AUTHOR INTERVIEW WITH FEYISAYO ANJORIN
Describe your writing process. Do you outline, plot, and plan, or is your writing more organic?
I think it’s a bit of both. For example, when I started writing The Night My Dead Girlfriend Called, a short story series for Brittle Paper magazine, I was in a very bad space which I would not want to simplify as loneliness; I was working with the editor, Ainehi Edoro. I noticed that despite her very busy schedule she was always reading the latest drafts of the story and responding with encouraging words. I didn’t know the end of the story when I started writing it, but with each prompt response from Dr Edoro I was motivated to send another one. It was organic, maybe based on my feelings at that point.
But with the Hypocrite Series, I needed to plot and plan the first two books in the series so that the events fit into a week, the third book is a lot more organic.
Tell us what you enjoy most about writing realist fiction
Realist fiction gives me more freedom to express my views and sometimes play devil’s advocate for people the society is typically hasty to vilify. My personal philosophy is that humanity is a dynamic experience where a person keeps oscillating between the best of us, the worst of us, and everything in-between; and all these are based on the choices we make at every point in time.
What have you found the most challenging about writing realist fiction?
The most important thing about realist fiction is that people must feel; the work must have emotional relevance and conceptual relevance, and you have to represent each character well in such a way that it is believable; and when it is believable some people think you are writing about them. There was a time I wrote a short story about a pastor who invested church funds into a ponzi scheme and the church suffered a huge loss after the ponzi scheme did what ponzi schemes usually do. It turns out that a few days after the short story was published a popular Nigerian pastor was in the news for investing millions of dollars of his church funds in a bad investment and people thought my story was based on the man.
Who was your favourite character to write and why is that person your favourite?
I would say, favourite people, because the Hypocrite Series books are about two people who got married and had to deal with the unexpected unraveling of their partner. So, in a sense I had fun writing about Bosun and Titi. My concept about the series is that there is a little bit of hypocrisy in all of us, and this couple represent the things I’ve learned over the years about couples who have skeletons in their closets they would never want their partners to know. One of the two in this story decides to show the skeleton in her closet in the spirit of honesty and sincerity for the sake of their marriage; but the one with the bigger skeleton is the most dramatic about uprightness.
If picking a favorite character would be like picking a favorite child, what character seems to be the most demanding of your attention and detail as a writer?
I would still say Bosun and Titi. I was a proud man when I got married, I’m still work in progress but I’ve had lessons from living with my wife, and I have had to work with the exaggerated impression I had of myself. So I had to borrow personal experiences to shape the person and personalities of the couple. I also had to minimize self-censorship to get the story to where it is.
I think this is why young people love the hypocrite series the most, of all the works I’ve written.
Describe the book or series in 10 words or less for people just learning about it.
Can we ever escape the instinct to judge?
Is there anything you would like people to take away from your book?
Looks can be, and is in most cases deceptive. Someone can be so lovable outwardly and then the real person inside, which is typically unraveled by the daily intimacies of marriage, turns out to be very ugly.
Love Lessons From The Life of A Hypocrite (Seven Days Book 3)
Author: Feyisayo Anjorin
Blurb:
About the Author
He is the author of One Week In The Life of A Hypocrite, Another Week In The Life of A Hypocrite, and Love Lessons From The Life of A Hypocrite.
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This looks like an interesting book! And I love hearing if an author is a plotter or a pantser. Great interview, thanks for sharing!
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