Charles Yallowitz was born and raised on Long Island,
NY, but he spent most of his life wandering around his imagination. One day he
returned from his fantasy world and decided he would share his stories with
others. Eventually his wife decided that she was tired of hearing the same
stories over and over again, so she convinced him that it was time to follow
his dream of being an author. Now, locked within the house under orders to shut
up and get to work, Charles brings you Legends of Windemere. He looks forward
to sharing all of his stories with you and his wife is happy he finally has
someone else to play with.
The Independent Author Network. Please tell
us about your latest book.
Charles Yallowitz. My latest book is part
of my ongoing fantasy series, Legends of Windemere. This series follows the adventures of Luke
Callindor, a young warrior who is determined to be a hero like his
ancestors. He is has more courage and
bravado than common sense, which puts him in the path of a Lich and its dark
master. As the series progresses, Luke
makes friends with other young heroes and learns that the gods of Windemere
have big plans for him.
In their most recent adventure, Family of
the Tri-Rune, Luke and his allies return to the city of Hero’s Gate. It has been plunged into chaos due to his
friend, Nyx the Caster, having unleashed a forbidden spell in the city’s
defense. Now they must survive thieves, goblins, and a new breed of undead born
from Nyx’s magic. Ghosts from the past are waiting in Hero’s Gate, but the most
dangerous thing might be the revelation that one of our heroes has been living
a lie. It all builds up to a cliffhanger
ending that leads right into Legends of Windemere: The Compass Key.
IAN. Is Family
of the Tri-Rune published in print, e-book or both?
C.Y. All of my books are in eBook and
Paperback.
IAN. Where can we go to buy the Legends of Windemere series?
IAN. What inspired you to write the Legends
of Windemere series?
C.Y. I’ve wanted to be an author since high school and I was always
drawn to fantasy books. I started
designing my own world when I went to college and continued my hobby of Dungeons
& Dragons. During one of the
sessions, I thought of how I could use the characters for my books and the game
could act as a testing area for storylines.
Everyone agreed it would be fun to play a game that turned into a
published series, so I outlined the stories as we went and let my world grow
around the new concept. I quickly
learned that I couldn’t use everything and alterations had to be made between
the two mediums. The game ended around
the halfway mark of the plot, which left me to work on Windemere without the
pre-existing material. I took a little
bit from everywhere and nowhere to create the world, characters, and stories and
it’s become very different from the original inspiration.
IAN. Do you use an outline or do you just wing the first draft?
C.Y. I’m
a big planner when it comes to my stories.
I have notebooks filled with character bios, monster write-ups, magic
items, and whatever else has come to my mind over the years. Part of this is because for about 10 years, I
could only find time to outline future stories or edit what I finished. Any idea that came to my mind was pursued
during lunch breaks. It eventually
reaches a point where I have breakdowns of ‘chapter targets’ in a traditional
outline format. All that being said,
these plans tend to get drastically changed once I sit down to write the actual
book. For example, I’ve occasionally
found a chapter that can be absorbed into another or I switch characters for
major events because the original choice wouldn’t be involved.
IAN. Do you have a specific writing style?
C.Y. I
write using present tense third-person with a lot of action and dialogue to
bring out the characters. This style
limits the amount of exposition that I can do and any world history has to be
explained through conversations or a prologue.
I won’t deny that writing in present tense causes some confusion because
most people aren’t used to it. The funny
thing is that I honed this style by accident.
I used to mix up present and past tense all the time when I was in high
school. A teacher told me to pick one,
which ended up being present tense.
Nobody ever pointed out that it was an uncommon style, so I’ve been
using it ever since and now it’s where I’m most comfortable.
IAN. How did you come up with the title?
C.Y. A
lot of trial and error for the series and book titles. Calling my first book Beginning of a Hero was
the easiest since it’s where Luke Callindor sets off to become a hero. The others all went through various titles
due to the focus of their stories changing.
As for the series itself, Legends of Windemere has an epic saga feel to
it and reveals the scale of story.
Windemere came about when I was sitting on a lakeshore trying to think
of a name for my world and the wind was really strong.
IAN. What do you hope your readers come away with after reading your
books?
C.Y. I
write to entertain, so I always hope that my readers come away feeling like
they went on an adventure. I’m always
hoping to hear about favorite characters and scenes when someone tells me they
read my book. If someone walks away with
something deeper than a joyful smile then I see that as extra.
IAN. How is Family of
the Tri-Rune different from others in your genre?
C.Y. It comes down to the world and a focus on characters. I see a lot of modern fantasy heading away from
magic, monsters, and quest-based stories.
There is more interest in political tales that are closer to reality
than those with elves, orcs, and magic swords.
I’m heading in the opposite direction with my books because Windemere
has magic everywhere. The best way to
explain this is that most fantasy worlds have it that wizards are unique to the
point where they are awed or feared.
I’ve gone in a direction where they’re rather common and treated more
like tradesmen. It’s more the level of
power that gets them attention instead of simply having magic since it’s not a
rare resource. Same goes for monsters
that can be found alongside mundane animals.
As for my focus on characters, I use the quest adventure as a backdrop
for the interactions between heroes.
Luke Callindor, Nyx, Sari, and the others are young and will evolve as
they face their hardships. So there are
scenes where they wonder what happens after their adventures are done or if
they’ll even survive their destiny. Even
if they fail in their adventure, the story can continue because I have brought
attention to the heroes as fluid beings that will exist after their
trials. I am seeing stories that are
more about the character development than the adventure, so this might be a
growing trend.
IAN. Do you see writing as a career?
C.Y. Yes. I’ve wanted to make a career out of writing
for the last 19 years. Wow, I’m
old. This is what I love doing, so if I
can make a living that allows me to forge my stories every day then I’d be very
happy.
IAN. Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your
writing?
C.Y. I
write with an ensemble cast of characters, so one of the big challenges is
making sure everyone gets some ‘screen time’.
This becomes very difficult in conversations because I’m having to
balance 6-7 voices at the same time. So
I need to find balances or give some characters a reason to not be involved
even if they’re in the scene.
Another
challenge stems from my use of present tense.
As stated, I can’t show history like other fantasy books that use blocks
of exposition. In my style, it comes off
very much like a clumsy info dump. This
means I have to be precise in the historical information that I give in
narration. Another method is to have
characters explain things in dialogue since it isn’t always a given that the
heroes know the origin of everything they’re facing. This does result in me having to leave some
of the more whimsical facts out because they’re not relevant to the plot.
IAN. Who designed the covers?
C.Y. All
covers for Legends of Windemere are done by Jason Pedersen. He’s very talented and I’m thankful that he’s
willing to help me out.
IAN. Do you have any advice for other writers?
CY. Keep
on writing and always make it fun. Never
let anyone tell you that it’s a waste of time.
Just keep pushing forward and cherish even the small victories like
finishing a first draft or surviving your first editing run.
IAN. What were the challenges (research, literary, psychological, and
logistical) in bringing it to life?
C.Y. The
biggest challenges with the latest book were consistency and continuity. I use a lot of foreshadowing, so I have to
repeatedly go back to research my previous work. A slip of a character’s behavior or a mistake
in preexisting information can snap a reader out of the story. All of the quirks, actions scenes,
descriptions, and whatever else I use to bring the book to life can be easily
undone by an error in one of these two categories. This has caused me to write slower than when
I started because whenever I have a feeling that something is off, I stop to go
back through the previous volumes. Even
when I don’t think I made a mistake, I’ll go back to check at the end of the
day. Better safe than sorry because many
readers will pounce on every mistake.
IAN. Tell us about your next book or a work
in progress. Is it a sequel or a stand-alone?
CY. My next book is entitled Legends of Windemere: The Compass Key. This is the 5th book of my fantasy
series and it definitely has more action than the previous volumes. A lot of the storylines and rivalries that
have been established will come to a head in this book to make way for new
villains and the revelation of the heroes’ true quest. One could say that this is where the series
takes a more serious and slightly darker tone because the characters will be
pushed to their physical and mental limits.
One of my favorite things about The Compass
Key is that I got to create a lot of new monsters for many of the battles. I’ve always enjoyed creature creation in
fantasy, so this book allowed me to go wild with a few ideas that were
previously nothing more than vague notes on a piece of paper.
