An Interview with Quinton Li

I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing my good friend, and nearly debut author Quinton Li, about aspects of mental health, specifically the trauma their characters face and how they heal from them in their debut novel Tell Me How It Ends, which is out on April 9th!

I’ve also been very lucky to read this novel! Tell Me How It Ends is unlike any fantasy i've ever read; it's like a warm hug on a clifftop by the sea or a cosy cup of hot chocolate on a rainy day with all the jam packed adventure one craves from a fantasy read! Here's the blurb from Goodreads:

Iris Galacia's tarot cards do more than entertain gamblers.

With the flip of her fingers she can predict the future and uncover a person's secrets. But under the watchful eye of her mother, she is on thin ice for pursuing a passion in the family business, and then cracks start to form until she eventually she falls through.

She is given an ultimatum — a test to prove her worth: earn a thousand coins or leave the business, and the family.

Enter Marin Boudreau, a charming young person who can scale buildings and break off doorknobs, who comes for her help to rescue a witch who's been falsely imprisoned in Excava Kingdom.

And Marin is willing to pay a high sum for her talents.

But saving a prisoner from royal hands isn't easy, nor is leaving home for the first time in eighteen years.

Now Iris must learn to trust in herself, Marin, and this new magical world, while racing the clock before the royals decide the fate of the witch, and before any secrets catch up to her.

TELL ME HOW IT ENDS features LGBTQ+, disabled, neurodivergent, cultural, and mental health representation. The main character, Iris Galacia, is a lesbian tarot reader with anxiety and autism. The second main character, Marin Boudreau, is an aromantic asexual non-binary person with ADHD.

Preorder today!

Interview with Quinton Li:

Hi Quinn! It’s so good to be talking to you today! What inspired you to write a character like Iris, specifically in terms of her upbringing and how that affects her?

Q: You may ask a writer why they write, and many will answer “escapism”. I suppose part of my escapism is using storytelling to process my experiences and feelings. Which is a roundabout way of saying that Iris is a lot like me, and her upbringing and environment is a metaphor for how it feels to grow up in a box, see life one way, and not know how beautiful the outside world can be, because how could you if you’ve never seen it? And even while I injected a lot of myself into Iris, writing the first book of her story has helped me discover more about myself too.

L: In both our works, we’ve focused on very internal character journeys and trials with their mental health. It’s obviously important for readers to read about these experiences, whether they relate or not, but how do you balance writing about these very internal things whilst also pushing the plot forward in Tell Me How It Ends?

Q: I write closely to the question: “what would happen if things completely changed? If a character’s world was turned upside down?” I believe Tell Me How It Ends would’ve been a very different story if I just kept Iris at home with her strict family and sheltered lifestyle, and it could’ve been meaningful, but it wasn’t the healing journey I wanted to show readers. And so this plays into the plot. Create a plot where the character goes on a hero’s journey, even if it isn’t saving the world, where they discover a “new world”, and from there, their development will shift around the environment and people around them. The way we treat and respect ourselves, where we are, and who we’re with goes to show these internal journeys very well.

L: That’s a lovely way of looking at it! Do you have any craft tips for writers writing about similar subjects in the fantasy genre?

Q: Fantasy is such an interesting canvas to work off when it comes to mental health, because it’s always so close to us writers and people.

Consider how the fantastical elements in your world respond to its inhabitants. In Tell Me How It Ends, Iris’ tarot cards are a fantasy element that seems to respond to Iris’s journey. When she needs to recognise something, just the right card will pop out at her, or she feels called to draw a card. When they want her to expand her thinking, they will show her this all the while Iris is tarot reading for someone else. Iris is a very observant person, even if she doesn’t realise it while she’s doing so, and the cards play into this by sending those messages.

Overall, you can ask yourself, how can the magic in this world speak to the characters? In a way that is meaningful?

The cover of Quinton Li's Tell Me How It Ends

L: Tell Me How it Ends is many things, but it’s also a journey of healing — what made you want to write a book that has healing from trauma at its crux?

Q: Thinking back to when I started this novel is important here. I started drafting TMHIE in the middle of 2019 — that’s almost 4 years ago. I was still in high school at that time, which was a box in itself. I was also working in fast food and trying to find enough footing that I could actually finish a novel. While I started writing years before that, I took writing more seriously at this point. And I’d like to say that TMHIE is a book of healing because it coincides with my own journey finishing high school, becoming more confident in myself, learning what I wanted to do, and eventually finishing a novel which was an incredible feat for me as a lifelong reader.

I’ve hit a lot of milestones in my life since TMHIE, such as starting my own business and… pursuing publishing! At the same time, Iris’ journey evidently doesn’t just end when you finish reading Tell Me How It Ends… and with more books to come, there is more life for me to experience, and more for Iris to learn.

L: That’s wonderful to hear, and so lovely how this book is tied up in your personal journey too. Tarot cards play a big part in the novel, specifically for Iris.

I loved how detailed her interpretations were, and how her friends helped her figure them out—and by doing that, they were able to meet their goals. Would you say Iris’ cards are a way for her to express herself, and figure out the new world around her, considering she’s never left home before?

Q: I’m really glad you loved it! It was a unique tool I wanted to introduce because it’s also a big part of my life. And it’s a little funny looking back to the first chapters, because my knowledge of tarot has advanced since then, but I feel that the less knowledgeable version of myself is reflective of pre-TMHIE Iris.

Anyway, yes! I would say so. Even while the cards are communicating towards Iris at different moments of her journey, Iris uses them to express herself. It’s shown in the novel with how she picks her favourite colour from a favourite tarot card, or how she refers to tarot to explain things or get a message across to someone. Tarot cards are Iris’ #1 special interest so it makes sense to me that a lot of her thinking would revolve around them. As we continue in the series… they’ll become an even more powerful tool!

L: ( Slight spoiler warning ahead) I want to talk a little about a chapter where Iris has to face her insecurities regarding the family she’s left behind. The crow calling at the very beginning of that scene was so clever, it really takes the reader back to Iris’ family home! The fact Iris has so many siblings is very interesting as well- it makes it really feel like she’s pushed out and looked down upon by her family.

The changing of tense here is very deliberate too, with it being in first person the reader really feels the turmoil going through Iris’s brain, and the effects abuse has had on her. There’s a line, ‘what more do you need?’ her mother says, as she lists practical things but never things like: love, understanding, space to grow and make mistakes…there is no emotional connection there, and Iris is deprived of that. Until she meets Marin, she’s never had those things, and never thought she could fight for those things either. That was very nicely done.

Q: I’m so flattered right now Lydia, thank you! I absolutely love this scene because of all the callbacks and it really shows that even if an abuser isn’t physically present, how they can imprint themself into one’s mind. Even throughout the novel, it’s the thoughts of pressure and her mother getting to Iris, and this does not make it any less scary or bad. It only felt natural to switch the tense as well, because while the third person POV is still Iris’ voice, we really get into it with the first person. As a person with autism, sensory details really matter to her and she pays a lot more attention in moments of high anxiety.

Also with the line “what more do you need?” it’s just so… common, for parents who don’t know how to process their own trauma and feelings to say this to children. Parents who only got the practical from their parents will continue to place this on their kids unless they heal. This is the path of generational trauma. So I’m glad that Iris is able to physically leave her toxic environment, and also start to part from it mentally with the help of a new world and friends.

L: Rather than Marin and Iris’ new found friends saving her, Iris saves herself at the end of the novel by choosing how she wants to live—was this an important aspect for you to include?

Q: Definitely! There could be a few messages interpreted from that author-decision, but one of the most important to me is that it’s not up to other people to create you, or make the choices that matter the most to you. If we rely on others too much, we start to become them or need them too much, and so when they aren’t around, we are left with less. But we don’t have to be less because we aren’t around people special to us. Even from the start, it wasn’t only Marin trying to get Iris to go on this adventure, but Iris was convincing herself that it was the right choice, and her mind was speaking from her inner child, who wanted to see the world and find someone to relate to.

It is respectful to ourselves to understand what we want from a situation, and Iris is going to continue learning how to respect herself starting with her decisions in Tell Me How It Ends.

Thank you so much for your time today!! You can preorder Tell Me How it Ends here!

Do you mind telling readers what socials they can find you on?

It’s my complete pleasure, Lydia! And these questions were incredibly well thought out. Readers can find me @itsquinnli on Twitter and Tiktok, and @quintonlieditorial on Instagram and Facebook. I’m most active on Twitter. I’m also online at quintonli.com :)