Hello everyone! We are behind schedule for the July author interview as we had difficulties to get the last three authors to send in their answers and we had to find new authors to replace the three authors who had signed up earlier for the interview. Nevertheless, I am happy to finally be able to publish the answers from all of them for the interview series.

It’s time to reveal the answers for all 12 questions answered by 12 author participants in the July Group Author Interview, in the 12 genres, 12 authors, 12 months and 12 questions series! Thank you for the support from the 12 Young Adult authors who have participated in this group author interview.

If you are an author and would like to participate in our upcoming interviews, check out this link, sign up and get your fans to ask their questions to the participating authors! The goal of this author interview is to increase the engagement between readers and authors, and to expose authors to new group of readers.

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So, the 2nd question is “It is said to be crucial for YA authors to find the “Emotional Truth” of the teenage experience. Do you agree?”

I think that it’s crucial they try to find that ‘truth’…the question is how. For me, it’s reflecting on the days of my youth and the choices I made. Sometimes, those choices weren’t the best ones, and that means my characters won’t always make the right choices, either. Now,, do all YA authors find that truth? In my opinion, no. But for me, I have–or, at least, I think I have–by recalling what I did then, and putting myself in the shoes of my characters. Perhaps that’s not the best way, but it works for me.

No, because it is part of life to experience challenges and it is up to that person how he or she handles it.

Yes, I do agree with this statement. It is vital that books must be written to appeal to the YA audience. To do this, it is important to include subjects that are relevant to the target audience and with which they identify emotionally.

As a writer, I think it is important to write characters with which your reader can identify with and build a connection with over the course of your story, so yes, I would agree this statement.

I think it depends on what you want your reader to feel. The teen years are a tricky time of puberty, self-identity and first love, and to read about those things in a novel that can support your own experiences is comforting. It makes the novel stand up above the rest as an emotional connection is formed. Having said that, there are some great reads that don’t look to send a message and are fun and light-hearted. I think those are equally important. We don’t always need to learn something.

Absolutely. It’s the latter years of adolescence that really interest me. That period of life when you’re not quite adult, not quite child, when you believe you should know yourself but that knowledge feels like it’s rooted in jelly. Sometimes too wobbly and sticky to fully enjoy the sweet stuff.

Stories must ring true. The conflict must be real conflict, and emotion is absolutely part of that. Readers of thirteen or fourteen years old, for whom The Manakor Chronicles are written, are at such an incredible place emotionally. This is the time when you look at what your parents believe and start to challenge that within yourself. It’s when you decide what matters to you, and what you’re willing to sacrifice to get what you want. You decide what sort of person you want to be, what level of importance you give to your character, and how much you value yourself. This time of life is interiorly intense, and I love a story that corresponds to that.

Absolutely. Teenagers can spot a fake from a mile away, and they hate being condescended to. What I can now see as a typical teen problem felt much more devastating at the time that I was living it, because I didn’t have the insight that maybe it wasn’t that bad. Hearing adult authority figures tell me that it wasn’t that bad or in ten years I would laugh at it meant nothing. To write for a young audience, you have to be able to retain at least in part a teen’s emotional truth: everything is high stakes, everyone is watching you, the world is scary and uncertain, no one understands, and nothing ends–until it does, and then it is devastating. They need to be able to feel like someone who has been through it all is confiding in them, showing that they’ve done hard things before and can get through this one now.

Yes and no. While it’s important to learn the feelings of teenagers, writers need to expand and create their own characters.

I think emotional truth is important to respect and reflect the experience of your characters, age is immaterial.

This is a pile of pants. Emotional truth… what kind of psychobabble is this? Everyone will have a different emotional truth if at all. You can’t lump a YA readership into one. As soon as you dissect someone’s soul you destroy it

That’s a difficult one; my stories happen in an alternative Edwardian timeline, where the term “teenager” doesn’t exist, and indeed the very concept of the teenager doesn’t exist – indeed, in reality, up until the 1950s, you were a child until you were an adult. The emotional experience of my characters is therefore not structured as being teenage, though hopefully they are universal and thus recognisable.

Stay tuned for the next post. Be sure to follow this website via email to get notified when new posts are being made.

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Best regards,

Jasveena

Founder of International Book Promotion

Hello everyone! We are behind schedule for the July author interview as we had difficulties to get the last three authors to send in their answers and we had to find new authors to replace the three authors who had signed up earlier for the interview. Nevertheless, I am happy to finally be able to publish the answers from all of them for the interview series.

It’s time to reveal the answers for all 12 questions answered by 12 author participants in the July Group Author Interview, in the 12 genres, 12 authors, 12 months and 12 questions series! Thank you for the support from the 12 Young Adult authors who have participated in this group author interview.

If you are an author and would like to participate in our upcoming interviews, check out this link, sign up and get your fans to ask their questions to the participating authors! The goal of this author interview is to increase the engagement between readers and authors, and to expose authors to new group of readers.

We are now a registered book publisher too! Sign up for our newsletter and CLAIM your FREE book trailer today!

So, the 1st question is “What makes your work different from the other YA novels?”

I’d like to think that my work turns certain tropes on their heads. While there is nothing new under the sun, plot-wise, there are ways to ‘twist’ certain tropes to your advantage. I’m not afraid of introducing something new or killing off one of the main characters if it helps to advance the plot. I think that my work is better paced than most out there, and offers the reader something new, a fantastic adventure that gets better with every reading.

The story because it is not an everyday experience when someone invented a time machine and his or her loved ones accidentally transported back in time.

‘Dear H’ was written for a target audience of 10 years +. However, a lot of adults have read this book and tell me it reminds them of incidents in their past. The subject of both, ‘Dear H’, and the sequel, ‘The Daisy Chain’, which was written to appeal to girls of 13 years +, is bullying and associated issues, so it is a worldwide topic that resonates with young and old. One girl told me the book ‘spoke’ to her as it contained ‘messages’.

While there are relationships in my book, the story is not necessarily romance-centred. Also, the setting is quite different; a seemingly sleepy village in the Lancashire countryside (north west of England).

I think my work is different to other YA novels because of who I am. I am the only one who has lived my experiences and has my imagination and ideas and so a unique voice is put down in my books. Mental health issues are important to me and so there’s always a thread of that in each book I write to one degree or another. I think the authors I have read in my youth have influenced my style too in that I write a fast paced thriller.

My voice, I hope. I’ve worked hard to create characters whose voices carry the reader straight into the inner-workings of their hearts and minds. It’s intended to feel very immediate. I love love love words. Their sounds. Their rhythm within a sentence. The poetry of different metaphors. And all that could all sound kind of naff but it’s so key to the way I write.

The Firebrand Legacy is about a 13-year-old girl from the rough part of the fantasy coastal city of Esten. Unlike the townspeople, who celebrate the dragon Kavariel, Carine hates it for killing her sister years before. But when the dragon doesn’t show up for its annual Festival, the kingdom finds itself vulnerable to a threat of dark magic from the north. It is in searching for safety that Carine’s life becomes tangled with fraternal twin princes David and Giles. The Manakor Chronicles is a YA fantasy for younger YA readers, readers who want adventure, friendship, and just the right amount of romantic interest.

It’s hard to say. Every author strives to create something that’s unique. Two people telling the same story won’t tell that story in the same way. The characters will say different lines, have different motivations, all subject to the whim of the storyteller. I heard somewhere that there are maybe eight different plot lines, but an infinite way to tell them. I’d be a little hesitant to say my work is different from other novels, except to say that no one’s storytelling voice is quite like mine, just like mine isn’t like anyone else’s.

The Scarry Inn series is based on something that really could happen to anyone. For a long time, I didn’t find stories like this, although I’m happy to see more and more YA writers coming back to basics.

I describe it as Game of Thrones meets Percy Jackson

Me. No two writers are the same.

I’ve not read a huge number so I can’t say for sure, but those I have read tend toward the very high stakes; “the fate of the world hangs on Martin Buggins finding the lost beaker of Ethersred, otherwise perpetual darkness will rule the land! Can he find the beaker, rescue his friends and find the courage to ask Helen out? OR IS THE WORLD DOOMED?!?” My Steampunk series, Full Throttle and Rise of the Petrol Queen, are far more earth-bound, but arguably therefore more important. Take away the Steampunk elements and you’re left with the story of a working-class disabled girl trying to fight her way through a man’s world, facing down prejudice and hatred from almost every section of society as she struggles to compete on a non-existent level playing field.

Stay tuned for the next post. Be sure to follow this website via email to get notified when new posts are being made.

Be sure to Sign up for our newsletter and CLAIM your FREE book trailer today!

Best regards,

Jasveena

Founder of International Book Promotion