English Whizzer: The creator behind the “Tales of a Seductress” saga Por Jacinto Muñoz Publicado en 20/11/2018 13 minuto leer 0 0 (Lechería, November 20. O’kuroku).- Whizzer, writer of the well-known novels “The World of Women”, “Tales of a Seductress” and its sequel “Tales of an Enchantress”, kindly found the time to give us this interview. Many writers have a point in their life that works as a kick off point and Terrence Phillipe, the man behind the nick, was not an exception. However, in his case that point was a pretty tough one, so he really showed a lot of strength and courage for being able to use it to establish the foundations of her writing career. Inspired by renowned authors such as Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson, Terrence started his career with “Hawtness”, a supernatural romance comedy, and eventually he gave life to his current works, “The World of Women”, “Power of Creation” and the “Tales of a Seductress” saga. Saga that he started by looking for unique niches in Amazon in order to write short stories. Although, after more than 100 chapters, two main novels and one side story, I would say we were lucky he could not keep that story short. Now, speaking of “Tales of a Seductress”, this is a remarkable novel with a great main character. Aria is a woman whom one cannot help but love and support throughout the story, and that is the main secret of the success of the novel, so it was not a surprise to know that Terrence actually prefers to have female leads in his stories. We all know that it is not easy to create good female MCs and many authors fail in that task. However, for Terrence the biggest danger to avoid is ending up writing a self-insert by having a male MC, and novels such as “Tales of a Seductress” have proven him right by having outstanding female leads. So, of course we wanted to know how he managed to create such a great female MC in Aria and here is his response. “I’ve often given advice to young authors that you never want to approach a situation trying to write a character to be a specific sex. I find that when people complain that a male character seems too feminine or a female character seems too masculine, the issue is less their ability to write a good male/female, and more their tendency to create a character that doesn’t make sense within their narrative. I wrote Aria as a character comfortable with her sexuality. However, throughout the novel, her sexuality is pushed passed her limits, which causes her to question and self-doubt herself and her morals. This doesn’t necessarily need her to be male or female, what’s important is that what she thinks and what she does make sense within the story, and in the end, this is what makes her character who she is, for better or worse”. In fact, one way to define Aria would be as “the weakest OP character alive” because in spite of her having a lot of skills with good levels, those skills are confined to very specific situations (and of course, all of them are related with having sex), so she will not “be crushing her enemies with kegels”. That is why so many times we find her struggling to get things done, where other MC just solve the problems with ease. Nevertheless, is precisely that struggle, and the process of accepting what she can do and what she cannot do, what has become a large part of her growth as a person. Definitely, Aria’s journey cannot be described as a walk in the park, but in the end, watching her fighting, falling, losing, improving, winning, having her hopes crushed, believing again, being afraid, hating and loving, is what makes «Tales of a Seductress» a fantastic experience as a reader. Especially due to the realistic way in which Terrence depicts Aria’s internal psychological warfare to keep herself sane and lucid. On the other hand, “Tales of an Enchantress”, the sequel of “Tales of a Seductress”, wastes no time for letting us know that Aria’s journey is far from ending. In fact, according to Terrence, this second novel “may be a bit longer” than the first one, and once it is finished he will start the final book, “which will depict her 3rd and 4th class”. Definitely, this guy is a very active writer. Not only he is writing “The World of Women”, “Power of Creation” and “Tales of an Enchantress” at the same time, but he also is planning the future books to come. How is he capable to manage his time? Well, his secret is having worked at a pizza place! The intense routine at work due to the amount of clients, and the place being understaffed, ended up with him being “horribly overwhelmed with pizza orders through the roof”. However, having to be “precise, fast, and skilled” and having to develop multitasking skills proved to be useful for him, by enabling him to be able to meet tough demands no matter where they come. So for him, writing 15000 words per week (his current workload) is more or less the same than writing 2000. In the end, he managed to develop the ability to adapt and get use to a given workload. As a matter of fact, the amount of ideas he has for future projects is huge, and that includes sequels and new books. By the way, as a side note, I have to say that considering the amount of isekai novels this guy has read it is not surprising that most of his own novels, «Tales of a Seductress» included, fall in this subgenre. In fact, he even dedicated a whole section in his blog to write reviews of a lot of those novels, and even though we disagree in our opinions regarding some of them, our top pick is the same… Long live to «Release that Witch»! Finally, having the opportunity of interviewing an author with such a great talent, it was mandatory to ask him for some useful tips to anyone who wants to start writing novels: “I think the two things you need to succeed are to start small and to be consistent. We all have some idea in our minds, some giant novel or fantasy epic, and most starting writers naturally try to tackle their magnum opus right out the door. My recommendation is to pick something small and obtainable. Don’t start with a 120000 word novel. Perhaps, try to create a 20000 word one first. Try 10 2000 word chapters that tell a complete story. Then go from there. Don’t release every chapter you have at once. Plan a schedule and release to that schedule. Whether it is once a month, once a week, or once a day, try to stick to the schedule. Finally, I’d say write something that is fun to you. Most of the novels I’ve finished were not the big novels I wanted to write. Rather, they were the novels that were the most fun to write. I think the most important thing for a new writer to do is write. What you write might not get readers, it might not be popular, it might not be what you originally planned, but it’ll certainly be practice that will only serve to help you grow and become a better writer”. By Shougo Amakusa (@shougoamakusa) For Whizzer’s blog click here. To read Tales of a Seductress click here. To read The World of Women click here.
