Read some interesting Q & A with K J Nessly, author of "The Chosen" - Guardians of Rima series.

1.When did you first have the idea for Guardians of Rima and how long did it take for you to start working on it?

I first started working on The Guardians of Rima in the summer of 2008, I believe, it was the summer the first Batman movie starring Christian Bale was released. I remember that detail specifically because I watched the movie one day and in between the show ending and my summer college math class starting, I had outlined my main characters and a general story arch for the series. Initially I worked on it on and off, I had another project in the works that I then scrapped and decided to work on “The Chosen”. I didn’t truly start to put a lot of concerted effort into it until well into my second or third year in college. At the same time, I also spent a lot of time working on later books, ensuring that events that needed to be set up and/or foreshadowed in earlier books were. My biggest pet peeve are book series where the solution almost seems to pop out of nowhere at the end of the last book. I’ve been working very hard to ensure that I don’t end up with that scenario with The Guardians of Rima, hence why it has taken almost eight years to publish the first book.

2. How was the characterization process? Any particular character who demanded extra work and attention or who was more difficult to work with? And which one was the easiest?

Characters are an interesting business. I won’t lie. They all take a lot of work and attention. Especially if you want to make them believable. Small details make the character. Case in point: Kathryn is fearless on the battlefield or in combat, but put a spider anywhere near her…well, if you’ve read the book, you know how well that goes over with her. You’ll learn one of David’s quirks in the second book.

For the first book, Kathryn and David were definitely the hardest. Kathryn’s character was difficult because of how her history affected the way she viewed the world and her initial interactions with her new family. I can count my blessings that I had a happy childhood and didn’t suffer the way she did, so putting myself in her head and trying to visualize how the abuse she had suffered would have molded her (and not in a good way) was a challenge. Another challenge was making her personable to the reader, but maintaining that cold demeanor she used to protect herself. I think the part that most people have a hard time understanding is that she’s not meant to be a character that the reader can readily recognize and say, “Oh, I can totally understand her…connect with her.” There are aspects to her character and personality that may be recognizable to some people (which are expanded on later in the series) but overall she’s mean to be a character who, at first meeting, you want to make your best friend.

David was also difficult due to his position in life. He’s been made a leader in a vocation that could result in people facing life or death situations. How does someone so young, but gifted in ways to make them older in certain aspects, try to lead? How do they think? What mistakes might they have made? The scenario with Kathryn and Natalie is a perfect example of one such mistake. David focused so much on trying to be a good leader and keeping his family safe from danger while protecting his realm that he forgot that some of the dangers we face don’t always come from evil villains bent on world domination. They can come from our own “circle of friends”.

As to the easiest, that was probably Matt. My youngest sister is one of those people who always has a witty comeback and is an eternal optimist. Anytime I needed inspiration for Matt it partially came from her and our conversations. After all, who doesn’t love the optimist who can look at a horrible situation and find a reason to laugh and smile?

3. What about the world building? What inspired you when creating the settings for the story? Was there need for research?

There is always a need for research. My first job was working in a library and I quickly learned the value of research. Because I decided not to reinvent the laws of physics and biology for my world, I had to do a lot of research in all the scientific fields, including human psychology. I also had to research history topics such as jousts, clothing (the court dresses the girls wear are loosely based off of Tudor-era gowns), and martial arts. Kathryn’s particular style of fighting is based off the Filipino martial art Eskrima. A practitioner of the art myself, I was able to use my own experiences in sparring to write action scenes where the moves the characters employ in their fighting would actually work in real life (with a little artistic license thrown in as these character do possess magic). I almost spend more time researching than I do writing. You will find in later books that almost everything I put in my books has a basic foothold in something in our real life. You’ll also notice that in the books the setting is set in what we would consider a southern hemisphere; northern regions are hotter and most desert-like. At one point I considered altering the spin of the planet so that sunset was east and sunrise was west. In the end I decided that the southern hemisphere and two moons in the sky were enough to differentiate my world from our earth.

4. Which aspects of “The Chosen” are the most dear to you and why?

I think that the aspects that are the most dear to me are the world building and the main characters themselves. With world building I spend a lot of my time researching ancient cultures from our own world and using them as the cornerstone for my own work. For those who are wondering, the Wanderers are loosely based off the “Barbarian” Germanic tribes that played a large part in the fall of the Roman empire. I’ve been researching other ancient cultures so expect to see some new societies in later books. The Christian religion has made an appearance, but I also plan on bringing in Islam and Buddhism. The research has been fascinating and rewarding and I can’t wait to fit it all together.

The characters themselves, though, are my favorite. When I write the characters, I literally try to live in their heads. Jenna would react to a situation very differently than Kathryn or Amy as would Matt compared to David, or even Tyler. Keeping fourteen people (and that doesn’t count the supporting characters) individualized so that it doesn’t feel like I have two identical characters has been a challenge. When I first started, I had pages of character maps to help me keep it straight. Writing them has been the biggest challenge and the most rewarding. Every character has a story to tell, and I plan to tell them all. And don’t let the first book fool you, Kathryn’s story isn’t even close to being done—she has a lot of growing yet to do. As do almost all of them. In the same way that we as people continue to grow throughout our lives, I plan to do the same with my characters.

5. Why write YA Fantasy? What do you like most about the genre?

It’s not so much YA that I like to write as the Fantasy. Fantasy allows me to create my own world and characters that aren’t bound by real events or natural phenomenon (my world has two moons and a 26 radian (translate as “hour”) day. That’s the part I love most. I’m free to create and allow my imagination to run wild. I still try to keep it semi-realistic though. If you look closely, you’ll notice that all the magic has a scientific principle behind it. As a scientist by education, I felt it was important to make the story educational as well. The cultures and religions I research will find their way into the series, as will scientific facts. Fantasy provides a platform for small details like those to be presented in a fun manner. It has thus far been proven to be easier to research the laws of nature than invent my own.

6. How many books do you plan for the series and have you started the process of writing book #2?

Currently, there are plans for at least five, if not six, books in the series as well as a prequel series and a sequel follow-up (the latter being nothing more than a tentative idea at the moment). I also have plans for several short novellas, of a sort, to bridge the gap between events in the fifth and sixth books. One novella has already been outlined and guaranteed to make an appearance. It even has a title, although I won’t be sharing that until much later. Book two, titled “Return of the Nauro”, is currently being worked on. Unfortunately I do not have a projected publish date yet.

7. Which have been the biggest challenges on publishing your first book? And the biggest rewards?

The biggest challenge on publishing my first book was not knowing anything about the process. I self-published and it was a series of trial and error many times over to get to this point. The print version of the book was especially difficult. Formatting issues made my life miserable for about a month while I figured it out. Fortunately one of my friends turned out to be very good at formatting and took pity on me and did it for me. Editing was also the biggest challenge. No matter how many times you read your work (or have others read your work), there will almost always be a small typo or grammatical error that you missed. It makes you want to rip your hair out. When I wrote The Chosen, I was literally teaching myself how to write a novel. The rough draft went through close to thirteen or fourteen different edits. There are still small errors, and I apologize for that, but I am attempting to be a bit more of a perfectionist with this second book.

The reward is seeing how much people enjoy it. I recently got an email from a fan telling me how much they enjoyed the book and it literally made my day. Knowing that someone read the book and enjoyed it—that they didn’t feel like it wasted their time; that is the biggest reward.

8. Which message would you like to say to your readers?

Overall I would like to say thank you for your support and I truly hope that you enjoy the journey with me and my characters. I would also ask that you please be patient while I work on book #2, I have a day job and can’t devote as much time as I would like to writing, but I do promise that I am working on it!

Visit J K Nessly's website: http://www.kjnessly.com