DAY 2 : THE INTERVIEW!

Joining me today are Christian Fantasy authors, Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper. Wayne is the bestselling author of the Door Within Trilogy as well as Isle of Swords & Isle of Fire. He is also a middle school teacher with a heart for kids and their eternal destiny. Christopher is the author of the White Lion Chronicles as well as a Pastor and Worship leader. Both of these men have a passion for Christ and have joined forces to bring us a new Christian Fantasy series entitled "The Berinfell Prophecies." Book One, "The Curse of the Spider King," has just recently come out and is quickly moving up the charts. As you can see these guys are serious about their fiction--so buy their book or they might "cut yor 'ead off!"

Wayne was gracious enough to take some time, from his busy schedule, in order to fill us in a bit on this joint effort and the Berinfell Prophecies. Tomorrow we'll feature more cool STUFF on Berinfell Prophecies!

Wayne, how did you two come up with the premise for The Berinfell Prophecies?

I have a file folder on my Mac that contains somewhere around 30 "story kernels." These are kind of cool little nuggets of plot that have the potential to be fleshed out as a novel. One of these I was particularly keen on, I proposed to Christopher. It was about a young boy who thought of himself as pretty unremarkable but was noticed (in a suspicious kind of way) by the school's librarian. CH loved it and together we brainstormed what could be going on here. It soon became apparent that this one boy was not alone. There were seven youths in the mix and there were dark forces stalking them.

Did you have any fictional inspirations for the story?

Tolkien always inspires me. But there wasn't any other story that gave me inspiration.

How about any biblical inspiration for the story?

Biblical inspiration, definitely. The scriptures that speak of God grafting us in, adopting us as sons (and daughters), calling us "friend," those are powerful influencers of this novel.

Describe your process for coordinating the writing between two novelists.

Thank God for technology. CH is a 7-hour drive from me in Upstate NY. So we have used cell phones, iChat, Yahoo Messenger, texting, etc. to be able to go back and forth. We begin by outlining together. We need a road map, so we took quite a bit of time to flesh out where we thought the story would go. We broke it down into scenes, rather than chapters and divided those scenes between the two of us depending on who was most passionate about that scene.

Can Christians learn any important lessons from the Elves in Berinfell? Please describe any allegory taking place in the story.

Curse of the Spider King, as well as, the other Berinfell books will, we pray, encourage believers to stop fighting over things and start fighting the enemy. Our fight is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual forces in this dark world.

Will Berinfell be a trilogy and what are some things we might see in the next installment?

The Berinfell Prophecies, God-willing, will be at least a trilogy. We're nearly finished the second book, Venom and Song, and are already batting ideas around for a 3rd book.

Where did you two learn to swordfight?

On the Fantasy Fiction East Coast Tour. We actually met a stage combat teacher while doing a signing in Barnes & Noble, I think in Virginia. She taught us some basic moves. And the rest we kind of just make up as we go. Though, I think CH might have some more formal training.