Hi, My Name is…Author Interview with Tiffany Roberts by Ripley Proserpina

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This summer, I was introduced to the writing of author Tiffany Roberts. I read Dustwalker, a post-apocolyptic love story. Immediately, I was hooked on the writer’s voice, and then I learned Tiffany Roberts was actually the pseudonym of husband and wife writing team Tiffany and Robert Freund! A husband and wife writing team?! I couldn’t imagine sharing my words with anyone, and when I say sharing, I don’t mean, “Hey, let me tell you about my world,” I mean, “These are my toys. You can’t touch them.” But Tiffany Roberts is more mature than me, and as a result, creates characters and worlds that are utterly unique. Tiffany and Robert agreed to answer my questions about their writing team, and share it with you, so ENJOY!


Q: I’ve never written as a team—what do you do when one of you wants a story to go in a specific direction and the other doesn’t? Or has that never happened? If so, are there any genres one of you would like to write in that the other just isn’t comfortable with? 


A: We tend to avoid conflict in story direction by creating fairly detailed outlines for every book before we start writing. This gives us both a firm idea of where we’re going and keeps us on the same page. That’s not to say we never have disagreements on elements of the story, just that we work most of them out before we start so the actual writing process is as smooth as possible.


Tiffany has played around with erotica, but Rob has no interest in it. When it came to writing Undying, our entry in the Sonhadra sci-fi romance collaboration series, Rob wasn’t up for reverse harem, and while Tiffany enjoys reading them from time to time, she was okay with avoiding it.


Q: Recently, you published the book, Treasure of the Abyss. What inspired this story and what was the biggest challenge you faced while writing it?


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A: The inspiration actually came from one of Tiffany’s erotica ideas. She was in the middle of writing a short story about an octopus man/creature who saves a human woman from drowning when she suddenly decided she didn’t want it to be a short, but a full-length novel written under Tiffany Roberts. And she is extremely glad she did.


The biggest challenge for this book was getting into Jax’s head. Figuring out how to make him relatable but alien was difficult at times, more so than any other inhuman character we’ve written before.


And of course his *cough* anatomy. We know some people are turned off by the tentacles, but our goal was to make them just another part of his body, not some disgusting thing. We’ve seen reviews saying we didn’t get naughty enough with them, but ultimately, that was never our intention. We wanted a love story with steamy love scenes. Not tentacle porn (as people are quick to joke and assume, haha!).


Q: One of things I love about your writing is your voice, and how you seamlessly switch between character points of view. Do you think being a male and female writing team gives you a unique ability to get into a character’s psyche? 


A: It’s definitely helpful to our process. It allows us to split the burden—Rob primarily writes the male perspective, and Tiffany the female. In the later parts of a book, we’ve usually hit the point where either of us can step in as necessary if one of us gets stuck.


Q: Dustwalker was the first book I read of yours; it featured a post-apocalyptic universe where robots and humans lived side by side. What inspired you to write this and what draws you to science fiction?


A: There were quite a few things that inspired us to write Dustwalker, and they all came together in a flurry of creativity like we’ve never experienced before or since. The main inspiration for Tiffany was a drawing she came across by Luis Royo featuring a male robot and a human woman (sorry, too dirty to share!). Rob had planned to write a short story about a robot who falls in love with a human while attempting to figure out why her dancing is so unlike anything he can replicate (it was going to be a gift for Tiffany). And then Tiffany was also listening to ‘In The Night’ by The Weeknd which was a big inspiration for creating Lara. We ended up talking to each other one night and shared these ideas (along with a lot more that are too numerous to get into here), and were surprised at each other’s interest in it, as we’d only done fantasy stories together up until that point.


We found science fiction to be extremely fun! For us, it provided the limitless, imaginative world-building we loved from fantasy, and it created something of a sense of liberation — being able to utilize modern language, concepts, settings, and items made the experience much smoother for us in many respects. While we do plan to write more fantasy books in the future, we’ve fallen in love with sci-fi romance, and will continue writing them until we run out of ideas.


Speech Round of Randomness 


Captain Kirk or Captain Picard? 


Tiffany: Eh…no opinion *Whispers to Rob* Who?


Rob: Picard.


Enterprise or Firefly? 


Tiffany: I’ll go with Firefly…though I’ve only seen the movie, Serenity.


Rob: I…have the same answer as Tiffany, exactly.


What is the last song you listened to? 


Tiffany: Wicked Game by Kristofer Dommin


Rob: Fear of the Dark by Iron Maiden


What is the last book you read? 


Tiffany: Whirlwind by YOU!


Rob: Do comics count? Dragonball by Akira Toriyama


Jetpack or Hoverboard? 


Tiffany: I’m telling Rob ‘No’ right now.


Rob: Hoverboard. What’s wrong with a hoverboard, Tiffany?


Tiffany: You are so accident prone.


Rob: That’s not even true. A couple of incidents and I’m accident prone? Don’t make me choose the jetpack instead!


Bio:


Tiffany Roberts is the pseudonym for Tiffany and Robert Freund, a husband and wife writing duo. Tiffany was born and bred in Idaho, and Robert was a native of New York City before moving across the country to be with her. The two have always shared a passion for reading and writing, and it is their dream to combine their mighty powers to create the sorts of books they want to read. They live in southwestern Idaho with their three children, where they are now actively pursuing their dream.


Social Media Links: 


Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTiffanyRoberts/


Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authortiffanyroberts/


Buy Links:


Treasure of the Abyss: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078M9FJFL


Dustwalker: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073YSSZBK

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Published on January 27, 2018 21:00
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