08/11/2019
Today I will be interviewing fellow indie author/writer Claudine F. Knight.
Please tell us about yourself and what inspired you to become a writer.
Hello, I’m a 26-year-old social science graduate with a love of music, books, and art and I’m very happy to have been invited for this little interview. I’m a writer mainly because there are ideas and characters in my head that I just have to get down on paper. I also write because this helps me work through my emotions and thoughts about situations that I’ve encountered. The erotica ‘Strong and Beautiful’, for example, is inspired by a friend whose family disowned her and because my own family life is very turbulent.
Can you tell us a little about what you like to write?
I began writing with the notion of becoming my own version of Agatha Christie. Poirot, Marple, Sherlock Holmes, Detective Murdoch… I loved (and still love) them all, so it seemed a natural path for me. Be a murder-mystery/thriller writer. It took multiple attempts and failures, but, at 17/18, I realized that it was never going to work for me, and I needed to focus on another genre.
I sat down one day and just started writing, and a very vague idea turned into my first published work. It is now the first in my ‘Magic, Mayhem, Mischief and Love’ trilogy about a fairy social researcher who has been led to sisters by the stench of their troublesome and tangled love-lives and decides to cause some havoc. That’s pretty much me; romance, angst, magical meddling and a side dish of erotica under the name Freya Knight.
My trilogy has ‘The Fairy’s Human Love Experiment: Introducing Mr Darcy’ and ‘A Sprite’s Austen Weekend Fun: The Furball Effect’ so far and there is another separate story called ‘Project Love’ that is about what happens when a group of friends decide to play cupid on two people who seem destined for each other; at least according to the friends.
There are six erotica. There is ‘Hotel Euphoria’ that is about a woman who goes to a hotel that has both a food menu and a man menu, ‘Beyond Satisfied’ that is pretty kinky with various toys, ‘Strong and Beautiful’ that has kinkiness but is focused on love and support, ‘Lustful Eyes’ that is an intense one night stand with potential, ‘The Heat of the Moment’ that takes place in a sauna and ‘Besotted’ that is a mostly cute gay erotica.
Of all your work, who would you say is your favorite protagonist, and what makes them special?
I’m not really sure that I have a favorite, exactly. But I think that I do have a little soft spot for Paddy in my trilogy. Funny, sweet, caring, and just completely oblivious and unknowing when it comes to his own feelings. The fact that he is also dealing with a lot of hurt also puts me closer to him.
What’s the most complex character relationship that you’ve ever written?
I have written several complex relationships, but this maybe is the relationship between Freya and Leo in ‘Project Love’. They are close friends, but there are all these other elements to their relationship; what others see them as, what they see them as initially and how that changes throughout, how it began, how it can continue…. Writing this took a lot out of me emotionally.
Also, Paddy and his ex-wife. There are many facets to this, but explaining these would completely give away plot lines.
Which do you prefer to write; Happily Ever After or Tragedy? Which do you think is the most romantic?
I like to have a lot of guessing. Even I don’t know how a story will end because I let my characters lead me instead of plotting everything out. Mostly, it’s happy endings, but I am open to tragedy. There’s certainly plenty of sadness and angst in my trilogy! And in this, there are choices for readers that can make someone happy or unhappy depending on what they want to happen.
Can you tell us a little about your current writing project?
I’m working on two right now; the third in my trilogy and another erotica.
My final in the trilogy will have three choices for readers, plus whichever ending of the second book is relevant to them. It actually means that I need to write two versions; one for one ending and another for the other ending. In this, I will be shedding a little more light on things with a pinch more magic and also the introduction of a new character who actually knows that she is a character in someone’s story. How it will end, I don’t know.
The erotica will be a bdsm kink with a slut/master relationship of sorts. Still a lot of love and care, but very dirty.
Is there anything deep and meaningful that you would like your readers to take away from your stories?
Overall, I’m trying to make people think about themselves and life/society as well as that they all deserve love.
Still, to me, meaning is very much individual, and each reader will take away something slightly different. However, I would like to think that readers come away feeling something; sadness, anger, upset, lust…. And hopefully, I will also help someone going through something. Books are certainly a way to deal with things for me; maybe others can use my books to deal with things they are going through? Even if something makes someone smile, I’m happy.
You can find Claudine F. Knight’s books on Amazon or you can follow her Twitter.