{"id":119444,"date":"2020-02-20T08:52:58","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T21:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=119444"},"modified":"2020-03-03T16:25:18","modified_gmt":"2020-03-03T05:25:18","slug":"read-a-qa-with-astrid-scholte-author-of-the-vanishing-deep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2020\/02\/20\/read-a-qa-with-astrid-scholte-author-of-the-vanishing-deep\/","title":{"rendered":"Read a Q&A with Astrid Scholte, author of The Vanishing Deep!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Raised on a diet of Spielberg, Lucas and Disney, Astrid Scholte knew she wanted to be surrounded by all things fantastical from a young age. She\u2019s spent the last ten years working in film, animation and television as both an artist and manager. Career highlights include working on James Cameron\u2019s <\/em>Avatar, Steven Spielberg\u2019s <\/em>The Adventures of Tintin and George Miller\u2019s <\/em>Happy Feet Two. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her fianc\u00e9 and two cats, Lilo and Mickey. Her debut YA novel, <\/em>Four Dead Queens<\/a><\/strong>, is an international bestseller, and her second novel, <\/em>The Vanishing Deep<\/a><\/strong>, will be released on the 3rd of March!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Astrid’s on the blog to answer some of our questions about her new book. Read on!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Tell us about your new book, The Vanishing Deep<\/em>!<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

AS:<\/strong> The Vanishing Deep<\/em> is a standalone YA thriller set in a world that\u2019s 99% water, where the dead can be revived for 24 hours. It centres around two sisters, Tempest and Elysea. Two years ago, Elysea drowned under mysterious circumstances and died with a dark secret. Since then, Tempest has spent every day searching the sunken wreckages of the Old World to find relics to trade for Notes to fund her sister\u2019s revival. But when Elysea is revived, she reveals a startling secret, one that will take the girls to the far edges of a beautiful, but dangerous ocean to uncover the truth. All before Elysea\u2019s 24 hours runs out.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Astrid<\/a>

Astrid Scholte<\/p><\/div>\n

Where did you get the first spark of inspiration for The Vanishing Deep<\/em>?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

AS:<\/strong> The initial spark of inspiration actually came from The Real Housewives of New York City<\/em>. The show is a guilty pleasure of mine, during an episode, one of the housewives mentioned that she wished she had one more day with her late husband. The idea stuck with me and I wrote it in my ideas journal back in 2015. However, it wasn\u2019t until early 2017 that I started writing about a facility that could provide the service of reviving your loved one, but only for 24 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n

In a YA market that is awash with fantasy book series, you\u2019ve written two standalone novels – The Vanishing Deep<\/em> and Four Dead Queens<\/em>. Why does the standalone novel appeal to you and would you ever write a series?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

AS:<\/strong> Both The Vanishing Deep<\/em> and Four Dead Queens<\/em> are fast-paced with many twists and turns, which would be difficult to sustain for more than one book without causing reader frustration. I want the reader to frantically flip through the pages to find out what happens and then long for more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, I would love to one day return to the world of Quadara or The Vanishing Deep<\/em>, as the worlds are so vast and complex. I would also love to write a series, but the story would have to have enough narrative legs to carry across multiple books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve spent over ten years working in film, animation and television. How has that affected the way you write?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

AS:<\/strong> While writing Four Dead Queens<\/em>, I learnt that if I can\u2019t see the scene or the characters in my head, then I can\u2019t write it. I attribute this to my film\/animation background, as I need to be able to visualise the story for it to feel real. I often think about how stories are told visually and I\u2019m inspired by the different types of narrative structure that you see in film. The best thing I can hear from readers is when they say my book feels like watching a movie. This means I\u2019ve done my job of creating an immersive, captivating and exciting read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What comes first when you\u2019re thinking about a new writing project: character or plot?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

AS:<\/strong> Usually, my books start with a general concept or a \u2018what if?\u2019 For The Vanishing Deep<\/em>, the concept was \u2018what if you could bring a loved one back from the dead for 24 hours?\u2019 I then start writing and the plot will eventually reveal itself during the first draft. It\u2019s not until further drafts that I refine the characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you talk a little about your approach to worldbuilding? Where you start, what inspires it, that kind of thing?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n
\"Tempest\"<\/a>

A character painting by Astrid of Tempest, the protagonist of her new novel (taken from Facebook<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p><\/div>\n

AS:<\/strong> I can be inspired by all sorts of things. The world of Quadara in Four Dead Queens<\/em> was inspired by a dream I had when I was sitting in a horse-drawn carriage and saw a silver car speed by. I thought it would be interesting to build a world with contrasting technologies. For The Vanishing Deep<\/em>, I wanted the world to be essentially deceased, as the story is about life and death. With the current issue of climate change, I thought it would be timely to create a fantastical world with environmental issues that parallels our own.<\/p>\n\n\n

I usually start off with the big picture and then work out the details as the plot and characters develop, so that they are intrinsically linked. Therefore, if I was to place the characters or plot into a different world, everything would have to change. I don\u2019t want my worlds to be an afterthought, but a driver of the action and characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you were planning a literary dinner party, which three authors (dead or alive) would you invite?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

AS:<\/strong> Leigh Bardugo, Michael Crichton and Agatha Christie!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who is your favourite fictional hero or heroine?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

AS:<\/strong> Belle from Beauty and the Beast<\/em>. She\u2019s brave, caring, smart and loves books! Who wouldn\u2019t want that library?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the best piece of writing advice you have ever received?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

AS:<\/strong> One piece of writing advice I heard many years ago from the wonderful Australian author, Kate Forsyth, is to think of the middle of the novel as a hinge, and how the plot should go in a different direction after that. This is something I keep in mind when writing as it prevents a \u201csaggy middle\u201d and keeps the reader on their toes. You\u2019ll know that midpoint if you\u2019ve read Four Dead Queens<\/em>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, what\u2019s up next for you?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

AS:<\/strong> I\u2019m currently working on what I hope will be my third published book. It\u2019s another YA thriller\/fantasy mashup with a cast of complex characters and a dash of magic. It combines many of my favourite things and has been an absolute joy to write. I wrote the first draft in six weeks, which is the quickest I\u2019ve ever written a book. Hopefully I can share more about it soon! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks Astrid!<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Thank you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The best thing I can hear from readers is when they say my book feels like watching a movie.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":119480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[11037,11039,4383,11038,10422],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/AstridScholte-Social.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119444"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119444"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120367,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119444\/revisions\/120367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}