Happy November and NaNoWrimo! It is very exciting to have  Exequinne with us to feature their book »When Last Night Didn't End« as our book of the month! Underneath you can find the next interview where we talked to the author and learned more about their story!

AUTHOR BIO

Caeran is a twenty-something, Asian author who has nine cats—all of which don't exist. A builder of worlds and a crazy writer at heart, they have titled more series than they could ever write, ending up with a queue to last them until they're seventy. Find completed and ongoing works on their Wattpad profile, Exequinne.

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PREMISE

Joon Hye-jin and Nagara Rin have just gone through a divorce. What happens when they get trapped inside a video game, and the only way out is to work together and defeat an ancient evil rising inside it?

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TEASER

From the corner of my eyes, I saw flashes of dark fur and different shades of metal glinting in the pockets of sunlight streaming through the canopies and undergrowth. My feet slapped solid cobblestones the moment I leaped over the last curving trunk. The city. I made it. It should be easy to lose them here.

Wrong.

Not only did they stay on my tail like tics that wouldn't just piss off, they seemed to be herding me somewhere based on their positions on the roofs, the alleys, and the main street. I've never been in enough street fights to have any idea how to get myself out of this mess, and looking at my stats, I couldn't lean on magic too.

A knife streaked past my face, halting me on the spot. It fell to the ground with a hearty clatter. My cheek stung.

Oh, fuck it. Magic, it was. I didn't even realize I was running blind all this time, with the menu blocking most of my view of my surroundings. I focused on the skills list and on the little triangle on the lower left. I turned a random corner, bringing me to a narrower alley. My skills list flitted further, but all the latter skills were muted gray.

In the gaming world, that could only mean one thing—locked. Inaccessible.

Magic and weapons rained on me from everywhere, but the only injuries I have now were the pain creeping around my shoulder and cheek. Would it scar? I was about to find out. Or not.

Because while I was lamenting about my locked skills, I had brought myself into a cul-de-sac.

A dead end.

And like its name, it looked like I would be that too.

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INTERVIEW

Tell us about your writing journey! How did you become involved with Wattpad? What are some of your memorable milestones on and off the platform?

Most of my writing journey is on Wattpad, and it started in 2013 when it became a fad among my peers. Everyone wanted to only read, but I remember from way back, I wanted to write, to craft stories that are unique and so distinct people can tell they were from me. And that's how I started.

My first published novel on Wattpad (on the same account that I still use!) was an attempt to mish-mash unknown fairy tales into one fantasy world with tons of action, mystery, and wonder. What happened was that it devolved into a mess of words that will never see the light of day. And I completed an entire trilogy for it featuring different timelines and eras that amounted to 300k+ words.

I've since trashed that and aimed to become serious about writing when I was 16. That was the birth point of The Chronicles of Fantasilia, a high-fantasy literary world that retains all of the vibes of its prototype and brings something new to reflect my growth.

And I didn't start out being able to write as neatly as I do now. I've been told my characters were too flat, my tenses shift, my prose was too boring, my hook too late, and my prologues unnecessary. Perhaps, it was the spite and the process of my creative skin thickening, but soon, I'm being told my characters were too real, my tenses still shift (blame auxiliary verb contractions), and my prose is "elegant". My point is that I've come a long way, and if you keep at it, you will too.

Since my revival in 2018, when I first published The Fairy Legacy, COFU's very first book, I have been sucked into a writing whirlpool. Now, I have an entire catalog of works in my profile that lists everything I've worked on and published on Wattpad. There's The Chronicles of Fantasilia Main Series and its two spin-off novella series, The Memoirs of Mayhem and The Unseen Wars, an east-asian, high-fantasy series The Piper of Mirchaek, and standalones like Manila Sunsets With You, Libelle, Scapegoat, Forever the Same, and The White Thorns of Fire. And yes, the feature of this month, When Last Night Didn't End, and its spin-off novel, Before Story.

In 2022, I joined the Open Novella Contest, and surprisingly, my novella Kolibrie won third place. In 2023, I published a reworked version called Kolibrie: The Novel, with all of my qualms with the winning novella fixed. It is now fuller and more holistic. So, if you're up to read that, start with the novel. xD

The journey has been long, but it isn't finished yet. There's still more to come!

What drew you to this genre mashup? This story has a plethora of different themes, and we're curious to know how you would describe it. There are a lot of moving parts, yet you make it all work so well, especially with your fantastic world-building.

When Last Night Didn't End (to be called WLNDE starting from here), is an experimental work, meaning I mainly wanted to experiment with the audience, the prose, the themes, and the overall direction of the story and, you know, just have fun with the concept. It is a big project to tackle and hella scary to approach, but it's a challenge I issued to myself to 1) tackle mature themes that wouldn't naturally be found in communities like Wattpad, 2) depict real life situations I have no first-hand experience on, and 3) cater to a wider audience than that of YA, NA, or Adult novels each are known for.

The main themes of WLNDE revolves around how people start, maintain, and end relationships, the messiness of life and being a human in the middle of it, and finally, the intricacies of making mistakes, forgiveness, and reconciliation. There are other sub-themes, but I might spoil the rest of the story if I keep rambling about them. XD

As for worldbuilding, I guess WLNDE borrowed from the muscle exercise I did for The Chronicles of Fantasilia, albeit a little toned down. I didn't want to bury the readers with too much worldbuilding since it can take away the focus on the core, which is still the main leads' internal journey.

What was your inspiration for 'When Last Night Didn't End?' We could all feel the Jumanji and World of Warcraft vibes leaping off the pages, but it's also so much more with the protagonist, who also introduces her ex as they find themselves trapped in the virtual world. What thought process went into the construction of your story?

If there is one thing to take away from this interview, it's that I am a massive nerd. I know, surprise. My main fixations have been and always will be K-dramas and anime, and I came up with WLNDE's core concept when I was in the middle of drafting Manila Sunsets With You.

I already have people praising me for the action and immersiveness of The Chronicles of Fantasilia's world then, and I've been getting attention for my "intestine-slapp" lines for my poetry. With Manila Sunsets With You, I applied the flow of my poetry into prose—which is another story for another time—and I've been told it worked. So, as I was drafting MSWY, an idea came to me: what if I combine the action and fantasy tropes of COFU and the raw emotions of my prose in MSWY?

The result of that is WLNDE's premise, the seed. Through some twisted tangles of inspiration, I thought, what if the MCs aren't the clueless teens I usually write? What if they're experienced and want nothing to do with each other? What would happen if I stick them inside an isekai world, and they now have to work together?

It's such an interesting idea that it latched on to me until the rest of the year. I worked on MSWY in February 2022, and I started planning for WLNDE in August. I also remember panicking because the year was so close to ending back then, and I still haven't done anything to move the planning for my main project in 2023 forward. Thankfully, after a series of fortunate events, I've been able to come up with WLNDE's plot arcs before Christmas of 2022. The full story is in WLNDE's acknowledgment section. xD

If you could describe the personalities for Hye-jin and Rin in five words a piece, what words would you use?

For Rin, gentle, ambitious, amicable, efficient, and earnest, and for Hye-jin, fierce, honest, caring, petty, and altruistic. So you can, kind of, see how they would fit together and how they wouldn't.

What tropes will readers find in 'When Last Night Didn't End?' What drew you to write about those tropes?

The immediate trope one can find is Enemies-to-Lovers. What set WLNDE apart is its direct subversion of it. The trope has now transformed into a Character Dynamics Rollercoaster, which follows the main leads from when they were strangers to friends to lovers to enemies. The story picks up on the question of whether they would be enemies-to-friends-to-lovers again, and I think that's part of WLNDE's allure.

There's also the Badass Female trope that you will see in my other works. Hye-jin is a strong character, both in the contemporary side and the game world. The only subversion I did was to still make her human and commit mistakes from time to time. She also cries. A lot. Lol.

Another trope common in anime is the isekai trope. I did away with the reincarnation aspect of it, but WLNDE still has the basic portal-fantasy inciting incident that is heavily reminiscent of Sword Art Online and Log Horizon.

Finally, connecting to the isekai trope is the one that comes in all fantasy game worlds, and even those reincarnation ones. Yep, I'm talking about the leveling up, the magic stats, and the gear and skills collection. There is also monster hunting, adventure parties, and a whole lot of dungeons and fighting. They are a bit subtle, since I don't want them to take up the emotional core, but they are there. xD

Without giving too many spoilers, what was the hardest part or scene in the book to write?

Can I say that the entire book is hard to write? No?

By far, WLNDE is the most complex thing I have to work with, starting from plot, characterization, balancing the internal and external conflict, and worldbuilding. There are certain considerations I have to make to steer the reader focus on the things I really want to bring to light, and that means I have to learn how to balance fantasy and romance beats all in one book. So, it's all a mess in my head, and it took me three tries to get the plot arcs right. I also did those three tries by hand. In different places.

In the drafting phase, I found it challenging to cater to the shifting POV. If you look at the middle parts of WLNDE, you'll see that it's actually two stories merged into one. It tells Rin and Hye-jin's past leading to the divorce before alternating to the present game-world story. The past is told in omniscient and limited third person, while the present is in first. You can imagine the confusion my head has to go through to get across that. xD

There is also the middle part. I had this fear that the plot would stagnate as it led up to the ending, and man, did it incur a truckload of anxiety. But...yeah. I just powered through it and worried about the audience's interest later.

Finally, part of the reason why WLNDE is close to my heart is because it has its fair share of emotional scenes and dramatic lines. If you think I'm spouting those in my sleep, you'll be wrong. It took me countless hours to get the first line right, the prose and character introspection to flow properly, and the narrative to switch in and out of action, emotion, and moral in a span of a chapter. Very chaos, yes.

How do you feel writing this story in an episodic format affected its development? How have your readers impacted your story over time? Have their reactions changed how you feel about the piece?

Part of the reason I did it in episodic format is to pattern it after the K-dramas and anime I've watched over the years. It's to induce that sense of familiarity, and to challenge myself to think in arcs, and to twist something I'm used to into something entirely new and quite rare. This type of TV-format writing has been in my mind for so long, and I'm glad I get to try it in WLNDE. And as you can see, writing in episodes bloated the entire thing. Now, you have an 180k-word monster. But really, if I can write in episodic format for the next series(es) after this, I definitely would.

I am a plebian when it comes to readers, but I have a few notable ones who have touched WLNDE since its release. Shoutout to AziaElga and the-reticent-seer who have finished the beast in record time and tell me what I should be improving on. There's also sandydragon1, MiniMoxx, SpruceWolf, Ry-reader-29, and the most amazing Mariya_Evans. They have validated most of the things I'm trying to show, and have since made me feel like I've won the lottery with writing WLNDE.

Special mention also to the folks at DreamlandCommunity Hunt Book Club who have told me WLNDE's opening chapter and the first line is worthy to be read. lol.

If you could write a spinoff story for any character, alive or dead, who would it be and why?

ALL OF THEM. I mean, everyone from the game world is interesting. Having given them back stories and characterization, I'm all for spin-offs for all of them. Solarlume is a big world, almost as big as Umazure (an island in Fantasilia). I'm shooting myself in the foot in saying this, but yes. I want to do a spin-off series on all of them. ;-;

And WLNDE already has a spin-off, because I looooooove spin-offs. Case in point: COFU's two novella series. Who knows if there will be more, right? *wink, wink*

As an author, what impact do you hope your voice and your stories have to your readers? Do you have advice for aspiring writers?

I've actually gotten a glimpse of it with the readers I've had over the years. I want them to not just be entertained but to at least influence them on how to see the world for what it is, what it could be, and what their place in it is. My works, as an ethos, should tackle universal truths while betraying my views about them. Stories are my way of reflecting on, growing in, and complaining about the world I live in and the worlds I've yet to touch. Even if they take place in an imagined world, I want readers to see that all of them are still reflections of the world we experience together.

And I wanted to give credit to the readers who have expressed such a sentiment. Shoutout to PurpleMist_2, currychutneytalks, Shivran86, OfNineteenStars, McReadish, and IsabelCavesAuthor. You guys are champs for joining me on my madness that are my works. :))

As for advice...well, I'll give one from my standpoint of having too many works on my profile (I have almost 60, all with 10k+ words). It's to prioritize quantity over quality. Writing and storytelling is a subjective exercise, and sometimes, external validation, internal acceptance, and opportunities just don't align. But don't let all of that discourage you from doing what you want and taking a step towards your dreams. The journey doesn't start when you stay on the shore. Do it one step at a time, one book at a time. One word at a time, if you must. Worry about being perfect when you actually have something to perfect.

Finally, what current or future projects are in the pipeline for your readers?

I'm currently knee-deep in drafting an upcoming urban sci-fi trilogy called The Game Trilogy for NaNo 2023. It's an old idea, and the story for that will be for another time. I'll also be tackling the monster planning phase of the sequel series of The Chronicles of Fantasilia, which I'll be drafting in 2024.

Other than that, next year will be full of surprises, even for me, so watch out for future and totally unplanned releases on both my Wattpad profile, @Exequinne, and my instagram (@exequinne).

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And we end our amazing interview with Exequinne here. Thank you for being with us this September. We all hope you all got to know the author like us and discovered some unique details about the story, »When Last Night Didn't End«. We will see you next month with another amazing story.