Interviewer: xxfrozenhibaxx 

Author: XxFaylinexX 

Book: A Ballad of Falling Light

Mode of Interview: Discord 

Hello author! Kindly introduce yourself to our readers

Hi! My name is Sam, known as XxFaylinexX on Wattpad. I'm a Dutch historian, currently busy getting my second bachelor's degree, this one in creative writing. I'm a high fantasy playwright and author, and most of my work is inspired by the ancient history I study. I love worldbuilding and map-making, so my stories often take place in worlds that differ quite a bit from our own. I've been writing on Wattpad for almost a decade, and have recently started expanding out of my native tongue into English.

Wow ! that's a nice introduction! Tell us something about your book?

The book I'm currently working on, A Ballad of Falling Light, is a high fantasy story that is inspired by ancient epics and tragedies. It is an applyfic, which means that I provided a general synopsis and other Wattpad creators gave me characters to write about. With those characters, I constructed the plot. So the antagonist aside, the main characters are all created by fellow writers. This means that the story is shaped by a collective: in my first outline, I was planning to turn the story into a very classical tragedy: different characters have good intentions, but miscommunicate and that causes them to lose. But when I got the applications, they turned out to be mainly scheming and lying treason weasels, so the actual story became much more about these antiheroes screwing each other and the world over. Like a lot of tragedies, I have been very upfront about the fact that this story will be a tragedy: right from the introduction and the prologue, readers know that the battle it's building towards will turn into a massacre. The question of this story isn't 'will they save the world?', but rather: 'how does it all go wrong?'

That's an exciting and unique idea. Would you like to tell us where you got the inspiration for this book?

The general idea for the story came from a small note in one of my worldbuilding timelines. It boiled down to "there's a magical war, with one party dominating most other nations, there's a big battle and the dominating party wins by a landslide". It's a pretty standard concept for a fantasy story, though I drew on a lot of inspiration from ancient epics and tragedies like the Odyssey and Medea. The big bad of this story, the Phoinixian Republic, is based on the Roman Republic with a little phoenix mythology mixed in. I wanted the vibe to be ancient and mythological, hence why I used narrative structures like the frame story, omens and a deus ex machina. Most of the inspiration for the details came from the character sheets applicants gave me; they really shaped the story beyond "battle goes wrong". It's their individual motivations and character quirks that drive the story forward.

Wow that's quite good. When did you start writing? How did you feel when you first published your first chapter?

I first started writing about a decade ago. In hindsight, everything I wrote around that time was very flawed in many ways, but it was the start of something. When I first hit 'publish' on a chapter, I was really excited and a little scared. Throwing your work out there for the world to see is a very vulnerable thing. Of course, nothing really happened at first. It's not that you post a chapter and five minutes later you're swamped in praising comments or offered a Nobel prize or something. So it was a bit anticlimactic, really. And when I finally did get a comment, it was one that very kindly but sternly explained to me that what I was doing was a kind of plagiarism (valid, and also whoops). That person helped me get the show on the road. I only talked to them once or twice, but because they were kind to a little kid on the internet instead of attacking me for my poor decisions, I was encouraged to keep writing and publishing, and to improve.

I can relate to you, author! Who is your favorite character from your book?

Because I didn't come up with the main cast myself, it feels wrong to have favorites amongst them. I can pick from the side characters though, since I did come up with those. In that case, Brand is my obvious answer. He's the narrator and the main character from a different book, and in many ways he is a lot like me, so I feel like I know him very well. He's kind of just a beacon of warmth and well-meant but poorly executed decisions, and his dynamic with Tarik is very fun to write. Captain Mako is a close second though; I love that grumpy pirate/father figure a lot, both in his threats to Siraj and in his loving relationship with Vanora. And who doesn't love a good pirate aesthetic?

That's nice. We all have that one character whom we feel close to huh? According to you, what's the hardest part of writing this book?

Since these aren't my own characters, a very challenging part is to "get them right": find a way to fit them in the story in a way that both makes sense for the world and the plot, and sticks to what the original creator of the character had in mind. With characters that aren't your own, it can be a lot tougher to get their "voice" exactly right. With some characters, like Siraj, that came very natural to me. He was created by my partner, whom I obviously know very well (and since we live together it's very easy to just hell "hey would he do this?" across the room) and his vibe clicked with me and with the story, so every chapter from his perspective is kind of easy to write. With a character like Eos, that's a lot harder. The creator isn't really around to ask questions, and I've kind of had troubles with getting her tone of voice right from the start. I think I nailed it, but those chapters definitely take longer to write. Another challenge is the way it all has to come together. To me, that's also the most exciting part: I got the vague idea of the plot and I got the characters, and it's up to me to puzzle it together in a way that makes sense and makes it so all the plotlines and characters are interconnected and going somewhere. That certainly took a while to figure out, and after a few chapters I noticed that I had made a timeline error so I had to go back to the drawing board to start puzzling again. So that's very challenging, but also one of the most fulfilling aspects of the story to me.

The struggle is real. So what would you like to advice your fellow writers?

Definitely to embrace the weird ideas you come up with. There's really not that much depending on the things you write here, it's not like it's your livelihood. That's great, since that gives you room to experiment and try out the things you want to try. It doesn't have to be perfect and if it doesn't turn out the way you want it to, that's fine as well. You don't have to push yourself to give readers anything - nobody here owes anything to anyone. It's supposed to be fun. That's something I'm learning for myself as well; it's cool if you can write something that's good or that gets a lot of reads, but what's the point if you're not enjoying the writing? So if you have an idea but you're not quite sure if it will work, or how, just give it a try. You can figure it out as you go, and if it doesn't turn out to be working and you don't enjoy it, there's no shame in dropping a project either. It's all part of the process.

I see your book is divided based on characters, is that correct?

Yes, that's correct! Though the story has an explicit narrator, each chapter follows the perspective from one of the main characters I selected from the applications I got. This means the story has five main (point of view) characters: Eos, Siraj, Ashe, Vanora and Mele. This means I get to use some dramatic irony; the characters are not always aware what the others are doing, but the reader is, so if one character has some misinformation, they know, and that causes tension. I think that, with an applyfic, this type of structure is the most natural. It'd be weird to see the story from one perspective when your fellow authors have provided you with so many different ones. In that regard, this story is different from the ancient epics, as those tend to revolve around a singular main character.

That sounds like a tough work, author! How are you able to write all different povs and personalities?

Thankfully, I got very, very detailed character sheets - so a large part of the writing process is jumping back and forth between my writing document, my story notes document and the character sheets. I think every character has something you can relate to: universal feelings or struggles, or just a personality trait that 'clicks' with you. So even though I'm writing from the perspective of magical soldiers, pirates, backstabbers and spies, I look for things that are 'human', in a way. How difficult that is really depends on the character. Like I mentioned, it was very easy with Siraj. I found the 'tone of voice' his chapters needed to have right away and never really had any trouble with writing from his perspective. Siraj is basically just a teenager with exceptionally poor impulse control, so that's the vibe his chapters need to have: making a very big deal out of minor things, jumping to conclusions, deep insecurities, particularly about his identity, and fast-paced like his brain. He means well, yet it never really works out the way he wants it to. And he's kind of an open book, which also helps making the writing easier. It's a lot tougher to write from the perspective of scheming and lying characters who are constantly trying to hide their true intentions, like Eos and Mele. Their actions and thoughts rarely match, but they still need to make sense to the reader, so you do have to give a little bit of information, but you also don't want to give away too much, because then all the tension would be gone. With those characters, I needed a lot more time to find the right way to portray them. It's the start of every chapter where that struggle lies: every time I start a new chapter, I have to find the correct tone again, and that can really be a struggle. That's why I try to start the new chapter right after I finished the last one; to prevent myself from getting stuck. It usually requires a bit of editing and reworking paragraphs, but eventually, I find the right tone, and once I do, I'm good to go.

Now that's the type of talent every author wishes for! If you were to choose one character whose story you would like to live, who would it be and why?

Well, this is a tragedy. I'm not going to spoil anything, but everyone has a horrible time and it's only getting worse. I would definitely not want to stand in their shoes. That goes for the main characters, but for the vast majority of the side characters as well. They are all involved in a vicious war, or are on the run from it. They are physically and/or emotionally wounded, displaced, enslaved, have lost many loved ones, have survivor's guilt or just feelings of guilt in general, and they are trapped in it. Centurion Enya gets victory after victory, but a story of carefully crafted genocide is really not one I would want to live. I wouldn't want to be part of her familia anyway, they are deeply toxic. The only one I can think of who's not having a horrible time all the time is Tarik, I think. He has to deal with a lot of nonsense, but he also gets to hang out in the temple and with Brand, so that's pretty cool. And the things he has to deal with are nothing compared to what horrors the main cast are dealing with. Of the many characters in the story, I think he's the only one who just gets to live his life in relative peace.

That sounds scary yet exciting! Let's end this interview with a note from the author. Is there anything you would like to say to your readers?

I hope all of you enjoy this wild ride as much as I do! It's a long-running project and chapters always take a while to write due to their length, but I thoroughly appreciate anyone who takes their time to read, vote and/or comment on the story. These kinds of interactions always make my day. Thank you for your support, and I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the story!