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Read My Review for The Deception Here!
On Tuesday, I posted a review for The Deception by S.K. Way. (Click here to read my review) I am trying a new thing on the blog this month where I am doubling up on reviews and author interviews for the same author in the same week. So, I sent some questions over to the authors that make up S.K. Way, Setayesh, and Kaylan, and asked them about their YA Dystopian novel. Check it out below.
Author Interview with S.K. Way
Eliza: Thank you so much for taking the time to answer some questions for me! So, you guys are actually three people that wrote The Deception together. How was that writing together? Did you find there were things about collaborating that surprised or frustrated you?
Setayesh: Of course! It’s a pleasure! We actually did write The Deception together, and we would say it was quite an enjoyable experience. To start off with the good things, there was a lot more creativity and thoughts being put in when we worked together. Things that one of us thought about and then another were mixed to form The Deception. Also, if you’ve ever experienced writer’s block, it was definitely a huge help with that, since you have a mixture of ideas coming in! The only thing that was frustrating at times was getting on board with each other and trying to form a plot we all agreed with. There were times when one of us wanted something and the other, another. But eventually, it did work out well!
Kaylan: Writing the book with my friends was kind of a weird feeling. It felt like some project that we were just doing for fun, but as we pushed past all our concept drafts we got closer to actually making a real book. It felt so great to draw the cover for our book and then see it on a real book. It’s like some goal you can imagine but never really see yourself quite reaching coming true, and then it fulfills itself right in front of your eyes. It’s amazing.
Eliza: I love that you are able to navigate this type of collaboration. I know you thanked your teachers at the end of the book. Did they help offer guidance if you got stuck while writing?
Setayesh: Thank you! Yes, in fact, we did give out a huge thanks to our teachers, and we definitely received a lot of help from them. Without our teachers supporting us, we highly doubt we would have been able to do it. There were so many occasions where we would just start writing in the middle of class, but they were super flexible with us and allowed us to work. One of our teachers allowed us to go to her classroom every day during lunch as well, and work on things and just hang out. Their advice in general when it came to writing, and just everyday things was also a huge help for us, so we definitely couldn’t’ forget them!
Kaylan: Our teachers would let us hold meetings in classrooms to work on the book. We had a lot of fun!
Eliza: That’s so awesome. What a great way to encourage reading and writing! So, let’s chat a little about The Deception. I love the idea for this book. I felt so confused at first because I wasn’t sure what type of world I had just stepped into. There’s really a wonderfully layered story here. How did you keep your plot organized while writing with each other?
Setayesh: In reality, this idea was really greatly inspired by an inside joke, so coming up with aspects of the story weren’t that hard. Most of the time, just to make sure we were on the same page, we kept a chapter-by-chapter summary of what was going to happen. We decided to write a prequel first but then ended up changing a lot. of things. Usually, we were in touch to tell the others of any new ideas we had, and we were able to keep on the same page that way.
Kaylan: We wrote a prequel first. A very messy, awful prequel. It helped define our characters and decide our backstory. Of course, we’d change quite a lot now. It also helped to have a rough outline in a few paragraphs of what each chapter would be about. And it took a lot of discussions and google meets.
Eliza: I have a very important, very serious question here which is which one of you came up with the dancing pineapple? You guys, this was so unexpected and so funny. I know a lot of kids that would get a kick out of something like that just popping up in an otherwise pretty dark story.
Kaylan: It was in the middle of a discussion about which animal each character should represent. Fia was based on one of our real friends who was obsessed with pineapples. I suggested that instead of an animal, she had invented some sort of alive pineapple. A bit more discussing later, it was a pineapple that did karate! Absolutely a fitting symbol for Fia.
Setayesh: Exactly as Kaylan said, it is definitely a great symbol for Fia, and it was definitely one of the best decisions we made!
Eliza: I love how much detail there is about their outfits, the ornate architecture, and the setting as a whole. If it weren’t for all the murder, I would want to move right into that dome. Did you have to do research when you were building your world?
Setayesh: We did actually spend a lot of time scouring through pictures of fancy things on the internet, and putting things we wanted to include on a shared document. We, however, did have a background idea of what we wanted to include, so it wasn’t that hard to come up with things. As for worldbuilding, we just sort of plunged into the story first. The worldbuilding kind of just came along during revision stages, and sometimes there were things we thought about in the first draft. That’s, of course, not to say we didn’t start off with any basic worldbuilding. We did try to get a general feel for the island, the look of things, and those sorts of things before we started, but most things came in the revision stages.
Kaylan: There were a lot of documents with a series of images and descriptions on characters. I even made a bit of concept art, so we had a very firm idea of what these characters would be and look like.
Eliza: How many books do you plan to write in The Island of Blood series?
Both: Our current plan is for it to be a trilogy.
Eliza: You write book reviews as well as write your books. On my blog, I don’t really critique books so much as to share my thoughts about them. But for true book bloggers, it can sometimes be a challenge to figure out if they stand on the more relaxed side of things or on the more critical. Do you have any tips for new bloggers that are worried about writing a negative review? Where do you fall on the spectrum of relaxed to critical?
Setayesh: So, we would say that the best thing to do, is to just say your thoughts. What we like to do is give advice if we know the review would be too critical. So instead of writing the review in those cases, we give tips for improvement to the authors. However, as a reviewer, you’re getting a copy to give your thoughts! Don’t be afraid to share your opinion!
Kaylan: If you have a negative review, that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to bash something to no end. There is a way to deliver criticism respectfully. Just remember that critique is the perfect way to help other creators grow!
Eliza: Do you have any tips for young writers that want to self-publish but are nervous about putting themselves out there?
Kaylan: It seems scary at first. It seems like you’ll never get there. But after you reach your goal, after working hard, you’ll see everything come to fruition.
Setayesh: Don’t be afraid! We definitely were nervous the first time, but just know that you tried and go for it! Not all books are appealing to everyone, so find your audience, and enjoy writing!
Eliza: Thank you again for finding the time to answer my questions. Please share where people can keep up with you and your books!
Both: Thank you as well! You can find us on Twitter at @SKwayauthor or visit our website at https://skwayauthor.weebly.com.
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