Name of Author: Sorcha De Brún

Title of Book: Altered

Favorite Authors: 

Outside of Wattpad I love JRR Tolkien, George R R Martin, Daphne Du Maurier, Stephen Fry, Arthur Conan Doyle, John Boyne, Curtis Sittenfeld, Philip Pullman, Celia Rees, Richard Yates, Kate Morton... to name but a few!

Bio:

I'm a primary school teacher in Ireland, where I am born and bred. I love to travel and see the world - teaching lends wonderfully to that. I dabble in pretty much every creative area (except for music! All musical talents seemed to have by-passed me) I play hockey and rugby (I'm really competitive, in a really friendly way, I swear) I'm a huge rugby fan too, as well as a history nut! And well - that's about it for me, I guess!

Altered

http://www.wattpad.com/story/28517041-altered

Can you explain what your book is all about?

Altered follows the story of Charlotte Owens as she enters her final year at Kingston Academy, a secret school that specialises in turning its students into living, breathing weapons. Despite being greatly disliked and mistrusted by the headmaster, he casts Charlotte in the prestigious role of Head Girl where she must learn how to play a dangerous game of survival in order to escape the academy with her life. Its a dark and tense look at the ability for the good in people to fight past the evils in society.

Who is your target audience - and why?

I like to think that my story appeals to both a male and female audience, but my demographics are dominated by female readers. I think my story is aimed really at the YA audience. I started writing it when I was twenty-one, so my MCs are all between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three. In my mind anyway, it is aimed at an audience who are the same age of my MCs - and most of my readers seemed to be aged between 13 and 25 years!

What is 'paranormal' about your story?

This is a hard question in one sense, because I always presumed 'paranormal' stories were ghost stories - plain and simple. Since joining WP I've obviously realised it is so much more than that, though I'm still not quite sure what! But in short powers, are what make my story paranormal. The students of Kingston Academy are genetically-engineered to have supernatural powers - superpowers in a sense, though they are manufactured to be used for evil rather than good.

Does it contain other genre elements, if so which ones - and why?

Romance is the other large underlying genre element in Altered. I won't lie - it takes a while to get to it - but it's there and once it becomes clear it refuses to leave! I have to admit I never wanted the core story of Altered to become lost to the love story, and I didn't want to do the love-at-first-sight thing either, so that is why it seems to take a back-seat for a bit, yet it is the driving force behind my MCs and their interactions.

Tell us about your writing process - how do you get from story idea to a Wattpad published story?

I have more notebooks with scribbles and ideas than I know what to do with - but usually the notebooks come second - they are for clarifying a scene or a world, planning the moment or idea. When I get my idea/inspiration (music plays a huge role in this) I tend to just start writing at a major scene and I build the world around that. Key moments definitely led the way in writing Altered, when it came to publishing it on WP it was all about tightening the threads of the story and fixing the pacing. Usually the key moments throw up questions and by backtracking from them I can fill in any of the plot holes that might crop up! Once I have my first draft I read through it about four or five time in different font sizes (for variation) to ensure it is up to scratch and then it's left for the audience to devour!

Did you encounter any challenges when writing, if so - how did you overcome them?

The biggest difficulty I have found when writing, is getting from one point to the next. I knew the 'big moments' of Altered, but bringing the reader to these points was tricky and setting the pacing of the story in a way that was natural (for my own tastes anyway). I found it really helpful to write the big moments and skip the smaller information between these moments. It helped give a clear focus to writing the less tense parts and I was able to ensure I included all the necessary information the reader would need to make the key moment believable. Also there are some big decisions that I find I just couldn't bring myself to make. In those cases I signed complete ownership over to Charlotte and the boys and they decided what happened - writing dialogue always helps reasoning out big decisions!

You often hear that 'writing well' is the baseline for success. What does that mean for you?

It is definitely something I agree with, I think as a teacher I am a stickler for punctuation and spelling (though I know in my own writing mistakes still sneak through at times). Too many basic errors will make me stop reading a story on WP! Though this is only one aspect of writing and I think you often have to look at a writer's individual style. Personally I prefer third person narrative and the past tense (for my own work), but then I read work by other authors who write in first person or in the present tense and I am like wow, I wish I could write like that. 'Writing well' is important, because you don't like to read something where mistakes distract you from the story that the author is weaving, and also finding your own writing voice, even if it's different to everybody else's, is so important.