The world of fantasy writing is exciting and vibrant. So it is a pleasure to feature other fantasy authors, their writing journey and their books. Today I am talking to three different authors.

Cassie Greutman has published Regen, the first volume of her Penchant for Trouble series and will soon be releasing Book 2.

Darren Hassell is a budding author who will launch his new series next year.

Tiffany Hoyt has finished her first book and will launch soon. 

Interview with Cassie Greutman – Author of Regen (Penchant for Trouble Book 1)

How did you get into writing?

I started when I was young. I read a lot and went through all the books at the library. While waiting for new books, I started making up my own stories. Since then, I have pretty much always been working on something, with occasional interruptions because of work.

What do you like most about writing?

I like being able to make the decisions. I like happy endings and feel disappointed when it ends in a way I wouldn’t like, when I think, “Wow. I would have done that differently.” If I am writing, I get to make those choices. I can create the characters that I want with the personalities I want.

I also enjoy getting in the zone. Everything else goes away when I am concentrating on the story. Then I can escape normal life for a bit.

What do you like least about it? 

I’m not a fan of editing. I like to get the story down and not fix the nuts and bolts. I did hire a typo/copy editor for my first book. Then, for the second book, I won the services of an experienced editor at a charity auction. She has worked on several published authors, and her review of the book was very helpful. Normally I couldn’t afford that service. It’s quite expensive and on a cost/benefit analysis wouldn’t merit the investment for me. Fortunately, I now belong to a couple of writing groups who have just as good ideas, and know what works and doesn’t work. I would still have a copy editor to check grammar and typos because it is hard to see these yourself.

What fantasy authors have inspired you?

I like Kristen Britain, who writes the Green Rider series and Patricia Briggs who writes urban fantasy. I normally don’t like wherewolves and vampires because they have been overdone but she writes so well that I enjoy her books. Regen is an urban fantasy.

Where do you find other fantasy writers?

I went through a lot of lemons before I found a good group. Then I found a more permanent group on Facebook – an invitation only group. I had made friends with another writer whose views I respected and she invited me in. You have to swap with a lot of people until you find the right type for you. Or you can start a group yourself. The problem with groups where you have to critique loads of other books before earning a review yourself is that you can invest a lot of time doing it instead of writing and then the comments you get back can come from people who write other genres and land up giving you comments that are not helpful.

Did you have a launch strategy? 

Mostly I panicked. I read of lot of articles on it and then launched on Kindle. I did some of the Kindle Countdown deals. Now I have gone wide but I do miss the page reads from Kindle Unlimited. I wanted to go wide particularly for Ingram Sparks as they put their books into libraries.

I keep experimenting. I got book reviews from book clubs and from Book Sirens where you do pay a small amount. I also use on-line Facebook groups. Fiction Café is my favourite.

Cassie is launching the second book in her Penchant for Trouble series early next year.

 

 

Interview with Tiffany Hoyt – Budding Fantasy Author

How did you get into writing?

I was an avid reader as a kid. I just loved stories and how the plot progressed. Then when I was 12 years old I got bitten on the foot by a dog and couldn’t get out for a month. So I started writing my own stories. I went on writing through high school and college. My professors wanted me to write literary fiction but I didn’t want to. So I actually lost the motivation to publish anything for a while, because I felt guilty that what I was writing wasn’t literary fiction. It was only a few years later, when I was at work, that I realised I could write whatever I wanted to and that was OK.

What do you like most about writing?

Making the characters. When I’m reading it’s the characters I like. So I love making them jump off the page. I want the reader to become invested in the person and then I send that person off on adventures. I think about how they would react to certain situations and how that changes and develops their character. Do I want them to be funny, or loyal or whatever. My heroine, Emery, develops more bravery and independence throughout the plot, because she has to. She is doing something on her own for the first time.

What do you like least about it? 

I hate editing – it’s the worst. I want to hire an editor but I’m not at the point where it would be worth spending the money. I’ve found a couple of plot holes that I want to plug first.

I’ve written two short stories and want to use them and my first chapter to attract readers. So I looked for an editor on Fiverr but even that was $125 for just 6,000 words. So the cost for the book is considerable. The problem is I don’t trust myself to catch everything because I know the book too well. I want it to be as perfect as I can get it before publishing. I often read books from Kindle Unlimited and hate it when I find typos and bad wording.

What fantasy authors have inspired you?

I was obsessed with Harry Potter. Then later on discovered Dean Koontz and Stephen King who are more like horror writers. So now I write dark fantasy which is influenced by both the fantasy and horror side. I like popular artists and books – I just want the simple stuff.

Where do you find other fantasy writers?

I don’t really know. I’ve been to two conferences in Boston but it seemed that everyone was in their shells, like a bubble around them and I was hesitant to break through. I was excited about going, took along my business cards, and was ready to talk but found the energy was different. I’ve had a new idea which is to go to small shops and take little classes. For example, I’m going to attend six classes of a fantasy writing course. I hope it will be a way to meet people. I did the 100 day book challenge twice but you get so bogged down doing the work that you don’t have time to meet other people doing it. I noticed the Story Grid are starting a Writers’ Guild but at present this is rather expensive for me.

I’m lucky to live between two big cities and now that I am not quite so busy work-wise hope to take advantage of this to meet people. Next time I will ask open questions whereas before I started with “What’s your genre?”. When the answer wasn’t ‘fantasy’, that closed the conversation down pretty fast!

 

Interview with D.K. Hassall – Budding Fantasy Author

How did you get into writing?

My day job is in marketing but I have been writing in one form or another for a long time. For the last 8 or 9 years I have been writing for a restaurant/food website. From there I made the leap to wanting to write a novel about three years ago. I started by looking on-line for guidance and discovered The Snowflake Method of Plotting (Randy Ingermanson). His blog led me to Joanna Penn’s blog and then Mark Dawson. I decided to immerse myself in the self-publishing process. It has been three years now but I had a big hiatus in the middle when we had a baby. The first book is now with a copy editor, and the second is nearly written. It’s an epic fantasy but I decided to split the original book. So the first is around 70,000 words and the second will be about 100,000. I plan to roll out a third before launching, and to spend that time building a mailing list. Over the three years I’ve been learning the craft of writing and now feel I’ve got more of a template. So I’ve found it faster to write Book 2 and hopefully Book 3 will be faster still. I’ve also written a prequel as a Reader Magnet.

What do you like most about writing?

The satisfaction of finishing. Fantasy is very much about escapism, about compartmentalising that part of my life. I can immerse myself in this world, dive right into it. With a two-year old boy and full-time job, I’ve never been able to write at normal times. I wrote the bulk of the first novel very early in the morning, 4am to 6am, but that made me tired and run down. So now I have to be very disciplined. I write during my lunch breaks at work, then at the weekends, I write from 6am-8am when I can. It’s that discipline that is essential. When I do get the time to write, I do.

What do you like least about it?

I like all the creative side, not only writing the first draft but I also enjoy editing, and have done some editing for others. So there is nothing in the writing process that I don’t like.

One book changed my whole writing outlook: Showing and Telling in Fiction by Marcy Kennedy. It is only a short book but has lots of examples of what this means. I thought I had understood before but this opened my eyes. I found the whole beta reader experience a little frustrating but discovered an excellent developmental editor who was reasonably priced. I am so happy I did because I thought I was ready to go but their critique was fabulous.

What fantasy authors have inspired you?

I have great childhood memories of reading C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. I love Terry Pratchett and also now Philip Pullman and you can see nods to these writers in my own writing.

Where do you find other fantasy writers?

A hundred per cent through Facebook groups. Mostly through Mark Dawson and his SPF community & genius groups. I also went to the London Book Fair and met up with some of the people who are part of the group. Not just fantasy authors have been helpful. For example, a thriller writer who like me is just about to publish, David Lyons who has written a great thriller trilogy, and J.D. Weston who is managing to pump books out at an amazing rate.

Darren aims to publish his series in 2020.

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