Vintage | Phoenix Interviews (𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐒𝐄𝐃)

FirstNailInTheCoffin

Dy had a very special opportunity to sit down with two of CLN's founders, Tori and Zaid.  They share a  joint account on Wattpad, FirstNailInTheCoffin and are the authors of Scripted in Blood and Pursuit For Perfection.

Hello, I'm Dayeon from Crazy Late nighters. You've been nominated by Karen to do an interview. Thank you so much for taking the time to do it.

Before we kick off, what name or pen names would you like to go by and what are your respective pronouns?

Tori: I go by Tori, and my pronouns are she/her.

Zaid: Nice to meet you Dayeon. You can call me Zaid and my pronoun is he/his.

Great to meet you Tori and Zaid! Let's get started.

If you could describe each other in one sentence, what would that sentence be?

Zaid: A stubborn and ambitious woman who is apparently fueled by the darkest of humor.

Tori: Oh wow, this could easily get messy xD

I'd have to say Zaid is a five year old locked inside the body of a 25 year old; cute and not very bright.

Hahah yes it could, but amazingly it hasn't.

You both seem to have pretty distinct personalities (or at least distinct opinions on each other). How did you come to the arrangement of writing together?

Zaid: You see? Both of us had plans of doing many things together but writing together was never one of them. However, we both enjoyed writing characters and then one day we were bored enough to write characters and surprise surprise, we fell in love with the characters and couldn't help but write their story. And now here we are, writing together and bickering about it all the time.

So you wrote the characters and both fell in love with them and went from there? That's pretty cool. Amazing characters certainly need stories of their own!

Speaking of co-writing, Karen would like to know what it's like to co-write everything together and do you ever argue over the plot?

Zaid: All the time. But Tori will explain the rest. Hahaha

Hahah I can imagine that you wouldn't agree on everything all the time!

Tori: Co-writing is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, you get to go through the writing journey with the other person, and that really is an amazing experience. I can't imagine doing this alone anymore xD On the other hand though, since we're two very different people, it isn't often easy to come to an agreement and, yes, we argue all the damn time. It's usually small little things that have no real significance. Other times, it will be something bigger. We once had to cut out an entire section of the original plot because I didn't agree with it and refused to keep it in!

Wow! That sounds like a real mission, but it's amazing that you both manage to pull it off so well you'd never guess reading Scripted in Blood that two people are writing it—everything is so consistent.

Speaking of consistency, do you have any tips on keeping a plot consistent?

Zaid: I don't think we should be the one to be asked this question. Like to be honest, even a lot of prominent authors struggle with this because people often change which changes the way they want the story.

However, if you are anything like us, I would say never hold back from reading your own book. Again and again. And again a few more times. The more you read it, the clearer it becomes and you find out where your plot isn't consistent and fix that. And if you want to prevent it, just make sure you remember what happened before in the story; maybe keep notes or tattoo it all over your body but remember stuff.