The Story of Evil: An Epic Fantasy Saga takes readers on an epic fantasy adventure through the world of Element. What was the inspiration that drove the development of the world the characters live in?

In creating Element, I wanted to incorporate many real-world cultures to highlight their richness and uniqueness. I spent a lot of time researching how to best accomplish this without crossing the line into cultural appropriation. The finished product resulted in a world the characters can travel through that never becomes stale or repetitive. Each city is different than the last as well as the landscapes between them.

There was a lot of time spent crafting the character traits in this novel. What was the most important factor for you to get right in your characters?

Characters are what drive a book, so they need to be relatable and believable. I mapped out each character arc so I knew where each person began and where they ended up. That made it easy to chart out all the struggles and accomplishments along their journey. None of the protagonists make choices that feel out-of-character. Hopefully, readers find them easy to connect with and root for.

When you first sat down to write this story, did you know where you were going, or did the twists come as you were writing?

This question brings up the idea of if an author is a “plotser” or a “pantser,” or as George R.R. Martin calls it, a “gardener” or an “architect.” I definitely fall into the camp of someone who plots/architects the story. Many of the plot twists in volumes three, four, and five were planned before I began writing the first one. Although some new characters, settings, and themes naturally arose during the writing process, most of what I wrote was plotted out early on.

When will Volume 2 be available? Can you give us an idea of where that book will take readers?

An Epic Fantasy Saga is the full and complete story (five volumes in one book) so there won’t be a sequel, but I do have ideas for a prequel book. However, I have not determined when I will start that project.

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