Interview with D. B. Goodin, Author of Downpour: It's Raining, It's Pouring (Rhymeworks)

What's the story behind the story? What inspired you to write this book?

Downpour started with the nursery rhyme everybody half-knows, and nobody finishes: “It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring. He bumped his head and went to bed, and couldn’t get up in the morning.” Read it slowly, and it’s a death notice sung to toddlers. I wanted to know what it would feel like to be the person inside that rhyme — one tester, one night, one house, a company paying $1,500 a session to find out why nobody gets up in the morning. It’s a prequel-scale entry point into my Rhymeworks series, where a VR company called Paratext Innovations runs nursery rhymes as live scenarios. If the series is about refusing to repeat, Downpour is the negative image: a story about what it costs to surrender.

If you had to pick theme songs for the main characters of your book, what would they be?

June Halloran (the tester): “Riders on the Storm” (The Doors)

The house / the Rhymeworks scenario: “Enter Sandman” (Metallica)

Paratext Innovations (the people watching the telemetry): “Every Breath You Take” (The Police). A stalker song disguised as a love song, which is exactly what corporate monitoring is.

Marcus, if you want to include him: “Everybody Hurts” (R.E.M.)

YouTube Episode Playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGdLDu7CMsGA

What's your favorite genre to read? Is it the same as your favorite genre to write?

I read widely across horror, hard sci-fi, and the occasional thriller, but I keep coming back to anything built on a system. A set of rules the characters have to learn and exploit. That’s why I write dark LitRPG and system horror: it lets me put a rulebook in the reader’s hands and then show what the rules cost. So yes, same genre — I write the thing I wish I could find more of. Think of Stephen King’s Dark Tower and all its variations.

What books are on your TBR pile right now?

Other Worlds Than These by Stephen King and Peter Straub.

What scene in your book was your favorite to write?

The second time June reaches the Morning Door. The first time it’s just a door. The second time she knows what it means, the house knows she knows, and the entire chapter is two parties pretending nothing has changed. Writing a scene where the tension lives in what nobody says was the most fun I had with this book.

Do you have any quirky writing habits? (lucky mugs, cats on laps, etc.)

Most of the time, I just get down to the writing. I create instrumental playlists ahead of time for each book and sometimes for each scene.

Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?

Every system has an exit. The question is who it’s built for.

If you could choose one thing for readers to remember after reading your book, what would it be?

That surrender isn’t the same as giving up — sometimes it’s the only move left that’s still yours. And that nursery rhymes were never for children. They were warnings we taught kids to sing so we wouldn’t have to say them out loud.