Seth Blodgett is an English teacher in foreign schools, having taught in Ecuador, Japan, China and elsewhere, sparking inspiration for his speculative-action trilogy, Taiwan Drones. He graciously took the time to answer my questions on writing his debut and his inspiration for the trilogy. Enjoy!
1. When did you begin writing?
I started in 2023 when I arrived in Taiwan in July.
2. What gave you the inspiration for Taiwan Drones?
Both drones and AI were growing very rapidly in popularity in use and it seemed to be an obvious next step for them to come together on the battlefield. Not too soon after I started writing, Ukraine reported actual AI drones on the battlefield and it became a reality.
3. How did your time in abroad influence the story?
I’m a big hiker and the best ideas for this book came to me while I was hiking in the mountains of Yangmingshan. It was there that I could really picture the rebellion happening and imagine my characters and how they would live in that situation. Of course, I knew very little about Taiwan before I arrived there, and my time there taught me a lot about the culture and the people and I never would have been able to understand as much as I do without having lived there. That said, I am not fluent in Mandarin by any stretch and I believe I am still missing a lot of the cultural understandings.
4. Are you a plotter or a pantser?
I am definitely in between and use a bit of both but I think overall I would be considered more of a plotter than a panster.
5. What was your writing process like?
I never made writing my priority. I didn’t want to force it or do it in a way that it wasn’t fun. I love hiking and while I was hiking I would dictate notes into my phone and then turn it into a story when I got back to my apartment in Taipei.
6. How much research did you do for the Taiwanese/Chinese security issues?
I did quite a bit and I probably could have done more to make it more realistic, but I also didn’t want to be penned in by the ideas of experts. I tried to use my own understanding of what was out there and tried to envision for myself what that might look like in a battle. That might have made it somewhat unrealistic or inaccurate, but it also made it mine.
7. Did your story change much from initial draft to publication?
It did change quite a bit from my initial drafts, but probably nowhere near the amount of change that needed to happen to make it really good. At some point I got tired of editing and really just wanted to finish my first novel. I realize I still have a lot to learn and I could probably spend years trying to improve that first novel, but I thought I could also just finish the novel and keep learning for future books that I would write.
8. What about characters? Did their stories or arcs change as you wrote?
Yes, that is probably the part that changed the most as I was writing. I didn’t know where my characters were going to take me and I changed the story quite a bit based on how I saw the characters and how they would react in different situations.
9. What can readers expect from the sequels?
I have written about five chapters in the sequel to this book, but recently I decided to take a break and do some writing about some travels I just did in Italy. I’m not sure if that means that I won’t get back to the sequel or that I’m just taking a little break from it. Time will tell.
10. Any upcoming news you’d like to share?
Starting in early December and going through mid-march we’re going to be traveling in Ecuador, Argentina, Thailand, Taiwan, and Japan. I hope to continue writing about my travels, but I also may be taking some of that time to continue working on the sequel. We’ll see where life takes me.
You can find Seth’s book on Amazon and other online e-book stores.
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