Welcome to our first interview for this month! We are with this talented author TacomaFreckles who penned the story, Lovely, Dark, and Deep .
Dark Fantasy Team: How did you come up with this story?
TacomaFreckles: Once quarantine started last year, I realized I was almost done with my other series (The Grey Series) and that I didn't know where to go from there. I kept thinking of this idea of integrating Celtic mythology into something like 'The Selection' meets 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' meets 'Avatar the Last Airbender' and I just started with the first chapter. Sarah J Maas is my comfort read, I read her books whenever I get upset or frustrated or something so I was leaning heavily on them during quarantine and watching far too many reruns of ATLA. So I started writing. Then it grew from there as I realized Quinn and the ladies in the book had the potential to be so much more than what I'd originally thought, so I kept expanding on the world and the plot.
DF: Tell us something about your protagonists.
T: Quinn, the last Forest Druid, is everything I aspire to be in life. She's so sure of herself and is intelligent and ridiculously athletic, she's friends with the scariest beasts in her Forest and rides a massive elk. If I could casually ride a 12 point elk everywhere I went I would. She follows her instincts more than logic and tends to prioritize herself and her home above all else, but growing up alone in a forest tends to do that to you.
DF: How do you think a story is considered Dark Fantasy?
T: Dark fantasy encompasses the fantasy stories that have dark themes in them- rather than being [all] magical and beautiful, they depict fantasy with the edge of realism to it- the violence, the ugly, the evil. 'Lovely, Dark, and Deep' features an abundance of dark themes, with twisted multifaceted characters and a protagonist who is both good and evil.
DF: Tell us about your process in building dark fantasy scenes and worlds.
T: Pinterest. Pinterest and watching Lord of the Rings over and over again. Saruman's tower kinda inspired me as far as the architecture for the city of Kalys. Also Sarah J Maas. Lots of SJM. Reading about her designs for ACOTAR and ToG helped me design my own. Reading other fantasy books helped me come up with ideas for my own. I've read around 50 other fantasy books while writing Lovely, Dark and Deep and it helped me flesh out ideas more by seeing what worked for other authors.
DF: What is your writing journey? Tell us about it especially your journey with your dark fantasy book.
T: I started writing my freshman year of college, primarily because I was bored and I couldn't find any books that were what I wanted to read. I was in a Fallen Angel niche for a while, so that was when I wrote the Grey Series. I did it mainly for myself, not at all realizing that it would become as big as it did. I became so attached to writing every week, to thinking about scenes for my books. When I realized Grey was coming to an end, I frantically began writing this book, and then came to the realization that this could be bigger than Grey and was probably the best thing I'd written. I spent all of quarantine working on it, creating character boards and massive plot lines, character arcs- fleshing out the story.
DF: Are you writing other genres? If yes, how do you think dark fantasy compares to the other genres you're writing? What are the challenges in writing dark fantasy?
T: I wrote Urban Fantasy (The Grey Series) before writing Dark Fantasy. Writing Dark Fantasy is a lot harder in my opinion because you have to create all of these rules for your own world, all of this turmoil that doesn't exist in the real world, whereas urban fantasy- I can steal from real world turmoil and use that. I didn't realize how hard it would be to create darkness instead of just taking it from the world around me.
DF: Do you consider yourself a plotter or a pantser? How does that work with writing dark fantasy?
T: Plotter for sure. I planned out the whole plot line for Lovely, Dark and Deep before I got past chapter 3. I just find that writing with an end goal helps me stay away from writing filler chapters (which no one likes to read) and use everything for a purpose. Every word said or thought by my characters has a purpose, is a hint towards something going on behind the scenes. I love it when authors do things like that, and I find I am more able to do that when I plot everything out.
DF: A mirror is known to show a person their deepest desires. What do you think it will show you?
T: I think it would show me as a doctor one day, which is my ultimate goal in life.
DF: What are the goals you'd like to accomplish in the future whether at Wattpad or in your writing career?
T: I really hope to become a published author and one day be able to buy my books in a bookstore. It's just my dream to be able to walk into a bookstore and buy my own book.
The WattpadDarkFantasy team would like to thank TacomaFreckles for agreeing to the interview and providing us some more insight on their story, Lovely, Dark, and Deep! Be sure to check it out and support the author!
- The Dark Fantasy Team
