Author Bio:
(please note: answers are in British English)
Rayne Hall writes fantasy and horror fiction. She is the author of forty books in different genres and under different pen names, published by twelve publishers in six countries, translated into several languages. Her short stories have been published in magazines, e-zines and anthologies.
After living in Germany, China, Mongolia and Nepal, she has settled in a small Victorian seaside town in southern England. Rayne holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Over three decades, she has worked in the publishing industry as a trainee, investigative journalist, feature writer, magazine editor, production editor, page designer, concept editor for non-fiction book series, anthology editor, editorial consultant and more. Outside publishing, she worked as a museum guide, apple
picker, tarot reader, adult education teacher, trade fair hostess, translator and belly dancer.
Currently, Rayne Hall writes fantasy and horror fiction and tries to regain the rights to her out-of-print books so she can republish them as e-books.
Her books on the writing craft (Writing Fight Scenes, Writing Scary Scenes, The Word-Loss Diet) are bestsellers.
Recent books published in e-book format include:
“Storm Dancer” (dark epic fantasy novel)
“Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2, 3″ (mild horror stories)
“Six Quirky Tales Vol 1″ (humorous fantasy stories)
“Six Historical Tales Vol 1″
and many others.
Rayne Hall is the editor of the Ten Tales anthologies:
“Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires”
“Scared: Ten Tales of Horror”
“Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts”
“Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates”
“Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft”
“Spells: Ten Tales of Magic”
“Undead: Ten Tales of Zombies”
with more titles coming soon.
The “Six Scary Tales” Series:
The stories in these book are mild horror: suspenseful, creepy and disturbing.
They don’t aim to gross out the reader and contain little or no violence and gore. However, they may not be suitable for young readers. Many of these stories have been previously published in other books or magazines.
British English: All Rayne Hall’s books use British words, spellings, grammar and punctuation. If you’re allergic to British English, avoid them.
What inspires you to write?
I write fantasy and horror stories, and sometimes historical, humour and non-fiction.
Thousands of fiction ideas are spooking in my head at the same time, each demanding to be written. But the ideas remain barren until they connect. Whenever two ideas click together, like a seed meeting an egg, fertilization happens, and the story starts to grow. Often, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle in my mind, with hundreds of pieces, and one after the other clicks into place. The location is usually one of the first pieces to click. I like writing about unusual places, capturing the atmosphere and developing the setting so it’s almost a living character.
For my horror fiction, I write about what frightens me… and that’s a lot. I simply exaggerate my personal fears to fictional proportions. Cowards make the best horror writers: we know what it’s like to be scared, and we never run out of material.
As a fiction writer, I like to challenge my readers’ perceptions, to alert them to prejudices and abuse. I can do that by showing issues from fresh perspectives. The reader experiences what the point of view character experiences, and shares the PoV’s thoughts and feelings. This gives an insight into what it’s like for someone else, and can change the reader’s attitudes, without ever being judgmental or preachy.
With the dark epic fantasy novel Storm Dancer, I explored the concept that we’re not responsible for our fate, but we’re responsible for how we deal with it. It’s a good versus evil tale, but good and evil are not as clear cut, and with the twist that good and evil are in the same person. How can Dahoud win this fight? Some readers have likened Dahoud’s djinn possession to a struggle against drug addiction, mental illness or other personal problem, and found encouragement in the Storm Dancer story.
Tell us about your writing process.
I vary my writing methods. For early drafts, I like to sit in a coffeeshop, sipping cappuccino and longhanding with colored gel pens in hardback notebooks. I also use an Alphasmart. That’s a simple computer with a keyboard and small monitor that does nothing but basic text processing, so there’s no temptation to goof off, play computer games or browse the internet. It’s sturdy enough to carry in my rucksack while a go for long walks. In the evening, I transfer my notes from the Alphasmart to the computer. My computer is a laptop. I use it for most parts of the writing process.
Plotter or panster? I’m constantly switching between the two methods. To start with, I free-write, exploring ideas, letting my creativity flow without censoring the output, and see where it leads me. At the next stage, I look at it critically and decide how to structure and shape it to create the greatest impact. I alternate between the creative flow and the structured approach, and this leads to strong results.
My early fiction attempts, before I understood the dynamics of plot structure and character arc, were pure seat-of-the pants writing. When I look back at them now, I see that they were boring drivel and went on and on. For a while, I tried the strict-planning approach. The resulting stories had neither passion nor soul. So now I mix the two, switching between them all the time, and this works well for me.
I’m a great believer in critiques, and I invite thorough criticism from other writers. The more feedback I get, the better. Although I won’t act on all the suggestions, I consider them all carefully, and they help me decide what to change.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
Yes! If and when the characters talk to me, which isn’t necessarily when I want to. Some characters wait until I’ve completed a story before they say “It didn’t happen that way” and make me rewrite everything.
Others contact me all the time with demands for more bigger roles and more page space. Some of the minor characters are like starlets, hungry for fame.
Dahoud, the main character in Storm Dancer, was the silent type. He didn’t reveal much about himself until I had almost finished the first draft. Only then did he reveal that he was possessed by a demon! I had to rewrite the whole book. Even then, he held back. It took two further rewrites before he trusted me enough to share his secrets.
Dahoud is a troubled hero with a dark past. He seeks to atone for the terrible deeds he committed as a siege commander, and to build a new life of humility and peace. Ruling the land he once devastated, how can he keep the secret of who he really is? Possessed by a demon that tempts him back into his old ways, how long can he resist the lure? Dahoud fights to protect his people from war’s violence – but how can he shield the woman he loves from the evil inside him?
Once I knew that this was inside him, I had to rewrite the whole book… yet again.
What advice would you give other writers?
Learn the writing craft and master it to the highest standard you’re capable of, so your books are as good as you can possibly make them. Use instruction books, classes, workshops, critique groups, beta readers, mentors, whatever suits you. Make your books stand out because of their quality.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
Before I switched to self-publishing, I had more than twenty books published the traditional way, with several publishers in several countries. I made the decision to switch because so many publishers I used to write for went out of business, which sometimes left my books unpublished but with the rights owned by someone else, a bad situation for a writer. In addition, agents insisted I must shorten Storm Dancer from 160,000 words to 80,000. That would have meant sacrificing much of the plot and meaning, and I wasn’t willing to do that.
Length matters with printed books (because of printing, storage and transport cost, and also because of size and weight), but not with ebooks, so the answer was to publish Storm Dancer as an ebook. Then I asked myself what exactly I would get from using an agent and a publisher. You see, I’m a trained publishing manager and have worked in the publishing industry for three decades, so I know the business. There was nothing traditional publishers could do for me that I couldn’t do for myself. I enjoy being in charge of my own publishing venture and in control of all aspects.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
I believe that traditional publishers will focus more and more on creating guaranteed bestsellers – mostly celebrity-authored gossip and such. Authors will increasingly turn to publishing their own work.
This will lead to millions of books published every year, varying greatly in quality. Without agents and editors to act as quality-judging gatekeepers, readers will become their own gatekeepers. Ebooks make it easy to download the free samples of many books, and readers will use this to choose what they want to read.
Those readers who are insecure in their own tastes or who prefer someone else to make the choice for them will turn to trusted review sites for guidance.
What do you use?
Professional Editor, Professional Cover Designer, Beta Readers
What genres do you write?
Fantasy (dark, epic) Horror, Historical, Non-Fiction
What formats are your books in?
eBook
Website(s)
Author Home Page Link
Link To Author Page On Amazon
Link to Author Page on other site
Your Social Media Links
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4451266.Rayne_Hall
http://www.facebook.com/rayne.hall
http://witter.com/RayneHall
http://pinterest.com/raynehallauthor/
Originally posted 2013-02-23 10:05:46.
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