Steve McHugh was born in Mexborough South-Yorkshire, before moving to Southampton as a child. He currently lives in Southampton with his wife and 3 daughters.
Steve self-published his first book, Crimes Against Magic, in 2012, following up with Born of Hatred later that year. In 2013, the series was picked up by a traditional publisher, and the final novel in the series, Scorched Shadows, was nominated for a Gemmell best novel award. Three additional trilogies have been published in Hellequin Universe; The Avalon Chronicles, The Rebellion Chronicles, and The Antiquity Chronicles.
Steve has had multiple books become bestsellers, and has sold over a million books worldwide.
Welcome to The Fantasy Review, and thank you for agreeing to this interview! To start this off, can you describe your book in 3 words?
Thanks for the interview.
Exciting, noir, action.
How much input did you have on the cover design?
Quite a bit. My publisher, Podium Audio, asked my ideas and I told them, and that’s pretty much exactly what I got. I wanted the covers to be very different from everything I’ve had published before. They were great to work with.
Do you have a writing routine? If so, what does a typical day entail for you?
I sit down at my desk once the kids are all at school and work until I feel like I’ve done enough. Usually, I either try to write a chapter, or edit a few chapters, depending on what needs doing. Sometimes it doesn’t work that way and I’ll only edit a little bit, or write a short amount, but that’s just the way it is, and I don’t sweat it.
Are you a planner or pantser? Or somewhere in between? How does this affect planning characters, worldbuilding etc…?
Somewhere in between. I have all of the characters and world-building sorted out well before I ever start to write (although things change as the story does), and I know how the story starts and ends, and the main beats I want to get through, but not how I’ll get there. I’ve tried being a planner and it doesn’t work for me, but I do like to have a destination in mind when starting.
We all have certain books that inspire us. What authors and books inspire your writing?
I draw a lot of inspiration from a lot of different sources, but the first few authors who made me want to write; Terry Pratchett, Dean Koontz, Anne Rice, Stephen King, David Gemmell, Robin Hobb are up there. They are masters of their craft, and I could only learn from reading their work. The more I read, the more I started to write, and those influences shifted to the works of comics by Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Gail Simone, Greg Rucka, and so many more. I think that reading from a variety of different places helped me grow as an author, and helped inspire me to find my own stories to tell.
Do you have any other favourite authors and books?
These days, my favourite authors are people like Peter McLean’s Priest of Bones, Anna Stephen’s Godblind, Dan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts, RJ Barker’s Age of Assassins, NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth. There’s loads and I could be here for a long time going through them all.
What are your future writing plans? Do you have plans for other standalones or series?
I plan on finishing the edits for Riftborn book 3, and then I plan on writing either a scifi or epic fantasy book, depending on which one calls me the most. Both are series, so I can’t pick them by brevity. I do have a few novellas I need to write too. It’s always nice to be busy.
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