Interview with ImberLapis conducted by glitterandasphalt.

ImberLapis is the author of Heart of Steel. It won second place in the 2017 PokemonWatties, adventure category. The book was also awarded "best trainer book". It was nominated for both "best main character" and "best supporting character".

I want to start off by asking what inspired you to write Heart of Steel?

Actually, I can't quite remember. What I do remember is that I'd finished playing through Alpha Sapphire for the first time, and I really liked a lot of the characters, Steven especially. After playing through the game a second time, I suppose my fondness of the character grew, and that got the gears turning. Again, I can't remember too well.

Were there any parts of the story that you struggled with writing? And also, what were your favorite parts to write?

Any scene involving Steven's parents along with the Champion battle and the last battle with Valerie. It was mainly my attempts to distribute formal dialogue across two-three characters that made it difficult, and for the battles it was the fact that I needed to write a six-on-six battle that had just as much detail and quality as my other battles. All interactions between Steven and Meteor were highlights for me as well as writing Steven's general social awkwardness around other characters. I must admit, writing awkward interactions and dialogue is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me.

So, a lot of people really enjoy the Meteor and Steven relationship. Is this something that you planned from the start, or something that happened organically over the course of writing Heart of Steel?

It actually happened within the first three chapters. Meteor was  originally planned to have a personality and way of speaking that was very similar to Steven's, but then I scrapped it when I thought that people would find it uninteresting. Because of that, I just gave Meteor the personality that is the opposite of Steven's to see how it would play out, and it somehow worked out for what was clearly the better.

Clearly it did! I can remember seeing #justiceformeteor on more than one occasion around here. Heart of Steel won 2nd place in the 2017 Pokémon Watty Awards. How did you feel when you found out you placed?

To put it plainly, I was beyond shocked and happy. I know my quite description-heavy writing style isn't what a lot of people like to see on Wattpad, so to see it get attention at all, let alone place so high in the PWA, was amazing to see!

What have you learned about writing since Heart of Steel? You brought it to the PWA and it brought home silver. It's been read nearly 200 times all the way through by fans across Wattpad. It's been reviewed by the GRA. You even made edits to the story itself. That's quite a journey.

I've definitely learned how to properly format dialogue, which is a life-saver for future projects. Along with that, writing Heart of Steel has helped me sharpen and somewhat refine my skills regarding an individual character's "voice," or how they speak. Steven's dialogue compared to Meteor's is a perfect example of this. But most importantly, writing this story has helped me gain more confidence regarding deviating from canon content and adding my own little quirks to the characters and the story's world itself.

What kind of works can we expect from you in the future? Do you have anything you are currently working on?

Pokéfic-wise, at the moment I'm working on a slice-of-life story called Our Forte, and I'm also writing a Pokémon/Legend of Zelda crossover called The Fractured Holder, which I'm super excited to write and post. Aside from that, I'm writing a Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild novelization called Forgotten Courage.

Wow! That's enough to keep anyone busy. What other kinds of hobbies do you have other than writing?

Not that many now, unfortunately. Almost all of my free time goes into writing. But I  love gaming, graphic-making, listening to music, and watching anime.

Well, I can see you're a Legend of Zelda fan. How many hours have you put in on Breath of the Wild?

Over seven hundred and fifty hours at this point. Even though I've beaten the game three times already, I can't stop playing it. It's the thing I instantly go to whenever I need to blow off steam, relax, or just kill an hour or two. At least all those hours permanently grind the scenery and story into my mind for my novelization, so I suppose it isn't all that bad.

Doing your research I see! That game is so hard to put down, I'm a huge fan too. Do you think you will play Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee when those titles get released this November?

Though I'm still considering it, I only really would for the apparent "Pokémon following you" feature and multiplayer. I'm not at all a fan of Kanto, and I stopped playing Pokémon Go when the hype died. But if I do pick up one of the games, it would definitely be Let's Go Eevee.

So, you really seem to spend a lot of time writing. Do you see yourself ever trying to become a published author one day, or does your writing passion mostly involve writing for the fandoms you enjoy?

I hope to publish an actual book or two later in life, but until I further develop my writing skills as well as the ideas for these stories that I have, I'll be sticking with fanfiction.

So we'll have you around for a while? Great! I'm sure your fans will be happy to hear that. Are there any scenes in Heart of Steel that get a lot of comments from your readers?

Most of Meteor's quips, snarky or not, garner a few. Also the two major plot-twist scenes had many comments, but I can't state their contents because of obvious spoilers.

Right. We can't have spoilers here! Who are your favorite and least favorite characters in Heart of Steel and why?

Hah, the tables have turned! I asked my readers this question myself! But for favorites, I obviously love Meteor. His original role as pure comic relief still shone through even when I tried to give him more depth, and his dumb/snarky quips were some of my favorite things to write. I also really like Steven. I used to hate writing him in the beginning because I was really unused to writing a personality like his along with keeping his formal dialogue consistent, but I have a love for the "smol bean" kind of character, and I soon grew to love him. In addition, I was a fan of Wallace and Orbit. Their personalities were much more simple to write but still enjoyable.

As for least favorite characters, the only ones I at all disliked were ironically the female characters, Arietta, Winona, Valerie, and Carol. This isn't too widely known about me, but I very much prefer writing male characters over females despite being a girl myself. Maybe it's just me growing up with no siblings and all male cousins my age and having mostly male friends, I'm not sure. But almost all female characters I write don't feel "right" to me, and this reflected in Heart of Steel's characters. While I don't downright dislike the female characters, they weren't nearly as fun to write as the males, though Winona's bright, naïve cheeriness always put a smile on my face. I just wish I had given her the development she obviously needed and deserved. I wanted so many characters to have development, but my self-imposed fourty five chapter limit, well, limited that potential.

If you could have thrown your forty five chapter limit out the window, what would you have done differently? 

It's all character-related differences. Wallace's arc would've been extended, Winona's want to be a Ranger would've been swapped with her original intent on being a Coordinator like Wallace had and she would've had an arc where she wanted to become a Gym Leader instead of a Coordinator, Andrew would've had the subplot I wanted him to have, Liam's subplot would've been more elaborated on, all of Steven's Pokémon would've had more time to flesh out their personalities (RIP Silvette, River, and Vinya's individuality in the current story) and Steven and Joseph would have had a longer period to reconcile.

Okay, one last bonus question before we wrap this up. Who would be the LAST character from Pokémon you would want to be stranded on a desert island with and why?

That's honestly a massively broad roster, so I'll just stick to the Hoenn games for this. If we're saying that this is just the character themselves, taking none of their Pokémon into account, I would have to say Lisia. Being a famous Coordinator, she spends most of her time in cities for both Contests and her fans, and that probably means she wouldn't have the greatest knowledge of being out in nature for long stretches of time or survival skills in general. Her positive attitude would be great for morale, but not when she'd most likely just be a cheerleader.

Yes, I can't see her being very useful at all! Well, thanks for letting me interview you.

Thank you for interviewing me. Having my story reviewed by the GRA was an absolute honor!

If you want to check out Heart of Steel for yourself, you can find it listed in our reading list titled "Reviewed" or on ImberLapis 's account.