Ask the author...

[Charlie Sheldon]

How did you stay so focused and creative in this book? I was amazed to find so much description and mystery and found it inspiring that an author can offer so much excitement in just one novel

I think I answered your question in a couple other responses to similar questions from others.

[Charlie Sheldon]

What motivated you to start the first book in this series and also what made you to continue?
Secondly, did you ever had the fear of what if I lose creativity and it stops being interesting and how did you overcome it?

PS. This questions are actually personal

What motivated you to start the first book in this series and also what made you to continue?
Secondly, did you ever had the fear of what if I lose creativity and it stops being interesting and how did you overcome it?

PS. This questions are actually personal

What was more difficult for you to write, the beginning of the book or the ending? How were you able to write it eventually?

Great question. The ending was most difficult. This is because I wrote the first half of Totem, first draft, in 2015, and back then knew there might be a fourth, fifth even sixth book in the series. But then I also knew that a series can trap an aurthor, get him or her stuck, and the trick with series is that only people who have read the earlier books will carry on, so your audience grows smaller. This is why I wrote the three books as stand alone books, too, separate stories but all one grand tale. Anyway I debated about the fourth book, whether and how to end this thing, and then took up a pen to write the furth book, which I did, and this enabled me to end the series to my satisfaction, but then I decided with my publisher to combine the last two books into one book, Totem, so I have a trilogy, with the last boo
k being the biggest. Deciding how to end this thing was tricky because I like the characters that kept appearing and knew I could do more, but finally decided the wrap it up, a set of three books, complete, and this is what I did.
As far as carrying on, or losing faith, that is always the dilemma, that creature on your shoulder whispering to you this is a waste of time, useless, why bother, or that is what can happen at the start of a tale, for me. Later on, once in it, then it has a life of its own and then just becomes something to do, hard work, but necessary. In the case of this series, I wanted to complete it, handle all the hanging chads as it were throughout the tales, and think I did.

[Sarah Sonbol]

Are you planning to write another trilogy or even another book?

[Charlie Sheldon]

Am I planning to write another trilogy or another book....yes....this one set in the future, 90-100 years, when Sarah is 106 years old and her great great grandchildren come upon something found in the Marking Place.....

[Maha Ata]

How do you manage to keep track of so many characters and their links to each other and to the main theme of the book?

[Akangbe Opeyemi]

What did you have in mind when you wanted to write the first series?
Was there ever a time when you doubted the success of the next series you wanted to write?
What motivated you to continue writing the series?

[Charlie Sheldon]

How do you manage to keep track of so many characters and their links to each other and to the main theme of the book?

At some point in every book I do, after writing most or all of a first draft, I will lay out on a wall the characters and plot with sticky notes, showing their links, aligned by time, to make sure the events happen in order and make sense. Plus, with Totem, it really took me almost 6 years to write all of it, it is really two books in one, and so I grew to know everyone in the book.

[SamanthaGarcia]

Do you think you would ever explore making a parallel storyline connected to the Strong Heart[i/] series? Like taking the story and continuing it off with another one of the kids like Jared and seeing where it takes you?

[Charlie Sheldon]

What did you have in mind when you wanted to write the first series?
Was there ever a time when you doubted the success of the next series you wanted to write?
What motivated you to continue writing the series?

I think I already answered this but lost the draft. When I started this, it was just one book, not a series, but then it became three separate tales all in the same grand story. I wanted to challenge myself to handle some big issues, like, the nature oif truth, what it means to find a home, even how we became human through the telling of stories. I doubted everything all the time and still do. I was uncertain I could do the first book, then the second, then the third, which itseld took 5 years and became really two books. I wanted to finish the set, though, for the sake of those readers who were into it. I owed them. I owe them, however few or many they are. Now the trilogy is done, I can say I am happy with it, for it is the best that I could do, and that is all I can ask, I think. My main motivation for continuing all these years is, one, I am persistent, two, I wanted to tell the story that was appearing before me, and, three, the time I spent was lots of fun and kept me out of other trouble and sloth.

[Charlie Sheldon]

Do you think you would ever explore making a parallel storyline connected to the Strong Heart[i/] series? Like taking the story and continuing it off with another one of the kids like Jared and seeing where it takes you?

I mentioned this above, but I am right now continuing with this idea of something, maybe one long book, maybe a series, not sure yet, set out in the future when Sarah is herself 106 years old and her great or great great grandchildren fall into a mystery, something Sarah found in the Marking Place she never revealed, something significant, linked to these visions or dreams or ways of traveling in time and space, and then in some way linking this artifact, which is made of unique materials unseen on earth, to what is going on in the real world 90 years from now, a time after we have found other life in the solar system, in the water moons of Jupiter and Saturn, when we have found thousands of exoplanets many with earth like atmospheres, when we have sent a probe to the nearest and heard news back, all leading of course to the first scout expedition out there to see what there is, maybe another habitable place for we humans on a struggling earth, a planet that despite current fears of global warming has plunged into a new ice age and created desperation.......I don't know if this will be, then, a series of stories, novellas, or novels set at various times or whether this will start aboard that mission ship, a great great grandchild studying archived videos and stories and coming upon tales about what happened at the Markiong Place and then when life was found in the solar system, and what motivated and caused the effort to send out that multi-year scout ship......way early, yet.....

so, yes, I am thinking about it....

something along those lines, anyway.....

[Roy Van Hunter]

How do you manage to engage the audience in such an intriguing manner as displayed in your novel?

[Charlie Sheldon]

How do you manage to engage the audience in such an intriguing manner as displayed in your novel?

Well that's of course nice to hear, but you'll have to define "intriguing" for me. If you mean, by intriguing, arresting, or captured, or drawn in, I'd like to think it is because I follow one rule with each character, especially with tales where I have several points of view. That rule is, just as the overall tale needs its own arc of rising tension and resolution, it came to me even in earlier books before this series that each character also needs his or her own challenge, dilemma, crisis, as well, separate from the overall tale. So for example Victoria is struggling to hold her marriage together, Steve is wounded by an old accusation of cheating with his research and has vowed never to repeat his mistake, Sergei is hopelessly in love with Myra but fears she hates him, Wentworth is desperately trying to advance his career....My hope is this makes each character's presence in the story interesting in and of itself. Otherwise if a character is just there to move the story along the reader knows it and loses interest, doesn't care, whereas, hopefully, as the chapters go from one character to another the reader wants to learn about the character before his or her eyes. And, if done properly and successfully, then the experience of the novel is not just one main character and maybe another one or two, but rather a world of people, all real, all engaged.....that's the hope, anyway....

[Roy Van Hunter]

Thanks for your honest response. I appreciate it.

[Janelydia Mwangi]

Why did you make Sarah to be punished for relieving the Elk from pain yet the two boys were responsible for it's death?The school trip exposed the students to the culture yet Sarah relieved spirit of the Elk but was suspended to even attend classes why is this so?

[Charlie Sheldon]

Why did you make Sarah to be punished for relieving the Elk from pain yet the two boys were responsible for it's death?The school trip exposed the students to the culture yet Sarah relieved spirit of the Elk but was suspended to even attend classes why is this so?

The boys were playing with knives, but far away from other people, and why it is true Jared's bad throw injured the elk, and in truth would have caused the animal's death in time, his action was a mistake, an error in judgement, and not intentional. Sarah chose to actively kill the animal, using a powerful weapon. While in her view she was putting the animal out of its misery, and releasing its spirit, in the minds of the teachers there she was actively killing a magnificent animal, she was the direct cause. Further, she had had some trouble in school earlier, so when this happened they expelled her. The teachers and principal just did not see anything about the animal's spirit, and while they might have eventually understood that the injured elk was doomed anyway, they saw Sarah's action as cruel, direct, and savage.