Fantasy Authors Interview

Meet Neil

He's a Watty Award winner, even though he once hated books. Please welcome Neiljhart, and below is the interview we had with him.

What is your Wattpad username?

Neiljhart

Is there a story to how you got your username? Tell us about it!

It's just my name Neil J (John) Hart. Nothing page-turningly exciting, I'm afraid.

What or Who inspired you to write?

Terry Pratchett made me all in love with reading. I hated books before I discovered his Discworld series and then I was hooked. Ian Livingstone's 'Fighting Fantasy' series were also key for engaging me in wonderful, horrifying, dangerous worlds that I could lose myself in but still have control over. These two (and hundreds more) writers and novels made me love the written word and want to create fantastic worlds and epic adventures of my own.

Share a favorite quote with us!

I have two: "Everything ends badly, that's why it ends." And: "If you weigh all the spiders in the world, the weigh the same as all the humans."

Can you describe your perfect writing area?

Sofa. Duvet. Pillows. Coffee. Snacks. Laptop. Playlists.

Describe Fantasy as a genre in your own words.

Wow. Fantasy is huge. Fantasy combines everything and can feed into anything. But I suppose to classifying a story as Fantasy then it must include something that is not possible, or does not exist, in our reality anyway. Be it Darth Vader or Lyra Belacqua or Santa Claus. A haunted mansion, a city in the clouds, or a realm of aquatic Kings and Queens. For me, fantasy must have a grounding in what we know but twisted in a new way that challenges what we know and takes us somewhere new, inspiring, frightening.

Please tell us about your story/stories on Wattpad so that our readers can discover your works.

My Watty 2021 winning book 'The Last Scarecrow' (although winning for Horror) has huge fantasy elements including a flooded planet, a war between talking birds and re-animated mannequins, a sea-bound scarecrow trying to find her missing sisters, and the last human girl on Earth. I would compare it as 'Return to Oz' meets 'Waterworld' in 'Wonderland'.

My most recent book, and Wattys 2022 shortlisted (hopefully Winner by the time you read this), is 'Sadie Madison and the Boy in the Crimson Scarf', an urban steampunk fantasy adventure about a girl who cannot forget. Sadie discovers that she is connected to The Vents (a dimension where all forgotten memories reside) and conjures a strange music that unearths the secrets to a prophecy set to rip The Vents apart.

What's your favorite Fantasy book/books on Wattpad?

Elana A Mugdan's "Dragon Ascendant' is awesome.

What Fantasy sub-genre do you prefer to write?

Like all my stories, I prefer darker storylines and fallible heroes. I also enjoy urban fantasy and magic realism too!

What does your writing process look like? Are there steps you follow in terms of working on your projects?

I plot heavily. Usually a 5-8k word treatment of the entire book / main story line and then break it into 30-40 chapters. Then the drafting begins. I usually write fast, vomiting up the words until I have 100-120k. I walk away for a few weeks, plot something else, and then come back and edit out 25% and begin to mould it into a workable manuscript.

What is/are your favorite type/s of characters to write? Why?

Villains are always the best to read about, to watch, to write! You can have so much fun inventing a backstory for a character that goes from the light side to the dark. What event(s) in their life lead them off the road to goodness and started them down the dark pathways to evil and wrong-doing. Dark emotions like anger, rage, and hate always feel more powerful but need to be tempered with hope, conflict, and redemption.