Our interviewer, Rk, interviewed Merl1nMagnuss3n an author who has an interesting story to share and unpack with us.

Thank you Merlin for having this interview with us!

____________________________________________________________________

Hello, I am your interviewer for today, so let's start...The opening question of any interview: how did you start? What/who introduced you to Wattpad?

I started out as a fangirl who was crazy about a book series called, 'Wings of Fire'. I wrote a lot of fanfiction out on paper and was always really disappointed that I couldn't share it with my family. While I was waiting for the newest book to come out, I decided to look up fanfictions to read and ended up stumbling across Wattpad. Eventually, I learned that I could write too and so I began posting my own work.

That's amazing! For someone like me who has not yet heard about Wings Of Fire, can you tell me what it is?

It's about dragons and prophecies and love triangles and fights to the death and self gutting and other exciting things. At the time I was completely obsessed. I was in the midst of my "I hate all humans" stage of life, so dragons were better to read about.

That sounds interesting! I'll be sure to give it a read, and I don't think anyone ever really gets out of the "I hate all humans " phase :)

Do you have a specific writing style?

What kind of style?

Like, do your books all have an identical or connected theme? How you write/plot your books?

Oh, right. Sorry. No, not really. I try to make each book different. I'm a fan of writing books based in the medieval world mixed with some fantasy. I've always felt like I would fit in better in those times. I keep trying to write something about a more modern time, teen fiction, but it's difficult. I haven't had the 'normal' teenage experiences, so I find myself having no idea what to write.

I come up with plots usually from one tiny bit of inspiration, or a thought. I will write the story in my head as a movie, and then when it's ready, I'll actually write it out. On paper or my laptop.

And music. I get a lot of inspiration and book ideas from music.

You don't have to answer this, but you said that you haven't had normal teenage experiences... what happened?

When I was twelve, my family moved away and I was taken out of school to live in B.C. We're in the middle of the forest, keeping warm through wood stoves. We don't go into town much, and when we do it's to do laundry and shop and things like that. I haven't had a friend in a very long time, so I'm not exposed to anyone my age. Or anyone at all actually.

That must've been hard, So your escape through all this must be writing, right? And hopefully, you will find some friends here on Wattpad. 

And do you have any other hobbies apart from getting lost in words?

I draw sometimes and read, watch murder mysteries, swim, trampoline, chop wood, and listen to music. I listen to music pretty much all day.

That's productive! Who are your favourite artists?

Art artists or music artists?

Music artists.

BTS and Kimbra

Oh, that's an amazing combination! Let's talk about "A Murder of Crows", Its takes a lot to create a whole world, where did you get inspiration for it?

It started out as just an idea. I knew I wanted it to be set in some sort of medieval world, but not a historical one. I wanted it to be my own world, so I could make my own rules. Writing is a lot more fun when you don't have any boundaries. I've always liked learning about Norse, Roman, and Greek mythology; the relationships between the gods and mortals, and wanted to incorporate something like that into the story. Honestly, the world kind of just built itself while I wrote it. It's only the first draft, so there are many things that I shall be fixing; but making maps, traditions, clothing and everything that comes with it . . . I love it."

That's impressive! And you also have one book called "The Fake Smile" in which you write about cyberbullying, have you experienced it before? Any tips you would like to give us to avoid it?

Thankfully I've experienced very little cyberbullying. What I have experienced is emotional abuse. What I wanted to try and press in the story was that the smallest things can hurt people. The littlest dig at someone can eat away at their self-esteem. I lost my entire personality; my confidence was wrecked because of "friends" who brought me down to make themselves feel better. Anyone can be a bully, even without realizing it.

As for avoiding cyberbullying, you can't, honestly, if you are on the internet. But if someone is trying to bully you, try not to take to heart what they are saying, and report them immediately. Don't let them stick around. I always had this weird urge to keep the few I encountered there so I could argue with them and have something to put all my anger and hurt on. It's not a healthy thing to do.

This is a very important topic and I hope your readers will realize it as they read the story. Now with Wattpad books being available to all those who want, there is equal parts praise and criticism- How do you deal with it?

I'll be honest. I try not to let it bother me, but it does. The smallest bit of criticism will break me, so I try and avoid it. I don't think I'm the best person to give advice on that subject. Hopefully, I'll get better at handling it soon.

I hope you do too!

Thank you :)

Are any of your stories/characters based on something real that happened in your life?

Sometimes incidents from my life get wound up in my character's lives too. I try not to let it happen too much. There was certainly a lot of my life in Fake Smile, but I decided to take the story in a different direction. I use my characters as a sort of . . . avatars I guess?

I get all my joys and experiences through them, so they all, especially the main characters, have a part of me in them. Some more than others.

What they say is true... the writers live through their books... We have come to the end of this interview with this last question: a character you favour more than others while writing? (I just meant to ask your fav character)

Taelon from A Murder of Crows. He's honestly just such a good, dependable person sometimes I think I'm falling for him, lol.

Thanks so much for this interview, and for giving me your time :) I really appreciate it!

Thank you so much for being so patient with me, I enjoyed interviewing you!

____________________________________________________________________

To feature yourself in our interview book, fill up our forms chapter