- The second coolest person you’ll ever meet.
Readers, let’s give a good, hearty welcome to this week’s guest!
Sean Valiente is a debut fantasy author who by day works for a tech company as a finance and accounting professional and by night dreams up fantastical worlds. He lives just north of Boston and often pesters his wife with his crazy ideas.
Sean, thanks for agreeing to be here today. Most interviews start off with the boring stuff, but I know what readers REALLY want to know.
If you could have any pet (real/fantasy/no-allergies/no worries about feeding it) what would it be?
I think the answer has to be dragon, right? Something along the lines of toothless where it’s big enough to ride but small enough to house. Beyond the mythical, I would definitely love to have a wolf – they are my favorite animal and have been my whole life. There’s something pretty awesome about the animal. You know what’s cool? There’s this little documentary about how wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone and by doing so it literally CHANGED THE RIVERS. Wolves are dope.
I can tell straight-away that you’re also a fan of fantasy novels! But, I definitely loved that Yellowstone wolf documentary, too. I know exactly the one you mean. (found it!) (apparently not the full story? *sadface*)
What do you write? And how did you get started?
I typically write fantasy and I really started in my earliest days back in middle school but it wasn’t until a few years ago that I actually started writing in a more determined manner.
Sounds like a familiar origin story to me *looks in the mirror.*
What do you like to read?
I love a good fantasy tome, but also I’m really into “real stories turned into a book” like Console Wars or Bad Blood or Born a Crime.
I usually don’t pick out those books, but I’ve yet to regret it when one ends up in my reading list.
Name one commonly accepted piece of writing advice that doesn’t work for you.
Don’t use adverbs.
Stephen King is the king (pun intended) of the “don’t use adverbs” rule and while I agree with it in spirit, adverbs are helpful, useful tools in the writing arsenal. The problem is adverbs tend to lead a writer to “tell, not show” which is why you have the “no adverbs rule”. But I think you can still have evocative writing AND use adverbs. It’s all about what you’re trying to achieve with your particular piece of writing.
I agree! Searching for “-ly” words and “very” help me knock back a propensity toward overuse of adverbs, but I don’t think removing all of them makes for better writing. Just make sure that your adverbs are carefully selected and used with intention..
Name one commonly accepted piece of writing advice that they can pry out of your cold, dead hands.
Write what you love.
This is so important because 1) if you are writing about something you don’t like, it will show and SHOW BIG TIME. Readers know the tropes. They know the style. They know the subject. If you’re faking it, they can tell. 2) In the course of editing you’re going to have to read and re-read your writing a half a bajillion times, and if you don’t love it, it’ll be, literally, the worst.
What you said.
Shameless Self-Promotion time!
My first and only book at the moment is “The Lighting Knight” which is book one of a
planned series titled “The Knights of Nine”.
The Lightning Knight: The Knights of Nine (Book 1)
Magic isn’t real. Not anymore and not like it used to be. Or so I thought…
16-year-old Oliver Quartermain doesn’t believe in magic anymore. But who cares? He has it all: he comes from a rich and noble family and doesn’t have a care in the world. But how quickly that can all change.
In the space of a few moments, Oliver’s life is turned upside down when he is tasked with protecting and saving the very magic he never believed in. But that’s not even the half of it. The only way to save magic is by training a young boy named Po Pondarion, who is destined to save the world.
Not only does Oliver have to train the young and totally clueless Po, but he also has to battle an evil secret organization bent on destroying them, all while deciphering the secrets of a Magical Codex. Oliver enlists the help of his unlikely best friends, Roc and Yokel, as well as the Knight Angels, secretive vigilantes he’s only recently met, to help him train Po and save the world. That should be simple, right?
Will this merry band of misfits be able to train the young Po in time for him to learn the secrets of magic and save its very existence forever?
Check Sean Valiente out across the web!
WRITING TIPS & WRITERLY MUSINGS 
1 Comment