We recently connected with Crystal Maldonado and have shared our conversation below.
Crystal, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
Ever since I was a young kid, I’ve been drawn to writing and books. I read voraciously and I think exploring all of those stories and voices helped me learn how to better my own skills and craft. Young adult books seemed to call to me; I loved how voice-driven they were and how I could easily get into each character’s head. Those books provided such a strong foundation for me to discover my own writing voice. I also took an incredible class while I was in college that helped me break any of the passive voice writing habits I’d developed during my academic career. In that class, we learned to critically look at essays, prose, and nonfiction and study things like sentence structure and dialogue. Once I realized it was okay to “break the rules” of writing—you could embrace fragment sentences, or write like you spoke, or start a sentence with a conjunction—I felt free to explore the type of writing that felt natural to me. Through that class, I realized the ability to mimic other writers actually helped me determine how I felt comfortable writing. It’s an exercise I’d recommend to any aspiring writer: emulate the style of the writer you love and see what sticks. I also think learning to write dialogue was an essential part of my book process, and to do that successfully, I spend lots of time listening to how others speak and adapting that for my characters. Little things, like a pause or an incomplete phrase, can elevate your dialogue and make it feel authentic. As for obstacles, I think my biggest challenge has always been my own criticisms. It’s so hard to get out of your own head! When I’m feeling that way, I try to read something I love or take a break from writing all together. I find that once I return to my work, the writing comes a lot easier.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m Crystal Maldonado, a young adult author of romcoms for fat brown girls. My debut novel, “Fat Chance, Charlie Vega,” released in 2021, my sophomore novel, “No Filter and Other Lies” came out in 2022, and my next novel, “The Fall of Whit Rivera,” will be available in fall 2023. Through my books, I try to write inclusive stories for fat Latinas. I want anyone who finishes one of my books to leave feeling better understood, and further have their identity validated. What inspired me to become a writer was my own desire to see better representation in books—particularly in the young adult romance genre—for fat girls, with special focus on brown and Latina characters. I always worried there might not be enough room in the industry for stories like mine, but I am so thankful that me and my stories have been welcomed with open arms by readers and fellow authors. I’m beyond proud that stories like mine are able to reach those who need it most—and I hope to continue to create meaningful stories for readers everywhere.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I’ve always been a bit of a perfectionist. But I realized I had to quickly do away with that if I wanted to make any meaningful progress in my writing journey. First drafts are supposed to be messy! Embrace it. That’s what I tell myself, anyway, otherwise I don’t think I’d ever be able to draft something again. Writing requires a willingness to experiment, to explore different types of storytelling or voices, and—quite frankly—to mess up and try again. Not every scene I write ends up in the final book, and I’m thankful for that. Sometimes scenes need to be rewritten, and that’s okay! Through the publishing process, I definitely had to get more comfortable letting go of my perfectionist tendencies and need for control and instead lean on the amazing publishing team around me. I’m thankful to have unlearned this lesson and proud that it has resonated in other parts of my life, too, especially has I’ve become a parent. Perfect is boring, so I’m learning to love and embrace the chaos instead.
How did you build your audience on social media?
My love for social media extends way back to my America Online days, so I’ve been online for a long time now. Although I do think it can have it’s darker sides, for me, it has become a place for community and creativity. I love that piece of it! I’ve definitely used that to help build my own social media presence and I’ve only gone on platforms that I genuinely enjoy: Instagram and TikTok, specifically. I always tell new authors that they should do the same. There’s a ton of pressure for creatives to be everywhere on social media, and I’m a firm believer that it’s better to take the one or two platforms you enjoy and pour yourself into that rather than trying to stretch yourself thin. People can tell when you’re just going through the motions of posting or when it doesn’t feel authentic, so do what feels right for you and do what brings you joy. It’ll resonate with others. The other piece of advice I’d add—and something I wish I had done—is to consider creating a separate author social media just to promote your work. I didn’t do that and realized too late that I felt a little uncomfortable sharing photos of my daughter, so I ended up removing them all. I’ve seen other authors have specific accounts where they only share their professional photos of books, event promo, etc. and I love it! For any author just getting started, it’s something to consider.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.crystalwrote.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crystalwrote/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crystalwrote
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/crystalwrote
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@crystalwrote