Ursa Rysina’s book presentation. December 2023.
Over cup of tea:
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Happy reading!
Our guest is Ursa Rysina, one of the authors of the “Romance Club”.How did it all start? How did you get into the “Romance Club”?
Ursa: I have the most boring story possible.
I went to a local job site, saw a vacancy for the “Romance Club” and thought: either they’ll take me, and it will be cool, or they won’t take me, and I won’t lose anything.
I sent in my resume, passed the test, and they accepted me. I was terribly surprised - I’m still surprised.
However, before this I wrote to them occasionally for two months, asking if they had made a decision. Perhaps they took me because I annoyed them. /laughs/
Was this a spontaneous decision, or did you always want to write and create?
Ursa: I never had the idea of becoming a writer or screenwriter. I always wrote, but I never took it as something serious.
When I got to the Romance Club, I realized: guys, you can make money on this!
How do you work on the story? Maybe there is a board like in detective books?
Ursa: In different ways for different stories. For Tiamat, I created a large table in Excel with different branches and paths. For the second “Chasing you” - a huge mind map with huge pieces of text, where everyone is connected to everyone. I will definitely show it at the end of the story on my channel. Each story requires its own format and tools.
What inspires you? Where do you get ideas?
Ursa: Ideas come from different sources. Tiamat was inspired by Chancellor Gi's song “The Epic of Gilgamesh.” It's about the strong male friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Another idea for a trilogy, which no one knows about yet, was inspired by the name of one product - distorting mirrors. And from this grew a huge trilogy about the prince.
Tell us more about the book.
Ursa: As I said, it was Chancellor Gi. I read a lot: “Epic of Gilgamesh,” Sumerian mythology, and looked at their characters.
We couldn’t make Gilgamesh the main character because our heroines are girls. I was trying to dance around “Epic of Gilgamesh” and came across Kingu. He wasn't supposed to be a love interest, but an important character for a plot in the story. But when I started to pull the thread on his story, the story of Tiamat, how an ordinary girl could be connected to him, it all lined up on its own. It seemed to me that I was not writing this story, but that it was coming on its own.
Did you expect that you would have a book on physical media and that there would be such a large audience? Look how many people have gathered here for you.
Ursa: For her (points to the book, smiling)
For you. They could buy the book at any time even after its release.
Ursa: I didn't think it would be like this.
Surely many of you know the story of how the book appeared. Each of our stories usually has 3 seasons. When the novel “The Flower from Tiamat’s Fire” came out, after the first update we felt that it didn’t have enough potential, so it was shortened to 2 seasons. I was very upset: my unique, amazing world, my child. And I ran to the boss, kicked his door down and said: “I will do whatever you want, but you will let me write this book the way I see it.” And he, probably in order to get rid of me, said: “Do whatever you want, just leave.” This was during the first season.
And when the schedule for the second season was published and the fandom saw that it was the final one, it was just Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Social networks exploded, the play market collapsed. At some point, my boss came to me and said that it seems like we need to write a third season.
They fought for it as an army of gladiators, and at the same time the “Gladiator Chronicles” were shortened. And my Lynx Cubs in combat helmets and with swords fought back “Tiamat”. And so the book and the third season of the story both came out.
Back then I had no idea that it would be a real book. I thought, I’ll write it, post it somewhere online, on LiveLib, and that’s all. And then AST came with an offer. And this is how that turned out.
The result was worth it, look. What are your future plans? Maybe you'll give us a spoiler?
Ursa: First, I will finish the second volume of Tiamat.
Secondly, the next duology that I have planned is the story of the Golden City. It's about a girl who searches for ghosts and searches for the Golden City, where all dreams come true.
The next one is a trilogy called “Distorted Mirrors of My Kingdom.” It's about a prince who becomes a tyrant. A Game of Thrones style story: blood, guts, betrayal.
And the third is a dystopia that no one will publish because it contains trash, severed hands, violence, extremism - we can’t talk about this here.
You announced huge plans for several years ahead.
Ursa: Yes, all that remains is to write them. /laughs/
Both in “Chasing You” and in “Tiamat” the characters and love interests are so different, that many often cannot make a choice. How do you come up with ideas for such characters? If you were not a writer, but a player, what routes would you choose?
Ursa: Thanks for the compliment :)
In all my stories I cover all branches.
When I think about them, I think: I’m that girl, what would an ideal man be like for me? They turn out different because I try to take the position of different types of girls and see which guy would suit me best.
Which characters are easier for you to write, and which are more difficult? Which dialogues are easier to write, romantic scenes?
Ursa: The easiest characters for me to write are those who make jokes, which is why Alexander is so cool. Through him I can joke about everything that I like to joke, but can’t. The dialogues that are easiest for me to write are lively ones, when the characters are sarcastic, exchange sharp words, and make fun of each other. The hardest ones are philosophical ones, when you need to resolve a conflict.
I believe that many people can see your growth as a writer, from Queen in 30 Days to The Flower from Tiamat’s fire and everything you will write next, you can see tremendous growth. How do you ensure that with each story you become better, more interesting, and more competent as a writer?
Ursa: First of all, thanks for the compliment :)
Secondly, I sit down on everyone's brains. Anyone who can teach me something. I constantly read books about writing. A year ago, I found Elena Kondratskaya, my personal mentor: for me it was an unimaginably cool contribution to my development as a writer (note: Elena Kondratskaya is the editor of Ursa’s book).
Right now I’m taking a course with Band, this is already their third course; the lecturers there are great, they constantly give feedback on your text.
I write constantly all the time.
I have one trick: if I've learned a writing trick, I'll use it in the next chapter or the next few chapters, stories. That’s how I learned verbal participle phrases /laughs/. It seems to me that even if you don’t have a mentor or constant systematic training, you can still develop.
I want to thank you for the amazing stories, you are an amazing author. I wanted to know: how do different setting ideas occur in terms of dialogue with management? How, for example, did “Chasing You 2” appear, why did you choose this particular solution for the story?
Ursa: Unfortunately, I cannot disclose the technical aspects of the process. As a rule, I just bring a bunch of ideas, and the team sorts them out and looks for something that is as promising as possible.
Regarding Chasing You, we chose different ideas and different settings. But it was the Victorian setting that was most attractive to me: dresses, balls. You could say it was pushed through by my author’s authority.
What is your relationship with other authors and writers? Perhaps you communicate with someone at work, are friends with?
Ursa: We regularly meet with our colleagues in the office, communicate, joke, and create wild things. The corpse was recently decorated beautifully for Halloween. By the way, they decorated it, but it was me who got a heart attack.
As for online, I have not yet met a large number of writers. For me, Lena Kondratskaya and Dasha Budantseva are the main people from the writing community, and now also my publisher.
We often communicate with colleagues who are abroad in our small chat, exchanging ideas and tips.
I have a professional question. I’m just starting to make my way into writing, but I’m faced with the problem that I have an idea, the characters are written, but when I open my laptop and see the file, I get stupor. Has this happened to you and how did you deal with it?
Ursa: Of course. You sit for 2 hours with an opened file. Your cursor is blinking. And you feel like the dumbest person in the world. It's not like that, it's just a feeling, I promise.
Find that scene, or that character, or that moment from the story that originally popped into your head when you came up with it. You didn’t create it out of nothing; for you it was either the setting or the conflict between the characters. Write it down. Don't write the beginning, the end. Write this most vivid, interesting scene. The rest of the world can be built around it.
The second way is to freewrite. That is, you sit down and start writing: “Yes, I’m stupid and I can’t write anything. Yes, I don't have a single good idea in my head right now. But if I were a good writer, then...”
You write like this for about 20 minutes, and suddenly you have a real text.
Don't be constrained by the need to write from a logical point, or to connect a plot. You will do this later in editing. Even if you miss whole pieces, this is normal. Write what makes you emotional.
How are “Rage of the Titans” and “Flower from the Tiamat’s Fire” related? Is this a single universe or some part of chaos?
Ursa: It's a multiverse. At the end of Rage of the Titans, the characters are transported into the multiverse and simply look through Tiamat’s window, they do not even enter the universe directly.
I already realized that you are more of an inspired author than a static one, like King. As for the characters: do you consider yourself an architect or a gardener? Are you more inspired to write by the character himself and how he changes, or “I came up with a plot twist, I need to adapt to it”?
Ursa: First of all, inspiration does not exist. If you write only from inspiration, you can die of hunger if you are a writer. You have to force yourself to write at least 20 words a day.
As for the characters, I'm more of an architect than a gardener, but there are certain scenes around which I build my stories. I honestly admit: the first season of the second “Chasing You” was written for the sake of the scene with the carriage and the corpse. /laughs/
Worked on the article:
Formatting: Alina B., Alina U.
Freelance agent, filming: Evgenia S.
Translate: Larisa M.