Author Interview with
A.A. Warne
Author of: Hidden Truths trilogy, The Reluctant Wizard, and more
I’m currently finishing Hidden Truths Trilogy book
three. This is the next book after Concealed Power. It has turned out to be one
of those stories that get deeper and darker the further I go into it and the
characters keep surprising me.
While I’m finishing that, I’m brainstorming and
planning book two for The Reluctant Wizard. I’ve re-read the first book six
times now and each time I find something new, something important, and Eli
reminds me that the world is just too big to get into a couple of books. I
think he wants me to write a never-ending number of books for him. Wouldn’t
that be nice.
Where did
you get the idea for this book or series?
Concealed Power and The Reluctant Wizard, even though they are two very different books, tend to go hand-in-hand during the writing process. Concealed Power was my first co-written piece with Michelle and we were figuring out how to work with one another. So the process was much longer than normal, but the story was so fascinating and interesting that no matter how hard it got, the story drove us to continue. Meanwhile, I had a little character that kept jumping into my head. That was Eli. He was patient but kept giving me glimpses into his world. I was so tempted to push him away because I needed my concentration on Concealed Power, but he showed me a particular piece of his world and I nearly fell off my chair. Now I can’t tell you what that is because that’s a future book that I’m trying to get to. However, I will say that since that moment, I’ve been successfully writing more than one book at a time.
Do you
write in more than one genre?
I write speculative fiction and this allows me to bend, shape, snap, and mold the genres that are perfect for my story. By remaining as an umbrella over the speculative genres, I don’t have a tendency to nose dive into one genre particularly, and that’s nothing to do with me as a writer, but more allowing the story to dictate where it needs to be. I find that if the story calls for romance, then it should have it. The same for sci-fi and technology, or pushing the plot into thriller. If I had to pick one genre, it would be fantasy. Fantasy for me is amazing, no two writers are alike, the genre feels like it has no boundaries, and writers are rewarded for their unique risks, vast imaginations, and we don’t often face regurgitated content like some other genres receive.
Tell me
about something that you believe makes your writing unique or worthy of
attention.
I have a tendency to twist everything. It could be something small and irrelevant which then becomes life consuming. I didn’t realize this was unusual until a couple of years ago I went to the cinema with my neighbor and her friends. We were watching a movie and when it finished, my neighbor turned to me and said she wasn’t satisfied with the ending. She then asked, if I had written that movie, how would I have ended it. I answered her honestly and little did I know everyone around us – row in front, and the one behind, plus all of her friends, were listening.
They all reacted like my idea would have been a
better movie. Their reaction shook me as a writer because before then, I
doubted my ideas and I told myself that they were good enough. But that moment
change me. I knew then that I think differently to others and their reactions
to my ideas told me to keep going.
Is there anything about your personal history or personality that manifests strongly in your writing?
As early as I could remember, I wanted to be an
artist. I love being creative, in fact, if I’m not creating then it effects my
happiness. I grew up painting and making sculptures while the television was
running a movie that I’d watched a million times over. Little did I know that
while listening to the movie, I was learning story structure, and this has had
a huge impact on me as an adult. Now when I help other writers, I sense an
issue with the structure just naturally and can point out certain scenes or elements
in the character that need to be moved around, twisted perhaps, or even fleshed
out. And then in my own writing, I can’t start writing at all until I know the
overall structure of where the major points sit.
What else would be helpful for readers to know about you?
I’m a huge researcher. If I’m not writing or doing
mom-things, then I’m reading translations of ancient texts, diving into the
world of history, searching for the anomalies on our planet. If you find
something in one of my books and this wow that is strange, changes are, it
happened in real life and it was the perfect gem to drop into my book at that
point in time. Our planet is like a smorgasbord of interesting stuff.
Excluding your own work, what underrated author or book would you recommend that more people read? Why?
The entire indie world is underrated,
underappreciated, and too often laughed at by so-called professionals. The
honest truth is that indies are powerhouses. They write, source everything
themselves and invest their own money into their writing, production and
publishing, and yet they are laughed at and considered no-worthy of a lot of
people’s time. This really is a sad reality for a lot of amazing authors. Time
is changing and I’m seeing a lot of indie authors really make new ground in the
publishing world, but there are so many amazing ones struggling out there too.
So I’m going to say three names to start with and
I promise you that you’ll be blown away: Ross Kingston - Awakening; Beth
Hodgson – Fragments of Light; and Philip Smith – The Brotherhood.
Which of your books do you most highly recommend? Why?
The Reluctant Wizard is by far my best book to
date. The world is so vast and the characters mean so much to Eli, that I
believe book one, even though it’s massive, only skims the surface. One of the
reasons I wrote it was because my own children haven’t read any of my other
works, because of the adult content, and this book is accessible for them as
well as adults. So I wanted a book where we would all read at different times
but can discuss it at the dinner table. Given how many elements and sub-plots
and twists and turns went into it, I believe we will be talking right up until
the next book is out.
Which
break, event, decision, or fortuitous circumstance has helped you or your
writing career the most?
Meeting other authors. Writing might look like a fascinating job, but in fact it can be isolating and you don’t have to meet a single person to make a career of it. It’s perfect for introverts or those who don’t leave the house. However, I call my office the den – like I’m locked in the den, unable to escape. Although to be fair, I do escape into my imagination. So I reached out to other writers and found that a lot of them were like me, writing each day, finding awesome things for our readers and yet forget to socialize ourselves. Meeting other people has ventured from the local to the global and now I consider people on the opposite side of the planet so close, that they’re now family. And my writing has made leaps and bounds ever since.
Do you have a catch-phrase or quote that you like? What is it? And why do you choose it?
I tend to say, nothing ever happens until it all
happens at once. It’s like there will be a week where I’m trying to plan the
next year’s events but then a kid will get sick, the husband has an accident at
work, the dog got sick and passed, I forgot to buy groceries, and all of a
sudden the house is a bomb, I’m behind in writing and on and on and on. It
takes me a moment to go, wow, how did all this happen at once? Then I remember
my saying. I think I need a new saying so that I’m not manifesting this
madness. Perhaps, life is abundantly creative… obviously it’s a work in
progress.
Here are all of my links:
Website: www.aawarne.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AAWarne
Twitter: www.twitter.com/AAWarne
Instagram: www.instagram.com/AAWarne
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/a-a-warne
Allauthor: https://allauthor.com/author/aawarne/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19055682.A_A_Warne
My thanks to A.A. Warne - she definitely submitted the most interesting author photo so far.
As for my own writing: I hit some milestones in the current book (Promise of Carnage and Flame) with 22 chapters done with a word count of about 75K, and some major character and story development issues exploding gobs of awesome all over the place. I'm jiggering with methods for transitioning into the last third of the story so that I can cover the things I had originally intended. A few of the stupendous and intriguing developments in the story struck during the writing process, making the tale better, but longer--the straight line from beginning to end hit some tangled territory that made for some extremely satisfying chapters. However, all good things must come to an end. While this book will not end the series, I have a definite ending for it which fits the time, place, and explosive yee-haw fantasy factor that I've incorporated into this alternative history/flintlock fantasy.
As for short stories, I haven't written any since I started writing full-length novels. I'm contemplating one featuring Quiet Earp and Doc Hollandaise, but can't decide whether it's a sing-off at the OK Chorale, or A bun fight at the OK Bakery. Time will tell--probably a third option I haven't hit upon yet.
If you're in the mood for a good western that is not based upon bad puns, let me recommend: Justice in Season and Justice Resurgent which are set in 1864 & 65 in the Idaho Territory.
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