Ink and Flame Episode #8
Danielle Harrington: Author of the Hollis Timewire Series

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Transcription

Tina Koutras (00:00)
Welcome to Ink and Flame. I'm your host, Tina Koutras, and I'm sitting down tonight with Danielle Harrington to talk about the Hollis Time Wire series. Hi Danielle, how are you? I'm doing good.

Danielle Harrington (00:10)
Good, how are you?

Tina Koutras (00:13)
So we're going to get right into it talk about your books because you have quite a few. And these are a different one from what we we talk about. Like we kind of linger in the Romantasy fantasy genre and yours are completely different for us.

Danielle Harrington (00:28)
Yeah, this is a completed young adult dystopian series. has four books.

Tina Koutras (00:33)
That's fantastic. So can you share a little bit about your background and how you transitioned from being a chemistry teacher to a full-time writer?

Danielle Harrington (00:42)
Yeah, so I got my undergraduate degree in chemistry from Biola University and then I immediately started teaching high school chemistry straight out of university. And I taught high school chemistry for about five years. And then when I got pregnant with my daughter, a lot of things happened around that time. I taught through COVID, was very, it was a lot, teaching a lab-based science class and having to do that online for essentially a little over a year.

Tina Koutras (01:08)
Yikes!

Danielle Harrington (01:09)
But when I got pregnant with my daughter, my husband and I were talking about potentially moving out of state because we lived in California.

and kind of things just lined up and when I had my daughter I stepped away from my teaching career and I had already published the first two books in my series while I was teaching high school so that was the diseased ones and the unseen ones so when I left teaching I kind of already had a little bit of that author career and know-how in terms of like how to publish a book to fall back on and kind of do more aggressively like in between taking

care of my daughter. Being a stay-at-home mom is definitely a lot of work, but it's also really flexible in terms of scheduling my own time to write and edit and publish.

Tina Koutras (01:55)
Nice. That is awesome. I imagine. I mean, it's a lot of work for sure being a stay at home mom, but very rewarding too. And to compound that with being an author, a successful author is pretty awesome.

Danielle Harrington (02:01)
Definitely.

It's been really fun. I've enjoyed moving to being more full time with writing and also I'm an editor. So I'm a developmental editor and I've done that for about two years. So I edit client books and write my own and it's like, it's a little extra money on the side to like help my own fund my own projects. And so that's been great.

Tina Koutras (02:29)
Yeah,

that's awesome. So your Goodreads bio mentions that you're love for all things science and fantasy. How do these two passions kind of influence you as a writer?

Danielle Harrington (02:43)
So I have always enjoyed science since I was very young. And when I did chemistry in high school, one, I had a really good teacher with, which I think makes all the difference in the world. And then two, I was like, oh, I actually really like this. So I used a little bit of my science background in the Hollis-Timewire series. It is very futuristic, like the basic premise of...

the diseased ones is it's about a futuristic society that tests people's blood to find and eliminate people with superpowers. So kind of X-Men inspired in a way. I really also loved The Giver and Divergent and The Ugly series by Scott Westerfield. So kind of that 2010 dystopian genre boom. And there were pieces of the science. mean, like it is science fiction, but there were pieces of the science where I was like, oh, well, like

just drag a little bit of reality in here just to spruce it up and it was it was fun kind of drawing a little bit on like my biology knowledge for just like little details nothing major but just like little lines of dialogues or little details here and there I'd be like well this is fun because I know science

Tina Koutras (03:59)
That's pretty awesome. So what initially inspired you to start writing this series?

Danielle Harrington (04:05)
This particular series, I started writing the diseased ones after I had binged the TV show Heroes, which has like, you know, a bunch of superpowers, right? And I binged all of those seasons in like a couple weeks. It was really quick. And I was like, look at all the cool shiny powers. And I had a general concept of like,

Tina Koutras (04:13)
Nice

Danielle Harrington (04:28)
a girl with a very powerful ability who makes the wrong choice and is forced to confront what she was raised to believe about society versus what the actual reality of it is. And I initially wrote the first draft of the diseased ones in like four weeks. I pumped out about like 50,000-ish words and it's a rather short book like it

In its published version, it's 68,000 words. So I did develop it through many drafts from its first conception to publication. But I originally wrote it. I had no idea what I was doing, by the way. I just like word vomited the book. I had not been to a writing conference at that point. I had not taken any writing workshops. I did not know how to publish. I didn't even know that there were different types of edits that a manuscript got. Like I was very new to

wanting to pursue like, hey, I think I want to get this story published. Even though I had been writing since I was very little. But the disease ones was the first manuscript that I had finished in its entirety. I'd started a lot of manuscripts and just something about finishing this one so quickly and being so excited about it. I was like, I need to learn a lot of things because I want to publish this and I have no idea how to do that.

Tina Koutras (05:40)
That sounds like quite the journey. So when did you realize it was something you wanted to pursue seriously? So you mentioned that when you moved, you took it on full time. Would that be when this happened?

Danielle Harrington (05:42)
Definitely.

Well, I think just pursuing publishing seriously, it happened before that, because I had published the first two books before I had moved to Idaho and transitioned to being a full-time writer, editor, stay-at-home mom. so I had started quite a few manuscripts.

being younger, I'd written like a pretty decent novel length in middle school. And then I started a different pretty decent novel length in high school. And then again, in college, I had started something that was before the diseased ones. But when I had written the diseased ones, it was the first manuscript I had fully finished. And I was like, OK, I actually want to figure out.

how to get published, whatever that ends up looking like in the end. Cause I knew there was like, oh, you have your big publishing houses. I knew that at the very least, but I didn't know how to query or if you want to go to the traditional route, you have to get an agent and you have to then if you sign with an agent, then you got they pitch you to publishers like, or the independent route where you end up learning to do it all yourself or hiring people to do certain steps for you. So when

Tina Koutras (07:00)
Yeah.

Danielle Harrington (07:02)
I had finished the diseased ones, I was like, okay, I actually want to publish this story.

I need to learn a lot to do that. Like I recognized I knew nothing. And so when I went to my first writing conference, it was the Southern California Writers Conference and I learned so much that weekend. I felt like I had attended like a, just a mini crash course on like so many aspects of storytelling and publishing and how to pitch your story and

some of the differences between traditional publishing and indie publishing. And so I went to several writing conferences and learned a bunch and rewrote the diseased ones probably four full times before I had started querying that for traditional publishing. To in the end decide that I was going to pursue something different to publish the diseased ones because it was a story I was really excited about and believed in. so I

kind of was like, okay, I think maybe I want to make a career out of this when I had decided come hell or high water, I will publish the diseased ones in some capacity at some point. And that had come out February 2020, like right before the pandemic hit. I was actually supposed to have like a book signing at my school that got canceled because of the pandemic, which made me sad, but alas, it is fine.

Tina Koutras (08:15)
No doubt.

That's wild. And what a journey that is. I was not expecting that.

Danielle Harrington (08:17)
Thank

It was

for me deciding like, okay, how do I do this to like publishing it was a couple of years because there was a lot I had to learn and I learned so much even through writing the first two books of the series and I felt way more capable writing book three and four. Four is the finale so kind of finishing the whole series I was like, I kind of know what I'm doing now. I know the steps I should take from like draft to I'm gonna hit self-publish on this book.

better when I got to that point. But that was like several years of doing that before I felt pretty comfortable with the self-publishing process.

Tina Koutras (08:51)
Yes.

Wow. Okay. So how has becoming a stay at home mom and finding balance in your daily life shaped your writing routine and creative process?

Danielle Harrington (09:09)
aggressively take advantage of my daughter's nap time, which she's napping right now, which is why I was like we should we should do this right now. This is great. But yeah, I will work at night when she goes to bed or we'll all work during her naps.

Tina Koutras (09:13)
You

Danielle Harrington (09:25)
Sometimes like if she's up sometimes and she's like occupied with like self-play or, She's watching some bluey like sometimes if I'm feeling in the mood or creative and almost like I have to go I have to get words out so And it depends like I have seasons where I'm way more productive than other seasons But I just try to keep pushing and making progress in some area

whether that be drafting or editing or thinking work. I'm a big fan of thinking work. If you're going to make a robust complex story with compelling characters and high stakes, like there's a lot of thinking that goes into it. Whether you're like a super hard, I plot everything or I kind of just let things happen. I still think that thinking work is important in the process

one of the reasons I can sometimes write so fast through a section or even through a whole manuscript sometimes is because I've done a lot of living in my head and living through the moments of the plot and the characters and like the emotions I want to elicit out of it and then when I sit down to write I'm like but I've thought about this already like I know exactly what's supposed to happen here.

Tina Koutras (10:29)
It's already right there for you.

Danielle Harrington (10:31)
Yeah, and that doesn't always happen like that, but I do find that the more thinking work I do about a certain section, that when I get to that in my draft, I'm like, this feels like pretty solid first draft material because I've done a lot of that pre-work in my head.

Tina Koutras (10:45)
Yeah. And do you find it plays out like scenes in your mind? Or just thoughts? Yeah. Okay.

Danielle Harrington (10:51)
Yeah,

So, slight background, I've done acting and stage stuff since I was really little, through high school and the beginning of college. So a lot of the scenes or character moments I've done, I've acted out a lot of different things behind the scenes, just with myself in the mirror or with myself in the shower or driving in the car and

I love the acting aspect of it that ends up on the page with characters and that people can imagine. You know, a lot of things once you read it because I think everyone's reading experience of the same material is different, but it's fun. I love acting. It's great.

Tina Koutras (11:29)
Absolutely.

And I think to some degree it would provide a little bit more depth if you're already playing the scene out in your mind, I think as a scene, it would definitely kind of flow nicely, I think. That's very cool. So was there a particular moment or idea that gave birth to the diseased ones?

Danielle Harrington (11:39)
you

Mm-hmm.

I really loved The Giver growing up. I read that book, The Giver by Lois Lowry, like dozens of times at different points and

I think that was my very first introduction to the dystopian genre, just as a whole. But then The Hunger Games was the first book I ever read in one sitting, like binged it in a day, kind of one sitting. was like, I didn't know reading could do this to a person. And I was like, I want to write a story where people can't put it down and can binge it in a day. like they just...

are thinking about if they have to put the book down.

for some reason that they're thinking about it and wanting to get back to it as like, I want to write a story that feels that compelling. And I think the general consensus for most of my readers is that I have accomplished that with this series, which makes me very happy. And obviously I know, you know, my series is not for everybody. Not everyone's going to love it, but the people, the fans that it has found its way to that it's been for have told me, they're like, I can't put your books down. Like they're so good. They're so compelling. And I'm like, yay, my happy little storyteller hearts

Tina Koutras (12:56)
I love to hear that.

Danielle Harrington (12:58)
you

Tina Koutras (12:59)
My daughter was like that. She read the same book that you just referenced and she absolutely loved it. And you mentioned the Hunger Games and I remember working a shift. It was not a true working shift. It was a supervisory, like there was construction in our building and they needed people to volunteer to stay during that period.

Danielle Harrington (13:06)
Mm.

Tina Koutras (13:22)
So I had the Hunger Games with me because my son had read it and wanted me to read it. And that was what happened to me. I literally spent the whole weekend with my feet up on my desk watching the guys doing work and reading that book, devoured it in the two first books in one weekend. So I get that.

Danielle Harrington (13:32)
Mm-hmm.

That's awesome. Yeah.

Tina Koutras (13:44)
So dystopian novels often reflect societal fears and questions. Are there specific themes or issues that you were exploring throughout this series?

Danielle Harrington (13:53)
Okay, so one of the big tensions and conflicts through the whole Hollis Timewire series

is between two groups of people. You have your people with powers that society has labeled the diseased ones and you've got your society and the government as an institution whose aim is to eradicate the diseased ones, like wipe them off of the face of the earth. So one of the things that I explored particularly heavily in the first book, which has really, it's been so interesting to see the response of my readership toward Hollis in the first book because Hollis is an incredibly brainwashed

character.

She's a child. She turns 16. She takes her blood test. She fails and then she finds out that she's a diseased one. This like from and what her mind is like these are

This is bad. Like the diseased ones, they went crazy. They had a brain mutation. It's a good thing that the government is eradicating this genetic marker from the gene pool. the government's here to protect us. So her finding out that she is a diseased one and she's thrust into an entire underground world of diseased ones who have a very different story to tell her about just society and history. I loved exploring

how brainwashed her inner monologue is and just what she tells herself and what she believes versus what she's experiencing and then growing her up through the four books. Like she changes so much through the series and it's really exploring good versus evil in a very broad sense but like what makes somebody human.

What are the things that we should value about someone

she hated the diseased ones and she has been taught so many things about them and then experiences what actual family is like, what love is like, and all these things that she never really experienced growing up. Because another theme is society is very emotionally repressed. You're not supposed to feel your emotions or show your emotions. Physical touch is very limited, kept only in the family unit.

just her breaking through all of the societal boundaries that she grew up in, considered good and noble and like this is how it's supposed to be versus what she finds out is like true and not true throughout the series, all while dealing with a very complex and powerful superpower ability through the books. So yeah, those were like themes that I touched on throughout the four books and just her personal growth as a person.

But then thrust as we continue the series thrust into like bigger and bigger roles because she has such a powerful ability. She becomes this important leader that she never really wanted, but it's thrust upon her because of the kind of power that she has.

So I think this, Hollis Time War series is a little bit different from other dystopian books because Hollis does not start as the champion of let's fight the government, they're bad and evil and we have to revolt and good has to win and I'm the leader because I'm the main character. no, she's very much on the government side for a long time, to the dismay of many of my readers, but that's the point. she...

is so brainwashed into believing what she believes that she doesn't want to let go of it.

Tina Koutras (17:20)
in it.

Wow. So that's incredible. I love that concept. The reluctant hero kind of, yeah. So how did your scientific background in chemistry play a role in crafting some of your world building or technology? You've mentioned that you kind of involved it a little bit, but did it actually play a part in the world building aspect or the technology in your storylines?

Danielle Harrington (17:30)
Yeah.

There's one little detail that I remember because people get their powers when they turn 16, which I know very classic dystopian, the 16 year old you know, gets thrust into their new world at 16, which happens everywhere. But I was like, okay, so, but can I?

ground that in some sort of biological reality? Like why does the government test their blood at 16 and then if their blood's good to go, now you can become a citizen and now you can get a job and you have clean blood. I was but why 16? So I was talking to one of my fellow teacher friends.

And there's certain genes in our body that turn on and off at certain biological points in our life. Like for example, you know, if I were to become pregnant, certain parts of my body would turn on like for milk production for my baby or for, you know, this, that, and the other thing, like it's that the biological time to do the thing it's supposed to do. And I was okay, so what if there was like a gene, like this genetic marker that like turns on around 16 basically.

that to activate people's powers and that's why we have to test when we're at 16.

before you're allowed to become a fully fledged society member and stuff. And there were some exceptions in my series to that genetic marker turning on, and I kind of explained that as well, people can get their powers younger than 16, but it's really rare because that's not when the gene turns on. That's not when the power expresses itself, so to speak. So I kind of had a little bit of fun with that, just little details of let's just ground this in a little bit of biological reality, but it's science fiction.

Tina Koutras (19:19)
Great.

You get a little bit of freedom for sure.

Readers have praised twists that they didn't see coming. Can you shed a little light on your approach to crafting unexpected plot turns? Of course, without any spoilers.

Danielle Harrington (19:39)
Yes, so I am a big advocate for in a story structure what you are setting up as a promise to the reader with what kind of story that you're going to tell. And so to a certain degree a reader should be reading the story with an expectation of x, y, and z happening. And I think that the best twists come out of subverting your reader's expectation and

You you still have to deliver on the promise of the book though. part of, so here I should have been just showing my book this whole time, but here's the diseased ones.

The promise that I set up for the reader in this story arc is that we see Hollis questioning her worldview. And so there has to be some kind of resolution to her being exposed to

know, the things she's been taught to believe versus what she, what is now being presented as the truth. So subverting, the twist in this book comes from me, subverting what we think is going to happen with Hollis's conclusions about her own world and her being a diseased one, the world of the diseased ones that she's been thrust into, like these people in hiding. The

the best twists come out of an expectation versus really the reality of what happens in the book. And I and some things should you should fulfill certain promises to the reader like we know that X is supposed to happen in the storyline because they've been talking about it or we've set it up that should be a part of the story plot but the twists are where we're like whoa I thought it was going to be this but it's actually this what the heck that's where the good twists come from.

Tina Koutras (21:24)
Nice. That sounds good. You've completed multiple books in the Hollis Time Wire series. How did your vision for the series evolve from the first book to the last installment?

Danielle Harrington (21:35)
Okay, so I actually had originally intended the diseased ones to be a standalone and my sister was so upset at the ending that she was like, no, I refuse. I refuse for that to be the ending. I was like, no, but that's the ending. That's how it ends. And she just bugged me for months to write another book. And I was like, I'm not going to write another book unless I have another big central conflict to.

revolve a story arc around because I'm not going to just do it for the sake of writing it because you were upset at the diseased one's ending. that's not how this works. But the longer I thought about it and I finally came up with a big conflict to revolve book two around, I was like, maybe this is more than one book. no. no, what have I done? I know. So it expanded from this just being

Tina Koutras (22:06)
you

You

I have to tell her she was right.

Danielle Harrington (22:25)
standalone to three books. It was three books for a while and then the world got too big, got too complex politically that as I go now it has to be four books. So I have, here's book two, The Unseen Ones and then book three, The Pure Ones was going to be the finale and then it's just there was way too much that had to happen so my finale is The Empowered Ones here.

Tina Koutras (22:46)
Okay, so now you have to hold all of those up because I

definitely noticed a little thickness changing as we went.

Danielle Harrington (22:50)
Okay, I know. Oh yeah,

oh yeah. Okay, so we got this one. Okay, so we've got 68,000 words, 78, oh wait no, 76, 101, 142,000 words. So yeah, they're thick. The finale is really thick, but this is the thickest book I've written so far. And I've written and published five books.

Tina Koutras (22:56)
Yeah.

Beautiful.

It's gorgeous. It looks amazing. And the covers are wonderful. I love them.

Can you walk us through your writing routine? Do you outline extensively or are you more of a discovery writer and how has it changed throughout the process?

Danielle Harrington (23:33)
So with the diseased ones, I had the basic concept of what I was trying to tell with the story, but a lot of the story just came as I wrote it and I binged it. Over four weeks, I wrote a very messy first draft and kind of got out the general very skeletal bones, but that one was very much let's just see what happens. Let's just do things to do them, cause that's fun. So there was less planning and less reasoning behind the original.

draft of the diseased ones, which changed a lot. I rewrote the diseased ones, probably four full times, full rewrites, and then went in kind of more fine tune edits after that. But when I approached the second book, I because my sister was like, you can't just write this is you can't do this as a standalone. you cannot end it like that.

so that when I approached the second book and I finally had a big conflict to revolve the second book around, I started planning more. And I would still have pieces of improv that came in as I was going, but at least I had bigger plot points in the second one where I'm like, I should work towards this next big plot point. how am I going to do that? And then with the Pure Ones, book three, I had a lot of life happen between book two and book three.

I had a baby, I moved states, I quit my teaching job, I became a stay at home mom. There was a whole pandemic between book two and three, my goodness. There was a lot. So I had taken a big break from the project and I hadn't touched it for a long time. there's a stark shift between book two and three where the world gets so much bigger than you thought it was.

and there's a whole new cast of characters that get brought in in book three that were not a part of their beginning of the series and there was a lot more forethought that had to go into it and then particularly with my finale and I'm very proud of this while I was writing the pure ones which is book three.

Some of my villain character was doing a lot behind the scenes that we were totally unaware of in book three, like completely oblivious to. But I had to pace out what his plot beats in the background while I was writing book three, because in book four, there's a section of book four where we get to see everything he did in book three, the entire time everything was happening. And even through the twists of book three, he is just aware of a lot.

And so going into planning some of the more complex finale moments, I recognized a big giant piece of book four's plot had to do with the behind the scenes of book three. And I was like, well, all right, this is a big, this is going to be a big thing, but I can do it. And it took

a couple years of work and planning and forethought through writing book three and through crafting book four to get it correct. But it's really, it's the reveals are so good because I planned it so down to every detail. yes, anyway, I'm very proud of it.

Tina Koutras (26:29)
I love that. I love seeing the enthusiasm and excitement you have about this series. It's just magic.

Danielle Harrington (26:37)
It's a really good

series. I'm the author, guys, and I'm biased, but like really, it's pretty good.

Tina Koutras (26:44)
So what would you say are some of the challenges that you face when you're writing and how do you overcome them?

Danielle Harrington (26:50)
I mean there's a lot of times where I just don't want to write and it's become easier to push through those because when you make writing more of a habit

it's it feels easier. I think the hardest part for me is just sitting down and starting but once I'm there at the keyboard like I always I feel like I pretty much always have good writing sessions now and can get out something. A lot of what I've done especially in the past year are a lot of writing sprints where it's like you set a timer for 20 minutes and you go you just type you

Don't worry about how pretty it sounds or fixing things you just go and you get out words and you move forward in your scene and whether you get 50 words in that 20 minutes or 700 words in that 20 minutes like there are better sprints than others but just the discipline of sitting down and carving out even if it's literally 15 or 20 minutes for your whole day you you made progress because you can't edit something that's not there so

Tina Koutras (27:51)
Very true.

Danielle Harrington (27:52)
I always say progress is progress. Whether you had a 2,000 word writing day that was the greatest thing ever, or you just eked out the most painful couple sentences and you're like, I'm a trash writer, this is awful. You got some stuff out, you know?

Tina Koutras (28:09)
You

Danielle Harrington (28:11)
And

so that's been a big thing I've just really tried to upkeep is making it more of a habit and just pushing through moments where I feel more stuck. Because there are days where it's awesome and I'll get several thousand words in a day and I'm like, wow, I got through this chapter, it felt so good. And then there are other days where I'm like, this is literally terrible. I don't know how to English today.

Tina Koutras (28:33)
I don't know how to English.

Danielle Harrington (28:35)
Honestly.

you

Tina Koutras (28:36)
Do you have any rituals or habits that help you get into the right headspace to write? Do you, you know, grab a tea or put on your music or any of that stuff?

Danielle Harrington (28:43)
I'm.

I feel like for me personally, I have to change up my atmosphere, physically where I sit down and write. Cause sometimes I can, like this is, have a writing office, this is our like bonus room in our house and I have like a desk in.

Sometimes I'm good to go and I feel productive at this desk. Other times I'm like, I don't and I would rather just sit in our living room or I just do not feel productive in my house. I need to go to a coffee shop or I need to sit outside. Like in summer, I love, we have a back patio area in our backyard. I love sitting out there and just being in the fresh air and the sunshine and.

having, I think, a different space. I'm like a cat. I'll camp out somewhere for a couple weeks. And then I'll be like, this is no longer productive. I don't like it here anymore. Then I'll move somewhere else and camp out there for a couple weeks.

Tina Koutras (29:34)
I love that analogy.

Danielle Harrington (29:37)
Yeah, so that I mean, that's

for me personally, my environment definitely lends to a more productive and less productive space depending on where I am.

Tina Koutras (29:46)
Nice. And you also said that different seasons affect you. When is your most productive? Is it summer?

Danielle Harrington (29:49)
Mm-hmm.

Well, recently I've been very productive because I wrote the finale of my series and then I wrote the first book of a whole new series all within a year and published both. So I've been a little crazy recently. But yeah, I really like spring and summer because I like being outside. But then here's another thing I've noticed about myself is sometimes, well, it's often easier for me to write a scene

Tina Koutras (30:06)
I love that.

Danielle Harrington (30:20)
at the time of day that the scene is happening, it's the time of day like in reality. Because if I'm writing a scene, it's the middle of the night in the forest. And I'm trying to write that at you know, 10am. I'm like, but it's light outside. It's not light outside in the book. So sometimes that time of day will affect how productive I feel.

Tina Koutras (30:39)
So dystopian fiction often explores the what if scenarios about the future, what drew you to the dystopian genre and what do you think sets it apart? So your love of some of the books that were dystopian kind of kind of pushed you in that direction. Was there any other like the aspect of what you could do creatively in that world?

Danielle Harrington (30:50)
Yeah, definitely.

I think dystopian is interesting because you can explore a really bad future in a safe environment, as the author says. But you can explore politically complex things in a very bad world and make statements about things through the characters.

Tina Koutras (31:12)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Harrington (31:27)
and what they end up doing or not doing in your world. And it was funny because haha, fun, fun, I think it's funny, but when, when the pandemic was happening and I just released the diseased ones, I was like, my gosh, my title. And we have a virus that's like all across the world. Anyway, I kind of used to that a little bit in my like joke marketing,

stuck inside, read about, you know, the deceased ones. It's terrible. Yeah, that's funny. Wow, that was like a memory that just popped up.

Tina Koutras (31:58)
I know.

I mean, it was probably a lot of a lot of people probably picked up books during that time frame, to be

Danielle Harrington (32:06)
Yeah,

Tina Koutras (32:07)
So how do you think that dystopian fiction reflects or influences our views on the real world challenges like technology, society and the environment? Do you think it could have an impact?

Danielle Harrington (32:20)
That's like a pretty loaded question.

Tina Koutras (32:22)
It is kind of, we

just finished rewatching V for Vendetta. I don't know if you've watched that movie, but it definitely, yeah, it definitely is an example of what kind of question that one could be. What type of impact you think that the dystopian world can have.

Danielle Harrington (32:26)
yeah, I saw it again recently.

I think that, okay, what I like about being an author but also being a reader is the reading is subjective. you recognize that not everybody is gonna like the story that you tell, but for the people who do like the story that you tell, everyone's reading experience of it is different and what they take away from it is different and what they.

Tina Koutras (33:01)
mmm-hhm

Danielle Harrington (33:02)
what impacted them most or what they gleaned from the message or the themes or the characters. it's been so fun talking to readers and just seeing what part of Hollis's story impacted them most. And, you know, places where sometimes my intent was to accomplish this and then from reader feedback, yes, I did accomplish this. And sometimes it'll be like, well, my intent was this, but readers are taking it and interpreting it this way,

I don't know if you've heard the phrase death of the author, but it's basically where, author intends X, readers don't take it as X, they take it as Y, therefore death of the author's intention here. so I think particularly with the diseased ones, and I wrote the diseased ones when I was younger and less experienced, and I would say I'm a better writer and storyteller now, writing my sixth book than I was writing the diseased ones and publishing that as my first full book.

But I also love that because it reflects Hollis as a character and how she's 16, she's young, she's naive, she's brainwashed. she has to grow a lot. Even my writing style is more simplistic in the diseased ones, but we see the writing style in her character grow and get bigger and more complex through the series. And something that I've noticed just from talking to readers and they're interpreting my work,

And most people who read the diseased ones, whether they love it or hate it, a lot of people hate Hollis. They're like, love the book, it was a five star book for me. Man, I wanted to like reach into the pages and strangle Hollis. I didn't realize that reader disdain for her would be so strong with that book, but then removed further and further from the story, in what I attended, that's like kind of the point. And I was like, wow, I learned something from my readers that I didn't.

No, I think I didn't fully recognize when I was writing her story, if that makes sense.

Tina Koutras (34:55)
no, it absolutely makes sense. I love that. That's fantastic. So what role does hope play in the dystopian fiction, particularly in your narrative?

Danielle Harrington (35:05)
I think a big hope, especially as we move toward the end of the series is that we can see the humanity in people that are deemed as inhuman. The big hope for peace and getting along and realizing that everyone's just trying to live and exist and like.

these groups of people are afraid of each other for reasons and and messages that are not true about the other group, if that makes sense, which I feel like I don't know, we live in a very politically divided world right now. It's very it's very intense all the time, all the time. Yeah, exactly. So just

Tina Koutras (35:37)
Yeah.

Yeah, a lot of parallels, I would say, if you look for them.

Danielle Harrington (35:51)
There's, there's a, I'm wondering if I can find this line in the fourth book, because I feel like it's very, like thematic to, it's very thematic to this question right here.

Okay, his rhetoric has been edging dangerously close to heralding people with powers as the only good and noble race, the pure ones. The phrase tastes like poison on my tongue. I'm not a pure one. And I'm not a diseased one either. I'm just a human being caught up in the aftermath of a bloody and dark history that happened because of prejudice, hate and fear.

Tina Koutras (36:28)
Holy cow.

Danielle Harrington (36:30)
There it is. part of the that's one of her inner monologues in the first third of the fourth book, which is the finale. That's the empowered ones. Anyway, just thought of that as we were talking.

Tina Koutras (36:33)
Self-realizations.

no, that's fantastic. So what would you say is one of the most surprising or rewarding moments in your author career so far? Like a fan favorite moment, something that happened with one of your fans or anything like that.

Danielle Harrington (37:01)
I have a super fan, her name is Sophia, she's the sweetest thing ever. Just seeing her.

excitement for my series the whole time it was going and it took me like seven years to write and publish all four books. It was a significant time period but what was cool is I got to as I was finishing up the fourth book and I was sending it out to some early readers and some authors to give praise quotes for it. I was like do you want to read an early copy of The Empowered Ones and give a praise quote and I'll put your quote on the hardcover sleeve of

book and she was like, what? So hers is a fan quote that's on the hardback version of the Empowered Ones. And I just love that I got to do that for her and just have her be a part of the series. She bought the hardback, of course, because that quote was on the hardback. But like, it was just so fun.

Tina Koutras (37:52)
Of course.

Danielle Harrington (37:57)
having her interact with the series that way after being such a dedicated fan for that many years and loving my story and loving Hollis and this girl's probably read the diseased ones more times than I have and that's really saying something. Cause I've read my own books a lot of times through the years. And she sent me an annotated version of the diseased ones for me to sign.

And I got to sit and kind of page through her little margin notes on things and I was like, that's such a good point. I didn't think of that. her analyzing my own book it was just so fun to read. Yeah, I loved that.

Tina Koutras (38:26)
That's so fun.

That's awesome. That would feel so good, I think. Okay, how do you balance being an indie author while connecting with readers and growing your community?

Danielle Harrington (38:42)
It's a lot of social media time and sometimes I feel really burnt out by it, but it's how I sell books. I'm definitely on, I pitch on TikTok a lot.

And I mean, TikTok's great because it'll send your videos out to people who don't follow you more often than people who do follow you. Whereas I think Instagram is great for connecting with people you already know, because the Instagram algorithm will typically push content to people who already follow you and interact with your stuff. So I've done a lot of community building and getting to know people on Instagram.

Tina Koutras (39:19)
Mm-hmm.

Danielle Harrington (39:19)
and

more marketing on TikTok. And I have gotten to know some people on TikTok, just I think not as well as I've gotten to know people on Instagram. And yes, it's just a lot of social media stuff. Sometimes I'll be like really aggressive about it and I'll have energy for it. And then other times I'm like, I have no content ideas anymore. I've been doing this for four years. Like what else do I talk about?

Tina Koutras (39:44)
hahahaha

Danielle Harrington (39:45)
But I will post

writing updates are always easy. I hit this many words in my manuscript or I got this many words in a writing sprint today. And maybe I'll share a writing snippet or, you know, some collage of character inspiration things from Pinterest or it kind of just ebbs and flows into what I'm what I'm feeling at the time. Yeah.

Tina Koutras (40:06)
Right, exactly.

Cool. So if you had to give one piece of advice to an aspiring author, particularly in the dystopian genre, what do you suppose it would be?

Danielle Harrington (40:17)
I would say that if you are serious about getting published one day as a writer, then what you need to do is a lot of learning and you need to be okay with it taking a long time. I would absolutely recommend against rushing a first publication.

because you just feel like, I just want to get my first book published. a lot of indie authors I know have gone back to their earlier works and either taken them down or refurbished them because they look back and they say don't think I was ready to publish that story, but I did anyway. And I've learned so much more and I know so much more and I can tell a better story and I'm a better writer. If possible, go to a writing conference, learn from people who have been doing this for a long time.

take story arc workshops, take editing workshops, take pitching workshop. I didn't even know, I didn't know how to tell people about my books when I started. They're like, you're writing a book, what's it about? And I'm like, I don't know what it's about. what do mean what it's about? I'm very comfortable pitching now. I pitch my stuff all the time. In person book events, I have my pitches down to a science. They're quick, they're snappy, they have a hook

I had a skill I had to develop that did not just happen overnight. My ability to write and my ability to edit and my ability to identify what is and isn't working in my own work. Finding my people, like finding an editor that I like working with, finding beta readers.

finding cover artists, people to format my book, I have not personally learned how to format something I would like to do. this has all taken a lot of years of connecting and talking with people and learning. So if you're serious about getting published, whether that's traditional publishing or any publishing, you should be learning, you should be a student and connect yourself with other writers and read in the genre that you want to write in. if you are

doing, you know, fantasy romance and that's what you want to be as a writer in that genre, you should be reading fantasy romance and you should be identifying what you like in stories, what does and doesn't work for you as a reader. You know, I say write the story you want to read, that's true, you should be excited about your own work and what you're writing and

identifying in other people's books that was a really good book for me as a reader. What did I like about that book? What was compelling about that book? What made me not want to put it down? incorporating that into your own work. Just constantly being a student because you never arrive. I've not arrived just because I've published five books. I will continue to learn and improve things about my own storytelling and craft just continually being in the mind of a student.

and being proud of what you have done, but pushing yourself to get even better and better with each work that you continue to do.

Tina Koutras (43:03)
Wow, that's some good advice. I love that. It's very good advice. So are there any non-dystopian genres that you would love to try your hand at?

Danielle Harrington (43:14)
Yeah, actually, in fact, I'll pull up this. is the first book in my next series. It's called Key Holder. This is an yeah, this is an enemies to lovers bounty hunter romantasy And my quick pitch for this book is

Tina Koutras (43:21)
This is the one that got my attention when I found you.

Danielle Harrington (43:30)
It's about a young woman who becomes blood bound to a key that holds the power to save the world. And so all of the kingdoms hunt her for this power. She's captured by a bounty hunter in the name of one of the kings and she has to discover what her role as the key holder is to save all of the kingdoms. This is also an illustrated book. So pretty. It's so pretty, guys. But yeah, this is the I have now I'm a cross genre author started with dystopian and now I'm in the fantasy romance.

area and this will be a duology so just two books when it's done and I'm working on the sequel right now which is going to be rather fat. It's going to be fatter than the empowered ones. It'll... Wrathwielder book two of this will be my biggest book when I end up finishing that manuscript.

Tina Koutras (44:05)
you

Wicked.

So is it just an illusion or is that like a holographic cover? It kind of from here it looks kind of holographic. Okay.

Danielle Harrington (44:19)
It's not. This

is a special edition Kickstarter version. This is just a matte sleeve, but underneath this, I did a foil hard case laminate design for this. It's literally stunning. Right? anyway, so this was, my gosh, this is the prettiest book I've ever made, guys. It's so pretty. But yeah, I'm in the fantasy. I write fantasy now.

Tina Koutras (44:30)
yeah, that is gorgeous. There's a lot of people that are going to drool over that.

Hmm?

Danielle Harrington (44:47)
And the world building is very different in fantasy than dystopian. This is something I've had to do a lot more work on with Keyholder than I had to do with the Hollis Timewire series.

Tina Koutras (44:47)
That's awesome.

Yeah.

It looks incredible. So for those who are meeting you and your work for the first time, how can they best connect with you?

Danielle Harrington (45:00)
Thank you.

So I am on Instagram and TikTok under the same handle, DJHarringtonwriter And I'm very active on both platforms. I also have a website, DJHarringtonBooks.com that I have all my books up on. I have the first chapter of The Diseased Ones available to read for free on my website, and also the first chapter of Key Holder available to read for free. And I...

Tina Koutras (45:32)
cool.

Danielle Harrington (45:35)
sell my books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. And I sell private too if you send me a DM and you're like, hey, what do you have? And then I could like sign it and give you swag and stuff like that. So yeah, I sell direct too, just when people reach out and yeah, it's fun.

Tina Koutras (45:47)
You

That's awesome. Plus we're also going to carry it on our website as well.

thank you so much for sitting down with us tonight and getting an opportunity to dive into both types of series, only a little briefly on the fantasy side, but I find it so exciting that you're not done writing and that this is just the beginning for you.

Danielle Harrington (46:12)
Thank you so

much for having me. This is so fun.

Tina Koutras (46:15)
I think that I'm going to have to grab... Can people purchase that gorgeous book or is that just you said it was a Kickstarter?

Danielle Harrington (46:21)
I have, okay,

so it's a Kickstarter special edition and I do have some extra leftover from my Kickstarter that I have been like bringing to book events and selling privately. So I do have some copies left. They will run out. But if people, if someone wanted to like...

Tina Koutras (46:36)
Yeah, I was going to say you might not by the end of this.

Danielle Harrington (46:39)
DM me asking about it, like I'll give you information about like cost and shipping and stuff like that. But they are limited and will run out. You're like, actually maybe me.

Tina Koutras (46:46)
You

to want it. I

must admit. I think that's fun. I think it's gorgeous.

Danielle Harrington (46:53)
And

this is like color illustrations too. So the retail version of Keyholder only has black and white illustrations because it costs me money to print in color. like the premium color with like just the sleeve and that hard case laminate design is just such a shiny book.

Tina Koutras (47:12)
Gorgeous.

Awesome. All right. I am so happy to have had the opportunity to sit down and talk with you and I can't wait to see what you create with the Keyholder Series. And I am definitely looking at that first series. I know that my daughter would love it. You had her the moment you were talking about heroes because she spent

Danielle Harrington (47:31)
Hmm.

Tina Koutras (47:36)
The last time she was here with us, she was watching that the whole time she was here. She's in her 20s now, but she would love that series. and I mean, obviously I'm going to read it before I give it to her, because otherwise I'll never see it again.

Danielle Harrington (47:39)
Love it.

I would say like my target

audience for the Hollis-Timewire series is like age 13 to 18 but anyone who loves the dystopian genre just in general like I still read young adult books as an adult I love young adult books so it's for fans of dystopian and then I've got my main target age audience you know

Tina Koutras (48:09)
Yeah.

So what's the key holder target audience?

Danielle Harrington (48:13)
Key Holder I recommend for 18 plus. I would say a mature 16 year old would probably be fine reading it. my, the romance is no spice. Like it's not open door or anything like that. language use is pretty mild, but in Key Holder I do deal with some pretty more serious themes in certain aspects than I do with the Hollis Timewire series.

So a key holder is new adult. My main character is 22 years old. Hollis-Timewire series is young adult and my main character is 16.

Tina Koutras (48:44)
Okay, those are good metrics for it, guess. Awesome. Once again, Danielle, thank you so much. And I really appreciate having this time to talk.

Danielle Harrington (48:54)
Thank you so much for having me.

Tina Koutras (48:55)
Thanks.