GUEST AUTHOR - JESS FRANKEL

I'm delighted to welcome the amazingly prolific author J.S. Frankel, who I first met on my sister blog, Tweetables. Jess gave me such an amazing interview in 2022 (read it here) that I had to chat to him again!

It's so lovely catching up! I'd love to start by asking about your inspiration for your many books. Do you follow market trends or do you just please yourself?

I never look at market trends. I write what I like. If I get an idea, then I run with it. 

As for the ideas, sometimes I get them from a throwaway line I read on the Internet, but usually they come from my own little brain and my weird imagination. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, and my late sister was far more intelligent, but she admitted that she never had my imagination, and that’s saved me more often than not.

Aww, I know you're underselling yourself - and I can say that with confidence - because I've read your work and it's brilliant 👏  But as I've now written a novel myself, the mechanics of writing fascinates me, so are you a plotter or pantster? 

I’m both. I plan out my chapters, just the basics, who does what, what happens, some of the dialogue, and then tweak things along the way. There is no single way that is superior to the other. Everything works if you do.

Good point. So how do you decide which point of view to use, and if you have multiple POVs, how do you manage them?

I started out by writing from a first-person POV, mainly because I felt some of the stories were deeply personal. It wasn’t like I inserted myself into every story; more like I could relate in some ways to the characters I created. I wanted to write the MCs as everyman/everywoman people in order to make them more relatable to the readers. I think it worked.

However, with my Catnip series, I decided to try a third-person limited POV. Other writers discouraged me from doing that, saying it was passe. Well, Harry Potter is mainly third-person POV, and I’d say those novels sold quite well!

In short, something in my head told me which POV to use. I can’t explain why, really. I just knew that first or third-person POV was right for that story.

That goes to prove you're an instinctive writer, which is such an asset! When you create characters, do you create profiles before you start writing, and how do you pick names? 

I don’t do character profiles. I prefer to build them as I go along. For names, I stick to generic names for the men—Bill, Harry, John—but for the women, I tend to use names that end with -la or -ra, such as Shayala, Minarra, Angella, Angela, etc. It sounds more poetic to my ears that way. There are exceptions, of course, but I like going with those names.

How do you pick which tense to use?

I write in past tense. That’s the most traditional way to write, and it serves me well. Present tense can work, of course, as it’s somewhat more immediate, but it seems too pretentious to me. Not many writers can pull it off successfully.

And what about the language styles for your characters? Do you have to write to your audience, like reduce or soften the swear words you use?

I very rarely swear in my novels. They’re YA Fantasies, so swearing is kept to a bare minimum, mainly in a dramatic scene. But that’s about it. 

As you're writing for teens, that seems very sensible! And can I ask about purple prose - is it an issue for you?

Purple prose is, to me, overdone. I’m more of an Elmore Leonard person, writing in a very minimalist style. He said—and I’m paraphrasing—trim the fat and leave the meat, and that resonated with me. I do that, and let the action and dialogue take over, keeping the narrative simple and direct. That’s just my way; everyone else will have their own way, and that’s a good thing. 

I love this! So, as a newbie author myself, do you have any tips for aspiring writers?

I’ll just say to write what’s in your heart. Write what inspires and moves you. Don’t write for the market, as it constantly changes, and don’t try to be too pithy. I can usually kick the pith out of everyone, so there it is. 😉 

😂 So naughty, but so nice! Okay, let's get onto the publishing bit now. Which route did you take?

I’ve always gone the traditional publishing route. Nothing wrong with self-pubbing, but with traditional publishing, the cover and editing are taken care of for me, not to mention proper formatting, uploading the book to Amazon and other sites, etc.

I must admit, there are days when I wish I'd tried that route too, as there seems so many decisions to make just now! But tell me about your editing process

I have an editor—Laura McNellis—who is simply wonderful. She picks apart all my dumb mistakes, and she knows how I write, so we work well together.

As for self-editing, I go over my manuscript a LOT before submitting it—and there are still mistakes, which is where Laura enters the picture. Reading it aloud helps, but I tend to ‘read’ it in my mind, if that makes any sense. Professional editors are fine, but they’re hard to find and they’re often very expensive. 

One thing I must mention, and that’s the people who shill their wares on FB and Twitter. Many times they’re just out for a quick buck and they do a poor job. These are just the stories I hear. If you want a quality editor, you have to pay. Period. That’s why I recommend Laura, as she is very good at what she does.

A recommendation is like gold dust, so thank you for that. I did a lot of research and was lucky to find the perfect editor for me too. She's agreed to be be interviewed on here, so it'll be interesting to learn about her side of things!

How about your pre-publication procedure – do you use betas, ARCs, etc?

I’ve only used beta readers on my gender-bender novels or my lesfic novels. As a straight white dude, I’m very conscious that what I write might inadvertently offend someone in the LGBTQIA community, which is the LAST thing I want. 

Therefore, for those novels, I have asked some members of the LGBTQIA community to check things out and tell me what they find wrong. That’s just my way of doing it. For my ‘straight’ novels, I rely on my own sense of what’s right and what’s inappropriate. 

You've already mentioned your publisher deals with your cover art, but do you get any input? 

I trust my cover editor, Martine Jardin. She and I collaborate, and we usually agree on what to do. 

You certainly have some stunners. During my writing journey, I've found a crazy overuse of the word 'so' - it drives me crazy! Sooooo, (completely different word lol!) do you have any?

In the past, I’ve used ‘that’ way too many times to count, so I have consciously cut down on doing so. I’ve often read works from authors who used ‘defiantly’ instead of ‘definitely’ and I think to myself, “What were they thinking?”

Also, overusing exclamation marks or abusing commas and semicolons and colons. Proper punctuation is, to me, a must. (And, yes, I’ve made mistakes in that area, too!).

Exclamation marks?!!! Are you kidding me!!! Yep, a big problem for me too!

Okay, let's talk about marketing – are you any good at PR?

I wish that I was better at it. If I had the cash, I’d hire a PR assistant to do all the legwork for me, but sadly, my funds are limited. I simply put up my links for my Amazon profile and for Goodreads and Twitter, and hope that word-of-mouth will do the trick.

My final question is about how fast you write, because it astounds me. You recently put up a post about writing 50k words in 3 weeks. That blows my mind, because my 85k has taken over 3 years (okay, I struggle to find the time, but your speed is incomprehensible to me). What's your secret?

I spend around three hours a day writing. On a good day, I can get around five thousand words down. Of course, not all of that is quality, which is why I do a lot of editing. As you said, it takes around three weeks to get the best copy ready before I submit it.

Amazing! Just amazing. Well thank you so much, Jess, and if you'd like to find out more about this lovely author, you can find his Amazon page here, his Goodreads page here and you can follow him on X here (please note, don't go to his old account of @JessSFrankel because if has been hacked - nearly 40k followers too, heart-breaking!)

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