Interview with Simon Rose, author of Parallel Destiny
What
genre do you write and why?
My novels are all in the science
fiction and fantasy genre. The Sorcerer’s
Letterbox and The Heretic’s Tomb
are historical fiction adventures set in medieval England, The Alchemist’s Portrait is a time travel story, The Emerald Curse is all about
superheroes and comic books, The Doomsday
Mask is all about the legend of Atlantis, and The Sphere of Septimus involves the characters traveling into
another world and is in the same vein as the Harry Potter series, The
Chronicles of Narnia, or Lord of the
Rings. Future Imperfect is a
technology-driven story featuring mysterious messages from the future and the
Shadowzone series features a dark parallel version of Earth, a deadly virus,
and a dystopian setting. Flashback, Twisted Fate, and Parallel Destiny are in the paranormal genre.
As writers, we tend to gravitate toward what interests
us. That’s what ‘writing what you know’ really means. I’ve
always been interested in these genres and tend to write the types of stories
that I’d like to read. The novels are also the types of stories that I would
like to have read as a young adult. As writers, we all have our own sources of
inspiration but it’s a lot more fun to write about a topic that interests you.
I also write a lot of nonfiction on a wide range of topics for younger readers,
as well as books featuring tips and advice for aspiring adult writers.
Tell us about your latest book.
Parallel Destiny is the third part of the paranormal Flashback trilogy. The first instalment,
entitled Flashback, was published in 2015 and the second, Twisted Fate, was published
in 2017.
The trilogy
features ghosts, psychics, alternate timelines, parallel universes, and Project
Mindstorm, a secret operation involving deadly mind control experiments, as Max
and Julia investigate events concealed for over twenty years.
Parallel Destiny takes
place immediately after the events depicted in Twisted Fate. Project Mindstorm no longer exists
and Kane and his associates no longer represent a danger. However, Max and
Julia now have to contend with the sinister Alastair Hammond and his
experiments into the existence of parallel universes and alternate
realities. Marooned within a bewildering series of multiple universes, Max and
Julia are forced to fight for their own survival and to save the very fabric of
reality from Hammond’s deadly scheme
What formats is the book
available in?
Parallel Destiny, and indeed all three novels in
the Flashback series are available as paperbacks on Amazon and as ebooks on
Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. The ebooks are
available in ePub, Kindle, and pdf formats.
What advice do you have for other
writers?
Many new
authors decide not to listen to advice regarding their story and suggestions
regarding how it might be improved or how to fix problems in the plot,
believing that they know best. You don’t have to make those changes if you
don’t agree with them, but as an author you at least need to consider them.
Some new authors, especially those that self-publish their books, also often
don’t do enough editing and checking of their work before they make their book
available to readers and this should be one of the most important aspects of
the process, no matter how a book is published.
What's the best thing about being
a writer?
I enjoy many aspects of being a writer
but I think the best thing might be seeing your ideas develop and a project
coming to fruition. Writers usually have lots of ideas for stories but not all
of them become fully developed or may not have that much potential. Once I’ve
had the initial idea and started to think about the characters and the plot,
there’s usually a stumbling block of some kind that threatens to derail the
project. It’s a wonderful feeling when I suddenly resolve the problem and the
ideas flow even faster than I can get them down on paper or onto the computer.
That’s usually the moment when the project becomes very exciting and I know
that writing the novel is going to be a great experience.
Where can people find out more
about you and your writing?
You can learn more about me and my work
on his website at www.simon-rose.com
or online at the following social media sites:
Where
can a reader purchase your book?
Parallel Destiny is available in paperback and as an ebook worldwide on Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, and Indigo Chapters
in Canada, and at many other locations online. Your local bookstore should also
be able to order a copy.
Who inspires you?
Ideas come from anywhere and everywhere
really. Books, movies, TV, online research, out walking the dog, dreams, an
overheard conversation, friends and family, history, mythology, and so many
other sources. I have a few ideas that may never come to anything, but I still
keep them anyway. It’s always a good plan to save them because you never know
if, or when, an idea might fit into a story. My first four novels were all very
early story ideas and were the first books to be published. However, more
recently published novels, such as The
Sphere of Septimus and the Flashback
series, were also very early ideas for novels. They just took longer to develop
as novels. Flashback was also one of
my earliest ideas but again it took a while for me to develop the initial
story, and consequently the rest of the series. Even if the ideas don’t work
right away, they might in the future and you just never know when you’ll get
another piece of the puzzle.
What is your
work in progress? Tell us about it.
I’m
always working on something but currently I’m writing a number of nonfiction
books and doing quite a lot of editing and coaching work with other authors,
helping them with their novels, short stories, or works in progress. I’m also
working on a historical fiction novel set in the turbulent era of the English
Civil War in the 1640s and I hope to be able to focus on that a little more in
the coming months.
Who or what inspired
you to become a writer?
When my
children were small, I starting reading children’s books again for the first
time in many years. Some of the books were wonderful and I wished that I could
write something similar. However, some of the books were very poor and I was
surprised that they’d ever been published. This made me wonder if I could write
stories of my own. I started thinking that I should write fairy tales and
picture books for younger children but after reading the first three Harry
Potter novels, I realized that I wanted to write for the age group that those
books are aimed at. I wasn’t interested in writing about the same things, such
as magic, wizards, and imaginary creatures, and instead focused on themes that I
was interested in, such as science fiction, fantasy, time travel, history,
comic books, ancient mysteries and civilizations, superheroes, other
dimensions, and the paranormal.
