s on the rise. It hits me, hits very close to home for me when I see it happen in other people’s lives.

But I guess when I exited my career, I really didn’t understand who I was. I didn’t understand what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life. And it was a very dark season for me. I was actually diagnosed with depression during that time and had to see a therapist for a lot of years as part of my recovery. And it was early in those days that I had the idea suddenly come to mind about my original debut trilogy. And I had a friend who pulled me aside. He said, Bradley, he said, you know, the only time you seem to light up is when you talk about writing a book. I think you should do it. Because you don’t have much else right now.

And it was just kind of this very blunt honesty of this friend of mine who said, you’re in a dark place and I don’t like what I’m seeing, but you smile every time you talk about writing. So why don’t you give it a shot? And I was unemployed, had lots of time on my hands and sat down and started to type out my debut novel and discovered this world that I really enjoyed being in. I loved writing story and loved diving into the characters and seeing the plot come together.

I sometimes feel very apologetic about being a writer because I got into it very late in life. I have no degree in this. I never set out to be a writer. I hated books growing up and yet now here I feel like I’m playing catch-up in the writing world. But I love every minute of it. I love penning these stories and why do I write dystopian? It might just be because of where I was at in life when this when this started. I was in a dark place and I was holding onto any glimmer of light that I could find.

And I guess I wanted to write stories that mirrored that. That showed people that it doesn’t matter how dark a season you’re in, there’s still hope. There’s still reason for joy. There are bits of light that can shine brightly in the darkness that we can hold on to tightly and cling to get us through because the dark times don’t last forever. There is a way out of them. There is hope to be found. We just need to give it that time and to be patient with the process. So I guess I write dark stories for that reason because I like seeing the redemption at the end.

CJ Milacci:

Thank you for sharing because I’m sure that’s a difficult time to even remember. Those hard seasons, it’s like the desert that we crawl out of and sometimes it’s hard to even look back on them. So thank you for sharing that with us. And I’m sure there are many who understand and relate and can think, oh yeah, I’ve been there. I’ve had that dark, dark season where I feel like I don’t even know who I am anymore. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or who I’m supposed to be. And that is a difficult place to be in. And I love that Jesus used parables to teach deep truths. And I think he still, God still loves to take stories and use them to teach deep truths to us and bring us out of dark places.

Because sometimes hearing the same thing you’ve heard or for you even that you taught over and over again, it doesn’t really matter. But when you pick up a book and you’re like, well that character’s in a real dark place and they’re real low right now and I can resonate with that. And then you can watch how they come out of that and find hope. That can bring hope to our own lives. And we realized like, oh, maybe I don’t have to live here. Maybe this dark place isn’t the end.

And I know in my own life, I had a really dark depression season, which I had never been depressed before. It was so weird to me. I didn’t understand depression until I had it in my own life. And then it was like, oh, this is what that is. This is why that’s so hard. And in the middle of it, it’s hard to see that that’s ever gonna end. I had people say, oh, this isn’t all that God has for you. You’ll be out of that. And that’s not how you feel when you’re in the middle of it.

But then to pick up a story, that can say that and that can speak that truth. And I know stories have been so powerful in my own life for helping me in those dark times, because it gives you that escape. But when we have a bigger hope too, than just this world, and we know that God has a plan that’s bigger than just this moment, that can also give us that hope to come out of the season that we’re in, this dark place that we found ourselves in. And thank you for sharing, and thank you for writing these kinds of stories. I know it’s important, especially in the world we’re in now, how many people? just see hopelessness abounding in their own lives, in their families, in the culture around them.

So I’m sure even listeners now can resonate with where you’ve been and have some hope that they might too see the other side of that one day in their lives by God’s grace.

Hobbit Holes and Fun Behind-The-Scenes Facts about Bradley Caffee

To move on to a slightly lighter topic here. You shared some very fun things in your bio, lots of just interesting tidbits about you and things that you’ve done. I feel like we just need to highlight one of them because it was a little bit ago now that we talked about it. I don’t even care which one. You have that very fun list at the end. Although the one that I’m most intrigued by is the fact that you have a hobbit hole in your backyard. Like that is fantastic. So what inspired you guys to create a hobbit hole?

Bradley Caffee:

A couple years ago, we finished our home construction. We, you know, we stayed in our same neighborhood, but they were building some new homes and we liked some of the models. So we’re like, let’s move. It was a great time to sell your house. And so we managed to sell our house at the peak and buy before the new construction went crazy. So it was an ideal time for us to jump on that. So we bought this plot of land and built this house that we love.

But one of the things we didn’t love about it is the backyard was flat and then it was a giant hill and we’re like, what are we going to do with this thing? And we had a lot of ideas, you know some raised gardens and things a staircase going up. We built all of that, but when we brought out our landscaper we just got to talking about this one section of the hill that just seemed really useless and He’s like are you guys like into nerdy stuff? I’m like, what are you talking about? Cuz I kind of am. He’s like, What if we like constructed a hobbit hole? And oh my goodness, like of course, I immediately was like, yes, this is an amazing idea. Oh, my wife, who’s not as nerdy as I am, she grew up with her dad reading her The Lord of the Rings. So she was all about it. And he’s like, well, I would love to just do it as a project, I’ll do it at cost.

So we started this construction project and he brought out the heavy equipment. He dug an eight by eight room into the hill made out of cinder blocks and then covered it all up. And we now have a working operating hobbit hole in our backyard, complete with a green round door. You can open it. It’s not a facade. You can go inside. It has wood ceilings. It’s got hobbit-sized furniture. It’s got a little fireplace. The one ring is sitting on the mantle next to Bilbo’s pipe and the pictures of his parents and everything.

CJ Milacci:

Amazing.

Bradley Caffee:

I don’t know what we’re gonna do with it. It’s just kind of, we just kind of wanted it. And we figured, yeah, we actually had some neighbors turn their nose up to it. They’re like, what are you guys doing? You’re bringing down the value of our home. I said, uh-uh, for the right buyer, this raises the value of our home.

CJ Milacci:

Definitely,

Bradley Caffee:

It’s been so funny to watch other people because a lot of people walk in our neighborhood. It’s just kind of a nice place to be outside. And people walk by who haven’t seen it. And I’ve got some security cameras on the exterior of my home and I’ll watch them sneak up my driveway to get a good look.

I remember this one morning I woke up and the cameras were going off and I open it up and there’s this one she’s tiptoeing up the driveway and she sees it and she does this like hopping dancing like oh my goodness they actually really built a hobbit hole like she was so excited but the funny part was her husband back at the sidewalk who was just shaking his head doing this like really you’re sneaking up their driveway to look in their backyard kind thing so it’s made quite a splash um And I figure if the next owners of this home don’t want it, they can convert it to a shed or a wine cellar or anything they want to do.

But we unapologetically built a hobbit hole in our backyard and we love it. It’s got some natural air conditioning because it’s partly buried in the ground. It’s kind of a nice little place to go hide when you need to.

CJ Milacci:

I love it. That’s fantastic. And if you ever want to do a dystopian story with a hobbit hole in it, you have a perfect inspirational place to go sit and think about the story. 

Bradley Caffee:

There we go. It’s my very own hobbit-sized storm shelter, I guess. Ha ha ha.

CJ Milacci:

It’s fun to have those unique pieces because they’re the things that start conversations. People you may never have talked to before will actually start chatting with you about because who doesn’t love talking about something cool like a hobbit hole, right?

Bradley Caffee:

We had someone ring our doorbell a couple weeks ago. Just rang the doorbell and said, I see your hobbit hole, can I go take a closer look?

Never met her, complete stranger.

CJ Milacci:

Oh, I love it. Well, I think we’re just about out of time for today, but before we go, can you just share where readers can find you and your book and connect with you?

Where can you find Sides and connect with Bradley Caffee?

Bradley Caffee:

Yeah, definitely check out my website. It’s bradleycaffeee.com. You can find me, of course, on the social media channels. Instagram is the best place at bradleycaffeeeauthor. And then, of course, my books are in all the usual locations. Sides is pretty much on Amazon because I publish through KDP, so that would be the best location to locate that. If you do search my name, Caffee, it’s gonna think you’re looking for a coffee product unfortunately. So you have to tell Amazon, no I really want Bradley Caffee, not Bradley Coffee. So then you’ll find me, no problem.

CJ Milacci:

Yes. And we’ll have links to all of these things in the show notes to make it nice and easy as well. And Bradley Caffee, thank you for being on Read Clean YA with CJ. It was so much fun getting to have this conversation with you today.

Bradley Caffee:

Thank you for having me on CJ, it was great.

Wrapping things Up

I hope you enjoyed the conversation with Bradley Caffee. It was fun for me to get to chat with him and hear more of his heart behind his stories. Since recording this episode, I was able to finish Sides, and boy was it an adventure. There were unexpected twists, shocking moments, and glimpses of bravery that came in different ways. This book was a blast. And I have a feeling that if you enjoy the gaming world at all, you’ll find this book to be something you can relate to. As fun as it is to dive into a story that explores what would happen if a video game took control of its players in real life, I think the deeper theme behind the story is even better. And Bradley did a wonderful job of displaying this theme throughout the story in organic ways.

Note for Sensitive Readers

I do want to give a quick content warning for sensitive readers. As Bradley and I discussed during the interview, the premise of Sides is that the game becomes real, so people actively hunt each other. The violence is never graphic and is often “off camera” or off the page, but it’s worth noting if you (or a younger friend or family member) might be a little more sensitive to these things. Again, Bradley does a great job of dealing with some scary elements without it being over-the-top or gory, but there are life and death stakes throughout the book.

As he mentioned at the end of our interview, Sides is available primarily on Amazon, and I’ve included a link in the show notes for you to head over and grab your copy.

Don’t Forget The September Goodies Giveaway!

Bradley Caffee has also graciously agreed to include an eBook copy of Sides in this month’s giveaway, so don’t forget to check out the September Giveaway for Read Clean YA with CJ and find his book along with some other great Young Adult books.

Coming Next Week

Next week I’ll be talking with YA author Candace Kade, author of Enhanced. I love this book, and Candace is a great friend, so I am excited to share that interview with you. Don’t forget to tune in.

Thank you so much for listening to Read Clean YA with CJ. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend so they can discover exciting, clean young adult books too.