Less than a year after the release of his novel “Nyxia,” the first book in his series “The Nyxia Triad,” in September of last year, North Carolina author Scott Reintgen returned this past week with the next novel in his series.
Having previously graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a bachelor of arts in English in 2010, as well as from NC State with a master’s degree in teaching in 2012, Reintgen began teaching in the Triangle area in addition to working on his own novels, namely “The Nyxia Triad.” He released the second book of the series, “Nyxia Unleashed,” on July 17.
Technician spoke with Reintgen to hear more about “Nyxia Unleashed,” as well as his writing process for his novels.
Technician: How long would you say that you have been writing as a professional?
Reintgen: As a professional, I’d say it’s when you sign your first contract that it begins to feel professional. Before that, though, I was taking writing very seriously starting in grad school, so that’s where it kicked up a notch for me.
T: At what point were you first inspired to start writing?
R: I have two really big moments that really inspired me. The first was in 4th grade, where I got to publish a book. My class wrote them, and we all got our books published, so I held for the first time a book with my name on it, and I thought that was a pretty cool thing. The second moment was in high school, I started writing in secret, I didn’t really tell anyone, but then I had a Junior English teacher at Cary High School who I showed a chapter of my writing to and the next day she switched me out of Spanish III and into creative writing and surprised me, saying that “you have to keep writing, you need to do this” so I think that’s the day I really knew that I was going to work towards publication and work towards getting a book out there.
T: For how long have you been developing the story behind “The Nyxia Triad?”
R: I started writing the story after one of my students had pulled me aside halfway through my first year as a teacher and he said “You know, you have all of these great books on the back shelf Mr. Reintgen, but none of them have characters that look like me.” So from there, it was first trying to get books on the shelf with more representation that already existed, but then it was writing a book where, as the writer, I could control the characters and decide who is in my world, and go in and write a story that he could see himself in. From there, it was all about the writing and the research, all of this stuff goes into it, and once you get published there’s a whole other round of edits and changes that go into it.
T: What typically goes into writing a book such as “Nyxia Unleashed?”
R: A lot. I think a lot of people would be really surprised at the amount of work that goes into it. I always say that I revised “Nyxia” 14 times before publication, and that process was necessary. Once the book is out there in the world, it’s not as easy to change words or characters, so you want to put your best possible product on the shelf. So I revised “Nyxia” 14 times, and last April I read through it eight times just to make sure that every word was picture perfect, and that process keeps going. For book two, I actually had to rewrite 90 percent of it, but for book three I’ve already turned it into my editor and she had no major changes, but overall it changes from book to book. It’s a lot of hard work.
T: How do you think that the story of “The Nyxia Triad” has evolved between the first and second books?
R: I’d say that book one was all about setting the stage, almost. When you’re working with a trilogy, it’s intense, there are plot twists, you’re going to kind of not expect things around every corner that are there, but you’re very much getting your first taste of these characters and the world that they live in. Book two, to me, is all about expansion, digging deeper into these characters and getting a wider view of the world they’re heading to, and all of that good stuff. Book one is about setting the stage, and book two is about expanding that stage and widening the cast a little bit.
T: What type of experience or message do you hope that readers will get out of reading “Nyxia Unleashed?”
R: The main message, to me, is that anyone can be the hero. My kids, my students, have probably grown up reading and seeing stories that, most of the time, feature a very particular hero, usually a white straight male hero. In “Nyxia,” I have lots of heroes in this story, and most of them don’t fit that category at all. So my giveaway message would be that anyone can play the role of the hero.
Both “Nyxia” and “Nyxia Unleashed” are available for purchase online through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, as well as in local bookstores. More information on Reintgen and his writing can be found on his website, https://itspronouncedrankin.com/.
"Nyxia Unleashed" is the second book of the science fiction series, the Nyxia Triad, by Scott Reintgen. The story follows Emmett Atwater as he, and nine other recruits from the Babel Corporation, go the the planet of Eden try to find and extract nyxia, the most valuable substance in the universe.
