Undiscovered Gems: The Interviews!

Undiscovered Gem 10: LoriEllisxox

1. What/Who was your inspiration to start writing?

I think I started writing because I was just so annoyed by all the books I had to read, and movies I had to watch. Nobody ever did the things I would do, or said the things I would say! I would be reading the most incredible adventure story and then I would have some awesome idea for the next chapter, it was going to be so amazing, but the author would do something completely different and I would be so disappointed that my awesome story never got told! Eventually I realized that no one was ever going to write the stories in my head except me.

2. What was your very first story about?

I wrote a science fiction story in high school. A scientist invented a way to send messages back through time, except he had the only machine that could receive them so he only ever got messages from himself that were incredibly boring and useless and only ever a few days in the future anyway, because he eventually figured he had to send the message, and he was very impatient and couldn't wait like, a year or ten years to have anything interesting to tell himself. So he put a timer on the machine to send back messages every couple years and then buried it underground where he couldn't get at it, and then suddenly lots of messages started appearing. Then there was some nonsense about having to stop some catastrophe that would destroy the world. Soon after this, I gave up ever becoming a serious science fiction writer.

3. Do you read the same genres as the ones you write?

I love science fiction, which is basically why I gave up writing it (check out @LoveTrishaSpencer's 'Terror on Planet X' to see what I do to science fiction these days). I love a humorous novel, with quirky characters and a fun plot. Or an adventure or mystery novel. I'm really all about the plot, though. Give me an original plot and I don't care about genre.

4. What is your favorite book?

'Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency' by Douglas Adams! It has everything I want in a novel. Quirky characters, (incredibly) original plotline, and humour that makes you laugh out loud even on a train surrounded by strangers who then look at you wondering what is wrong with you.

5. How long does it take you, on average, to finish a story?

It takes me forever to finish a story. Seriously, a whole story, which is maybe 40,000 words or about a third of an actual novel, will take me maybe three to six months. Humorous writing is not something you can rush. I try to think up funny ideas through the week, writing down funny thoughts I had or things I said that made someone laugh and saving them up until I have a chance to sit down and write. Sometimes I try to write more quickly, without thinking it all through first. This is always a mistake. The faster I try to write, the shorter the story gets. Because really, you can summarize almost any story in about three paragraphs. It really takes time though to think up all that conversation and weave plotlines and make everything real and exciting. If I take a week between chapters, I can usually have about three or four thousand words ready to write down by Saturday morning.

6. What is your process of writing like?

Okay, so the best part of my process is in the last question, so I'll just talk about the actual writing here. I work all week, and have a million demands of me on weekends. So I usually get up early on Saturday mornings, maybe five or six o'clock, then go to my computer and write as much as I can for maybe two or three hours until someone comes and stops me and demands I do something else. I will tell you that the first thing I do when I sit down to write is read the last thing I wrote. I check for spelling and grammar and punctuation, but mostly I need to be reminded precisely where the story left off. This is actually incredibly important to make sure the story flows, and has a consistent sound throughout. Then I read through any notes I left myself throughout the week, and wonder what I was thinking.

7. What are your feelings towards poetry?

If poetry doesn't make me laugh then I generally have no use for it. Probably because I am such a bad poet myself. Yes, I have tried to write poetry, but it was always so awful there was no way I could ever show it to anyone because they would laugh themselves silly. Ironically, I've written humorous poems as well, but they are never funny enough to make people laugh. Usually people cringe, but sometimes I get a favorable groan. I'll work on it, though. Maybe someday I'll release a Wattpad book of my best poetry. Because, as Joyce Kilmer would say, A fool like me might write a poem, But only God makes Styrofoam.

8. If you had a pen name what would it be?

I have been toying with the name 'Verity Dare'! I really like the idea of an author who writes herself into her stories, kind of like Alfred Hitchcock always appearing in all his movies. And Verity Dare would be the same. Except she would be a twelve-year-old girl, writing her adventures of traveling the world, meeting spies and evil foreign dictators and criminal corporate CEOs, then saving the world from them. And maybe it all would get away from her, and the adventures she thought she was just writing would turn real. So this would be me, an author who writes stories about herself, writing a story about an author who writes stories about herself. It made more sense when I started this paragraph.

9. Is there a suggestion you would like to give to young/new writers?

Yes: read! Read, read, read. Are you writing a Harry Potter fan fiction? Read a chapter of Harry Potter before you start. Try to imitate the writing style! The words Harry uses are different than Ron or Hermione or you. Think like Harry when you write Harry, think like Hermione when you write Hermione! What if you don't have an original idea? Read a book, or watch a movie, then cast you and your friends in it and set it in your school. And if your friends say, "Hey, didn't you just totally rip off Gone with the Wind?" you can tell them "Yeah, so?" But always start with a plot. Don't start writing and assume a plot will happen. It won't.

10. Who is your favorite Wattpad author?

Without a doubt, my favorite Wattpad author of all time is Wendy Nelson, @WendyWrites! Wendy always starts with an amazing story, then builds it out with believable characters and then finishes with a polished writing style that makes me green with envy! Her stories are fun, with a light humour that's always completely natural. Wendy has appeared in two of my adventures, and no matter what screwed up thing I do to her she just laughs it off. Seriously, I dressed her up like Glinda the Good Witch of the North (bad enough that I would have dropped me as a friend forever), made her into an angry, vindictive sales woman, fought her in a wizarding duel, and most recently I actually killed her (don't worry though, no one actually stays dead for long in my stories). And yet she laughs, and forgives me every time! Best friend ever! ♥ ♥ ♥ !!!

11. CRITIQUE QUESTION: What do you think about Stephan King?

He's not very funny. Let's see. He has moments of undeniable brilliance, but, okay, here's my story... (Why did it have to be Stephen King?) Before I tell you this story, you need to understand something about me. I am completely obsessive-compulsive about reading. I cannot stop reading a book. No matter what, I see a book through to the end. I cannot even start reading another book until I have finished the current book. If I start a book, I read it for one hour, twice a day, on the train on my way to work and home again until it is done. No matter what. So I bought Stephen King's 'Under the Dome'. But I bought the electronic version online, and what I didn't realize, I had no idea how long it was. Do you know that thing is over a thousand pages?! Nothing should be over a thousand pages. So I started reading this book, and the first couple hundred pages were not that bad. Strange things happening, weird dome over the city, big mystery, lots of crazy people trapped and murdering each other. Maybe another fifty pages to wrap it up and wow, what a great story! So, eight hundred pages later and I've been reading this ridiculous nonsense for weeks on my daily commute with no end ever in sight and I'm wondering if this is a bad joke and maybe it will just go on forever but I'm totally OCD and can't stop reading it and ARRGGH! But, another eighty pages and he finishes it. It just, basically, stops. They blame the dome on aliens or some nonsense. These aliens are given absolutely no motive for why they would put a dome over a city, and then someone tells them to take it away and they do. Ugh. The most horrifying thing about that book was having to read it every day, never knowing if it would ever end. So, I'm kinda off Stephen King at the moment. (BTW, this is what happens when you start writing a novel without a clear idea of the plot or how it is going to end.)