About Rohan Elliott:
A Western Australian native, Rohan Elliott is a part-time writer. He has written ten short stories and his short story; In The Shadows was published by the UWA Creative Writing and Poetry Club in 2018. He is outlining his first novel right now. When Rohan's not writing, he can be found gaming, reading, binging Netflix, or just staring off into space.
What inspires you to write?
I never really considered writing until year 12 English class. We were given twelve weeks to come up with and write a short story based on various prompts we were given. Nothing exceptional about that, a tried and tested creative writing assignment.
My problem was a common problem for every single writer… writer's block. While everyone else in my class had done three drafts and re-edited their stories twenty times, I hadn’t even come up with anything even close to resembling an idea.
With a week to go before the assignment was due I was in trouble and ended up rushing a 5,000 words action short story and fully expected to just scrape a pass. I ended up doing well with my teacher letting me know how much she enjoyed the work.
This was the first inkling of a thought that maybe I could keep going with this in the future. But the thing that still held me back was the fact that most of the books I’d been reading lately were all literature classics that we had analysed in class and I just didn’t think books were written the way I enjoyed writing. This all changed when I discovered Matthew Reilly.
I first heard him on Triple J talking about the start of his own writing career, which is well documented, and I decided to pick up Seven Ancient Wonders.
This was the first time that I had read a book with that type of action and set pieces and lead to a revelation that there was a market for these types of stories. I feel that this revelation was the moment I felt that I could write exactly what I wanted to write and people would be open to reading it.
What authors do you read when you aren’t writing?
– Matthew Reilly
– Douglas Adams
– Neil Gaiman
– Anthony Horowitz
– Andy Weir
Tell us about your writing process.
Working full time leads to my writing schedule being confined to only the weekends and evenings after work if I can be motivated enough to write anything.
When I do sit down to write, most of the time I don’t end up writing anything or if I do wind up writing it’s only half a page at the most. Most of the time I’m thinking about how I want the story to end and how I’m going to work my way backwards to get to the point and puzzling my way through the plot of the story itself. I personally feel like that is the most exciting and enjoyable part of writing is that feeling of discovery that comes from figuring out the plot of your story.
What advice would you give other writers?
The main piece of advice is not mine, but it is probably the most vital piece of advice you could offer to someone.
Don’t try and chase trends and write what you think people will want to read. Readers will see right through you and your book will fade into obscurity.
Instead, write what you enjoy reading and what you want to write. It may not get as much attention but readers will see your passion and the genuine love you have for your story and not dismiss it out of hand.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
I'm not published at the moment but this is a very unique decision for each author. Take the time to research every possible aspect and make the decision for yourself.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
I think that book publishing will pretty much continue on in the current state it's in at the moment. People still enjoy reading physical print media as well as digital so I don't feel like there will be any major shifts towards one or the other.
What genres do you write?: Thriller, Action, Adventure, Mystery, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
What formats are your books in?: eBook
Your Social Media Links
Facebook
Twitter
All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
