Interviews

shadowcheah

Q: Hello shadowcheah, how are you today?

Great! Happy to be here answering questions – anything to distract me from work haha

Q: Any time. Thank you for joining us and sharing a little more about yourself with the Wattpad universe. First off, shall we talk about you and writing? When did you first start writing?

I have actually been writing since I was like, 6 or 7. I have notebooks of my old work, all in Chinese and basically full of what you expect a 6 year old can think of. I have then started posting my works on a Chinese novel website around 11 but never able to finish anything. I then put my writing career on the shelf until I found Wattpad 5 years ago!

Q: What are your writer's best practices – doing character profiles, maps, visualization, tai chi, anything?

Be as detailed as you can about everything. Literally everything. Nothing is too small of our attention. I always do a separate document of my characters, the world they live in before I start writing, so I know exactly who they are and where they come from. And if it's a new world, I draw a map.

Q: When and in what setting do you write best?

To be honest I don't have a particular setting, though having my laptop in front of me, a tidy-ish desk and quiet environment helps. Oh and cake and tea.

Q: Is there anything in particular you find difficult to write about?

I don't think I can write suspense, thriller, crime or anything like that. I don't think I have it in me haha. As for scenes, I am not very good at darker stuff just yet, but I am hoping to work on that with the Dark Ages. I struggle a lot with killing of characters and that's what I need to get better at.

Q: What piece of advice has been most helpful to you since you started?

Just write! You are never going to be inspired 100% of the time and the only way to get better is to practice. Write it, if you don't like it, leave it at the bottom of the page and start over again.

Q: What do you enjoy more – writing or having written?

Oh that's hard. Although I always get a special tingly feeling when I get a particularly key chapter done! It's like excitement but something more. So I guess having written is the right answer then!

Q: What genre would you write in, if it wasn't sci-fi?

Fantasy and romance. I actually do write both, and enjoys both. My first story on Wattpad is a romance and while it reflects my early days in terms of style, it was the first story I ever finished. I also did a Fantasy for NaNoWriMo three years ago (has it been this long?!) that I wrote 50,000 words and just left hanging... you can still find the excerpt on my NaNoWriMo page.

Q: That's cool! And what about reading? What three genres do you read the most?

Fantasy, sci fi, romance. Shocker. I am actually a huge fan of young adult fiction – Percy Jackson, John Green – you name it, I read it.

Q: Is there anything you can think of that you would love to read, only it hasn't been written yet?

Oh I don't think so! Between Wattpad, the books out there in the world and the long form Chinese novels that I am addicted to, I feel like I have read everything and anything. Having said that, one of my favourite genres to read is virtual online game, a kind of sci fi futuristic society where people play online game by entering into a virtual world via some kind of headset. It's super popular in Chinese long form writing but the quality isn't what it used to be.