Author Interview: Milan Oodiah, Fantasy

Posted On January 29, 2021

From Planning to Published

When did you start writing and why?

Author:     I started some time when I was teenager, the exact starting point is a blur but I remember trying to write some really edgy dark stuff until I kinda grew out of it. Then I wrote my first full-length book. Mostly because I was bored. I loved a lot of things but really wanted to make something that would be wholly my own. Over time though the reasons for writing changed, but in the beginning I just wanted to do something new and different.

How long did it take you to finish your first book?

Author:      The very first one that I wrote when I was a teenager took about twenty months. I can’t recall the exact details but I think it took me about a year to draft and eight months to edit. It was a book my parents self-published so it was quite an experience to go through as a kid.

Are you indie, traditional, hybrid, or vanity, and why?

Author:     After that publication when I was a teenager, I kind of drew a line in the sand. Now I’m fully pursuing a traditional publishing path. I want to focus as much as possible on the writing. I know that I’ll inevitably need to deal with promo and other things but relatively speaking there’s more time spent on purely writing when going through the traditional route – at least that’s what it seems like.

How did you determine your target audience?

Author:      I didn’t. I started writing for myself and I’m still writing for myself. My reasons for writing shifted as I grew up and now, I write for myself and people like me. I think growing up allowed me to just break the pedestals of varying heights I put others and myself on. Everyone’s broken in one way or another, for one reason or another, and that’s who I write for.

How do you get critiques, betas, feedback, and edits?

Author:      I used twitter #’s to find CPs (Hi :D) and probably will in the future too. What I’ve started doing more recently is spending a lot of time on a writing discord. It’s super useful to have this dedicated space where you can find likeminded people in one place. One thing that makes me improve significantly faster is being able to edit other people’s work – which is nice because then I get to help someone else too.

Marketing

How do you define success as an author?

Author:      The thing that gets me is having a community. Seeing things like fan art or people getting to know each other through the fiction they love. Making an impact is how I gauge success. Impact leads to the rest.

About Your Work

What type of content do you write and why? Fiction Novels? Poems? Songs? Screenplays? Short Stories? Epic?

Author:      I focus on novels but for End of Oblivion I created a massive world full of possibilities and oddities and so to show all it has to offer I also write short stories. I also really love my ‘side’ characters and there’s just not enough pages in the books to give their full backstory and they’re actually all really cool so they have their own little short story series. Most of them are in outlines right now but some day I’ll finally have the time to write them all down.

Name some common elements in your writing: villains, magic, red-herring twists, the unfortunate ensign, mysterious phenomena, asyndeton, sentence fragments etc.

Author:      I have no idea why, but a recurring theme seems to be weird sad boys and angry resilient girls. I have a deep, deep love for Final Fantasy so crystals and summonable creatures, and non-traditional fantasy settings are my favorite. I want to create stories that push far beyond that classic medieval European setting.

What was your first goal when you started your journey to becoming an author? Has that changed?

Author:      I didn’t have a goal when I started really. It’s been a messy complicated journey and though I did start writing when I was a teenager, I put in the work towards becoming an author only in the last five years. There is no single reason for that really. The selfish reason is that I want to rise above leading a ‘normal’ life. I want something different and interesting and to leave a mark. The less-selfish reason, one that I think keeps me going when all other things seem to collapse is that I want to be a tiny little piece of that chorus of voices that help people along their way. Books, stories, art, music, all of those things have made rough patches in my life significantly easier to navigate. Being able to give back, to provide a little bit of relief, some modicum of solace for someone else is the thing that keeps me going through my own tough times.

What do you want your readers to get out of your works?

Author:      I started watching My Hero Academia after I had done most of the work on End of Oblivion. That show, that fucking show, gave me such immense boosts in serotonin that I can only hope to replicate. I write every moment that’s meant to blow people away with its soundtrack playing. I want my readers to have that same unmitigated boost in energy and hype that My Hero Academia gives me.

Struggles

What has been the hardest thing to overcome on your journey to authorship?

Author:      When I started following a writer I really loved on Twitter, she made it clear how much work and how much time it took to become an author. How uncertain and how fickle the industry can be. It took some time to digest. It was a hard thing to really understand, given the goals I’m pushing for, but once I internalized what she said and I felt even more determined, it was the sign I needed to know I could do it.

What assumptions about writers and authors do you think are myths?

Author:      You really don’t need to write every day, sure it will help build your skill level but writing every day just to say you write every day is not worth it. Writing also doesn’t just mean putting words on a page, it means outlining, research, reading craft books, etc.

Fun Stuff

What do you listen to while you write?

Author:      Some days I need songs that fit the theme of the scene, some days it’s one random song on repeat. YouTube has definitely learned the kind of stuff I need at the right time, strangely enough, and instead of being terrified I’ve come to appreciate my lord and savior, The Algorithm.

What book are you reading at the moment?

Author:      Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Author:      The best writing advice I ever got was that writing advice is not one-size-fits-all.