By David Doub What got you into writing? I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a kid. Honestly, I think it was reading the Ramona Quimbly books that helped me see myself in literature. She was spunky, but easily embarrassed, smart but not always focused – just like me. It was a revelation to realize that a real person was out there writing those books. When I was in the fourth grade, I had a teacher encourage me to become one of those people writing books. That’s why I’m so big on encouraging young writers. I teach kid’s writing camps in the summer, and you would not believe the creativity of some of those kiddos – especially the very young ones. I can dump out a tub of Legos and say, build a set, make a storyboard, then write a story, and the only hard thing is getting them to move from one activity to the next. I tried that exercise with adults once – they just looked at me like, Huh? You want me to what? But my experience also brings out how important it is for people to see themselves in literature. My friend’s teen daughter came with us this past weekend to help with filming the Fake Chocolate book trailer, and she said she likes to read, but the minute the character is described it throws her out of the story, because it’s always someone who looks nothing like her. Sci-fi in particular has very few Latina protagonists – but I have a number of friends who are super into Sci-fi even though they don’t see themselves reflected there. I was talking with one of my best friends late one night about what she loves about the Marvel Universe, and Star Trek, and Avatar the Last Airbender (seriously, we went on the Paramont Studio Tour together last time we were in California just to see the Star Trek stuff) – and our shared fangirling was part of the influence behind the Chocoverse. I even gave the character my friend’s last name. She told me all she wants is the hashtag #BenitezGirlsRock . Use it liberally, por favor. What was the start of the Chocoverse Trilogy? Why Chocolate? The first book in the trilogy is Free Chocolate. Imagine a future where the aliens make first contact. Only, the guys who show up are commodities brokers intent on taking samples. They get coffee cherries and sugar cane. Pero like . . . they make a translation mistake and miss chocolate. Chocolate becomes the only thing Earth has to trade with the galaxy, which makes Earth’s economy extremely unstable. Fast forward a hundred years, and the whole situation has come to a breaking point. Little does Earth know, but there’s an alien coalition debating whether to declare war to open Earth’s borders to force trade. And there’s internal war brewing over misuse of power in the company that controls Earth’s mega-secure cacao plantations. And there’s secrets. And history between planets and peoples. And there’s a failed telenovela star, who suffered scandal and tried to isolate herself by enrolling in culinary arts program on a backwater planet far far away. Except – Bo’s still a bit naive and optimistic, despite everything, and is convinced that if she takes a gig with the big, cold company, she can steal a cacao pod, share it with a select group of aliens, and by ending the monopoly on chocolate, bring balance to her world. Sound like the setup for a telenovela in itself? Yeah. That’s intentional. As to the chocolate? I’d done a couple of cruise lectures about cooking/gardening for Royal Caribbean and wound up visiting a cacao plantation the day after I’d done a craft chocolate tasting aboard the ship. The different takes on chocolate from my audience – some of whom were horrified by the flavors in dark chocolate and broke into my “ooops I ran out of the expensive stuff, here’s some milk chocolate from the store” bag, and some who were converted to looking for flavor notes in dark chocolate for life – juxtaposed against watching a demo the farmers did on hand-grinding cacao – it was something I wanted to explore more. There’s a lot to chocolate as a plant, as a superfood, as an economic indicator. The fascination colored the series, especially as I started interacting with craft chocolate makers, chocolate sourcers and farmers. Personally, I find Humor the hardest to write. I am curious how you view writing Humor and how do you approach it? There has to be a balance to it. Humor only works if there’s something at stake for the characters, and something more serious you are trying to say underneath it. My novels are very much about overcoming prejudice and finding mercy, peace and hope. That could easily come across as preachy or cloying. The humor – some of which comes along with some really dark moments – cuts the sweetness. Strange Alliances said I indulged in, “rather canny writing which balances raucous humour with downright nastiness.” Yeah. They get me. At a con this summer, the guy who introduced me for my reading said my premise sounded like a 4-AM bar bet (fair, no?) but with thoughtful underpinnings. He asked how I’d pulled that off. It’s research. You have to know the real-world facts of anything you introduce. Yeah, I know, I play fast and loose with the genetic possibilities of aliens actually being able to have kids with Earthlings, and with the medical stuff that happens to poor Bo – but as inaccurate as that stuff is, it’s calculated, because it’s EXACTLY how it would be done in a novela or a space opera series. And that’s what makes it funny. I think I did a better job of explaining the tropes I was doing a send-up of in Books 2 and 3, to help audiences who aren’t familiar with soap opera get the jokes. People who hadn’t watched those kinds of shows before came away a bit confused as to what the book was trying to do. At one point when we were discussing how to get a wider audience for the second book, my agent asked if I was planning on making Bo my ‘verse’s Deadpool to be able to better set up the jokes, but I finally decided that since she didn’t break the fourth wall in the first book, it would be weird if she did it later on. She comes close, though. What are some of the most common questions aspiring writers ask and what seems to help them the most? How do I finish a novel? This is probably the most common question I get, from both teens and adults. There seems to be a barrier at 2,000 words where the new wears off, and people start to realize that maybe the shiny in their heads reads like mud on the page. So they start a new project, because that’s easier. And the new’s back. Until they hit 2,000 words again. But you know what? There’s never going to be an idea alone that will get you past that barrier. I think outlining helps, and other prep steps like character interviews, maps, and writing out how the history/tech/etc. works in the world. But you can get caught in that step and never actually do the writing. There is no shortcut – you have to write your first novel. It will be a learning experience. Most likely, it will be awful. But it will teach you how all the moving parts of a novel work. And once you finish it, you will realize that yes, you can do this. And then, you will have a manuscript on which to practice all the other writing advice people will give you as you edit that raw draft into something better. How much is your writing influenced by the south and North Texas in general? The DFW Metroplex is a heavily multicultural area, which I feel is reflected in the worlds I create. It is also a great area for fandoms, as we have FenCon and Fan Expo Dallas. I wind up making a lot of fan-ish references in the Chocoverse books. It is part of the in-verse shtick that the wide variety of aliens Earth encounters after first contact view Earth Sci-Fi as quirky cult classics – and that some of the same movies popular now are getting their 374th sequel. We also have DallasChocolate.org, which holds a huge chocolate festival each year – and a hugely talented group of local chocolate makers and chocolatiers. You can guess how big of an influence that has been. Are they any good resources in Texas you have found that have helped you and others in your writing? Check out Writer’s Organizations ‘Round Dallas. WORD has a calendar of local writing events and a map of writing organizations. There are so many groups catering to all genres and writing levels. Personally, I teach for both Writing Workshops Dallas and the University of Texas at Arlington Continuing Education Department, and would love to hear from interested students. Are there creators in Texas that you are enjoying their work? What other creators are you enjoying? These three are local: Rhonda Eudaley also does space opera. My favorite work by her is Tarbox Station. Bill Ledbetter has a novel out called Level 5. (I think there’s a sequel either out or in the works.) It’s a lot more serious that what I do, but it has a ton of interesting things to say about AIs. A Lee Martinez does fun sci-fi and fantasy. I’m a fan of anything involving robots and love things with mystery/thriller elements, so I recommend checking out his The Automatic Detective. What upcoming writings do you have coming up that you can share with us? The Chocoverse Trilogy is done with Fake Chocolate, which just launched April 14. So for those of you who like to wait for a series to be done so you can binge read all at once: now’s the time to get your chocolate fix on. Seriously. People tell me my books make them hungry. You want to at least have some hot cocoa or something in the house. If you want a sample story, I have one called Sublingual Breakdown available now through Bookfunnel that you can download. My project for the summer involves a time traveling bachelorette party. If I can actually manage to write a time travel book that holds together logic-wise, it’s going to be amazing. Is White Chocolate really Chocolate? Yes and no. Yes, in the same way that bacon and pepperoni are really pork. If you’re avoiding pork, you’re not just going to eat rendered bacon fat, because it comes from the same source as pork chops, right? White chocolate is made of cocoa butter, which is pressed out of the cacao beans and separated from the solids that make up the percentage of cacao you see marked on many chocolate bars. I consider it chocolate, and use it in There Are Herbs in My Chocolate as the chocolate component in several chocolate/culinary herb paired recipes. (Try the White Chocolate Grilled Sourdough with Chimichurri Sauce. It will change your life!) If you open up a bag of pure cocoa butter and take a whiff, your brain definitely registers chocolate notes – because you can’t completely separate the fat from the cacao. And this question itself is a slippery slope. I mean, is a Hershey Bar chocolate? After all, milk chocolate is only required by law to contain 10% cocoa solids. Which is a far cry from the 70%-85% bars that craft chocolate makers have on offer to show off single origin cacao beans. But some people are going to prefer a 10% bar. Who am I to tell them that it isn’t chocolate? Or that their preference isn’t valid? People start to debate what is and isn’t chocolate when you hit the percentage of their favorite bar. But that leads me to the no answer. TECHNICALLY white chocolate isn’t chocolate, because it doesn’t have a percentage to put it on the scale of chocolate types. Still, the USDA regulates it along with other chocolate products. Personally, I like caramelized white chocolate (sometimes called blonde chocolate) better than traditional white chocolate. It has elements that taste similar to dulce de leche, which adds depth to the sweetness, while at the same time keeping the chocolaty notes. ---- Amber Royer is the author of the high-energy comic space opera Chocoverse Trilogy. Book 3, Fake Chocolate, was just released April 14. Binge the whole trilogy, starting with a dose of Free Chocolate now! Free Chocolate Book Trailer Pure Chocolate Book Trailer Already caught up? Here’s the synopsis for Fake Chocolate: When disease ravages Earth's cacao plantations, Bo Benitez returns home to help with the media spin to hide that chocolate is in danger of being lost forever. HGB has come up with a new product - one which doesn't appease the cocoa-addicted murderous, shark-toothed aliens threatening to invade the planet. Someone has to smooth things out. Just when Bo starts to make headway, someone tries to kidnap her. While trying to avoid more would-be-kidnappers, Bo finds out that HGB is developing a cure for withdrawal from the Invincible Heart. Will she let her need to be physically whole again tie her to HGB and its enigmatic CEO? When she gets a key piece of evidence that would unravel secrets from three different planets, she has tough choices to make about the future of her world and its place in the galaxy. Follow Amber: Website, Instagram, TikTok: AmberRoyerAuthor Longer Bio: Amber Royer writes the CHOCOVERSE comic telenovela-style foodie-inspired space opera series (available from Angry Robot Books and Golden Tip Press). She is also co-author of the cookbook There are Herbs in My Chocolate, which combines culinary herbs and chocolate in over 60 sweet and savory recipes, and had a long-running column for Dave’s Garden, where she covered gardening and crafting. She blogs about creative writing technique and all things chocolate related over at www.amberroyer.com. She also teaches creative writing in person in North Texas for both UT Arlington Continuing Education and Writing Workshops Dallas. If you are very nice to her, she might make you cupcakes. |
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