This week the Miss Snark's First Victim Success Story Blog Hop is in full swing! And today it’s my turn to host one of the
Success Stories. I pulled up a (virtual)
chair to talk with
Amanda Sun about her book and her love of multicultural
settings. You all are welcome to join us.
I hope you do.
 |
| Photo by Alex Neary of Wild Eyed Photography |
First, a little bit about Amanda:
Amanda Sun was born in Deep River, a small town where she
could escape into the surrounding forest to read. An archaeologist by training,
her intense fear of spiders keeps her indoors where she writes novels instead.
She will write your name in Egyptian Hieroglyphic if you ask, though. The Paper
Gods is inspired by her time living in Osaka and travelling throughout Japan.
She currently lives in Toronto, where she keeps busy knitting companion cubes,
gaming, and sewing costumes for anime conventions. INK is her first novel.
Visit her on the web at amandasunbooks.blogspot.com and on Twitter at
@Amanda_Sun.
Welcome to the blog,
Amanda!
Since this whole blog hop is because of Authoress and her
blog, Miss Snark’s First Victim (which we lovingly call MSFV), first would you
share with us how MSFV helped you get to where you are today?
Sure! Before I had an agent, I entered a lot of the
different contests and critiques on MSFV. I entered a couple Secret Agents with
different manuscripts, and while I didn't place, I did get requests from
lurking agents! The comments also helped me understand what was going wrong
with my opening. Another time I received a request for my ms from Authoress'
First Kiss critique--and the agent knew the ms wasn't finished yet! That gave
me the encouragement to get it done, polished, and ready to send out. I entered
the polished ms in the first Baker's Dozen Auction which was incredibly
exciting. I learned so much from the feedback I got from the agents and MSFV
community! MSFV has been a supportive home base through the querying and
submission process, and the feedback and encouragement I received there
definitely helped me get to this point. So thank you guys for being awesome!
Yes! I second that
thanks to all those in the MSFV community.
They are an incredibly selfless group of people.
Well, Amanda, it looks like you were very successful at
getting past the querying and submission stage, because your debut novel, INK,
comes out in July 2013. Congrats!
Thanks!
Can you share a blurb?
INK is a YA paranormal set in Japan. It is the first in a
series called The Paper Gods. After her
mother's death, 16-year-old Katie is uprooted to Japan to live with her
English-teaching aunt. There she crosses paths with her new school's arrogant
and gorgeous kendo star Tomohiro, whose drawings come to life in dangerous ways,
pulling them both into Japan's paranormal underworld--that is, if the Yakuza
don't get them first.
Oooh, it sounds
sooooo amazing! Good multicultural
books are so hard to find these days.
How did you choose Japan as the setting?
 |
| The walking bridge into Sunpu Park, an important scene in INK.
© Amanda Sun. |
Thank you! INK is mostly inspired by time living in Osaka,
with a healthy combination of my background in Archaeology and my addiction to
JDramas. I love diverse YA and I knew I wanted to write something that was
multicutural as a backdrop, but without that being the actual plot of the
story.
I love the idea of a multicultural paranormal. What a cool idea!
Originally I set out to write INK as a contemporary, but
there was one scene where Katie looked over Tomohiro's shoulder at his
drawing--and it moved. And then I realized I had a paranormal on my hands. :)
That paranormal
element is very clever. I really loved
the idea of sketches coming to life.
Tell us a little bit more about how you came up with that premise.
The idea for sketches that come to life in dangerous ways
came from a couple places too. Kanji, the characters used in Chinese and
Japanese writing, were originally used to communicate with the spiritual realm.
In a similar way, Egyptian scribes used to chisel a line through any snake
hieroglyphs, we think in case they slithered off the walls and bit the Pharoah
entombed. So I loved that idea of sketches holding power, and I pictured a
Japanese teen trying to deal with this frightening ability.
I love how you weaved your love of Egyptian hieroglyphs with
Chinese and Japanese writings as well.
That is truly multicultural thinking, in my opinion.
But I am also impressed with all the thought you have put
into the multicultural setting. Japan is
nothing like the western civilization we live in, so it must have been
difficult to capture a world so very different from your own. Did you do a lot of research in order to
accurately portray Japanese culture?
 |
| Sunpu Castle, a setting in INK.
© Amanda Sun. |
While my time living
in Japan provided a great basis for writing INK, I did a lot of research to
make sure I was as accurate as possible. I'd like to see a lot more Asian teens
(and teens of color) in YA, and so it's important to me to get it as right as I
can. After writing the first draft of INK, I revisted Shizuoka, the city INK is
set in. I took a ridiculous amount of photos [three of which she shares with us here], walked the routes my characters
walk, rode the buses they ride, and so on. I watched every school-themed JDrama
I could get my hands on to fill in the gaps, and I also have a former host
student from Shizuoka who allowed me to quiz her about any details I wasn't
sure of (for example, what kind of slang Japanese teens use to make sure my
words were current). I checked all my character names and Japanese phrases with
her and another friend from Osaka, so everything is as accurate as I can make
it.
Wow. Impressive
research! But you must have been
overwhelmed with the amount of research you had on hand to use. It must have taken some work to distill it
all down. So, tell us, what do you think
are the most important things to capture about another culture in a novel?
Great question! I think the most important thing to capture
in a novel about another culture is the common ground we have, the similarities
between their lives and ours. Sure, Japan is exotic and different and
interesting. But as much as life is different there, it's also the same. Teens
still have club meetings, homework to do, and real life issues to deal with. I
wanted to make Japan accessible to readers, to see a peek into what life is
really like over there. But even more than that, I wanted to tell a story
pulled from a very different mythology than the one we're used to in North
America. :)
Before we leave, do
you have any other tips for writers out there?
Do everything you can to be accurate and respectful. I think
in YA especially we often deal with cultural stereotypes that make their way
into our characters--and often it's not intentional, but a lack of understanding
on our part. Read everything you can that's set in that culture. Try to find
people from that culture that you can talk to about your WIP. Try to visit if
you can, and stay a while. Traveling through a country as a tourist and
actually living in the country will give you very different experiences, so try
to go off the beaten track. If you can't visit, use the internet to "walk
around" and see the sights. And remember that as different as we are, we
have even more in common.
Words of wisdom,
Amanda. Thanks for stopping by and
sharing them with us.
Thanks so much for having me, Elissa! :)
You’re welcome!
 |
| Shizuoka Futaba Gakuen, the inspiration for the high school in INK.
© Amanda Sun. |
Because of the awesomeness that is Amanda, today you lucky
people can enter below to win the following prize pack:
- a signed copy of Tesseracts Fifteen, an anthology of YA SF/F (including "Fragile Things" by Amanda Sun)
- two rolls of Puccho candy, one soda flavor, one peach soda flavor
- one box of Japanese pretzel sticks, honey butter flavor
- a query letter critique OR first five page critique (your choice); if you don't have one, this prize is transferrable to a friend
- your name written in Egyptian Hieroglyphic and Japanese
