Name of Author: Sarah Hines
Title of Book: Hubris
Favorite Authors: Edgar Allan Poe, Khaled Housseini, J.K. Rowling
Bio: I started trying to write poetry after reading "The Raven" when I was eight years old. Turns out I am not really a poet. I moved into story writing and always been in the process of writing a story since I was ten. Hubris is my first finished work.
When not writing, I work for a company that assists people with intellectual and developmental disabilities during the day, and then jaunt on over to an office that expedites passports and visas at night. Occasionally, I go to school for International Relations and Anthropology when money/time permits.
Hubris
https://www.wattpad.com/story/36628972-hubris-wattys2015
Can you tell us what your book is about?
Hubris centers around the Sirens; nearly-human beings that are controlled by their megalomaniac father, Alexandros, and protect humanity. The youngest of the original Sirens, Telese, plans a coup with her sisters and nieces when her father decides to "purge" the number of humans in the world. She seeks help from the Light World, linked to human progression, and the Dark World, linked to destruction. She is also trying to control the power that made her responsible for the destruction of Atlantis and Pompeii when she was young.
Who is your target audience - and why?
I'm aiming for the millennial group. Hubris deals with a cool paranormal setting, for sure, but it also speaks on current international and political topics, the need for involvement in the world around you, overcoming the trauma of abuse and having compassion for the last person you would expect to. I believe that this generation is on the brink of big changes regarding how the world is run, but is also feeling pressure to disregard the information that they're getting from the boom in technology and social media—something that is far more available to them than generations past. There's a lot of pressure to keep things as they are, or even to regress back to an isolationist time, where new cultures and international crises were regarded with skepticism and suspicion. My writing is aimed at the people who are at that line; the people that will choose the next steps we take.
What is 'paranormal' about your story?
The paranormals are the Sirens, which are human-like women that are able to use what they call "Old Energy" to manipulate the natural world around them, as well as some modern technology (based on the key energy being electromagnetic energy). The Light Lords—being from the Light World—also use this energy. The Dark World use something very different that they keep well-guarded from the Light World and the Sirens. There are also three Eternal Beings: The Creator, who is the head of the Light World, The Dark One, the head of the Dark World, and Alexandros, in charge of the Sirens and humanity.
Does it contain other genre elements, if so which ones - and why?
I suppose that it does have traces of historical fiction on the basis that the background of the Sirens—especially Telese, who was responsible for the destruction of Atlantis and Pompeii—are taken from stories in ancient History. But predominately, it's a paranormal fantasy.
Tell us about your writing process - how do you get from story idea to a Wattpad published story?
With Hubris, I just started writing. Even before I knew about the conflict between Telese and Alexandros, the mythology behind creation, the importance of the book that Eric is translating, I just started to write a scene. The first part of Hubris written is the first chapter (the prologue was only very recently written) at Telese arguing with Mortimer and it spiraled from there. I made an outline halfway through, at the insistence of my best friend, and when I realized that the story now had a plot and a goal. Once the outline was finished, I had the direction to go, I played the "what if" game, where you completely change one even or more in your story. In the literary world, what you're looking at would be considered the "first draft", but by the time the chapter is up on Wattpad, it's in its third or fourth version. After that, and the precursory look-through for grammar and spelling, it's posted. I try not to edit it too much more after I'm moderately satisfied with it. Wattpad is the test drive phase—the place to see whether or not this story is good by readers' standards.
Did you encounter any challenges when writing, if so - how did you overcome them?
Time. Time to write and edit was—and still is—the biggest challenge to me. I have taken to drastic measures. I have a pen and notebook with me at all times, to jot down notes that I think of. I've downloaded the Microsoft Word app on my phone and wrote just about all of the last quarter of Hubris on my hour and a half morning and nighttime commutes. I've bribed friends with food and cigarettes to help edit a chapter or two. If I can find just half an hour in my day, I make certain that I can either get to my story or otherwise write down the changes I want to make and put them in the minute I have a chance. Recently, I printed off my story at the FedEx office story and that has helped editing immensely. It becomes both a blessing and a curse that you have roughly five or six different versions of your story when you have this many different copies of it, but it helps with the time issue. I've also begun to write the second installment, Nemesis, while I'm editing Hubris to keep both stories fresh in my mind amidst the chaos of working two jobs and commuting back and forth between Maryland and DC every day.
You often hear that 'writing well' is the baseline for success. What does that mean for you?
I think most people think of 'writing well' as a magical process that only a select few have the ingrained talent to do. I've loved writing since I was a very young child, so I've always paid close attention to grammar, spelling, consistency and things of that nature. That is your baseline of your baseline. After that, for a story like Hubris, it's research. It's amazing how much is researched in my story. Not just the history, but things like how to hold a weapon, the various cultures that the Sirens bond to. I even spent an hour researching windsurfing, because of a scene where two characters, Morgan and Layla, are watching windsurfers on the Brandon Bay near Morgan's home in Ireland (also researched: the entire fecking layout of Brandon, Ireland, and the view from different angles of the Brandon Bay). Did I need all of the information? Not currently. But it may come into play later, so research I did. That is the key. To make your characters and world as real as possible, there is a fair amount of research that will be involved.
