Conversation Post: K. A. Webb

This is an experiment. If it works out I may do some conversation posts for my characters, but this one is for me. Come and ask me about anything you want – about my writing, about James, about the dogs I look after when I’m not writing, or anything else that might come to mind. Any answers that get a bit long might end up in their own post. I’ll do my best to answer every question, although I’m not going to go into any more detail about James’ illness, as that is something I know he’d prefer me not to talk about too much.

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Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

Conversation Post: Answer 1

From: ysabetwordsmith at DW.

You mentioned using a local-to-you hotel as inspiration for the Donor House. What other influences does your environment have on your writing?

With pretty much all of my Earth based collections I try to set them in places I know, because that way I can describe the location better than I would if I was trying to set them in America or France or even Scotland. It is, of course, possible to research these places, but no amount of research can give you first hand knowledge of a real life setting. That’s why the second donor house will be located in the town I grew up in and it’s likely that the third one will be located somewhere in Devon. I know both of those places well enough to be able to write in detail about them.

The park the fae take over when they arrive on Earth in the Fae World collection in the park opposite where I live. The college that Anna goes to in the Pagan collection is the college I went to. The majority of the Kim’s World collection will be set locally, although it will be further in the future, so it will be slightly different to how it is now.

Personally I find it much easier to write if I know where I’m setting the story, although some do come to me purely with characters to begin with. There are still some stories that I need to work out where they’re set, like with Claire’s inherited hotel, but I know it’s local to me, as that’s closest to where one of the main doors was.

My environment can have an effect on my magical worlds too, as I’ve lived in the UK my whole life and know more about the weather here than I do anywhere else. However I’ve found it much easier to understand how it differs in other places than I have trying to understand a city by walking the streets on Google maps, which gives me more freedom to change the way things work. Aerith, for example, is a world that has only one season, because the collection is based on a dream I had where I walked through a magical doorway from Autumn into Winter. Originally the World Walkers collection was going to be a series of worlds with only one season each and I’m still planning on working that in somewhere.

The kingdom Aurora lives in has a very UK based weather system. Like me they deal with four seasons, although they are more seasonal than the ones we have, where you know what’s going to happen from one to the other, rather than wondering if they’re actually going to have a summer. Heliopath’s World is one I know a lot less about, although I know there are deserts, because it was always going to be set in the city.

With each of my fantasy collections I’ve tried to use a mix of what I know and what I can learn, along with a little magic, to make each of them different from the other and different from worlds that have already been created.

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

Conversation Post: Answer 2

From: ysabetwordsmith at DW.

Why work with dogs rather than cats?

Pure luck. I happen to live with someone who started to run a doggy day care and that meant I ended up working with dogs. Personally I seem to be one of the few people who don’t have a preference one way or another – I like cats and dogs equally. Everyone else seems to have a favourite. I’d happily work with cats and dogs – with one of my plans being to open a rescue place for all pets if we happen to win the lottery.

James prefers cats. I know he’d much rather have a cat day care and he’s often talked about us getting a cat when we aren’t sharing a house, but living here has showed him how wonderful a dog can be, so we’re planning on having dogs as well. We’re probably going to have rabbits as well, because I grew up with all three when I was younger and I miss having a rabbit.

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

Conversation Post: Answer 3

From: ysabetwordsmith at DW.

What are some of your favorite themes in writing?

Magical doors. I love to throw a character through a door that leads to another world and see what happens. Although, with the way I write, normally the character has already gone through the door and is urging me to write their story. The World Walkers has the most magical doors now, but originally there were more on Kalinia, as that was where the fae lived and they’re the race with the ability to create them. I doubt, once all the fae who could create doors have moved on to their next lives, anyone will be able to do the same thing again, but it might happen.

Creature races. You’ll be seeing more of these as I write more stories for the World Walkers and Fae World collections. So far I have the Nox Gadael, the Alati Felis, the Terra Lepus, and the Griffins that I’ve actually written about from their perspective. Elizabeth Barrette created the races of Quiar, which I’m really happy about, because they’re something different to write about and there are some races I really want to start writing stories for when I have a chance.

Magic that affects people in different ways. This is something I try to explore in all of my fantasy collections. Magic is something that I give rules and limitations too, because I don’t want it to be something that is there to fix every problem that exists, and it always creates problems itself. In Aurora’s World magic is illegal, because I wanted to see how that would affect people, it can kill you, and there are people who might want to steal it from you, which could also kill you. In Heliopath’s World the more magic you use the worse it affects you – Heliopath calls them withdrawal symptoms, but that isn’t truly what they are, because they don’t know as much about their abilties or how they work as they should. In the Brotherhood magic is something that manifests as a young age and from then the children who have them have to learn how to deal with it, as well as the different people who want to use them for different things.

People who change. I have to admit this is mostly going to be a male thing, but there are going to be women who go through the same thing. What I’m trying to write is the redemable bastard, who eventually learns from their mistakes, although with some of them it is just a face they’re showing because they’ve dealt with a load of crap throughout their lives and it’s the only way they can deal with things. Eventually they will come to realise that they can move on from whatever it was and change. Of course at the moment this is just in my head and I still have to get it down on paper, so there’s every chance some of them might turn out to be unredemable.

Living with adversity. This is something I have experience with personally, so it’s something I like to write about, although sometimes the adversity isn’t something that we could experience, like being turned into a vampire. Showing how people change and grow is my aim with this. One of the things I’ve always been fascinated by is how vampires deal with the world changing around them in ways they probably never would have expected when they were living in their own time. Another thing I want to write about in the future is domestic violence as I think it will help with some of the demons I’m still dealing with from when I was younger.

Relationships and sexuality. In my writing I want to explore different ways relationships work – from monogamous to polyamorous – and different sexualities. I want to have gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, and any other sexual you can think of characters. Reading a story about a character who’s like you can help with coming to terms with who you are, so that’s something that’s important to me.

Being different. I’m not NT. It’s something James and I are learning to deal with, but it’s not easy, in part because it’s not easy to explain the way my brain works to someone who’s more NT than I am (although James isn’t exactly NT either). So I want to write about what it’s like to be dealing with these things, so that people know they aren’t alone.

These are also some of my favourite things to read about, because sometimes I’m in the position where I feel alone, especially when it comes to being different. I don’t have diagnoses to say that I am this or that, but that doesn’t changes who I am or what I’m dealing with. Getting to read fiction with a character who’s dealing with the same or similar problems does help.

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.