Blog Tour: As The World Dies Untold Tales by Rhiannon Frater-Interview

Today is Blood,Sweat and Books Stop for Rhiannon Frater’s Untold Tales book tour. Rhiannon was gracious enough to give me an Interview and I am so excited to finally share it with all of you.

1.Which character speaks the loudest, to you? Do any of them clamor to be heard over the others? In UNTOLD TALES VOLUME 2 there are three stories from different points of view. I think the story that spoke most strongly in this collection was Katarina’s. Her story Revelation just pulled at my heart and I wept for her in the end. It was such a dark and intense story. In Ken and Lenore’s story Friendship in the Time of Zombies, both of their voices were equal in my mind. I think it’s because they’re so close and really complement each other. They don’t work against each other like sometimes characters can do. The Unknown’s story was really fascinating because we start with one point of view then it switches. At first you think the story is going in one direction, then it completely changes. I really liked that. 2. I'm sure you’re asked this a lot but, What made you decide to write about Zombies? I definitely write about what I fear. I think it is a way of containing the monsters and making them not so fearsome. I’m in control when I write the story, so they become less terrifying in a way. Of course, that doesn’t keep the nightmares away! 3.What is your Zombie weapon of choice and why? Hrmm…I have a few choice weapons I would use. For melee, I would pick an aluminum baseball bat. I’d also like a handgun and a shotgun. With zombies you really need more than one weapon to deal with different situations. I felt bad for my characters in Untold Tales because they had to make due with whatever is close at hand: a cleaver, a crowbar, a coatrack, an office chair… 4. When did you decide that you wanted to write The Untold Tales? How did you choose which characters would be the focus? The first Untold Tale was Eric’s story, The Vacation of the Undead. I wrote it to promote the original AS THE WORLD DIES trilogy when it was self-published and as a gift to the fans of the online serial. Eric was always a background character I really liked and I wanted to tell his story. I had a lot of fun with that one. It later ended up being in UNTOLD TALES VOLUME 1. I listen to the fans requests for Untold Tales. Sometimes the suggestion instantly ignites an idea and I know it’s a good pick. Sometimes they recommend characters that I feel had their story fully told already in the original three books of the trilogy (THE FIRST DAYS, FIGHITNG TO SURVIVE and SIEGE), so they don’t end up an Untold Tale. I really like diving into the characters that we got to know and love, but just didn’t have quite enough time in the spotlight in the original three books. 5.What's your writing process like? Is it sporadic or do you set yourself daily/weekly writing goals and stick to them? I write at night when the world is quiet. I usually listen to music that fits what I’m writing about. I use yWriter (a free writing program) when I write the first draft and it has great tools for setting word count goals, etc. I do try to hit a certain word count every day. I usually end up surpassing it by a couple thousand words. I did try to keep to my word count goals recently when I was sick with the flu. This was kind of a bad idea. For the last two weeks I’ve been fixing the novel. I had things out of order and a little jumbled. The good thing is that I discovered I’m closer to the end than I thought now that I have the plotline laid out in the correct order. 6.For those readers who might not know your work, Can you tell them a bit about the books you write? Oh and for fun do it in ten sentences or less. I tend to write about what I fear. I write exciting stories that are character driven. I tend to place my modern tales in Texas. I do have one gothic horror novel with vampires, but that one is in the regency era (1820) in Buda, Hungary. I’m not afraid to kill characters. I always write the books I want to read. 7. Have you hidden any Easter eggs in your books? Personal stuff or jokes known only to a chosen few? Not really. I don’t like to exclude anyone from the fullness of the stories. I suppose if you’re Texan you’ll recognize places in the stories. If you love zombies, you’ll enjoy the shout outs to the zombie movies. If you love vampires, you’ll recognize the old legends. It’s nothing hidden though. 8. What has been the toughest criticism given to you as an author?  What has been the best compliment?  I have learned that the reason one person may hate my writing is the exact same reason hundreds of others enjoy it. So I think I take everything with a grain of salt now. My greatest compliment is when a fan emails me to cuss me out for killing one of their favorite characters. That tells me I did a good job creating a character people care about. 9. Back to the Zombies Do you prefer slow moving Romero style ones or the more modern fast moving kind? If the zombocalypse happened for real, I would hope to God they were slow as molasses. 10. Your characters know about zombies in your books. Yes it's awful and shocking but they aren't completely clueless which I find refreshing. How do you think this has affected your characters development against the hordes of undead? Well, since the ATWD universe has zombie movies and zombie books, the people do catch on as to what is really going on a little quicker. They anticipate certain aspects of the zombie mythos to be true and so they are quite paranoid about bites, etc. Jenni was particularly upset when the zombies start out fast, but he’s gleeful as they slow down over time. I think it did add a bit of humor because of what her expectations were as opposed to what was actually happening. In Untold Tales Volume 2, not all the characters understand what zombies are, so that was fun to play with as well. Not everyone watches horror movies after all. 11. One last question. Can you tell us about any upcoming projects? I have too much going on! I just released a short story collection called BLOOD & LOVE AND OTHER VAMPIRE TALES. AS THE WORLD DIES UNTOLD TALES VOLUME 2 is now out. I’m hoping to publish yet another short story collection in the near future that will have some of my previously published horror short stories. I’m finishing up a book proposal that my agent will be submitting to my editor at Tor, so maybe I’ll be doing another book with them. I’m planning on writing and publishing the next book in the Vampire Bride series by the end of the year. It’s called THE RISE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE. I also hope to write and publish the second book in the Pretty Trilogy called PRETTY WHEN SHE KILLS. Author Kody Boye and I are about to finish our YA novel called THE MIDNIGHT SPELL. We’re both very excited about that one. So I’m really busy and it’s a lot of fun.

Thank You So Much Rhiannon for Stopping By!

Rhiannon Frater is the award-winning author of the AS THE WORLD DIES zombie trilogy and the author of several other books: the vampire novels PRETTY WHEN SHE DIES and THE TALE OF THE VAMPIRE BRIDE and the young-adult zombie novel The Living Dead Boy and the Zombie Hunters. The first two books in her zombie trilogy, THE FIRST DAYS and FIGHTING TO SURVIVE, are available now in bookstores. SIEGE will be in bookstores on April 24, 2012.

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