Author Interview with H.L. Watson
Title: World of Ryyah-Birth of the Half
Elves
Book
One in the Elven Age Saga
Interviewed by: S. Marie Vernon, Pacific Book Review
December 2011
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PBR: Good
Morning, Mr. Watson. Great to have you
with us today to discuss book one of your six-part series of the World of
Ryyah.
HLW: Thanks for
having me.
PBR: Unless one studies the map closely on your
website they might not know the exact location of where this story takes place,
but the name of Donovan is from English or Gaelic descent. Does this story take place near what would be
England today?
HLW: No. The story takes place in a completely
different world where the world is referred to as Ryyah. I mainly named the male character
Donovan. To give the reader a more
familiar sounding name to identify more with the humans of this world.
PBR: You certainly have a thorough understanding of
Elder and Elven History. You said you
created these detailed backgrounds for video games originally. At what point, did you decide to start writing
books about the World of Ryyah? Had you
studied Elves for years or just did good research as you developed the games? Or, are much of the details from your own
imagination?
HLW: Yes I
originally created many of these concepts to be used as a back story for a
videogame concept. But as time went on I
discovered that the content I created was also a very good story and I decided
to form it into a fantasy book series. It was about January of 2011 of this
year when I first started writing. And I surprisingly discovered from my
friends, family and early supporters that I was actually pretty good at it which
was a complete surprise to me because I had never thought of doing anything
like this before. And for as my ideas
about the elves they mainly come from my imagination. But I do pull in some inspiration from
traditional customs and lore of medieval Europe.
PBR: Did the gaming videos influence the fighting
and violence in this story? For instance
we see a lot of violence in video games in general and, in this book, the elves
and humans are brutal when they take on an enemy.
HLW: Yes that is
a correct assumption. The high degree of
action that is fairly commonplace in today’s video games did have a lot to do
with influencing my style of writing in this story.
PBR: The story is very imaginative. We begin to see how the elves are like humans
and really care about their loved ones.
Humans are surprised by this in the story. Our prior understanding of elves may be as
mischievous little being who are and prone to trickery. Any comment about the human-like emotions
depicted by them in the story?
HLW: I would say
depending on what generation you happen to be from. Your ideals of elves would different
drastically. The older generation would
tend to believe in the traditional concept of elves. Which is as you stated “mischievous little
being who are and prone to trickery” but the younger generation would tend to
believe in more of the visions of elves made popular by the (Lord of the rings)
books and movies. But personally in my
opinion I believe that the traits of mischievous tricksters more adequately
describe fantasy races such as goblins, gnomes and Imps then Elves by today’s
standards.
PBR: The
story also has vision for your coming books.
Have you started these other books or just the second one? I imagine as you are writing the second book
a scene from book six might form in your mind, do you stop and jot that down
although you are concentrating specifically on the second book?
HLW: I have not
started any of the other six books in the series yet I'm still working on book
2. But you are right in assuming that I
often get strong ideals in my head that I either have to commit to memory or
write down immediately.
PBR: Do you have a time line for the completion of the next five
books in the Elven Age Saga?
HLW: I don't
really have a timeline yet but I would say that it is a pretty fair assumption
to assume that one book a year would be a good starting point to go on.
PBR: Will the coming books all be sequels or is
there a prequel in there somewhere?
HLW: Right now
the only books I have in mind are sequels.
But I am not entirely opposed to doing a prequel once I have completed
this series perhaps in the future.
PBR: When do you expect your readers could hope
for book two to be available for purchase?
Thank you
and good luck with your coming books of The World of Ryyah.
HLW: Thank you so
much for your kind words. Readers can expect book two (Unlikely Alliance) to be
on bookshelves sometime around the winter of 2012.
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