Hello again! It’s our pleasure to be introducing R.D Pires, the author of Design of Darkness.
Book Description
The shadow of the great usurper, King Fogosombre, has kept the East in darkness for twelve long years. Made paranoid by a foretelling of his downfall, the king’s indiscriminate violence reaches a new zenith, leaving twins Arsenio and Maricota orphaned and homeless, their village burnt to the ground.
Now, as the dying embers of their rebellion fade into the night, the twins make a promise to find aide for their people in foreign lands. To get out from under the king’s reach, they must venture across the Great Ocean into a world they had only dreamt about through travelers’ stories. From their perilous quest arises a tale of emperors and queens, marauders and mysticism, fortitude and forbidden love.
Meanwhile, King Fogosombre conducts profane rituals driven by his lust for indomitability. Toiling with malign magic that may yield dire consequences for all the known world, he seeks a pact with the shadows, a plan to cement his reign indefinitely: a design of darkness.
About R.D. Pires
At nine years old, RD Pires began writing his first novel. Titled Lost, years before the hit TV show, it awoke in him a passion for storytelling that has yet to wane. Throughout his younger years, he would hone this craft, entering young authors’ competitions and sharing his works with friends who would scribble commentary in the margins. When it came time to choose a college major, he was torn between his two loves: penning fiction and roller coaster design. He eventually settled on the latter, and studied Mechanical Engineering at University of California, Davis, though writing was never far from his mind.
Robby has since self-published three separate works, including the novel A Vast, Untethered Ocean, the novella In Death Do Flowers Grow, and a collection of short fiction entitled A Sky Littered with Stories. When he’s not writing, he can usually be found cooking, watching horror movies, or traveling the country adding roller coasters to his list of ride credits.
He lives in Northern California with his husband.
1. What is the most difficult part of your writing process?
Revisions. I have a blast getting the first draft on the page, but by the third or fourth revision, I’m usually pretty sick of cycling through the same book, and itching to get onto the next.
2. How long have you been writing or when did you start?
I started writing my first “novel” when I was nine-years-old; so, I’ve been writing for over twenty years! Sadly, I never finished that first book and I think it was lost to the world thanks to a crashed hard drive (if only The Cloud had existed back then).
3. What advice would you give to a writer working on their first book?
Get through the first draft. New ideas for other books are always coming to me, and it’s easy to get distracted into starting another project. But I find that once I leave a project behind, it’s hard to take it back up. Instead, I write the ideas down in notes that I can use later, so I can finish writing one story at a time. That really helps me, at least, and sometimes even motivates me to get the current draft done faster!
4. What, to you, are the most important elements of good writing?
Flow is so important to me. Some books have better characters, some have better plots, but if the writing doesn’t flow, I’m not going to enjoy reading it. Good writing also knows and highlights what’s most interesting about the story being told. Few things are as frustrating as a story where the most intriguing bits are swept aside in favor of something mundane.
5. What comes first for you — the plot or the characters — and why?
It’s dependent on the book, but most often the plot comes to me first. I get a concept; and as I develop it into something resembling a story, I figure out who populates that world.
6. How do you develop your plot and characters?
Both are honestly changing up until the final draft. I generally have an idea what’s going to happen in a story, but as I write, the characters solidify, and that generally results in changes to the plot so that things feel honest and believable. Then, as I finish a draft, I often realize “hey, this is actually what motivates this character,” which necessitates changes in subsequent drafts to better reflect those motivations.
7. How many books have you written and which is your favorite?
I have twenty-one finished manuscripts sitting on my virtual shelves! I’ll be the first to admit they aren’t all masterpieces, but I like to think that I’ve learned something about writing from each one. Cheesily, the most recent is usually my favorite, although I’m particularly proud of the second book I have written in my fantasy series coming to Midnight Meadow!
8. What is your writing process like? Are you more of a plotter or a pantser?
I like to call myself a planster. I usually spend some time developing my story and characters until I have a general idea of what’s going to happen in the book, then I start writing. At about the halfway point, I take stock of what’s happened, including all the loose ends that’ll need tying up. Then, I write an outline for the rest of the book, which usually ends up being fairly accurate.
9. If you could spend a day with another popular author, whom would you choose?
David Mitchell. I absolutely love his writing and the way all his works build upon a central mythology. From watching interviews, I find him to be an incredibly intelligent individual who’s probably also a lot of fun just to have a conversation with!
10. Have you ever tried to write a novel for a genre you rarely or never read?
I’m always trying to challenge myself with my writing, and I love so many different types of stories, that I’ve inevitably written in many different genres. Typically, when I’m writing or preparing to write a story in a new genre, I focus on reading those types of books to make sure I’m aware of the genre tropes and what’s been done before.
Without further ado, here is the cover of Design of Darkness
