Interview on Litzophreniacs3!

It’s a new year and a new guest author interview! Today, we’d like to introduce you to fantasy and historical author, R.A. McCandless. R.A. has just released the second book in his Flames of Perdition trilogy, Hell Becomes Her. His first novel in the series, Tears of Heaven, won Best Science Fiction and Fantasy in the Preditors and Editors Readers’ Poll and was also a finalist in EPIC’s 2015 eBook Awards. In addition to his two novels, R.A. has contributed to a number of anthologies. Currently, R.A. is working on the third installment in his Flames of Perdition trilogy.

1. Tell us a bit about yourself and how your books came about.

Telling a good story well and hitting some epic high note moments is where each Flames of Perdition—Tears of Heaven and Hell Becomes Her—book has come from. It’s hard to not to get carried away into the unrealistic of, say, a sword fight or a gun battle—shooting with precision over distance and while under fire, or slicing a an arm or a leg clean off with a used weapon.  Keeping the physics of actions and reactions on target is where Del and her world came from.  I wanted answers to questions like—What would an angel actually be like?  What would living in a world that contains these super-powerful creatures require?  Answering these questions, with some degree of reality baked into the crust was important.  It’s especially enjoyable when readers catch the effort that went into making the world, albeit with the supernatural conceits, exciting and wondrous, but still within the realm of the real. That’s magic right there.

2. What helped you the most in writing your books?

Research, research and more research.  Between the internet and my historian brother, I can get lost tracing down a single thread that might earn a line or two, maybe no more than a mention, within my books.  I’ve had to scrap full sections on ancient coins because it leant nothing to the story—but I have it.  That degree of background, for me at least, is what makes the world I’m writing in feel real.  I love to reach out to experts and pick their brains for bits and pieces of a story I’m working on.

3. Are you planning more writing projects after your trilogy is complete, and if so, will you stick with the same genre?

As Robert Jordan once quipped, I plan to write until they nail shut my coffin.  The Flames of Perdition series doesn’t need to end with the next book.  There are a lot of stories to be told, and not just about Del.  I have a few concepts for other characters to tell stories within the same world.  Outside of that, I have a steampunk series The Constable of Aqualinne and a fantasy series that I’ve written at least a book for each.  Those are worlds that I also want to share.

Read the rest here!