Welcome to 7 Questions from the Serrulata Saga Desk, my blog feature that boosts fellow indie authors! This week, I chat with Katherine Shaw. Introduce your current favorite character – who are they and why do you prefer them above all others at the moment? From my own writing, I am really enjoying writing a Medusa retelling, and portraying Medusa as the sympathetic woman she deserves to be. I have a bit of a thing for feeling empathy for misrepresented characters from mythology (I have a Narcissus retelling coming up in an anthology being released soon), and I love giving them some depth and humanity. Medusa is more than just a monster in Perseus’ story, she’s a woman who was abused and unfairly punished, with her own backstory, personality and, in my version, a sapphic romance. She’s a little naïve, having lived a life in the shadow of her brother whilst being groomed for a future as a bargaining chip for her father’s ambitions, but she’s also graceful, knowledgeable, charming and beautiful. I love her, and I hate that I’m going to have to make her suffer as the book goes on! From other books, I recently read A. E. Bennett’s first book – yes, I’m doing a shout out to the Serrulata Saga on its own website! – and have become obsessed with Leopold, one of the main characters from Gathering of the Four. I’m a sucker for a broken, grizzled tough guy with a tragic past, and I just want to wrap my arms around him and tell him everything’s going to be okay. Who is harder to write – an interesting hero or an interesting villain? Generally, for me, it’s the hero. You have to make your hero interesting, likeable (or at least worthy of being rooted for), and motivated enough to keep the reader invested in their success. It’s a tough line to walk, and it can be hard to get the balance right. There’s less pressure when writing villains – you just have to make your reader hate them! It isn’t easy, but your reader won’t be in their heads the whole time like they will the hero, so you just make sure the times when the villain is on the page really count. In both cases, what really makes or breaks them is the motivation. If you have a solid motivation behind their actions, it’ll work. You’re trapped in an elevator with your main character. What are you discussing? With Medusa, we’re having a good old fashioned feminist rant. She’s living in ancient Ionia, where women have virtually no rights, and have one main purpose: to get a good husband. This sort of story is intrinsically feminist, as it’s impossible to write women in this setting without touching on the equality at play within society. What is the most challenging aspect of writing for you? How do you conquer it? There are two things I struggle with: world-building and detailed descriptions. I love fantasy and sci-fi, but the main reason I stick to short stories in these genres is that I suck at world-building. Give me a ready-made fantasy world, and I will be inspired to write all sorts of exciting stories, but ask me to make a world from scratch and I will cry. I have a short attention span, and too much time focused on creating all of the details for a new world will just switch off my creativity, and the story will never get written. It’s something I’m trying to get better at, especially since I have a dystopian novel in the works and I need to work on the world before it goes out to beta readers! Descriptions challenge me in a slightly different way. I like fast-paced books – both to read, and to write – and I often get swept up in writing the action and completely forget to describe anything! Most writers complain of having to cut words when they’re revising their first drafts, but I’m the complete opposite – I have to go back and add descriptions of everything, from characters to settings. If you could write a cross-over with another book/series, what would it be and why? (Or, if cross-overs don’t interest you, why?) This is a tough one! I think it would be super fun to writer my characters from GLORIA in the world of Jamie Jackson’s Adventures of a Villain-Leaning Humanoid series. Not only would it be great to see the characters bouncing off one another (I can’t decide if Meg and Katie would love or hate each other), but I’d also get to give each of them super powers – how fun would that be? Meryl already gives strong Edna Mode from The Incredibles vibes, and I would really enjoy weaving her into this world. In your opinion, what is the purpose of storytelling? For me, personally, the core purpose of any story is to make you feel something. Tragic stories that pull at my heart strings, characters I fall in love with, villains that fill me with hatred – I need something that heightens my emotions to really enjoy a book, and my goal with any story is to do the same for the reader. Something can have the best-written plot set in the most rich and enchanting world I’ve ever read, but if I don’t care about the characters and what is happening to them, it just won’t land with me. It’s all about connections to the characters, the need to see them prevail and the utter heart-wrenching grief if they don’t, that makes stories truly special. Ok, last but not least… Tell us a bit about what made you want to become a writer and why you write what you write. I’ve always written stories, and I literally can’t remember I time when I didn’t want to be a writer. It’s like some sort of primal need I have, and even in the years where I had to give it up to focus on university and starting a career, it was always in the back of my mind, itching away at me until I had to scratch it. As I lost that teenage confidence I used to have, it took me a while to properly go for it and write seriously again, because I had a crippling fear of failure. I convinced myself that if I didn’t write anything, I couldn’t write anything bad, and it held me back for years. Finally, as my thirties loomed over me, I decided to stop the self-sabotage and just go for it, and not long after that, I got a few short story acceptances, and the confidence boost convinced me to finally write the novel that became GLORIA. In terms of what I write, it reflects what I like to read. Even though it would probably be better for my author career, I just can’t stick to one genre. I enjoy most speculative fiction – fantasy, sci-fi, horror, dystopia – but I also love a fast-paced, gripping story, so this is what drew me to thrillers for my debut novel. I love a book that hooks me so I can’t stop reading, and that’s what I try to achieve with my own writing. At the end of the day, I want to write things that people like me will enjoy reading. One of the great things about being an indie author is that I don’t have to stick to market or genre conventions too strictly, so my thrillers can have a sprinkle of spec-fic or romance, my sci-fi and fantasy can have grisly murders, and I can write stories that are equally romantic and tragic. I can explore my own journeys with mental illness, sexuality and chronic illness, while taking the reader on a wild adventure at the same time. The sky is the limit, and I love that. There are also some themes that organically find their way into my work, because they’re true to the core of who I am. Oppression, justice (or the lack of it), equality and autonomy often feature, simply because they are topics I care strongly about, and that passion bleeds into my writing. This can manifest in a variety of ways, from victims gaining the courage take on their abusers to an oppressed people rising up against a dystopian government, but it’s always there. Here's where to find Katherine: Website: www.katherineshawwrites.com Facebook: www.facebooks.com/katherineshawwrites Twitter: @katheroony (on hiatus – find me on BlueSky @katheroony.bsky.social) Instagram: @katherineshawwrites Are you an indie author who wants to be featured on 7 Questions? Send me an email!
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