Fantasy Authors Interview

Meet Monstermakers

We've got another awesome Fantasy author for you today. Hailing from the country of South Africa, please welcome  monstermakers and let's hear what they've got to say.

What is your Wattpad Username?

monstermakers

What is your country of origin?

South Africa

What other languages aside from English can you speak fluently?

Afrikaans

Do you think it's important to build your author personality? Why? How have you built yours?

I think it depends on the reason why the author is writing. I write primarily to entertain myself and then I share my stories in the hopes that the readers will get to experience some of the joy that I had writing the story.I think that building up a author's personality is a way to signal to potential readers what kind of book that they get when they read it. Having said that, I do know that I don't want to limit the type of story that I write to only that which matches my author's personality.

What/who inspired you to start writing?

I generally spend my day thinking about over-the-top situations. Writing is a way to explore what would happen in those over-the-top situations and to get past the first thought.When I was about 12-13 years old, I was part of a school team that would compete agaisnt other schools in the region in quiz about popular South African and International books. I read alot at the time in order to prepare for the quiz. I developed an appreciation for written works at the time, and I like how with books, you can go back and re-examine what was said to see if it changes your understanding of the events. I guess I want to be part of the tradition which allows people to escape their own world and pretend to be someone else for a short while.

Please tell us about your story/ies on Wattpad so that readers could find them.

"The Characterisation of Annabelle le Roux" is a situational comedy with a double narrative. It follows the story of an author who has prehaps received premature success and is now making not particularly well thought out plotting and character decisions in dystopian fantasy production that he is in charge of. 

What does a typical writing day look like for you?

I wrote "The characterisation of Annabelle le Roux" for Nanowrimo 2019. Before writing the story I had plotted out the story and had made a list of key scenes that I wanted in the story. I did most of the writing for book by hand on the bus/train while commuting to work. It was written out of order. During the pandemic, I rearranged all of the parts of the story to the correct order and wrote a couple of bridging paragraphs where the story had large jumps in it. I write the story by hand in order to force typing of the story as the first edit.

What do you think of multiple POVs? What do you think is an effective way of keeping up with them?

I think that multiple Point of Views in a story can work, but in general it is better to keep to a single point of view.When we live life in the ordinary world, we can only access our point of view and we can only guess and infer the motivations of other people. I think that one of the things that makes writing good is when it is relatable and one way to do that is to limit the number of POVs. Having said that, I have enjoyed stories with multiple points of view although I tend to think that third person narration is the most natural form of story telling.

What makes up an appealing storyline and conflict in Fantasy stories?

I'm not sure that it is any different from any other genre. A character finds themselves in a situation where they are forced out of their comfort zone and are requried to grow.That, and the possiblity of magic and dragons.