Author Interview: Sheenah Freitas

What was your favorite part of the writing/publishing process? Your least favorite?

My favorite part is the revising and editing stage. I love seeing the entire story evolve and actually sound like a story. The first draft is my least favorite part because there can be days where I’m balancing a pencil on my nose and staring at a screen running my mind over a billion different scenarios that could or should happen and yet none of them seem right. My first drafts are never pretty to look at so I love it when I can go through and polish things up.

What would you say is the most important element in a good story?

For me, I would say characters. If the characters aren’t interesting, why would you bother reading their story? An author could have brilliant prose and write a beautiful story about the human condition, but without characters that nobody cares about, whose going to want to read it?

Who is your favorite character from The Chosen, and why?

That’s a tough question. I love all of my characters, but I’m going to have to go with my merman, Derek. I think he’s the only guy in my book that truly acts like a guy. If there’s a pretty woman that he sees on the street, he’s going to look versus Reeze who will glance at her but only see her as a person and not as a female. And despite his fun attitude, he has his dark secret that he doesn’t want anyone to know. It’ll be revealed in the sequel, The Number, which I’m working on now.

If you had to pick just one thing for readers to take away after reading The Chosen, what would it be?

I think every author can agree that they hope the reader enjoys the book, but I hope that readers will think about responsibility. Throughout the book Kaia is trying to come to terms with her responsibility to save this planet that she’s never heard of. It’s not a choice for her and we get to see the consequences of her actions in the sequel. I know saving a planet is an extreme, but you could apply it to other things like a pet. You buy an animal because it’s cute and then once the newness and cuteness wears off what do you do? Keep taking care of it or would you get rid of it?

And just for fun, what would you say is the most interesting thing about you?

I have these incredibly vivid dreams. My family is a little jealous that their dreams are about mundane things like work or school. There are always these epic adventures or storylines going on in my dreams and most of the time I’m not even in them. I’m more like an observer, watching these people from the sky. So as long I keep dreaming, I’ll always have story ideas.