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Monday, January 13, 2014

#YA #Author Chat with Anne-Rae Vasquez ... #amongus #paranormal @write2film


What are you most passionate about? What gets you fired up?
I’m passionate about being creative.
What’s your next project?
Book 2 of the Among Us Trilogy… and my developmental editor is bugging me to get started.
What is your favorite quote, by whom, and why?
Quote by me:  Writing is emotional. It is baring your soul to the world and waiting for someone to acknowledge and love it, or shun and hate it, or worse be indifferent about it. --- Anne-Rae Vasquez
How has your upbringing influenced your writing?
As you can see I inject a lot of culture in my stories no matter what the genre. I come from a mixed background and witnessed many clashes between both sides of the family especially from the different cultural traditions and way of life. I like to throw my characters into situations where they have to overcome cultural differences to achieve their goals.
Did writing this book teach you anything and what was it?
I usually write by myself but I learned that being the Lone Ranger is not the best way to write. Thankfully, when I was writing Doubt, I had my developmental editor by my side. It was mostly a collaboration of minds, although we frequently butted heads. But the outcome, once we ironed things out, was pure magic.  In addition, my team of beta readers participated in missions (in the theme of the book) and also provided further feedback of each chapter. I also worked with my critique partner who helped shake up the story and make it richer.  Finally, the manuscript went through two copy and proof editors to refine the work and polish off the writing.
How did you come up with the title?
Aaron Swartz who passed away in early 2013 and Harry Fear, two young truth seekers were the inspiration for my book’s main character Harry Doubt.  The title Doubt not only is a play on the main character’s last name but also reflects how the characters question the reality of the world they live.
How did you develop your plot and characters?
The story mixes social media communications such as text messaging and video messaging as a form of communication between characters as they go on missions to find their family members.
All characters have aliases and avatars, which are displayed as a splash page image at the beginning of the book.  The official website of the book (amongus.ca) also has detailed M.O.’s of the characters so readers can also view and interact with the characters on the website.
The story although geared to young adult/ early adult readers is also entertaining for general readers who are interested in the supernatural, sci/fi urban fantasy, apocalyptic genres with themes similar to the TV show Fringe (by J.J. Abrams).
As a filmmaker, journalist and web design programmer, I tell stories in multiple mediums.  Doubt (book 1 of the Among Us Trilogy) was literally created from an interactive online reality game that I created with the help of my developmental editor (Josefina Rosado).
The official website http://www.AmongUs.ca interacts with visitors allowing them to participate as Truth Seekers following the theme of the story.
I wanted to give readers another way to connect with my story.  Entertainment does not need to be contained in one medium. I believe in telling your story in many mediums. How do we do this?  One way was to entice readers  to participate in the experience of the story as it is being written. Putting Theory to the Test Here was the plan I used for fan recruiting  for my new novel Doubt, Book 1 of the Among Us Trilogy:
1)    Design website for the book series using the theme of the story
(Theme: Truth seekers who are online gamers use the internet to communicate with each other and also hack into global networks to save the world from catastrophic events caused by an unknown entity.)
2)    Entice beta readers to read drafts of the chapters as I write them but only awarding the first 10 who register
3)    Assign characters from the novel to each beta reader.
4)    Provide the beta reader with their assigned character’s strengths, weaknesses, personality traits and physical characteristics.
5)    As more chapters in the book are written, the ten beta readers will be asked to provide input with the incentive that what they write may be included in the next chapter. They will not know until the next chapter is released.
6)    Release each new chapter to the first ten fans as an award for having joined early.
7)    As more beta readers register to the site, ask them to create their own character and post the character’s 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses and 3 physical characteristics on the website.
8)    Entice additional beta readers to complete simple mission assignments related to the story with the incentive that their character may be chosen to be written into the Book 2 and Book 3 of the series.
9)    Give beta readers a Thank you credit on a Thank You page on the site and also on the credit page when the book is published.
10)    When the beta readers pass a mission assignment, a chapter will be released to them.
Using this approach to write Doubt, I also allowed fans to participate and shape the story. This has helped build the fan base and also promote the book launch. The release of the book is November 9, 2013 and because of this approach, Doubt is being featured at the Rain Dance Book Festival in Canada.

DoubtAmongUs
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre - Young Adult, Paranormal, Science Fiction, Thriller
Rating – G
More details about the author and the book
Connect with Anne-Rae Vasquez on Facebook & Twitter

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