ELLEN OH INTERVIEW AND PROPHECY GIVEAWAY

Happy New Year Everyone! I hope you had a fabulous holiday season and hope you have a great year filled with everything you're dreaming for. 

My daughter and I had a fantastic time in China.We saw so many amazing things--The Great Wall, the Terra Cotta Soldiers, the pandas, Li River Cruise, and everyday Chinese life. I'll try to do a blog post and share some pictures in the next month.

Before I get to our fantastic interview today, I want to announce the winners of the December giveaways.

The winner of MAGISTERIUM is NICOLE ZOLTACK! 

And the winner of HOW TO SURVIVE ANCIENT SPELLS AND CRAZY KINGS is MARCY!

Congrats! E-mail me your addresses so I can send you your books. Please e-mail me by the end of Wednesday or I'll have to pick another winner.

Finally, here's two awesome happenings you might want to check out.

Operation Awesome just did an online revision conference filled with advice from authors and agents here.

And Miriam Forster is giving away a book a day to celebrate the release of CITY OF A THOUSAND DOLLS next month. (I'll be interviewing her and giving away an ARC in early February.) You can find the contest here.

Today I’m thrilled to start the New Year by helping Ellen Oh celebrate her debut. PROPHECY released on January 2^nd. I loved that this is a multi-cultural fantasy set in a Korea-like world. Ellen did a fantastic job making you feel like you were right there. I found it refreshing that Kira is the only woman in the King’s army and had the important job of being the Prince’s bodyguard. And she has super physical powers and is stronger than anyone else in her world. Plus there’s political intrigue, a fast paced plot with twist, and a prophecy. This is really my kind of book.

Here’s a description from Goodreads:

The greatest warrior in all of the Seven Kingdoms... is a girl with yellow eyes.

Kira’s the only female in the king’s army, and the prince’s bodyguard. She’s a demon slayer and an outcast, hated by nearly everyone in her home city of Hansong. And, she’s their only hope...

Murdered kings and discovered traitors point to a demon invasion, sending Kira on the run with the young prince. He may be the savior predicted in the Dragon King Prophecy, but the missing treasure of myth may be the true key. With only the guidance of the cryptic prophecy, Kira must battle demon soldiers, evil shaman, and the Demon Lord himself to find what was once lost and raise a prince into a king.

Intrigue and mystery, ancient lore and action-packed fantasy come together in this heart-stopping first book in a trilogy.

Hi Ellen. Thanks so much for joining us. Happy Debut!

1.  Tell us about yourself and how you became a writer.

            I’d say I was always a writer. As a lawyer, writing was the bulk of what I did. But of course there is a huge difference between legal writing and creative writing. I used to write creatively when I was younger. My head has always been filled with stories. I have old notebooks filled with ideas – some fully fleshed out others just random thoughts. But I never followed through on any of those ideas until I developed a passion for Asian history and found myself needing to write about it. 

2.  Oh My God, as a lawyer, I can totally relate to writing being so much what I do. Yet it is completely different than creative writing. I read that you did a lot of research on Korean history for this book and it shows. Share a bit about this and how what you learned about Korea that made it into your story.

            I'd become fascinated with Ancient Asian history after reading a biography on Genghis Khan back in the year 2000. It led to years of obsessive research that led to a kernel of an idea -- an idea that I could write a fantasy novel using a mix of history, mythology and legend. It’s actually ridiculous how much I didn’t know about Korea before I began my research process. Growing up in the states, history is very western centric. So I knew about the Pacific Theater of WWII, the Korean and Vietnam War and that was pretty much it. I couldn’t possibly tell you all that I’ve learned, I couldn’t retain it all in my head. But I can tell you this, it was endlessly fascinating. I would begin reading about ancient Asian history (I say Asian because Korean history is so interwoven with both Chinese and Japanese history) and I would be lost in it for hours. And it was amazing how I’d come across something and I’d immediately make a note of it as something I had to write about! There are several scenes in Prophecy that are straight out of history. It’s all so fascinating to me.

3.  That's so awesome how your passion for Asian history inspired your story. Having more multi-cultural books in general and in the fantasy genre is really something needed in both middle grade and YA books. You did a fantastic job of weaving in all the Korean influences for your story. What’s your advice on writing multi-cultural stories, especially for those of us who might not be the same race as the characters we’re writing about?

            It’s all about research. Not just library research but talking to people and watching films and documentaries. Immersing yourself into that culture to your best abilities. Going there if you can afford it, but for those of us who can’t, the internet is our friend. With the internet at our fingertips, it is really easy to travel the world and learn a lot about other cultures without ever leaving home. But I think that the key point is to always treat the culture you are writing about with respect. If you aren’t respectful of it, it will show. 

4.  I never heard anyone suggest watching films and documentaries, but that's a fantastic idea, both to learn about the culture and a setting you've not been too. I read that your story went through some major revisions in your journey to publication. What did you learn about the revision process that we could all learn from?

            Revising with an agent or editor is so different from revising on your own. An agent and editor has a clear vision of how they would like to see your story evolve and it is up to you to make that happen. One of the most important lessons I learned in the revision process was that pacing is king. If there is nothing happening to move your story forward in a scene, then cut it out. And I think this is a key difference between writing for children and writing for adults. Short attention spans. An adult reader is more likely to appreciate beautiful visual scenes and chapters where nothing really happens but some form of character development. Writing for kids meant honing in on the action and always moving the story forward. I remember where I had this great archery lesson scene that was very visual and had layered meanings set within the archery lesson. But it was deemed too slow. It was killing my pace and so I had to let it go. It’s tough recognizing that at first, but now I think I can spot the unnecessary scenes on my own. 

               

5.  I had a hard time learning the pacing lesson too and I'm sure I have more to learn about it. But I finally had to cut out a bunch of well written scenes that didn't move my plot along. How did you come up with the ideas for the prophecy and the seven realms?

            One morning, while stuck in horrible gnarly traffic on the Washington, DC beltway heading to work, I had an idea that blossomed into a story that just came tumbling out of my head. Since traffic was either at a stop or crawling along, I grabbed every single scrap of paper out of my purse and began scribbling the story down about a young prince who is supposed to be the hero of legend, but then it turns out that the hero is really his cousin, who’s a girl. And that was the idea that ultimately turned into Prophecy. The Seven Kingdoms are based on actual city-states and kingdoms that existed during the Three Kingdoms period. In actual history there was all these smaller city-states outside of the Three Kingdoms – so I decided to make them all kingdoms because Seven Kingdoms is much easier to say then Three Kingdoms plus four city-states. Just doesn’t roll off the tongue as well. Also, historically the Three Kingdoms became One (when the Shilla kingdom took over the peninsula) and the One became what we now know as N. and S. Korea. I wanted what really happened in history to mimic the prophecy in my book, but slightly different.

6.  I love how The Seven Kingdoms is based on what existed during the Three Kingdoms period. And that's a great way to be productive during those hated traffic jams. I loved Kira and how strong she was and yet vulnerable she is because no one liked her. And then you made her go through so many difficult personal experiences. You definitely weren’t easy on her. Share a bit about how you developed her as a character.

            I think it is a fact that girls who are different from societal expectations are treated badly. It has been true historically and still occurs to this day.

            There was so much misogyny in the ancient world, and here we are thousands of years later and we are still faced with a lot of misogyny. I think the reality is that a girl like Kira would have suffered greatly for daring to be a female warrior—for being unfeminine. And I can make parallels to our present world where girls are either girly girls or tomboys and don’t have the luxury of just being a girl. Societal judgments still exist now. And while women have made so much progress, we are still not at an equal footing with men.

            Kira is the only female in the King’s army. She is also the hero of legend, not her cousin. And that is something an ancient patriarchal society would find nearly impossible to accept. It had to be hard for her. She had to be unable to accept her true role because of how ingrained societal prejudices were. I happened across a review that said it annoyed the reader that Kira was being so clueless about her real role. While I’m sorry that it annoyed the reader, that was exactly what needed to happen. Kira has to suffer, has to go through a lot to change and become more accepting of herself, and even then, after all she’s gone through, the hardest thing she has to overcome is her own insecurities and the societal prejudices that have become ingrain in her own psyche.  Yes, I was hard on Kira – and that won’t change moving forward in the other books – but I also believe that girls/women are so much stronger than society gives them credit for being. We are survivors. 

7.  So sad but true about how girls and women having not been treated well in the past and even today. And Yay to strong women! How did Joe Monti become your agent? Share about how you found your publisher too.

            Ok so the process for me was that my original MS featured a boy MC. It was told from the Prince's narrative about his cousin, Kira the demon slayer. It went out on submission and half the editors rejected and the other half said if you rewrite it they would love to have it resubmitted. Well my previous agent and I couldn't come to an agreement on how that revision should happen so after a year, we parted amicably and I started querying agents again in January 2010.

            The second time around was a very different experience from the first time. Instead of querying widely, I queried very selectively and in small rounds. I'd send a handful of queries out (4 or 5) then wait a few weeks before sending more out. I was fortunate that in every round of queries, I would get at least 1 or 2 requests for fulls.

            Those initial requests were critical to me because quite a few of them actually gave me back amazing feedback! In fact, 2 agents, who I won't name but who I will always feel grateful to, sent me detailed notes back. I literally stopped querying for most of March and April so I could revise the entire thing and then I sent out a few more queries. Well, that was the lucky MS because within a week of querying it, I had 2 offers of representation. Joe was one of the agents I had queried early. He had my full but hadn't read it yet because he was backlogged. So I contacted him and several other agents who had outstanding fulls, and also sent the revised MS. I ended up with 2 more offers and I accepted with Joe by Memorial Day.

            Funny thing was that out of all the agents who offered me representation, Joe was candid about wanting to make me do another full revision and telling me how he thought I should go about it. We went back and forth over the MS over the summer and fall until we were finally ready to go back out on submission the beginning of December 2010. 2 weeks later, I had an offer for a 3 book deal from HarperCollins and the absolute best Christmas present a person could ever have hoped for!

8.  That's a great journey to publication. It shows the importance of persistence and the need for a willingness to revise. What advice do you have for us aspiring authors about building a platform and getting ready for a book release?

            I don’t know that there is really that much to do outside of getting it into the hands of your real audience – which is kids. The truth is kids don’t read blogs or twitter and they tend to interact on facebook only with themselves. I still believe word of mouth is the best way to get your books out there and that is something you have to rely on fans and booksellers to do. I think the one thing that I did spend money on is making a book trailer because I had heard from quite a few librarians and teachers that they loved showing their students book trailers. But other than that, I don’t know that there is much else an author can really effectively do. 

9.  I agree that kids are not reading blogs or Twitter. I do think they help by letting their parents, teachers, and librarians know about our books and hopefully some of them tell kids about our books. What are you working on now?

            Right now I’m finishing up Book 2 and drafting up Book 3. 

Thanks Ellen for sharing all your great advice. You can find Ellen at:

Blog

Website 

Ellen's  publisher generously offered an ARC of PROPHECY and a necklacce for a giveaway.  To enter, all you need to do is be a follower (just click the follow button if you’re not a follower) and leave a comment by midnight on January 19th.  I’ll announce the winner on January 21st. If your e-mail is not on Blogger, please list it in your comment.

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog, mention this in the comments and I'll give you an extra entry. International entries are welcome.

Here's what's coming up. I hope you're as excited as me about it.

Next Monday I'm interviewing Maya, a 5th grader and our follower Kristin Lenz's daughter, and her friend Sarah, for my ASK THE EXPERT series. I'm also giving away an ARC of SHADES OF EARTH by Beth Revis. This is a fantastic end to the Across the Universe series and my favorite book in the series. It's amazing.

Next Friday I'm doing a Dreaming of Books Book Giveaway Hop. I'll have a fantastic list of popular books for you to choose from.  These book hops are really popular so I'm going to try to do a few more of them this year.

The next Monday, I'm interviewing our follower Leigh Moore and giving away a copy of ROUGE, her fantastic gritty, romance set in Reconstruction New Orleans. I don't read any romance books, but loved this one.

Wednesday that week, I'll be participating in Michael Pierce's blog tour and giving away a copy of PROVEX CITY, an urban fantasy told from a male POV,which also has some contemporary issues.

Then, on the last Monday of the month, I'm interviewing Marie Lu and giving away an ARC of PRODIGY, her fantastic second book in her series. I'm SO excited to share Marie's book with you because it's so good. Marie is so kind to stop by for another interview, with her busy schedule. She's already had an amazing career as an author and I can't wait to find out what's been going on with her since she became a debut author a year ago. 

And don't forget our Tuesday Tips and Casey's Thursday agent spotlights.

Hope to see you on Monday!