Coffee Talks

With Tani Hanes

Hi, Tani. Congratulations on placing #1 in Round 2, of the Open Novella Contest! We love to hear from authors like yourself and get to know a little bit about what motivates you when writing works of fiction.

I write things that I hope people will want to read. In the case of the ONC, I've known my Japanese grandma's, or Obachan's story for a long time. It always sounded more interesting and amazing than a movie to me, and touched on so many things that are relevant to our time, you know? So many women's issues regarding feminism, sexism, and just finding your own way in the world. I hope people would be interested in hearing and reading about those things, and that makes me want to write about them.

So, to begin, tell us a little bit about yourself as an author on Wattpad. For anyone who hasn't met you before, how would you describe your fiction?

Almost everything I write, except this particular novella, would be described as sexy, smutty romance, lol! Even the paranormal thriller I wrote is basically a very explicit and sexy romance with the accouterments of a mystery stapled onto it. I went in a completely different direction for the ONC, so my regular readers will probably be surprised if they read it. It's historical fiction about a Japanese girl growing up in early twentieth century rural Japan. I've wanted to write about her for so long, and the prompt about the letter fit perfectly with what I knew about my grandma and how she grew up in the country outside of Tokyo. Most of my Wattpad works are romances about couples and how they meet and stay together under different inclement circumstances of their own or others' making. They cover myriad topics, ranging from assault to adoption, swimming, nannying, unplanned pregnancy, wine-making, and rock bands.

Let's talk a bit about your entry for the Open Novella Contest- 'Obachan- The Memoir'. Can you tell us about the book and its premise?

Like I said above, it's about my Japanese grandma. The word 'grandma' in Japanese is Obachan, so that's what I chose for the title. Most of the story is true, but many of the details are filled in by me, which is why I call it historical fiction. It begins with the narrator, me, finding letters written to her during her youth after her recent death. The book is a flashback that tells of her life, and the hardships she endured growing up, trying to find her way and live her own life during a time when most women in Japan were treated like property, with no rights of their own. She wanted to live her own life and dream her own dreams, in a world which was set up to keep her from doing those things.

What drove you to use this particular prompt? And how did you shape the story with the prompt in mind?

Her story was almost a perfect fit for this particular prompt, which was that of finding a letter written to someone in an unfamiliar handwriting. Obachan told me about a young policeman who would come visit her when she was a teenager, who would write her the most confusing letters. She told me she couldn't make heads or tails of them, and that it took her little sister to tell her they were love letters, with romantic poems in them! Her own life was so devoid of any kind of romance that she had no idea he was trying to "woo" her at all lol, she had no idea what he was on about! She told me that she felt sorry for him in retrospect, trying to write love letters to someone who was so oblivious to his intentions. So it seemed like a good jumping off point for her story. So many sad and terrible things happened to her; she was forced to quit school, forced to become a maid, forced into marriage, abused, basically treated like property her whole life, and I wanted to write about her story and share it with people. This contest came along at the perfect time for me.

Did you face any difficulties with the writing of 'Obachan- The Memoir'?

The hardest thing for me, honestly, was making it "novella" length! I've been writing like a maniac for the last three years; I have eight novels published on Amazon, and thirteen works published on Wattpad, and all but Obachan are regular book length. I'm used to thinking in terms of eighty to one hundred thousand words, and of writing characters and developing conflicts and all that at a certain pace, and all that goes right out the window in a novella. Everything had to happen a lot faster, so I had to have a lot more discipline and make everything a lot tighter.

And this is the first time I've written anything in a different historical setting, so that was a challenge as well. I couldn't just throw in a cell phone, or just have someone find something out by watching the news. And there were language issues, as well. I was very aware that everyone was supposed to be speaking Japanese, which really bothered me. I didn't like knowing that everything was translated. I'm one of those people who gets really annoyed that everyone in Schindler's List or whatever is speaking English! And on top of that, many of the people had country accents, as well, that I wanted to convey. So I tried to make sure that all dialogue was spoken in my head in Japanese, in the correct vernacular, to begin with, and that I translated it into the right sounding English, and wrote that down on the page. It made me so, so happy that I grew up speaking Japanese. I'm really glad that I could be true to my linguistic roots.

Tell us about your experience participating in the Open Novella Contest.

I'm so happy this contest came along to goose me into this project! I love writing sexy romances, just love it, so who knows when I would've done it? But then I heard about the ONC, and it gave me the impetus to get my Obachan's story down on paper, finally, after having it in my head for twenty-five years. In truth, I did want to wait until a few people I wrote about were dead, because I didn't write about them in the most flattering terms, and I wanted to be truthful. I felt I owed her that.
So thank you, Wattpad, I'll always be grateful for that.

If you had the opportunity to shout out one other book which is participating in the Open Novella Contest, which would it be?

I'm so sorry, but I haven't had a chance to read any others yet! Like I said, I've written thirteen works for Wattpad in a little over a year, and I usually update my current work on a daily basis, so I've been remiss...

Lastly, because we're always curious... What was your first ever experience with the power of the written language?

It was a story about a boy and a duck that I wrote in third grade lol! I wrote from the POV of the duck, and how scary it was to look around and see nothing but feet and shoes. That moment of realizing that I could, through writing, actually become anything else, was intoxicating, and I was hooked.

It's been great hearing from you, Tani. Best wishes in your future endeavours from our team.

Thanks so much for having me, and for your interest in what happens in my convoluted mind!

Our goal is to bring you many more exclusive interviews with people who aren't just Wattpad Stars or Staff, but also some pretty awesome authors.
In that quest, next we will be talking to NatashaDuncanDrake, so stick around for more fun!