Interview with Kiana Harned

Khayrun Gure: What books do you enjoy reading?

Kiana Harned: I'm not a super big reader, but I do enjoy some adult fantasy or romance novels occasionally.

KG: What genre do you dislike?

KH: I'm not the biggest fan of non-fiction in general, nor do I typically pick up anything that is like... modern and mundane. Slice-of-life for a middle-aged man going through a midlife crisis is not a genre, but it is something that you couldn't pay me to read.

KG: What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk?

KH: My characters are real and they are in my head, piloting me like a meat suit.

KG: What is the most surprising thing you discovered while writing for the anthology?

KH: While working on the excerpt for the anthology, I realized that I wanted to scrap what I had written for the project that the excerpt was from, and go back to the drawing board--which in turn meant that I needed a new project for the capstone… so that was fun.

KG: What was your writing process like? Any inspirations?

KH: When I was initially writing the piece, it was one of the clearest scenes in my head from my entire work in progress. The scene came easily compared to other scenes, and it will likely change very little even when I restart the novel someday.

KG: What are you reading now?

KH: Mostly interactive fiction! I am a volunteer copy editor and game tester for a few interactive fiction authors in my spare time, so I spend a lot of time playing video games (without the video part). Other than that, I'm too tired from the semester and the assignments I'm working on to read for fun.

KG: What makes writers different from other people?

KH: We have a different way of looking at the world, absorbing details, and interacting with certain information than people who do not write. There's constantly some kind of creative process going on in our heads, whether we want it to be or not, that we can't really turn off. Whenever I've mentioned this to non-writers, it's always resulted in me getting stared at like I'm insane. Which, maybe I am--who knows?

KG: What, according to you, is the key element to being a great writer?

KH: I think the trick to being a good writer is to experience the world to its fullest. Love deeply, laugh loudly. Feel the rain on your skin and really savour the sensation of it. Take in all the details of your life and take notes on what it feels like to cry, to dance, to shiver--all of these things are essential in conveying the same emotions and sensations to your reader. The more of your life that you pay attention to, the more you have to pull from when writing things, even when it's something you've never experienced before. I also think that it's important to really care about other people and put effort into understanding why people do the things they do. Understanding people will give you more understanding of your characters, and also help you write more realistic characters overall.