Ask the Author: Shea Hulse
Answered Questions (6)
Shea Hulse
Irish mythology does most of the heavy lifting. The folklore is genuinely stranger and darker than anything I could invent — ancient kings who were shapeshifters, battles fought with satire instead of swords, gods who kept coming back after dying. I read mythology, something clicks, and suddenly, a plot problem I didn't know I had is solved.
For the emotional layer, the grief, the longing, the "I love you, but you cost me everything" energy, that comes from being a real person who has felt real things. No research required.
For the emotional layer, the grief, the longing, the "I love you, but you cost me everything" energy, that comes from being a real person who has felt real things. No research required.
Shea Hulse
Book 3 of the Dragon Fire & Druids series, the one readers have been waiting for since The White Wolf's Woe ended on that particular note. I'm also running The Romantasy Writers Coven, a private community for writers building dark fantasy romance. Between the two, I have exactly the right amount of Celtic mythology research queued up and zero spare time.
Shea Hulse
Write the book that scares you a little. Not the one you think will sell, the one where you're afraid you took it too far. Those are always the best ones.
Also: you don't need perfect conditions. I wrote most of my first series in parking lots and school pickup lines. The book doesn't care where you write it. Or when.
Also: you don't need perfect conditions. I wrote most of my first series in parking lots and school pickup lines. The book doesn't care where you write it. Or when.
Shea Hulse
The mythology research. I write dark Celtic fantasy romance, which means I have a legitimate professional reason to spend three hours reading about Irish vampire folklore at midnight. The abhartach predates Dracula by 1,500 years. That's not trivia — that's a plot device. The best part of being a writer is the excuse to go very deep into very strange things and call it work. AND call romance novels research...tell my husband I'm working while I devour a romance series.
Shea Hulse
Writer's block is usually a plotting problem wearing an emotional costume. If I can't move forward, it's because I don't actually know what the scene needs to cost someone. I go back one scene, find where the tension went soft, and fix that. The block almost always lifts.
If it's genuinely a bad brain day, I write the scene I've been looking forward to, the one I already know how to write. Permission to write the middle of the book first is underrated.
If it's genuinely a bad brain day, I write the scene I've been looking forward to, the one I already know how to write. Permission to write the middle of the book first is underrated.
Shea Hulse
I've been obsessed with Celtic mythology since I first read about the Tuatha De Danann. The idea that Irish legend is full of ancient kings who were also shapeshifters, and warriors who were also druids, and that none of it was tidy or moral... that's the world I wanted to write. The Dragon Fire & Druids series starts with a wrongly-accused hero — a man framed for killing the woman he loves. That's a very old Irish story structure. I just added more romantic tension.
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