Guest Post: Sarah Alderson on the Influences and Inspirations for her new novel FATED.

Thanks to lovely Sarah Alderson for popping along to the blog today as part of the blog tour for her new book Fated.  I'll be reviewing Fated on the blog soon (still working through that January review pile!), but for now you can read all about Sarah's influences and inspirations for the book in this great guest post!

Fated by Sarah Alderson
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Books.
Release date: January 5th 2012.

What happens when you discover you aren't who you thought you were? And that the person you love is the person who will betray you? If your fate is already determined, can you fight it?

When Evie Tremain discovers that she’s the last in a long line of Demon slayers and that she’s being hunted by an elite band of assassins –Shapeshifters, Vampires and Mixen demons amongst them – she knows she can’t run. They’ll find her wherever she goes. Instead she must learn to stand and fight.

But when the half-human, half-Shadow Warrior Lucas Gray - is sent to spy on Evie and then ordered to kill her before she can fulfil a dangerous prophecy, their fates become inextricably linked. The war that has raged for one thousand years between humans and demons is about to reach a devastating and inevitable conclusion. Either one or both of them will die before this war ends.

If your life becomes bound to another’s, what will it take to sever it?

 Guest Post: Sarah Alderson on the Influences and Inspirations for Fated:

The place that inspired me…

We were in California staying in the most amazing house near Santa Barbara. My husband took our daughter out to the beach and I sat at the kitchen table with my computer and started Fated. I remember it so clearly because for weeks I’d had the story building in my head and had been desperate to start writing it but hadn’t had a free moment.

I didn’t write very much that morning as I think I actually went back to bed for a nap. But I did get the first chapter down – and that first line ‘Her name is Evie Tremain, she lives in Riverview California. Now go kill her.’

I spent a while thinking of where to base the story. We were staying in southern California and I knew I didn’t want it to be too similar to the setting for Hunting Lila which is a coastal town near San Diego and then later that week I got chatting to a girl who had grown up in a rural farming community out east.

Later that month we took a road trip out that way and that’s how I found my Riverview, which wasn’t one place but several small towns that I amalgamated into one. The swimming pond for example was a real place, except it wasn’t in a wood but on top of a hill. But it was one of the most stunning places I’d ever seen.

I knew as soon as I saw it that I needed to write a scene including a swimming pond and it ended up as the backdrop for several scenes, including one where we get to see Lucas in just his jeans dive in to rescue Evie. I liked imagining that one.

 

The movies and tv programmes that influence me… 

If you read any of my books you’ll know that they’re heavy on the action and heavy on the steamy romance. I guess a lot of my influences are from the world of television and film because I grew up on a diet of Dynasty, Twin Peaks and My So-Called life & then in my twenties I was addicted to The Wire, 24 & Mad Men.

I still watch a crazy amount of television – anything HBO produces basically.

Of course Fated has similarities to Buffy which I adored when I was a teenager. Who doesn’t love forbidden love and a fight to the death? I even had two fish called Buffy & Angel when I was at Uni. Buffy ate Angel and then died a week later.

The actors that inspire me…

When I start a book I usually try to get a visual on my characters. I do this by either thinking of an actor that they might look like OR by trawling the internet for hot male models. In this case look what a Google search threw up….lucky me.

And once I saw this shot I knew I’d found my Lucas….(sighs). 

When I was picturing Grace I saw Dakota Fanning in the role. She has big eyes and blonde hair and can do the whole weirdy eyeball thing quite well. Also in the sequel to Fated there’s another Sybll called Issa and I thought that would be perfect. Dakota’s younger sister Elle could play her! 


 

Victor is actually based on Chiwetel Ejiofor, an actor who went to school near me and who I always had a bit of a crush on when I was 15 and he was in the year above me. 
 

The only ‘real’ character in the book is Lobo, Evie’s husky dog. He’s actually a real dog, owned by a friend of ours in California.

The music that influences me…

I write all my books to playlists that I pull together and Fated would not be the same without these two tracks by Lissie: ‘Everywhere I go’ (that plays at the very end) and ‘When I’m alone’ (which plays when Lucas finally kisses Evie p.248 people!) When I listen to music it really influences my mood when I write a scene. 

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Fated by Sarah Alderson is out now from Simon and Schuster Children's Books, £6.99.

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