Ask the Author: Augusta Achard
Answered Questions (4)
Augusta Achard
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by ideas when I finally sit down to write, and the typing itself is just a technical step I dread. I feel like I cannot type fast enough to catch everything.
I usually avoid it at the start. I do everything else first: organize the plot, the scenes, the characters, and any historical research. I set up Scrivener, the writing platform I use, and fill it out completely with notes, synopsis, and structure. Once I finally sit down to write, it flows, because I have already taken care of every little thing. Even if those things change or grow as I write, knowing they are there gives me the boost to begin typing.
If I had to name the one thing that inspires me to begin the writing process, it is definitely order.
I usually avoid it at the start. I do everything else first: organize the plot, the scenes, the characters, and any historical research. I set up Scrivener, the writing platform I use, and fill it out completely with notes, synopsis, and structure. Once I finally sit down to write, it flows, because I have already taken care of every little thing. Even if those things change or grow as I write, knowing they are there gives me the boost to begin typing.
If I had to name the one thing that inspires me to begin the writing process, it is definitely order.
Augusta Achard
My books begin with some small piece of my own life, something I keep turning over until ideas spring from it. I let it breathe. Exactly what inspires me depends on the story I choose to write.
There is a part of me that writes as a reaction to the world around me. When I see things I cannot control, I want to take them inward and filter them onto the page, into something I can control. The randomness of life is terrifying. I use that emotion when I write.
My ideas grow out of my own experiences, though they are nearly unrecognizable by the time the story becomes a novel. I capture a feeling, a time or place, a scene, an uncomfortable memory, an old wound, or even something smaller than that: somewhere I have always felt connected to, wished to see, or wanted to return to.
When a book idea forms, it usually takes over. I will dream about it at night and think about it while I am doing other things. I let it come and jot everything down. I naturally write in the gothic horror register, so no matter where my ideas begin within myself, they always darken as I develop them into characters, settings, and plot lines.
There is a kernel of real life in everything I write, but by the time it becomes fiction, I have allowed it to corrupt into the story I want to tell.
There is a part of me that writes as a reaction to the world around me. When I see things I cannot control, I want to take them inward and filter them onto the page, into something I can control. The randomness of life is terrifying. I use that emotion when I write.
My ideas grow out of my own experiences, though they are nearly unrecognizable by the time the story becomes a novel. I capture a feeling, a time or place, a scene, an uncomfortable memory, an old wound, or even something smaller than that: somewhere I have always felt connected to, wished to see, or wanted to return to.
When a book idea forms, it usually takes over. I will dream about it at night and think about it while I am doing other things. I let it come and jot everything down. I naturally write in the gothic horror register, so no matter where my ideas begin within myself, they always darken as I develop them into characters, settings, and plot lines.
There is a kernel of real life in everything I write, but by the time it becomes fiction, I have allowed it to corrupt into the story I want to tell.
Augusta Achard
The best thing about being a writer is telling stories my own way. I care about keeping literary gothic horror alive and brutal. I enjoy writing stories that do not follow trends, give people easy answers, or start reassuring the reader at the last minute. I love to build dread slowly, beneath the surface, until the pressure cracks the facade of normalcy, and by the time anyone realizes it, the trap is sprung.
I trust my readers. I hate being spoon-fed “the point” or lectured to by a book. I like giving readers room to make their own determinations without telling them what to think or how to feel. That kind of respect feels like it is disappearing, and I think it matters.
I trust my readers. I hate being spoon-fed “the point” or lectured to by a book. I like giving readers room to make their own determinations without telling them what to think or how to feel. That kind of respect feels like it is disappearing, and I think it matters.
Augusta Achard
I am currently writing my next gothic horror novel, set in Philadelphia in 2006. It tells the story of a musician whose private life is very different from her public persona. Everyone thinks they know her, but privately, she spirals into a world of increasingly dangerous situations: self-harm, stranger encounters, humiliation, drugs, and unlimited need.
After a particularly devastating experience, she gets high in a small city park at night. But there is fentanyl in the downers, and dying is only the beginning.
DEBASER is a gothic horror novel of twisted psychology, depravity, damnation, and murder.
After a particularly devastating experience, she gets high in a small city park at night. But there is fentanyl in the downers, and dying is only the beginning.
DEBASER is a gothic horror novel of twisted psychology, depravity, damnation, and murder.
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