Meet The Authors Showcase Edition #1 (1 of 3)

A showcase with @TitaniaTempest, author of dark of the sun

1 what inspired the idea of your story?

Dark of the Sun is a combination of so many influences that it's hard to keep track. The idea for the world of Andoherra and its stories had been torn apart and compounded upon a million times before I ever even set pen to paper. If I had to break it down to an original seed, though, I would say that the first idea popped up when I was watching the TV series, Merlin. I enjoyed Morgana's character and had a whimsical moment where I wished there was a fantasy story with a lesbian-sorceress love story along the way. This evolved into the idea for more female characters in fantasy in general, and not just in the LGBTQ+ vein. I wanted to read so many of my favourite stories again, but with female protagonists, and I guess, all in all, that's where the idea for my story came from. I want to write the kind of books I'd love to read.

 2 what is something you struggled constructing with your story? 

The biggest struggle was where to start! The concept for Dark of the Sun has always been bigger than the actual novel – I wanted to create an entire new world. So trying to figure out where to sink my teeth in at first was quite hard. For example, I'll let you in on a little secret - the Main Character actually didn't appear until the last minute. Most of the rest of the cast already existed vaguely in my head, but I realized that I needed a central character in each story to kind of tie it all together... Once I got that figured out, the rest of the story grew on its own.

3 what did you enjoy writing most of your story? 

Well, people are still reading it so I'm taking that as positive feedback! There are a few who have actively commented (shoutout to those guys!) and they seem to have enjoyed the story, so that's super encouraging. I'm exploring some new story arcs (and styles) at the moment so I hope those go down well, too.

4 what's the overall response of your story from your readers? 

I love writing the characters. They're so diverse, independent, and hard to control! Half the time I don't think it's me deciding where the story is going – the characters really do seem to have the power to change the whole plot! I love that each character lends their own flavour to the story, and I enjoy writing their stories and following wherever they take me.

5 is your story a stand alone novel or a piece of a series ?

Dark of the Sun is a bit of both. It's a stand-alone novel, but there are other stories set in the same world. So in that way, it's part of a series but the stories don't need to be read in a particular order. Each one can be enjoyed in its own right, even if you never read the others.

 6 what would you like your readers to take away from your story?

I would like readers to take away a sense of wonder, and a little bit of love for female characters in fantasy

 7 what advice would you provide to fellow writers, when it comes to focusing on their own story? 

JUST WRITE IT. No matter what, even if you feel like you're writing nonsense some days, just WRITE it. You can always refine and edit and adapt and add to or take away from – but you can't do any of those things if you haven't WRITTEN it in the first place

8 does your main character share any similarities to yourself?

My characters are pretty independent – if they share any similarities to me they are few and far between. They are their own people. Perhaps Jordan liking books and being fascinated by magic would be a similarity we share, but that's about it.

 9 what is something about your story you believe would draw in new readers? 

I don't really know, but I'm hoping that if I just keep writing and engaging wherever I can, the readers will come. (Fingers crossed!)

10 do you have any future projects?

oh  yes. LOADS. Andoherra's a big place, after all