Hey gang! I am so thrilled to share some of the frequent questions I get about Defiant and my corresponding answers. If you have any more, you are always welcome to comment or contact me here or on my other social media accounts.

How long did it take you to write Defiant?

I wrote Defiant in little more than a month, first draft, mind you. There were plenty of things that needed to be cut and added to get the wonderful story we have today.

Who is your favorite character in Defiant?

Would it be cliché to say it’s impossible to choose? No, actually, I do have a soft spot for each of my characters, but how can I not say Faelan? She is a very special character to me. For years I tried to create to the perfect, sarcastic heroine, and somehow it never came out right. I found that each time I tried, something was missing or it felt too bitchy with limited awesome, kickass, sarcasm. When it finally happened, it was Faelan, and she is perfect. She is the character I wanted for years, the one I waited on for so long. When she finally came strolling through my mind, it was with a wicked smile and a glint in her eye that said, “You finally found me, let’s get this show on the road.”

Are your characters based on real people? They seem so real!

I never strive to model a character after any one that I know. I am a creative person at heart, I enjoy creating. That includes imagining new people and the way they are, how they would react to certain situations, and I have to stay true to that character and my own heart.

How do you come up with character names?

Now this is a question with several answers. You wouldn’t believe the amount of lists I have roaming around the house with names in them. I even have two such lists in my phone. Since we’re talking about Defiant, I’ll mention fantasy names first. I take inspiration from everything and anything. Sometimes it is a word I accidentally stumble over that gives me an idea for a unique name. Sometimes I combine street signs to create a new name. Other times I randomly combine names. Then there are days when my mind draws a blank and I resort to fantasy name generators to get random combinations. Most of the time, when I see a name I like on a random name generator, I still alter it to something I like better. Depends on the day.

However, there is a particular method to my madness with Defiant. You’ll see more of this in Impact and the third novel of the series. I try to align certain types of names, certain syntaxes and syllables and ways to spell a name with each individual culture and nation. The Galiseans are the best example of this. Their names are much more “clicky” or “slithery” so to speak. As reptilian humanoids, I found this fitting. Their names have a lot of Cs and Ks and a lot of Ys and Ss for this purpose. Things that slide of your tongue with a Sssss (like a snake). Likewise, the Santains tend to have common names with extremely different spelling than what most of us have seen. You can read more about names on my blog the Power of Names.

The universe in Defiant is really vibrant, how did you come up with the Callanans and will there be other cultures in the next books?

I don’t know, it just sort of comes to me. I can be inspired by different things and build around that one idea sometimes. A lot of the time it starts with a character and I build around that character, giving them a life, history, culture, etc.

The Callanans, however, I know exactly where they came from. I was having a day where I wanted to write something new, but I was stuck somewhere between wanting to write something with a medieval setting and a scifi setting. Some of the story that was in my head, there was more technological things, like space travel, but I wanted a reason for my character’s to use swords and be warriors. So I decided to put them together, a race that was almost medieval, with lots of old age weapons, but also technologically advanced. Thus, the Callanans were born. Ironically, Virion never really uses a sword, but I originally wanted him to. Perhaps one day I’ll go back and make use of my warriors in such a way that they use more swords, axes, bows, and arrows.

We had a bit of a cliff hangar at the end of the book, will we see more about that in the next?

Of course! As Impact has now released, you can read the next step in the journey and I promise there are resolutions to any other clip hangars that might be hanging around 😉