Welcome back, my fellow creatives! I’m thrilled to continue sharing some lovely indie authors I’ve met in our community–it’s so great to connect with folks again. This month, please welcome the fantasy author, Max Nebula!

Let’s start with books that impacted you as a reader. What is the first book that made you cry?

The first book to make me cry was book eight of the Pendragon series by D. J. MacHale. The ending of that book had me pacing around my house because of what happened to my favorite character Bobby at the end of that novel. I couldn’t wait a second more to get the ninth one and find out what happened next.

It sounds like MacHale’s series is really important to you.

Yes! I don’t feel like people give this series enough credit and he deserves more recognition for his influence on my generation.

Are there any authors you disliked at first but later grew into?

Stephen King to be honest. I don’t like how his chapters are so short with barely half a scene in them sometimes but you can’t deny the man’s talent and storytelling abilities. I grew to love his work over time, but how he goes into a writing project blind terrifies me. What I mean by that is writing a book like Stephen King where he has the inciting incident but no bullet points after that for the outline. Someday I will have to do it just for practice.

I hear you! I dig King’s utilization of small-town settings for his fiction, but I don’t always dig how the plots wrap up. Have you read anything that made you think differently about fiction?

Yes, anything by Kurt Vonnegut. He showed me that you don’t have to take writing too seriously and that witty humor balances out all the darker themes that a novel explores. He also is an out-of-the-box thinker and I appreciate that and try to implement that essence into my works.

Oh my goodness yes. There is a power to be found in fiction that makes us both smile and cry. What was an early experience where you learned that language had power?

When I was in third grade, I wrote the first edition of “Tom’s Adventure.” I learned that I could use words to make my imagination soar while also gaining respect from my peers for my creative abilities. This lit a spark in me that never died.

You started your story that long ago? That’s amazing! Let’s talk about your new release now. Your debut book¸ Tom’s Adventure, follows a boy’s fantastical journey into a magical sea-world thanks to a mysterious painting. I can’t help but think of other beloved portals in children’s literature, like the painting of the titular ship in CS Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawn Treader. What is your favorite childhood book, and was it an inspiration for you to create Tom’s Adventure?

My favorite children’s series is the Magic Treehouse series and anything by Roal Dahl. To be honest, the bigger inspiration for “Tom’s Adventure” is Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64. I loved the idea of a character jumping into paintings to visit worlds and decided to use that as the main mechanism for Tom to explore the paintings in his home.

Considering the importance of artwork in this story for children, good illustrations are a must! How did you find the illustrator for this story?

I first used Blake Doucet to illustrate my original cover for my adult fantasy The Raging Storm. It showed me his talent and now he’s the illustrator and creative partner for my children’s book series Tom’s Adventure. I couldn’t do it without him and it was the best money I ever spent to find out how good he was as an artist.

Yes, you’ve got fantasy fiction for adults on Wattpad, too! Let’s hear a bit about what inspired The Raging Storm.

In 2019, when I first came up with the starting scene for The Raging Storm, I traveled across Bali, Hong Kong, and Thailand. I think the world’s beauty inspired me and I wanted to make something to contribute. I was reading a lot of epic fantasy then and wanted to create something for my favorite genre and have a project to work on while I traveled.

I’ve always felt that fantasy writing requires some research in order for the worldbuilding to have a structured foundation. What kinds of research did you do to help you build the land of Reven?

Wonderful question. The country of Reven is influenced by ancient Egyptian and Roman social hierarchy, architecture, and the landscapes themselves. I did a lot of research into how their societies were maintained and what was their reasoning behind designing their societies in the way they did. This gave me a lot of clues into how I should design mine.

I always thought it was cool how Wattpad gives a writer a chance to receive genuine reader comments during the drafting phase.

Right! When I release a chapter and people enjoy it and start commenting on theories for what happens next, I truly don’t think anything else is more energizing and motivating. But getting stuck on a chapter in the latter half of a book because of all the plot threads and feeling overwhelmed can feel exhausting. It’s all a part of the process though!

I hate hate HATE getting stuck, but you’re right–that’s how the process can be. Have other authors ever helped you find a new way forward?

David Putnam is my writing mentor and he’s a best-selling mystery/thriller author and is known for his Bruno Johnson series. I met him at a book signing at Barnes and Noble in San Diego. We chopped it up for a while and became friends and I decided to ask if he’s read my manuscript. He told me to email him the first ten chapters. When I got the draft back, there was more red ink for his critiques than my writing. This was a canon event for me because it humbled me and also set me on a path of growth and learning that made me the writer I am today. That man is truly a gem of a human being.

That is AWESOME! Receiving that encouragement and insight from those who’ve been writing for a while makes a huge difference. Let’s wrap up with an aspect of writing YOU find to be a positive challenge.

The most difficult part is trying to balance having things outlined but not too rigid. Sometimes the story takes you in directions you weren’t expecting right away and that’s okay. You have to give time for the characters to breathe and have their existence. So making sure the story is moving forward while also giving the characters their time to shine and have an organic storyline is a balancing act I find challenging but fun.

Thank you so much for taking the time to chat, Max, and I can’t wait to see where your creativity takes you next!

~*~

Next week, let’s explore a few resources for crafting book proposals any genre writer can use.

Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!