2015 PitchWars Mentee Blog Hop: The Inspiration Behind HESPERIA

If you'd like to learn more about HESPERIA, here are some older posts on the MS:

-Nanowrimo Check-in #1 (where I talk about the conception of HESPERIA)

-Nanowrimo Check-in #2 (where you get to read an excerpt from draft #1)

-Post-Manuscript Completion Thoughts (where I get quite emotional over the roller-coaster that was the drafting process of HESPERIA)

-On Contests (where I talk about how HESPERIA fared in PitchSlam)

-Diversity in YA and my reservations (where I talk about the way I feature diversity in HESPERIA and how it doesn't really fit the conventional mold of "Asian characters")

This amazing art is by SansaXIX. Check out her profile for more.

As you can tell, this isn't the first time I'm talking about this MS on the blog, so I'll try to keep this post from becoming long-winded like all my other posts (and of course, I've probably jinxed myself by saying that). 

But yes, feel free to check out my other posts on the journey that this MS has been through.

Now to the point of this blog hop. HESPERIA, unlike some of my other MS's, didn't arise from a particular scene that I dreamed of or envisioned. Instead, I was very stuck in my other MS, THE SERENDIPITY LABS (description in my Novels tab). I took a break, during which I did a lot of knitting--finished my first scarf, in fact!--and Asian drama watching.

My favorite genre of Asian drama is wuxia, which basically translates into swords/historical/fantasy. And I especially love the dramas that have a bit of action but are grounded in political intrigue. Which means I loveeeee dramas set in the imperial palace, or during a particular dynasty. 

So I finished my 59 episode binge of Legend of Lu Zhen. It wasn't the greatest--there was a lot of petty drama between the different consorts and maids, which is meh--but I still enjoyed it. It got me thinking that I wished that there could be an China-inspired fantasy with the production values of, say, Game of Thrones. Because that would totally rock. There are so many inspiration-serving Chinese legends and classics and epics as a result of its enormous history. So many of those legends and classics (such as Water Margin, Dream of the Red Chamber, Journey to the West) are unaccessible to Western audiences, however, not because they haven't been translated, but I suspect because of cultural barriers. Plus, being classics, they aren't really...as palatable or easy to get into as YA fiction. I certainly haven't read those monsters--I've watched drama adaptations of them.

With the thought of something Asian inspired and something classical in my mind, an idea suddenly hit me. Why not take a really popular and pretty accessible Western novel in the classical canon, fantasify it, and give it an Asian twist? By the way, I thought I was sooo clever when I thought of doing a "retelling" of a classic, since there were so many fairytale retellings out there but not as many classic retellings (other than Shakespeare ones and Jane Austen ones). Well turns out I'm not so clever because as HuffPost shows, classic retellings are going to be a big thing in 2016. 

*weeps*

(I see now how my posts grow so long-winded)

Anyway, I settled on To Kill a Mockingbird because I really enjoyed the themes of the book and how they were delivered so innocently and simply. The court scene chapters were also some of my favorites to ever read in any classic, and I thought it'd be really cool to incorporate them in a fantasy setting and infuse them with political intrigue.

And the rest is history.

I'd say that the themes in HESPERIA are pretty clear, and you can probably tell the TKAM influence if you read it. For example, Hesperia's prejudice and discrimination toward her half-brother Roon serve to represent a microcosm of the prejudice and discrimination rampant in the book against the seers and magicians. It's only when she starts realizing that people only discriminate because of their own insecurities (in the case of Hesperia, the friction between her blood-brother and not being loved by her own mother. For the people of the kingdom, it's insecurity about their safety and peace) that she is able start to overcome her prejudice toward the seers and magicians.

There are some pretty crucial parts of the trials that mirror the trials in TKAM.

And if you pay attention to some of the characters, you'll see that some have been inspired by characters in TKAM (namely Roon and the Damalee = Boo Radley, Warnick = Tom Robinson).

Okay, I'm done! Didn't mean for that to turn into an analysis of literature. Many of my blog readers are people who've stuck with me through thick and thin, and so hopefully this is sort of interesting to you, especially if you've read the MS :)

Check out the rest of the Mentees' posts here.