Hello, and welcome to our first interview of 2019!

Hello and welcome back! Please give a warm welcome to the talented Pennywithaney. Sarah is the talented author of 8 works on Wattpad, including Glass Slippers, A Kind of Bravery, The Scarlet Mirror, and The Prince of Pirates.

Collectively, her works have garnered nearly 900K views and over 45K votes. Sarah's works have been top ranking in the fantasy and adventure genres and Glass Slippers has been featured by Once Upon A Time. Her current, ongoing stories are The Scarlet Mirror: A Snow White Retelling, In Solstice: The Nutcracker Retold, and The Prince of Pirates: A Robin Hood Retelling.

Here's a quick look at Sarah's newest story, The Prince of Pirates: A Robin Hood Retelling:

  - They said his destiny was to become a king; he chose to become a prince among pirates instead. -

Crown Prince Alexander never liked nobility. He didn't like the lies, the politics, or even the people he was surrounded by daily. He never wanted to be king.

So when he takes his fate into his own hands and runs away, he never imagined the life ahead of him. 

After saving a sea witch and landing on the shores of an island nation ruled by a tyrannous king, Alexander disguises himself as the pirate Alex Anton, a pirate who steals from the rich and gives to the poor.

But his carefully constructed lies and way of life starts to crack as a stowaway becomes a part of his crew and he is tasked by the same king he hates to find a missing princess, the king's daughter. 

If he doesn't find her, he'll be killed for his actions against the king, but if he does find her, he might just find himself on the adventure of a lifetime. 

Between ancient sea magic, lost princesses, and disguises abound, Alex has his work cut out for him.  

Before we begin, we'd like to thank Pennywithaney for agreeing to this interview. If you guys have not checked out Sarah's works yet, do yourselves a favor and go check out her splendid stories! Grab some cocoa and curl up in a cozy corner, we're diving into a wonderful interview.

Without further ado...

1. What are your favorite scenes to write? What are the most challenging scenes to write?

My favorite scenes to write are easily character dialogue scenes with any kind of humorous banter. Although I don't write too much of it, I always love the occasion when I can and I love being able to see how many people find it entertaining once I post it. 

The most challenging scenes I often find are either fight scenes or any kind of thing with describing kissing. With both, it's always really hard to tell how much detail is too much detail and looking back on all of my scenes of that kind they always tend to turn out with some level of awkward. Even thinking of the first kissing scene I ever wrote makes me cringe haha. It was so naive and also I think I might've written in a mysterious fifth arm somewhere that doesn't quite belong to anyone and I still don't quite know how to fix it.

2. On average, how much writing do you get in per day? How important is writing in your daily or weekly routine?

On average and kind of overall, I tend to write around 500-1000 words a day. However, it tends to be mostly academic writing. Woo, English major! Ideally, I'd write double that and have it be both academic and creative but by the time I sit down to do the creative writing I'm normally drained and can only think of writing in terms of explaining literary theories. Which isn't bad per se, it always helps me get a weird insight into my creative writing but I definitely miss the days where I could just crank out a chapter in one sitting.

All that being said, writing is very important to my daily routine although I wish I could focus more on the creative side sometimes.

3. What tips/guidelines do you have for developing unique and in-depth characters? In your opinion, what makes a character well rounded and relatable?

So as anyone who read my first book on here (Glass Slippers) will know, I definitely used to struggle with the whole in-depth and unique character thing. Like a lot. Much less so now, but it has made it so there are a few things in the back of my mind that I tend to focus on when developing characters.

One thing is how flawed they are and if they truly believe their motives are good or worth it. I've always found that the key to writing a good antagonist. If they have understandable motives but are questionable with their implementation, it makes for an interesting experience. On another note, having a character do the right thing for the wrong reasons can also be interesting. I also focus on whether or not if what each character does is realistic in each situation and whether or not it calls into question their characterization.

To keep away from certain cliches, I tend to have each character's internal and external motives (among other things, like their greatest ambitions and fears and what not) planned out somewhere in my planning documents. If you have a lot of characters that stuff can be hard to keep track of without it.

For me, what makes a well-rounded character is someone who has both good and bad qualities and getting to see how those qualities conflict with each other and develop.

However, you can have stock characters where they're all either one thing or another (outlier characters sometimes have to be for simplicity's sake). They're not inherently bad and they can have their uses. Not every character has to be a driving and provocative protagonist or antagonist in their own story. That would get exhausting. Trust me, I'd know *glances uncomfortably at all the stories I've written about side characters*

As for relatability, a character is always relatable to me if they deal with certain essential questions of humanity or situations that can be related to. Case in point, the internal Hamlet question of "to be or not to be" and what makes a life worth living for each person. Or alternatively big life events like first crushes or dealing with loss.

4. If you could go back in time, to when you first began writing on Wattpad, what advice would you give yourself?

If I could go back in time, I'd tell myself to slow down a bit and to take my time more. My first piece of writing on here (the internally infamous Glass Slippers) was a rather rushed affair and while I am quite proud of myself for being able to finish it and for creating something that people have enjoyed, I wish I'd taken more time with it. Certain scenes that are a bit shoddy might not have turned out quite so badly and also it would've been nice if I'd appreciated what I was doing a bit more in the process. But at the same time, I know there are some essential takeaways I wouldn't have learned otherwise.

So you know, while on some level I do wish I'd known to take my time and to enjoy it while it was happening, but I don't think I'd choose to actually tell myself that. It's worked out well enough and I'm a big believer in that mistakes and hardships are meant to be lessons that should never be regretted. They happen to everyone and dealing with them honestly and plainly is a difficult but important thing to know how to do. At least to me anyway.

5. What type of stories do you like to tell? What themes, lessons, or values, do you hope that your readers take away from your stories?

I like to tell hopeful stories. On Wattpad, I do tend to write about characters following their ambitions or living out some kind of fairy tale like plot, but overall I normally want my work to help resolve something or to come to some meaningful/positive conclusion even if it doesn't have a happy ending.

That said, I don't actually have a set list of themes, lessons, or values I want readers to take from my stories. Over the years, I've become a bit of a fan of "death of the author" or that what a reader takes from a story should be separate from any supposed author's motives. Sure, I can go in with one idea, lesson, or value that makes the story worth writing for me, but I think what a reader takes from it depends on who they are. I can't control that so I've stopped really trying to make sure they end up believing one thing or another. They don't need to think what I do. As long as they get something (anything) from my writing I'm generally content. I'm not saying I don't have my own motives within my writing (on some level I must in order to think it's worth it) but those motives are unimportant to the reading experience. Plus, I figure readers will create their own ideas of my motives and general construct along the way anyway. They could be correct, they could be incorrect, I can never know and neither will they. It's all part of how the author-reader relationship works.

Lol can you tell I'm an English major yet?

6. Do you find any part of the fantasy/adventure genre constricting or difficult? If so, how do you overcome these difficulties?

I'm not sure I find any part of it difficult per se, but I do find the audience expectations I've come to focus on mildly constricting. With fantasy works, it can sometimes be hard to deal with larger themes about how people and life is head on. Plus, people have come to expect a certain level of fairy tale-esque idealism from me and that can be a bit weird to handle even after over five years of being on here. I am actually working at putting off the kind of stuff I'm interested in now into my current writing though so maybe I'll find it less constricting in the future.

7. How do you think you've matured as a writer? In the future, how would you like to further mature?

As a writer, while I'm sure my writing has developed in some fashion, I think I've more matured with how I deal with writing and how I look at it. How good my writing was or how well my work did on here used to be incredibly linked to how I viewed myself personally. Which is kind of a terrible way to look at it. If parts of your personal worth are linked to a series of fairy tale retellings you can't quite finish that you started writing when you were sixteen, things can get kinda dicey. 

But over the years I've moved pretty far away from that. I mean, I first started writing on here and on other online writing communities over eight years ago now. It's been a while and especially in the last couple of years where I've written more in the context of outside of Wattpad, it's been really essential in helping me figure out what I believe in personally and how to be proud of my writing but still recognize where it can improve, but in a healthy non-negative way.

In the future, I'd like to continue with this path, but also to work on creating content in general. It's been a hot minute since I've written on here a lot and genuinely enjoyed it and I'm really hoping to change that in the coming months.

Again, we want to thank Pennywithaney for allowing us to interview her and we highly encourage everyone to go check out her marvelous stories and give her plenty of love. Make sure you vote and comment if you enjoy her stories, and give her a follow to stay updated with her works.

Until next time, good luck with your writing endeavors and we'll see you all soon!