Coffee Talks

With Natasha Duncan Drake

Hi, Natasha, congratulations on placing 2nd in Round 2 of the Open Novella Contest! We'd love to hear from you and get to know a little bit about what motivates you when writing works of fiction.

Thank you so much - I was incredibly excited when I heard the news, and thank you so much for the interview.

So, to begin, tell us a little bit about yourself as an author on Wattpad. For anyone who hasn't met you before, how would you describe your fiction?

Well, I am definitely a genre fiction writer, I love all things fantasy, sci-fi and paranormal, but above all, vampires. Vampires are my favourite genre and most of my original fiction on Wattpad is vampire related, although I never met a genre I didn't like, so in the future there could be all sorts since I've published many kinds of book outside of Wattpad. I have a vampire novel and several supernatural short stories on the platform, as well as, of course, the Open Novella Contest entry. The rest is Harry Potter fanfiction (mostly Harry/Draco), which has been a passion of mine for years - I was on Live journal before Wattpad, and I've moved over a few of my older works to share, as well as posting new stories.

Would it be okay to give a shoutout to DrarryCentral - a great profile where I have met and engaged with lots of wonderful Harry/Draco fans.

Let's talk a bit about your entry for the Open Novella Contest, Mina's Children: The Legacy of Dracula, can you tell us about the book and its premise?

The premise behind the book is that Dracula did not die under Jonathan and Quincey's knives, nor was Mina completely cured of the vampire taint. Bram Stoker was a bit of a hack who stole her diaries about the whole incident, so some things in his book are right, others are not. Mina has passed evolving supernatural abilities to one in every generation of her family. Of course they went into the vampire hunting business. The latest of her descendants is Reggie, and Reggie knows her one purpose in life is to end Dracula who (for reasons you'll have to read the novella to find out :)) has survived every attempt on his life. Her first major problem is that other people are after Dracula too, and they think she's the enemy.

It is based off the prompt I was immediately drawn to on Wattvampires about the undead creature terrorising the Borgo pass in his carriage, who now has his eyes on the free world, and our only hope is a descendant of Mina.

What drove you to use this particular prompt? And how did you shape the story with the prompt in mind?

Well, I might have mentioned how much I love vampires, and Dracula is one of my favourite vampire legends in all its many movie and book adaptations, so the prompt jumped off the page at me.
What vampire fan wouldn't leap at a chance to mess around with the Dracula legend? :)

It also fit well with Reggie, who I'd been working on for a while, and having her be Mina's descendent really helped give me some direction for her. I always knew she was a vampire hunter and she was of a supernatural persuasion herself, and the prompt gave me a hint as to why. It really helped shape her into a whole character.

What were some of the challenges you faced when writing Mina's Children: The Legacy of Dracula ?

The first challenge was deciding where to start the story. There's not as much room in a novella as there is a novel, which sometimes ends up an advantage in that we have to be selective in our choices, but is always a pain to begin with. It was a matter of picking the right moment to dive in to get enough into the first 2K to hook readers. I almost started a scene or two earlier, before picking my spot.

However, ending was the biggest challenge - it took me the longest time to decide how to finish it. Everything I was coming up with seemed so obvious and, well, frankly, boring, so I had to have a long think. Luckily inspiration struck in the middle of the night one day and gave me the way to go. Now the remaining challenge is getting everything in, in 20K, or as close to as possible.

Tell us about your experience participating in the Open Novella Contest.

I have really enjoyed it so far. I've made some friends and I have so many stories I want to read. I haven't had as much time to check out other entries as I would have liked because I was in the middle of some outside Wattpad projects when the contest started, but now they are done, and once I get the rest of Mina's Children finalised, I plan to take a good look. So much lovely fiction to read.

The three stage arrangement has been thrilling. Hat's off to all those running the contest, because it's been great, thank you so much for all your hard work.

It's been interesting too, because usually I don't post original fiction until the first draft is done and I'm just editing, or I at least have everything planned, but with this contest I've been posting as I go along. A lot of fun, but a bit hairy at times ;).

If you had the opportunity to shout out one other book which is participating in the Open Novella Contest, which would it be?

It has to be Cursed by the Crown by Rather_Be_A_Unicorn - it's an exciting supernatural tale with werewolves, vampires and other creatures, as well as political intrigues and family strife.

Lastly, because we're always curious... What was your first ever experience with the power of the written language?

When I was young I always loved reading, but it was when our Primary School teacher read us The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien that everything changed. That was when I knew I wanted to write, and I wanted to write about elves and dwarves and dragons and everything amazing and wonderful (I didn't get into vampires until I was a teenager - I blame The Lost Boys :)). I filled pages with words, that were undoubtedly terrible and probably boarding on plagiarism, given how young minds learn, but it was a start. That was when the writing bug bit and it never let go.

I would like to thank every author I have read, and every person who has ever helped me with writing advice or just lovely comments, because it's been an amazing journey, that just keeps getting better and better.

It's been great hearing from you, Natasha, best wishes in your future endeavours from our team.

Many thanks, hope the final round runs smoothly for you.

Our goal is to bring you many more exclusive interviews with people who aren't just Wattpad Stars or Staff, but also some pretty awesome authors.
In that quest, next we will be talking to Milo Maia, so stick around for more fun!