Stefanie Chu: Delete the cringe, revise, and repeat!
Meet Stefanie, a bird-obsessed aficionado from the San Francisco Bay Area who willingly subjects herself to cinematic torment. Her globetrotting adventures during her MBA days led her from Asia to Europe, but now she's happily grounded in Seattle, Washington. With her award-winning debut novel Knights of the Alliance, Stefanie proves that she's not just an enthusiastic connoisseur of Japanese cuisine and all things lavender but also a talented writer celebrated by the literary world, garnering nine book awards.
Blitz:
Name: Stefanie Chu
Book title: Birth of Resilience
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Release date: Sep 21, 2023
Blurb/short description of the book:
Betrayal strikes deep in bonds forged in friendship and loyalty.
Five years after the Knights unified the empires, rebels rise from the ashes of the Althaean Siege, and Mirari and Gaven are thrust into a world of treachery and uncertainty. Gaven will stop at nothing until all members of the Blessed are captured. However, when Mirari discovers the truth about the Blessed, she is torn between her duty as Gaven’s partner and her desire to help the oppressed. Suspicion and secrets swirl, and as the weight of past regrets consumes Gaven, Mirari is forced to make heart-wrenching decisions that will forever alter her destiny.
In the pulse-pounding second installment of Knights of the Alliance, the past collides with the present. Loyalties fracture, identities unmask, and resilience is put to the ultimate test. Can they overcome the encroaching darkness, or will decades of enmity shatter their bonds forever?
Previous titles: Knights of the Alliance, Echoes of Enmity
Please tell our readers about yourself.
My current hobby is traveling, with a goal to learn about every culture and taste every cuisine on this planet. My go-to flavors are lavender and matcha. When I'm not out and about or writing, I like to stay home and away from crowds. You can find me gaming for long hours or attempting to cook something edible!
What inspired you to be a writer?
I have to thank my middle and high school English teachers for telling me that I’m a good writer and that I should continue writing outside of school. (I likely wasn’t good – I just wrote more than my peers.) I wrote a lot of fantasy stories and dreamed of publishing them someday. At that time, self-publishing wasn’t possible, so it was more of a retirement goal. But now that it is possible, I’m making that childhood dream come true.
Tell us about your writing journey so far.
The first draft of the Alliance series was created in 2010. I loved it so much that every time I rediscovered it, I would add more. Had I started publishing at a younger age, I might have been more inclined to write romantic fantasy or mystery, but now, my sole interest is in epics, and I only plan on expanding the Alliance universe.
What is your writing process—from idea to final draft?
Many, many drafts. Just when I think a draft is decent, I end up rewriting the whole thing. I must have tossed away nearly 200,000 words over the last three years, which is A LOT. My most effective process is to write down everything that comes to my mind as I go, no matter how silly it may be. Then I take 2-3 months away from writing to clear my mind, come back, and reread it all. Delete the cringe, revise, and repeat!
You’ve recently published Book 2 in The Alliance series: Birth of Resilience. What inspired you to write this book?
The drive behind writing the Alliance series has always been about breathing life into my characters and giving them the chance to shine. Birth of Resilience holds a special place in my heart because there’s a lot of character development. It delves deep into their childhoods, highlighting the traumatic events that shaped them, and unveils how everyone knew each other before Knights of the Alliance. These mini-stories are full of so much suspense and drama, and every time I reread this book, it feels like I'm experiencing it for the first time. The emotions hit hard, and it is the book that inspires me to keep writing their story.
What were your biggest challenges and what surprised you during the writing process?
Birth of Resilience was the one book that didn't get completely butchered during the editing process. It was my baby that had almost all the same content since 2010, and I was proud of it because it felt like my original voice... but then, it got butchered during the beta review! It was passable, but it wasn't perfect. I spent months trying to make it perfect. I was re-watching The Witcher, reading epic fantasies like The Grace of Kings, and filling my walls with post-it notes, generally researching how to weave past and present timelines. At the end of it all, I removed about 60,000 words in total. Throwing away 60% of your work weeks before it was supposed to release and being forced to postpone your launch for another year is painful, but it's a decision I don't regret. In a sense, Birth of Resilience was a test of my own resilience and the struggle to resist throwing the novel into a river.
How do you create your characters?
Most of my characters create themselves. People like Erel and Haynes just appear in my mind and make themselves at home as I'm writing the story. If I like them enough, I let them stay, maybe even promote them. Then there are some characters, like Gaven and Fangbane, who were inspired by a game I used to play. I think to myself, "How would these two characters interact?" and over time, they write themselves, and describing them is no different from describing a friend I know in real life.
What is the current (or next) project you are working on?
By the sweet succulents of Sierra Sourlily, I plan to finish Book 3, Edge of Divergence, by the end of this year. I know I said Birth of Resilience was my favorite, but I am most hyped for Book 3 because every beta reader claims that it is the best one, and I can’t wait to see how everyone reacts to it.
Many of our readers are fellow indie writers, some of them at the very beginning of their journey. What advice would you give them?
The #1 mistake I see is authors publishing without getting feedback from beta readers or an editor to review their work. It’s completely acceptable as an indie author to be stubborn and say that you are only writing for yourself and you don’t want to add trending tropes (as I did). But if you care at all about how people will react to your book, you need to test the waters. You're not just searching for mistakes but also for what makes your book stand out. I'd be more than happy to go in detail about it with any aspiring author!
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To learn more about Stefanie and her epic fantasy Alliance series, visit her website: https://stefaniechu.com/.
