Aiki Flinthart is the author of the YA 80AD Series (where the downloads went nuts), the Ruadhan Sidhe Series, Shadows Wake, Shadows Bane and Shadows Fate, and now, newly released, Iron, the first of the Kalima Chronicles. She has been shortlisted for the Aurealis Awards & Writers of the Future Contest, appeared on the Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers Assn of America YouTube channel – and she writes kick-ass women characters.
In a Zombie apocalypse, you need to be able to shoot without sticking your head out.
Read a Flinthart novel, and you’re immediately transported to a world of Terracotta Armies, Chinese inventions or Eastern Philosophy. You learn about pyramids, tombs and hieroglyphics.
Think Martial Arts, knife throwing, horse-bows and archery, add a few swords and daggers, mixed with a few myths and legends, and you start to get a faint understanding of what you’re in for.
Did I mention shape-shifters, vampires, aliens, elves and quests? Yes, I’m way out of my depth, but it doesn’t matter. Flinthart is an expert in all things fantasy.
In this episode Flinthart talks us through the psychological and physiological differences between men and women in fights, in between talking all things writing.
You can find out more about Flinthart and her novels here.
COMPETITION:
If you’d like to win a copy of Iron, send a pic of you wielding an iron (at your ironing board:)) to melinda@tropicalwriting.com.au
Mel: Welcome to another episode of writer on the road today. We're staying here in my beautiful town of Brisbane. Welcome Aiki Flintheart.
Aiki: Hey, thanks, Mel. Appreciate it. Glad to be here.
Mel: We have the beautiful Deb Kelly to thank for this one. And we are going to Fantasyland. Aiki has nine or 10 books published, middle grade and adult fantasy novels.
Aiki: I have been training in martial arts for about 18 years or so. It's good for writing it gives you lots of good fight scenes.
Mel: I had a look at some of the covers on your books and there is this woman and she's holding a knife. I love her expression. She's a kickass female. I like her. And we're going to talk about that today about how to write fight scenes because that's what Aiki specializes in.
Aiki: I've actually been writing my whole life but early on they were really dreadful romances that will never see the light of day. And then my son is dyslexic and he was really struggling with the big fat books like the Harry Potter and things you wanted to read something actually but he just couldn't get through them. So I wrote a series of five books for middle graders portal fantasy as kids get sucked back into a computer game set in 1880 and my sneaky goal was to to hide some real history in there so the kids have to go through five levels in five different countries all said in 88. And while they learn things about India and China and Egypt along the way and it's the fight scenes. But you know after I publish those they were really quite successful. There's been about 400000 downloads but. I then realized I really didn't know what I was doing. I went away and learnt a lot of things and wrote some more books and now the ones that are coming out you know are stronger read better written but the older ones keep selling really well so there's something about them.
Mel: 400000 downloads of middle grade novels is amazing. We're talking digital. Aiki Is an indie publisher. And when I went on your website other than...
