Karen Fainges is the author of the popular Shaytonian Chronicles, a mixture of fantasy and vampire/paranormal with an added dash of humor and science fiction to make for some surprising results. The tales are the product of storytelling to her sister and cousin, and retain some of that rainy day creativity that artistic-minded families enjoy. The series beings with Destiny Sets, and continues with Tamal's Journeys and The Children of Tamal. All are available from Reader's Eden.

REE: You've been writing since you were ten. Has your writing style gone through many phases?

K. Fainges: More than I can count. Authors I have read and tried to emulate, a different focus on words, or phrasing and hopefully a lot of improvement.

REE: So how would you describe your current writing phase, and what's around the corner?

K. Fainges: Currently I am trying to work on that delicate balance of plot and character. Hopefully I can strike a balance that allows my readers to immerse themselves in the scene, knowing and feeling the characters without dictating every detail. In the past I have asked artists to draw scenes from the books to see if the picture in my head is the same one as the one coming across. Although they are similar, it is funny what the differences are. I found myself sometimes annoyed that they had missed something vital, only to realize that my familiarity with the world and her people meant I was making huge assumptions in the writing.

Hopefully the future will hold me to more honesty and less of those assumptions. Of course, next month - November, is novel writing month so I will have the impetus to put that into practice.

REE: Your website, www.shayton.net, is almost an encyclopedia of information on your created world. How do you go about world building for your novels? Does all this material actually make it into the fiction or is it for your own benefit?

K. Fainges: World building is more a chance to flesh out the why. We are all affected by the world around us. For the Shaytonians, that is more literal than normal, but for anyone, it holds true. You don't put it all in the book or it would be an encyclopedia (although one recent reviewer said I should have put more). But knowing it, helps to know what a character will do in any given situation.

REE: What's next in the Shaytonian Chronicles? And are you working on separate fiction as well?

K. Fainges: In the chronicles, we learn the effects of a slave race finally being free, the good and the bad. As for separate fiction, I am seriously thinking about a range of things, but time is always an issue.

REE: What attracted you to epublishing and where do you think the industry is headed?

K. Fainges: I love reading ebooks, so much so, I have not bought a hardcopy book for three years. I think there will always be a call for paper pages, but more and more, readers will demand the ability to take their books with them everywhere they go, to be able to read on the bus and not lose their place, to hold a library on a SD card small enough to slip into even the tiniest pocket.