An Interview with Ben Cass

From a young age, Ben Cass was in love with the premises of fantasy novels and comic books: amazing creatures, fantastic heroes, and magical powers that existed right beneath our noses. He created detailed storylines to act out with his toys, often updating the stories until he was satisfied with the plots.

His love of writing began in his senior year of high school, when he had to write short stories for his English class. He wrote the first one in ten minutes, all because it was due the next class period and he’d completely forgotten about it. That story was greeted with laughter and applause by his classmates and teacher. His subsequent assignments garnered even more positive responses, and Ben began to seriously consider writing as a hobby.

A native Floridian, Ben attended Florida Southern College, where he earned his Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, double majoring in Secondary Education. Ben graduated in 1998 and has been in education ever since.

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What inspired you to start writing this book?

It all started with the character of Loran, the Exalted Phoenix. That’s right … a supporting character with only one scene in the first book of the series was the origin for all of it.

Many, many years ago … almost thirty-five years, if memory serves … I created the character now known as Loran Garcia, the Exalted Phoenix. At the time, he was just ‘the phoenix’ and didn’t get an actual name for a very long time.

I’ve been trying to write Loran’s story for almost as long as he has existed in my head, but I’ve never been able to crack it. Back when I did NaNoWriMo, I won the first year by writing 90,000 words exploring Loran’s embracing of his powers and meeting his future wife. I then realized that I had spent 90,000 words just establishing characters and not doing much else. And, to make it worse, I realized that Loran’s original personality and character traits had been transferred to Alistair Doyle, one of the main characters of my Kiamada books, which I had finished publishing a couple of years before writing Elf.

Well … that was a problem!

Loran was meant to have a playful, somewhat snarky personality, but after publishing The Lost Tayamu, I realized that I couldn’t write Loran that way anymore, because it would feel like a clone of Doyle. On to plan B. I decided to make Loran a lot quieter and more introspective, positioning him against his loud, brash older sister … Bode. (Her character hasn’t changed at all over the years!) Originally, Bode was a single mom to a twelve-year-old girl who adored her magical uncle. That story just wasn’t flowing either, so in 2020, I decided to make a massive change and switch the girl from Loran’s niece to his long-lost daughter that he’d never known about, and then focus the story on her coming-of-age, inheriting his abilities, and so on.

That story was much easier to write, and I’ve gone through a few variations, but still couldn’t crack the whole thing … especially Loran’s personality. So, I once again set it aside.

At this point, you might have figured out that the Curiousium series is actually a spinoff from this original story. I decided to try setting a story in the world with Loran operating as the Exalted Phoenix, but with him in more of a cameo role.

A few years ago, I thought of the name Moonspeckle, and thought it was an adorable name for a tiny dragon. Around the same time, my wife took a job working at a public library and often referred to herself as a ‘book dragon’ due to her ever-increasing stack of books to read (something I think a lot of people can relate to!).

After a few months in this new job, she made the offhanded comment that her workplace felt like a great setting for a sitcom or a cozy book. She had great coworkers who had a lot of fun working together and who felt like a big family.

Ding, ding, ding. My ears went up and my author brain, which hadn’t let me write anything since publishing the final book in the Kiamada trilogy a couple years earlier, re-engaged. I decided that Moonspeckle was a tiny book dragon who ran a magical library, which was partially inspired by the awesome TV series Warehouse 13.

I was trying to write a middle grades novel set in Loran’s world called The Sasquatch Downstairs, about a girl and her single dad who’d moved to Miami and were renting an upstairs apartment from a Sasquatch landlord, who lived downstairs and hired the girl to work in his restaurant.

That wasn’t really going anywhere, though, until my brain said, “Yo, Ben … why don’t you move the Sasquatch and the girl’s dad into this magical library setting?”

Ding, ding, ding … again.

Still, I knew something was missing. Something that was going to push the story forward. At this point, I didn’t have an inkling of a story, in part because I’m a pantser and simply cannot plan anything in advance. I have no clue how a story will go or even what word I’m writing next.

And then it hit me. One of my wife’s coworkers, whom I shall rename here as ‘Terry,’ had been giving my wife all the pro tips on living down here in Homestead, Florida. Terry has been here for something like thirty years, having come from Cuba all that time ago. Somehow, Terry knows everybody and everything in the area. Need a barber? Terry knows a place. Need to buy some plants? Terry knows the best nurseries to go to—and there are a LOT of nurseries down here! Need to grab some Cuban food? Terry knows the best restaurant to go to for each type of food you want.

I told my wife, “You know what I think? I think Terry is some kind of secret underground mafia boss. Nothing happens here without her blessing. That’s why she’s so connected.”

When my wife repeated this to Terry, she apparently laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed … and denied nothing. Every time I saw her, I’d bow my head and say, “Underlady of Homestead, I greet thee.” She was always absolutely delighted by this.

One day, it hit me: Terry was the missing piece of my story. I needed a character in the library who knew everything and everyone in Homevale. (Now you know where the name came from!) This character, I reasoned, would be the one to help Archie adapt to his new life by giving him constant pointers and tips about living with Faekind. (Obviously, that original plan changed.)

I used a fantasy name generator and it produced the name ‘Sharian.’ It felt absolutely perfect, and my character was finally ready. With the loss of NaNoWriMo, I didn’t have any kind of writing contest to hold me accountable, and then AutoCrit announced their summer novel challenge. (I use AutoCrit here and there for analyzing the story and stuff, but I don’t use it to write anything.) I decided this summer challenge was perfect. I was on summer break and still had several weeks left.

Barb and Polly were quickly created, as I wanted to mirror my wife’s team at work, so I needed more characters. I got both names from the same name generator, and they felt perfect. (Shoutout to fantasynamegenerators.com!)

The next thing I knew, I’d written the first draft in thirteen days, by far the fastest I’d ever written a book, and all the characters just felt like people I knew … which is always my goal.

Tell us the story of your book’s current title. Was it easy to find, or did it take forever?

When I choose book titles, I try to make them about a character or event which drives the plot of that book, even if they’re not necessarily one of the main characters. With Elf, I wanted more whimsical titles to go along with the cozy fantasy feel. It just made sense to name it after Sharian, and that led to the decision to name ALL the books in the series after one of the supporting cast. The Elf Who Knows A Guy popped into my head, and the rest is history. The four sequels will follow a similar naming convention.

What other professions have you worked in? What’s something about you that your readers wouldn’t know?

People are often surprised to learn that my background is not in creative writing or literature. I have a math degree and have been teaching math/computer science/technology/robotics since 1998. People don’t often associate STEM fields with creative writing, but I’ve found it’s quite common.

Who/what made you want to write? Was there a particular person, or particular writers/works/art forms that influenced you?

I put it in my bio, but here’s the longer version. In my twelfth grade English class, we’d been studying The Canterbury Tales, and had been assigned to write one of our own. I forgot about it until the period before it was due, when my friend asked what I’d done mine on. Luckily, I was in a computer class and had my work done, so I spent ten minutes writing my own Canterbury tale, then printed it out.

We had to read our stories in front of the class, and my classmates went bonkers for mine. Everyone else got polite applause, but mine got raucous laughter and cheers. The teacher complimented me on my ‘hard work.’ We had to write another short story a few weeks later, and I found out that my classmates were eagerly waiting to see what I would come up with. Once again, I wrote it the class period before it was due. Once again, they went crazy for it.

That’s when I realized that I was pretty good at writing stories. I found that I enjoyed giving people an escape from the world, even if it was only for a short time.

In terms of writing influence, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Dark is Rising sequence were definitely the two biggest influences on my reading and writing. I found that I loved fantasy and wanted to write it. I also decided quickly that I did NOT want to write like Tolkien; unlike many fantasy fans, I find Lord of the Rings to be quite boring to read.

Where is your favorite place to write?

Our office at home. I’m not one who can go sit somewhere and write. I don’t know how people sit in diners or coffee shops and do things. As an introvert, that sounds horrible.

What advice would you give your past self at the start of your writing journey?

Find critique partners early. They were hugely instrumental in helping me finish and publish my debut novel after thirteen years of working on it.

What’s one thing you hope sticks with readers after they finish your book?

I want them to close the book and say, “I need more of these characters! Is the next book out?” I write because I have stories to tell and I think some people will love them. I just want to help people relax for a while. I have no desire to emotionally scar a reader or make them cry or make them sit and mull over all the twists and turns. I want them to finish the book and feel good about it.

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