🧙‍♂️Return of the Wind Mage Interview with Domr | Awesome Recs | Author Mental Health

This week, we hear from Domr, author of the kickbutt series Return of the Wind Mage: A Regression Litrpg, give you some juicers to read, and remind Authors about the wonders of water and sleep.

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Interview with Domr from Return of the Wind Mage: A Regression litrpg

Return of the Wind Mage: A Regression LitRPG is a thrilling, character-driven regression story perfect for lovers of community building, slick magic systems, and time travel. We follow Santi, the MC, who isn’t just growing stronger because why not, he needs to save his family and as much of humanity as he can. Every chapter pulls you in deeper, and it stands out with high stakes, great characters, and immersive worldbuilding. Check it out here. It’s easily one of my top reads of the year.

Hello Domr! Thanks for agreeing to the interview. Your story has kept me flipping and reading through chapters for the last couple of days, and not many stories can keep me up until 2 AM. Can you give me some background on how your story came to be? What inspired you to tackle a regression story, and a wind mage together? Regression and time-travel are notoriously difficult subjects to take on, but I think you’ve done an awesome job. What did the process look like for planning out your story?

Thank you for picking me to interview, I’m a huge fan and subscriber to the newsletter. To answer your questions I’ll go through them in order.

How did I develop Return? I have to go back to the beginning of the year and my first fiction, which was an utter failure in a commercial sense. I wanted to write and be successful so I looked at what was successful and decided to pull elements of what was popular and craft a story from what I thought was interesting of those popular tropes.

Why did I choose a regression story? I’m lazy and not creative enough to write a time loop story. With regression you don’t have to worry about your character figuring things out, they already know. I don’t need to spend chapters explaining things for my MC, they already know so I can focus on working on the actual story and the story will expand upon the world. Wind magic, I was watching Avatar the Last Airbender and thought air/wind is criminally underrated and could do some cool stuff and it’s not seen in the space often enough.

To avoid the many problems that come with regression or time travel in general, I leave things vague on purpose. I don’t give concrete answers to questions, just leave them up in the air. Santi knows what’s going on and doesn’t need to think about it. This gives me the wiggle room to avoid paradoxes or any other regular plot holes. I can tighten up the story at a later date, bringing forth detail when I need to and to a degree that’s needed at a later date. This leads to a more cohesive story in the long run.

I’m really enjoying the characters throughout the story. Tank is obviously awesome, Cam is like every friend we love but get annoyed with, Chloe is awesome. How do you approach workshopping characters? Do you plan out all their characteristics and refer back to a sheet? Do they come spontaneously? I think you do a great job of having a large cast that’s still easy to follow. What character do you personally not like to write, and one that you struggle with? Do you have any tips for people who have a lot of characters and want to make sure they have distinct voices?

I’m a bit ashamed of how I do characters. I just write a name and slowly fill it out. Tank was needed cause Santi needed a car and he’s in a dorm so he has to have roomates. I liked writing a character like Tank so I fleshed him out more. Same with Chloe the cashier. The only ones who were sure going to be in it were his family and Cameron and with them I leaned on my own family and friends. They’re not replicas of my own loved ones but rather traits and habits from them that I can use to help me connect emotionally with their characters.

Favorite character to write is Tank. He’s calm and collected and has a great moral compass and watching all of those traits be attacked constantly due to what’s happening is great.

The hardest for me is Hana and Daniel. I just haven’t been able to connect with their characters as well as the others of the squad.

I try to focus on several aspects of each person and build on them to help their personality. It helps clarify them in my mind. Tank is calm and collected, Chloe is driven and fierce, Daniel is a quiet prankster, Cam is an overgrown middle schooler, etc.

One thing that I really noticed was your worldbuilding. I think it’s the most underrated aspect of your story. There’s a lot of different things happening in the world, but it’s all delivered at a great pace that’s easy to understand and makes for some epic pacing and progression. What went into your worldbuilding? Did you spend a lot of time working through Rifts, and Dens, and the greater Universe at large? Do you have plans to expand the worldbuilding in the story, because I need to know more.

My worldbuilding is done piecemeal. I read a lot of the genre and see plenty of things that I like but want to be different, so I did it. I like rifts, but I wanted them to be isolated pockets rather than portals elsewhere. I like monsters, but if they’re just basic mobs without goals besides chaos, there’s no friction between the MC and them. So they have to acquire some way of growing stronger and more intelligent.

Emotional damage. You have delivered a brutal world where Monsters aren’t the only evil readers have to worry about. Is an emotional story something you planned out from the start and wanted to deliver? Also, you are more than happy to kill off characters. Have you experienced push back from readers on that? It makes for a better story, but many readers only want fun, without the hurt. What do you think makes for an emotionally impactful scene?

I have gotten pushback on killing characters but most of the time it’s not too bad. Each of the deaths serve a purpose, it’s not indiscriminate. Killing people just for shock purposes is shallow writing. Whether or not the point of their death is comprehended is a different question. Emotional scenes are what I think elevates a story. Numbers go brrr stories where nothing emotionally damaging happens are fun, but it’s not what I want to write.

From what I’ve gotten so far the key to writing something emotional is investment. The reader needs to be able to empathize with the scene and what the MC is feeling and I work hard to show it.

I want to talk about process and writing styles. For most authors, I can tell if they’re pantsers or architects. With you, I can’t tell. What does writing a chapter look like for you? How do you approach your writing in the short term, and long term? Do you have everything planned out on where you want to go, or are you taking things chapter by chapter and know the general direction on where you’re going? What about goals? How many words are you trying to write a week/day?

I am a pantser. I want to be an architect but it’s just not happening. I have a general goal for the Arc, the big goal for the Act, and the overall plot for what’s going to happen throughout the series. The individual chapters are just me moving my way there. I try to take them naturally and make sense in the context of the story.

If character does A, then B should happen because of what he did. I’m shooting for two thousand words a day, five to six times a week. I don’t hit it often but I get there close enough that I’m producing quite a bit of content. I’m trying to finish a book every 12-14 weeks, with 3 books forming an Act. So far I’m on target but it’s still early days and burnout hasn’t raised its ugly head yet.

Recommendation time. I am constantly looking for recommendations from all facets of media. What are your favorite stories, sports, or media that you think everyone should check out? I think you can get to know people better as well if you know what kind of things they like to watch, read, or listen to. Can you please give us 5 recommendations or shoutouts for media you think people should check out?

Stormlight Archive. It’s cliche and well recommended but I believe it's some of the best emotional work in fantasy. The character work is fantastic, worldbuilding awesome, and the endings of each book are epic. 

Sword of Kaigen is probably the best fantasy book I’ve read in years. Emotional, full of depth, plays on familiar tropes, unique world. Just fantastic. 

Codex Alera. Its Jim Butcher’s less well known series, but it a great powerful progression fantasy series with excellent character growth and development. Classic fantasy tropes reimagined and its one of my favorite comfort reads. 

Kings of the Wyld. Great comic work while still holding a powerful emotional depth. Can’t recommend enough, don’t see much fantasy comic work and this is brilliant.

Thank you Domr for taking the time. I’m adding Santi as one to follow till the bitter end! Check out Return of the Wind Mage: A Regression LitRPG.

Please make sure you’re sleeping and taking care of yourself

I messed up last week. Actually, I think I messed up with my approach to snoopings on earnings. Money in general. I think I’ve been watching too many TikToks on how the rent is too damn high.

I am going to continue to share and celebrate awesome Author’s getting their piece of the publishing pie. Many of them should be millionaires with how talented they are. Sadly though, video games and books are two industries where dollar spent per entertainment time is very low. $5 for book one of Wandering Inn? It’s like a million words.

I think the constant analysis of everyone’s wallets it’s unhealthy. It might make some Author’s uncomfortable, and others shameful that they’re not financial sucesses from their blood, sweat, and tears.

They’re not just content machines, they’re people. I’m lucky to consider some of them friends. Talking privately with some (that I haven’t interviewed or linked. And will not interview or link. Side note, I get rejeceted a lot, lol.), they are stressed.

Imagine sitting infront of your computer for 10-14 hours a day, not touching grass. Fun right? Now do that for a year straight. How many times can you really listen to your favorite playlist?

Now take a vacation and lose a third of your salary. Better grow that backlog so you can finally relax! Worst of all, many of them never get to go on meetings and listen to Sheila tell you about for her “Friyay” or “Thirsty Thursday” at Cactus Club. Sheila is a real person, by the way. She always goes over the scheduled meeting time. I’m nodding along and writing this as she speaks.

Look, if you’re an author (I think some of you read this), please make sure you’re taking care of yourself. I am definitely not a psychologist, but as a person who generally likes humans, I’m asking you.

At least the basics. Water, sleep, breathing in some tasty city air. Go to a coffee shop. Binge watch 46 seasons of Survivor. Go to a puppy yoga class, a trivia night, something. Connect with a friend. Remember you’re a person, not just a mastermind of hooking readers to read one more chapter.

And if you’re an angry reader that demands chapters, take it easy. It’s all fun and games to be angry on the internet, I get it.

Not sure if this is a rant or a pep talk.

Thanks for tuning in!
Big things coming 👀 

🧙‍♂️Saga Scribe