You started off working as a director before moving to writing. Were there any skills you were able to transfer while writing The Rage of Dragons? How did that background affect your writing?
In my fifteen-odd years of music-video directing, I had the pleasure and privilege to work with artists like Sean Paul, Enrique Iglesias, Flo Rida, DMX, Eric Benet, Pusha T, Prince protégé Liv Warfield, and many other talented creators for whom the music video was an important—but small—part of their overall marketing effort. So, like in almost all filmmaking, I had to figure out how to make the absolute most of my time on set, which was often the only time when I had access to the artists. The time pressures and high cost of shooting music videos made it absolutely necessary to plot and plan every minute of the shooting day, and that’s something I’ve brought into my writing. Before I draft, I outline extensively, and for every one hundred finished pages in The Rage of Dragons, there are twenty pages of notes. I do it like that because when the time comes to bring the story to life, I get to focus on nothing but infusing life.
One of the great strengths of this book lies in the incredible fight scenes! They feel so vivid. Do you have any experience in martial arts or fight choreography? How were you able to visualize these scenes?
Thank you! As a reader I love a great fight scene and, though I’m the tiniest bit reluctant to admit this, long after character names and plot points have faded from memory, I can still remember a good, rollicking fight scene. This made it important for me to try to do the same in my book, and I think it helps that I’ve spent about ten years (on and off) in various Brazilian jujitsu gyms in Los Angeles and the greater Toronto area. I’ve trained for many hours, fought in tournaments, and I do want to believe that the time spent in those environments offered something to my writing process around fight scenes. The funny thing is, I think my training lent me more insight into the mentality and emotions that run riot in the middle of a fight than they did the blow-by-blow moves that take place in one.
Did anything surprise you while you were writing this novel? You’ve said in other interviews that you are a heavy outliner, but was there anything that you weren’t expecting between the outline and first draft?
This is super basic, but I think it’s important. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed reading the book after I’d finished drafting it. Like, as a reader, I’m a fan of The Rage of Dragons, and having had that experience, I hope to always make that the case. It’s something that I hold as a key guiding principle. Basically, I don’t think that myself or the story is served by me writing to impress other writers or trying to hit the hot markets for readers or anything else like that. I want to write so that I will have something to read that I will love. Then I just have to hope that there are enough other people with tastes similar enough to mine to justify my publisher’s efforts in printing, shipping, and promoting the book.
Can you give us any hints about what we can expect in book two?
Book two delivers all the violence and vengeance that was promised, and I leave it to you to decide if that is a good or very, very bad thing.
if you enjoyed
THE RAGE OF DRAGONS
look out for
THE FIRES OF VENGEANCE
The Second Book of The Burning
by
Evan Winter
In order to reclaim her throne and save her people, an ousted queen must join forces with a young warrior in the second book of this must-read epic fantasy series by breakout author Evan Winter.
Tau and his Queen, desperate to delay the impending attack on the capital by the indigenous people of Xidda, craft a dangerous plan. If Tau succeeds, the Queen will have the time she needs to assemble her forces and launch an all-out assault on her own capital city, where her sister is being propped up as the “true” Queen of the Omehi.
If the city can be taken, if Tsiora can reclaim her throne, and if she can reunite her people, then the Omehi have a chance to survive the onslaught.
Chapter One
Jabari’s skin seemed to be one open wound, roaring like it was still aflame, the agony of it making his grip on consciousness a tenuous thing that turned reality into a series of disjointed flashes. His every waking breath was torture, and if he could have spoken, he’d have begged the Sah priestesses and priests who labored to keep him alive to let him go.
“How is he today?” It was Tau’s voice that woke him.
Jabari tried to open his eyes, but the flesh of his eyelids was partially fused together. He couldn’t get them open and saw the world as if he gazed out at it from behind a field of long grass.
“The Goddess must have more for him to do for him to remain with us as he does,” a woman’s voice said.
He caught a glimpse of her. She was dressed like a priestess of the Sah medicinal order and she was standing next to Tau, in his Ihashe grays.
“No Lesser could survive what he’s been through,” the priestess said to Tau, “and even though a Noble’s body is stronger and heals faster, it’s shocking that he’s still alive.”
“He’s a fighter,” Tau said. “He’ll make it.”
“We’re doing everything we can, and it’s good to have hope, but…”
The priestess’s voice trailed away and Jabari heard a chair being pulled across the floor. It creaked as someone sat down, just outside his field of view.
“I’m here, Jabari. It’s Tau and I’m here.”
Jabari tried to ask Tau to end his suffering but couldn’t move his lips. He could barely swallow.
“I don’t think he can hear you,” the priestess said. “The pain… we’re giving him herbs to help him rest. It’s too cruel otherwise.”
“Will I disturb him if I’m here?” Tau asked the priestess.
“It won’t hurt, and Goddess knows, maybe it will help.”
Jabari heard the priestess walk away. Then Tau took his hand, doing nothing more than letting his skin touch Jabari’s, and it caused pain to explode out from the burned limb like dirt hit by a lightning strike. Jabari wanted to shout but couldn’t. He wanted the oblivion of unconsciousness, and it wouldn’t come.
Tau leaned over him, shifting into view, and Jabari saw his friend’s scarred face and worried eyes. He caught the scent of leather, bronze, and earth. He tried to draw comfort from so much that was familiar, but the pain left no room for anything else.
“I want you to know you did it,” Tau said to him. “You’ve become the hero you always wanted to be, my friend. It doesn’t matter that our blood, yours and mine, tried to keep our dreams from us. In the end, it mattered not at all that you couldn’t be an Ingonyama. You still fought for your queen and your fellows, you sacrificed for both, and I’ll make certain the Omehi remember your name, Jabari Onai.”
Tau, Jabari noticed, was whispering.
“How different would things have been for both of us if not for the Indlovu testing, neh? It feels like a hundred thousand lifetimes ago,” Tau said to him, “and all I wanted was to help you warm up. All I wanted was to watch you fight and earn your spot among the Indlovu, but when has the world ever cared what a Lesser wanted?”