Welcome author McKenna Dean today to the blog. I had some hard hitting questions to ask this author and hope you enjoy the interview and a bit about their release, The Panther's Lost Princess.
Thanks for stopping by to
talk a little about your writing! Let's jump right in. When did you begin
writing and why?
I think I’ve been a
storyteller my whole life. My family instilled a love in reading in me, and
it’s a natural progression from there to telling your own stories. Mostly
because you can’t get enough of your favorite characters, so you want to tell
more stories about them. Eventually, you create your own characters and worlds.
It’s an addictive process.
Do you have a favorite genre?
Is it the same genre you prefer to write?
I cycle through my favorite
genres when I read: historical romances, mysteries, science fiction, fantasy. I
tend not to read much in my own genre because I worry about becoming
derivative.
I think it is crucial for
writers to be readers, however. I can’t think of any better way to understand
the craft of writing than by reading a lot. I can get a sense of what is an
appropriate rhythm and balance by reading good novels. That is also one of the
pluses of reading in your genre—determining what reader expectations might be.
I’m not going to claim I always write to reader expectations, but if you break
genre rules, it should be a deliberate choice with specific reasons, and not an
accident because you didn’t understand the game.
Do certain themes and ideas
tend to capture your writer’s imagination and fascinate you?
Definitely. I write a lot
about people who build their own families. I enjoy the process of
self-discovery and self-acceptance. I believe in healthy adult relationships,
so my characters tend to talk about what’s going on in their lives instead of
letting the plot rest on The Great Misunderstanding.
I love romances, but I love
action and adventure too—so it’s rare me to write a story that doesn’t include
an element of danger or a dose of the supernatural. Give me a heroine on the
run and a hero who respects her, and I’m a happy camper.
How do you
balance long-term thinking vs. being nimble in today's market?
Whew.
That’s a tough one. Every time I think I’ve ‘learned the ropes’ regarding
publishing and marketing, something changes and I have to adapt. I don’t think
that’s such a bad thing. I’ve known people who couldn’t or wouldn’t change
their process, and I think they’ve missed out accordingly on finding their
audience and new readers.
My goals
are two-fold: write the stories I enjoy as quickly as possible (which unfortunately
isn’t all that quick for me) and work with bloggers, reviewers, and marketing
gurus to build my audience up over time.
There are
days when I feel I spend too much time marketing. That’s when I take a
self-imposed hiatus and get some writing done! I tell myself readers are like
stray cats. If you feed them, they will come. Stop feeding them, and they will
drift away to other feeding stations. I just wish I wrote faster!
How do you
find readers in today's market?
That’s a
good question! I spend some time on social media (probably too much) but I try
to keep my self-promotion to a minimum. I start some conversations, I join in
others. I look to see what other people in my genre are doing and I try to
emulate them.
Some
people think the day of the book review tour is over and it should all be about
newsletters now. Others buy ads or participate in big anthologies. I don’t rely
on any single tool. I think interacting with your fans/colleagues in a place
where you feel comfortable is important. If I know the person involved, I’m ten
times more likely to share their announcements when they enter my timelines.
It’s all a
give and take.
Do you
come up with the hook first, or do you create characters first and then dig through
until you find a hook?
I suspect
I find the hook first. I love asking ‘what if…?’ questions. Once I have a
scenario (“What if you found out you were a princess on your thirtieth
birthday?” or “What if you were desperate for a job but you think your new
employer is a vampire?”), then the characters come easily to me. The hook
drives the characterization needed to tell that story.
In my
current WIP, my heroine used to show horses until a bad fall made her leave the
sport she loved. Now, years later, she inherits a stable but the inheritance
comes with strings attached—naturally. I was fascinated when the original
character I had in mind for this role morphed into something else entirely. Instead
of being the rather generic female lead I had in mind, now she’s a fangirl who
dresses like her favorite comic book character because she draws personal
strength from this. But makeup and manicures don’t exactly mesh with manure and
mucking stalls. So I’m interested in seeing where this will go.
How do you
create your characters?
Most of
the time, the story idea molds the characters. Sometimes I have a mental image
of what they look like in mind (like a specific actor or model). One of my
favorite tropes is Opposites Attract, so whatever one main character is, the
secondary lead is usually different in coloring and temperament.
The
character building feeds off the initial templates. Sometimes they take
unexpected turns (like the example I gave above). That’s the fun of writing!
What's on the top of your TBR pile right now?
I just started Tears of Pearl by Tasha Alexander. I adore her Lady
Emily series—not just because she is a phenomenal writer but also because she
brings real depth to her characters. Lady Emily is a Victorian heroine facing
the problems that the women of that time had to deal with. It’s not glossed
over or romanticized, but the romance is a satisfying part of the mystery.
Tell me a little about the
characters in The Panther’s
Lost Princess.
Oh,
I am excited to share with you a little about this first book in my new series,
Redclaw Security. The stories are all standalones, based around the members of
an elite paranormal agency that investigates and solves shifter issues. There’s
everything I love most in stories: romance, danger, and the world building that
comes with paranormal tales.
In
The Panther’s Lost Princess, Redclaw puts their best agent, panther-shifter
Jack Ferris, on the case: find the missing heir to the throne of Coreldon. When
he finds Ellie West, a waitress in a hole-in-the-wall diner and a wanna-be
singer, he’s gobsmacked to realize she’s his fated mate. She can’t be his mate,
she’s the mission.
Ellie
isn’t your typical damsel in distress either. She has plans for her life, plans
that don’t include giving up everything she’s worked so hard to achieve to run
off with some guy claiming she’s a princess in disguise. But there are forces
behind the scenes that don’t want a missing heir returned to the kingdom.
Thrust into a world she scarcely believed existed, Ellie has to make some tough
choices—not only to be with the man she’s falling in love with—but to stay
alive.
Where’s the story set? How
much influence did the setting have on the atmosphere/characters/development of
the story?
The story is set in
small-town North Carolina and the Appalachian mountains. That influenced the
characters quite a bit, particularly when Jack takes Ellie to his former clan
up in the hills in order to buy them some time and safety.
I found myself imagining that
shifters who live in the city, unable to change very often for fear of
discovery, might lose connection with their animal forms and not even realize
what they were missing. That’s when the idea of a resort geared just to
shifters struck me—especially if society was anti-shifter and they had to hide
their identities. I liked the idea of an untamed stretch of land where shifters
could be free to shift into their animal forms.
If you had to write your
memoir in five words, what would you write?
Passionate, self-effacing
woman writes stories. (Self-effacing is one word, right?)
How often does your muse
distract you from day to day minutiae?
It’s not so much a
distraction as a lifesaver, I think. My job can be very stressful at times.
Being able to escape into another world, however briefly, is fantastic.
What do readers have to look
forward to in the future from you?
There will be more in the
Redclaw Security series—each team member or relative will get their own story.
I’m also working on the
origin story for Redclaw—how the shifter agency came into being. That will be
part of the Bishop and Knight series, named after my principal characters: two
humans investigating the slew of paranormal events that sprang up after WW2. A
little like the X-Files but set in the 1950s.
I also am working on a
lighthearted series called the Shifter Sisters: a band of shifter women who
team up to find each other the perfect mate because in the shifter world, if a
woman hasn’t chosen a mate by age thirty, her hormones take over and she will
mate with the next shifter she comes across.
I also am working on a
straightforward contemporary story about a woman who’s left an inheritance with
strings attached, and she must work with the co-inheritor or lose everything. Both
protagonists have their issue they must overcome to learn to trust anyone—let
alone each other.
A new paranormal romance series! The Panther’s Lost
Princess (Redclaw Security Book 1)
Find out why readers are saying they couldn’t put it
down and can’t wait for more!
Blurb:
Ellie West has always known there was more to her story than
being abandoned at birth. A child of the foster-care system, she didn’t get
many breaks, but the one thing she can do is sing. It’s her only ticket out of
poverty and obscurity. Nothing else matters, not even the nagging sense that
she’s different. She’s headed for great things. She only needs a chance.
Jack Ferris couldn’t agree more. His firm, the elite
paranormal agency Redclaw Security, has been hired to find a missing princess
and return her to her family. Discovering that Ellie, a waitress in a
hole-in-the-wall diner, is both the princess and his fated mate is like being
hit with a sledgehammer. Ellie West can’t be his mate. She’s the mission.
The sooner Jack completes this job, the better, only Ellie
has no intention of throwing her dreams away for a kingdom she’s never known.
With hired assassins on their trail, Ellie might not have a choice. They must
do whatever it takes to stay alive.
On Amazon and KU: http://a.co/i1r1wVZ
Excerpt:
She closed the distance between them with grace and
determination. When she stood a mere breath away, she looked up at him from
underneath her bangs. At some point when he’d been upstairs, she’d taken out
those horrible fake blue contact lenses. Now she gazed at him with eyes that
glowed gold in the firelight. With her index finger, she lightly traced down
his arm, hesitating as she neared his wound.
“Does it hurt much?” Her voice, velvety-soft, connected with
something inside of him and pulled him a step closer.
The words dried up in his mouth, and he had to swallow hard
before he could speak. “Ellie.” He wasn’t sure where he was going with that,
only that he had to try to make her understand why he couldn’t accept her
invitation.
“Jack.” The way she said his name, with such amusement at
his futile attempt to resist, battered at his remaining intentions.
“We can’t… I can’t. It would be wrong. I’d
be taking advantage of you. Surely you can see that, right?”
“What if I want to be taken advantage of? What if I choose
you?”
Her words pulled a groan out of him. “You don’t know what
you’re saying.”
“I know what I want. Better than anything I’ve ever known as
long as I can remember. I want you, Jack Ferris.”
Take her. Mark her. Make her our own.
Author Bio and Links
McKenna Dean has been an actress, a vet tech, a singer, a
teacher, a biologist, and a dog trainer. Finally she realized all these jobs
were just a preparation for what she really wanted to be: a writer.
She lives on a small farm in North Carolina with her family,
dogs, cats, and various livestock.
She likes putting her characters in hot water to see how
strong they are. Like tea bags, only sexier.
Links:
Website: http://mckennadeanromance.com/
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/McKenna-Dean-Author-262328784224302/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/McKennaDeanFic
Email: mckennadeanromance@gmail.com
1 comment:
Thanks for hosting me, Dawn! These were some great questions!
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