Feature Friday with author of Halo of the Damned, Dina Rae Tosto

Feature Friday with author of Halo of the Damned, Dina Rae.

Interviewed by Xavier Zyta
This is our third feature Friday and we are honored to have Dina Rae, she is being interviewed by 
co-founder of Hotlit Books, Xavier and we think it's pretty darn interesting. Check out what this former teacher has to say to Hotlit Books and what has motivated her to write about the Freemason's and much more.

Dina Rae Tosto - Author of Halo of the Damned, The Last Degree and the short story Be Paranoid and Be Prepared.

   I (Xavier) like conspiracy novels, so what is it that pushes you to write them? 

  

  Big, big fan of conspiracy.  Love Dan Brown, Jesse Ventura, Alex Jones, Jack VanImpe, Brad Meltzer, and the True Channel.  Took decades of interesting ideas and turned them into a plot for The Last Degree.

     What is the trickiest thing about coming up with a storyline for you?  I tend to get more involved in the plot and forget about the characters-then I go back and realize how few details were written about them.  Time to edit.

  Do you write an outline? 

Towards the end I do, but not the beginning or middle.

    Do you know how the book will end when you start or how do you come up with when to end it? No, I wasn’t sure for any of my books how they would end and I like writing that way.  The endings aren’t part of a formula.

Dina Rae

   Do you find writing yourself in any of your characters or who you would like to be?  

  I write in 3rd person, lmtd. POV, past tense verbs.  Not ready for 2nd person or 1st person yet, but hope to try it one day.  Both seem so hard to write in because there are so many things each character cannot know but the reader has to know to keep the novel going.

    

 In Halo of the Damned you write of nephilim, of which, I find of an interesting discussion.  How did that inspiration come to you? 

  I am a Christian and always found the story about Lucifer and a 1/3 of all angels waging war on God a fascinating story.  Satan is the star and no one even thinks about all of the others who went with him.  In Enoch another fall is mentioned in which angels voluntarily descended from Heaven and mated with women, producing nephilim.  The Flood destroyed them, but both falls and the Yezidi angel cult inspired me for my novel.

     

     How much research did you do for The Last Degree with the Masonics? 

I watched many TV specials and read several articles on the Internet and libraries.  I even read part of Albert Pike’s Morals and Dogma, an enormous book that sort of act like their handbook.  I also researched the Illuminati and other secret societies.  Many of the articles kept crossing over, further adding to my inner circle theory.

   

 Which do you prefer writing novels or short stories and why? 

Novels.  Short stories have to be short and there is no room to expand on your story.

  

 How long have you been writing?  

Two years.

      What advice would you like to offer authors? 

Certainly not in a position to give advice, but found Stephen King’s On Writing and Writer’s Digest very helpful.

      

What genre do you like to read?  

   Thriller, horror, biography, historical fiction, and mystery are my favorite.  Every once in a while a romance will catch my eye. 

Thanks so much for having me!

Find out more about Dina @

http://www.dinarae.co  https://www.facebook.com/dina.rae.50
www.dinaraeswritestuff.blogspot.com

If you would like to be featured like Dina please contact us at www.hotlitbooks.org/contact.