As part of my tour with Bewitching Book Tours, I did an interview with “The Book Junkie Reads” ~
How would you describe your style of writing to someone who has never read your work?
Some reviewers have told me that I have a unique style of writing. That is because I use a lot of gerunds that I don’t always connect with the preposition “and.”
Let’s take a look at a couple of scenes that convey the same emotions, but in different ways.
“Lily!” he called. “Where are you?” He opened the door.
His wife sat on the sofa. She glared at him.
“What’s wrong?”
“As if you care to know!” She got up and flounced off. She banged the door behind her.
This is how I would write this scene.
“Lily! Where are you?”
Opening the door he spotted his wife sitting on the sofa, glaring.
She was glaring at him.
He came forward. “What’s wrong?”
“As if you care to know!” Rising, she flounced off, banging the door behind her.
A gerund is a verb that has an “ing” ending in English. I use it often as it conveys movement. And I like to have the reader moving through a scene rather than staying put, as I think it is more interesting.
Do you feel that writing is an ingrained process or just something that flows naturally for you?
Nowadays, it seems to flow naturally. But I had to work very hard to get to that point. When I started out writing fiction over twenty years ago, my writing style was academic and filled with jargon. That is because for the past fifteen years, I’d been working in Academia as a Cognitive Scientist. I had to design and run experiments. I had to find subjects and gather data. Then I had to write up my results in as clear a fashion as I could manage.
It wasn’t until I tried my hand at fiction, that I realized how limited my writing style was. You see, when you do science, the words you use are propped up by the facts you are trying to convey. But when you write fiction, you don’t have any props. The words have to carry all of the weight.
And so I started taking courses. I was lucky enough to be invited to the 2005 Harper’s Ferry Writing Workshop hosted by Michael Neff, who did a terrific job of teaching story-telling mechanics. I took similar courses in San Francisco. Eventually, I found my way to the Low Residence MFA Program in Creative Writing at Lesley University in Cambridge Massachusetts.
The professors there were wonderful. But they didn’t teach story-telling mechanics. Instead, they focused on character development and word choice. And so, I learned an important lesson—that the reason why so many literary novels are not that interesting to read is because their authors focus on character and word choice, but don’t deploy story-telling mechanics.
However, I do, as I believe that the reason why most readers pick up a book is because they want to lose themselves in a great yarn. Yes, beautiful prose and interesting characters are important. But the reader wants to be drawn into the story.
As an author, you do that by teasing the reader constantly throughout the novel, so that they are dying to know what happens next. As I see myself primarily as an entertainer, who has a lot to say, that is how I have chosen to write my novels, novellas and short stories.
Have you found yourself bonding with any particular characters(s)? If so, which ones?
Yes. I seem to bond with most of my strong female characters.
My first novel, THWARTED QUEEN is a fictionalized biography of Lady Cecylee Neville (1415-1495). She became Duchess of York and an important political player during the Wars of the Roses, which erupted in 1455 and lasted over thirty years.
There was so little to go on about Cecylee, as medieval women were not deemed important enough to talk about by the monks who did the scribing. However, I was able to glean that Cecylee was a strong-minded woman who had her husband, the powerful Duke of York, wound around her little finger. It also seemed probable (to me at least) that she probably had an affair with a handsome archer that resulted in the birth of a baby boy who, later on, became King Edward IV of England.
I am still very fond of Cecylee. For all her many faults, she was an intelligent, charming woman, with a mischievous streak.
My second novel, originally called FAREWELL MY LIFE and now titled THE HIDDEN MURDERER series is more autobiographical. It concerns a 17-year-old girl who went to Berlin in the 1920s to study the violin. Naturally she has a fabulous talent. Of course, she is extremely good-looking.
Grace, my violinist, was meant to be the main character. But, of course, I gave myself a mountain to climb by making Grace extremely shy. And not given to talking much!
Violet, her slightly older sister, was an entirely different matter. She was meant to be a minor character, whom I planned to get rid of so that I could focus on Grace. But Violet had other ideas. She decided she was going to stay. But her liveliness and witty retorts put her sister in the shade. However, far from resenting her, I grew very fond of her. I loved her lively personality, her common sense, and her street smarts.
My third piece, the TWELVE CURSED MAIDENS series is, like THE HIDDEN MURDERER series, a series of four novellas.
In Volume One, MAIDEN TOMB, my main character is 16-year-old Justice, the seventh daughter of a cruel father and dead mother. MAIDEN TOMB is a retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses folktale with elements of Greek Mythology woven in. So Justice has eleven sisters to cope with. Their father has locked all of them up in a tower, and they are desperate to leave. Especially as Justice’s elder sisters are all ladies in their early to late twenties, with the eldest princess being an elderly thirty years. The elder princesses bear the mental scars from their long imprisonment. And so it falls to Justice to set them free.
What I loved most about Justice was her quiet authority. Despite the fact that she is only sixteen, she exudes a maturity that is far beyond her years.
Can you share your next creative project? If yes, can you give a few details?
I am in the middle of writing THE TWELVE CURSED MAIDENS a series of four novellas.
I have already written Volume One, MAIDEN TOMB, which you can find on Amazon and other places.
I am planning to publish Volume Two, MAIDEN FORGOTTEN on 12 January 2027!
MAIDEN TOMB is a retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses folktale. But the rest of the series is not like The Zodiac Academy, where you follow the same cast of characters through their story arc as each new volume arrives.
No. My series is quite different. You see each further volume focuses on a character from the folktale. MAIDEN FORGOTTEN focuses on the father of TDP, the one who locks his daughters up in a tower. Now what would happen if that father happened to be Genghis Khan?
Volume Three, MAIDEN SACRIFICE focuses on the soldier from TDP. This is the young man who figured out why the twelve princesses were disappearing each night, only to return with their slippers in shreds.
MAIDEN SACRIFICE is set in Bronze Age Athens, around 1800 BCE, at a time when The Iliad, The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Rig Veda were composed. It is also when the Trojan War occurred.
Now what would you do if your foster mother threatened to sacrifice you to Athena to save the City of Athens? Especially if you were not the maiden requested but a mother of seven under the age of eight?
Volume Four, MAIDEN WARRIOR focuses on the old woman from TDP. She is the person who told the soldier not to drink the wine offered by the eldest princess, as it is drugged. In the folktale, this woman had been offering this advice to all the young men who came to try their luck. But the only one who listened was the soldier. As a result, he not only won the hand of the eldest princess, but he also saved his life. For, according to the Brothers Grimm, all the other suitors were executed.
MAIDEN WARRIOR is set at the end of the Ice Age, around 9,700 BCE.
Now what would you do if the High God Zeus punished your people by appearing in a swirl of flames and searing cold, causing droughts, fires, plagues, and destructive whirlpools of water that destroy your city?
Where would you flee?
And how would you protect yourself from Zeus’s wrath in the future?
Behind the ruined slippers lies a true story of unimaginable devastation in an era of Ice and Fire.
If you could have dinner party with 7 fictional characters, who would they be?
Elizabeth Bennet from Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, for her “pert remarks.”
Prudence and Robin Tremaine and their father Lord Barham, from Georgette Heyer’s The Masqueraders, for their devilish cleverness.
Thea and Lepida Pollia from Kate Quinn’s Mistress of Rome. Lepida Pollia is a spoiled rich aristocratic girl who is pretty clueless. Thea is her clever slave.
Violet Miller, from my series of novellas THE HIDDEN MURDERER, for her sassy comebacks.
