Interview with Ellis Hunter (Blood Bound)

so you probably had so much fun creating the magic system together and just coming up with those details were you did you just have like meetings and you're like oh it should be like this and

literally yes yeah like and again you know like i said earlier how it started off as very much feeling like a fun hobby just for us who were writing just for us so it was exactly those conversations kind of like we'd either be Because a lot of this work happened between like 9pm and 1am, between our full-time jobs and kids and horses, in Becky's case.

And so this is when we'd do it.

We'd just be on the phone for hours, WhatsApp, voice notes.

In fact, and then what about this? And then what about this? And then what about this? It was really fun.

It's slightly different when you come to second book and you're writing to contract.

Yeah.

Yeah.

still very fun but there's a lot of pressure like added into the mix.

yeah i mean you

can't just like genuinely like the first book we'd be like sat having a glass of wine like remote either remotely or in person but literally just like chat chatting and then just going off on massive tangents um which we couldn't really do in like the relaxed fun way for book two but um It was like a demonstration.

I think I talked to my sister about this, one of my sisters, but about like the kind of two heads are better than one thing.

Like so much of writing usually, like all my other books is done in isolation.

It's you trying to come up with some stuff and you do bounce off like your editor or your agent a bit, but you obviously can't like WhatsApp them in the middle of the night being like, I've had this idea.

What? or a dragon's name and like it's not an appropriate thing to do but with two of you you do really bounce off each other and then somebody would say one of us will say something like triggers an idea and the other one and then we'll like it will really bounce off and just come up with stuff that you probably well I don't know I mean I don't think I would have come up with on my own because it's so helpful for your like creativity to like how it is and talk things through

I think the thing we wanted, me and Becky, when we were going into writing this, is we wanted...

We love great plotting and we love twists.

So when we were coming up with, say, world building or powers or anything like that, we wanted to be really intentional with what we were doing because we wanted it to fit.

And a lot of the time there'd be a reason for that.

So then you have to think about...

You have these great ideas, but then what actually works for the story and where you want the plot to go? And then it was kind of...

Because we very much started off with the characters initially, didn't we, Becky? Kind of like these characters, and then it was the world came around them.

But then you're also thinking, actually, we really wanted to create these sort of two distinct worlds for these two distinct characters.

So like the world of Artoria, obviously, and the world of Vatra.

And then, spoiler alert for those who've read it, we've now gone into a completely different world.