I sat down (virtually) with Elizabeth A. Schechter for a short interview. Elizabeth A. Schechter’s latest release is Haven’s Fall, a Fantasy Romance featuring asexual characters.
Cynthia Sax: Why are you excited about Haven’s Fall?
Elizabeth A. Schechter: What I find exciting is that there don’t appear to be many people writing romances with asexual main characters. I checked Goodreads, and I found a list of romance novels with asexual MCs. 57 books, counting my own Counsel of the Wicked and Haven’s Fall. That’s not enough. There need to be more books with asexual characters. There need to be more romances with asexual characters, if only to dispel the misconception that asexuals either can’t or don’t experience romantic love!
It’s important to be able to find yourself inside the pages of a book. It’s important to be able to relate to characters, and to know that other people are seeing this character, and might just be able to understand you a little better. My biggest worry as a writer is whether or not I’m portraying a character properly and respectfully, because if I’m not, then I have work to do to fix it.
Cynthia Sax: So true. (nods) Where did you get the idea for Haven’s Fall?
Elizabeth A. Schechter: You know how places can be characters in a book? In the case of the Rebel Mage series, a place inspired the whole thing. I was in North Carolina, helping my sister out while she had the flu. Part of this involved taking her daughters to church. Since this was in December, that meant going to and from Sunday Mass, then to and from the rehearsals for the Christmas show, and finally to and from Faith Formation. Three trips, six times driving past the Stonewall Jackson School for Boys, a historic site located north of Charlotte. I looked it up, because I was curious, and I found out it was a reform school, and that it had a really lurid history of abusive behavior toward the boys. That history, combined with the last trip through the rain and fog, where all I could see from the road was the octagonal stone gazebo, created The School. Then Matthias walked out of the fog.
Cynthia Sax: What advice would you give new writers?
Elizabeth A. Schechter: It’s kind of cliché, but the one piece of advice that I have given writers, and that I will continue to give to new writers, is to keep writing. To not worry about how badly their first draft sucks, because first drafts are supposed to suck. That’s why they’re first drafts. It’s what you do with that draft that is important.
Cynthia Sax: That’s awesome advice. My first drafts are always challenged.
What do you love about writing Fantasy?
Elizabeth A. Schechter: The possibilities. When you write fantasy and science fiction, there are no limits. You can do anything. I’ve written about shapeshifting demigods and intelligent machines (more than once!). There have been trickster gods and BDSM vampires, BDSM super predator-warriors and gods trapped in human form. There’s about to be a blind mage, and then there’s the dystopian world of the Rebel Mage series, with its theocratic despots and the young asexual mage who everyone wants to either co-opt or kill. And eventually, there will be steampunk on the high seas, there will be more BDSM vampires, and there will be anything else I can dream up.
I have the best life— I get to drink coffee and make stuff up. Can’t get any better than that!
Cynthia Sax: Thank you for joining us today, Elizabeth A. Schechter!
Elizabeth A. Schechter’s Website: http://www.elizabethschechterwrites.com
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Haven had been their goal since escaping the destruction of the School. Haven had promised safety, rest, an end to running and death. But things had gone badly wrong in the mountains. Tam and Linnea had to leave Matthias and Solomon behind to face the Elders, hoping to return for them once they’d found Haven. The reality does not live up to the promise. Isolated and dying, Haven fears outsiders almost more than it needs new blood. With only the griffon Dancer and the human healer Ilane for allies, Tam and Linnea fear that Haven’s rulers will prevent them from going back for their friends—then fire rains down from the sky, and things became so much worse for everyone.
Buy Now:
On Fantastic Fiction Publishing: http://www.fantasticfictionpublishing.com/product/havens-fall
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