An Interview with Kelsea Yu: The Author Captivating the Indie Horror Genre

Kelsea Yu: When I was growing up, I really enjoyed writing stories. I would be the person who got an assignment for a three-page essay and then I’d turn in a fifty-page piece.

So, I feel like that enjoyment and love of writing was always there, especially because as a kid I read a ton. But at the same time, I didn’t actually think I’d be a writer. At no point in my childhood did I think I’d be an author when I grew up. I had other plans. 

I went on to major in business and accounting, and worked in that field for several years before I realized how badly I wanted something creative in my life. That’s when I started trying to find my creative outlet.

I tried making and selling jewelry, things like that. But once I started writing, it felt more right to me than anything I had tried.

KY: I don’t really have a typical writing day because a lot of my writing is built around whenever I can find time. I’m the primary caretaker for my two-year-old and five-year-old, and that means that a lot of time their needs come first.

My husband helps me carve out writing time in the evening if I’m feeling up for it. So, after dinner, he’ll do the routine with the kids and that’s when I’ll come upstairs and write for a few hours until their bedtime.

The other more typical writing time I have is when my parents take the kids for a day or two, usually with a sleepover, so I have a lot more time and headspace. That’s when I have the biggest chunk of writing time.

KY: It varies a bit by the length of the piece. For short stories, especially flash fiction, I’m much more likely to just come up with an idea and start writing without a plan. For novellas, I usually do an outline before I write the story.

But novels are by far my most in-depth. I spend so much more time planning novels than shorter fiction. The process has changed over the years as I’ve tried a bunch of different things that have been helpful in figuring out what did and didn’t work. 

I come up with the concept first. I’ll brainstorm until I find an idea that sounds both interesting to me and that is hopefully marketable. Then, I’ll write out a two-paragraph, query-length pitch.

And usually, I’ll come with comps and a title. I basically have the story ready before I start anything else. At that point, I might send to my agent for her feedback. The next step is to start outlining.

I typically build all my stories around a mystery, so I’ll start brainstorming the twists, the clues, all of those details. And then I start drafting.

To give you an idea of what that gives me, for my most recent novel, I had roughly 12,000 words of outlined plot and over 10,000 words of character development before I started writing. So, a big chunk of the story.

Even though it takes quite a while, once I have all that information, it makes drafting so much smoother and I’m a lot less likely to get stuck or have to start over.

It can be frustrating when you just want to start writing, but for me, having the outline is so much better for the story.

KY: I don’t know if I actually have a favorite, but the one that is probably the most meaningful to me is “Creature.” It’s published in Kaleidetrope Magazine in July 2024. 

“Creature” was the first short story I ever wrote as an adult, and it was my first horror story. In fact, my friend had to tell me it was horror because I wasn’t sure. I wrote it during a very challenging time in my life.

I had just had a miscarriage and the novel I had been working on became sort of attached to that experience. I was completely unable to write for several months, which for me, was a pretty long time to stay away from writing.

I knew I needed to write something new, but I didn’t want to overthink it. So, I just opened a document and started writing. “Creature” is the story that came out. It’s very obviously a story that is me processing that miscarriage, but it’s also the story that made me realize how much I love writing horror and short stories.

Both of those things have completely changed the direction of my career. 

KY: It’s been different in many ways. For one, it’s the first book that’s going to be in tons of bookstores where I am the sole author on the cover.

Even before it published, knowing that made it feel very different. Traditional publishing is also very different. I sold this book over a year and a half before it was released.

In comparison, my indie-published horror novella, Bound Feet was roughly six months from sale to release. The pace was very different, and while in both cases the teams were very enthusiastic, working with a larger team with dedicated people was also much different than the indie space.

KY: I really wanted to write a story about a gamer girl, particularly a Chinese American gamer girl. I thought it would be really cool to have that story out for people like me.

Growing up, I never really got to see that kind of representation. And then one day I had the idea that this gamer girl would see a person die in the video game she was playing and then she would later see the same person die in real life.

I just thought that would be so cool and I wanted to know what would happen after that, so it made me very excited to write the story.

KY: Video games have played a big role in my life, especially growing up. I played video games with my brothers and my friends. It was a way that I spent time with people as a teenager.

I had video game nights, where I’d invite a bunch of friends over and we’d play together, or we’d go to somebody else’s house. Friendship and video games have always felt very connected for me.

So that was something that felt very meaningful to me that I wanted to put in a story, especially a story for teens.

KY: I think I would tell my teen self that it’s okay to have really big feelings. To also just let myself express them or admit them. I feel like I spent a lot of time trying to hide the fact that I cared so much about various things as a teenager because I thought it would be embarrassing or that somebody would judge me for it.

Or I just didn’t want to admit it to myself that something mattered too much to me. And, looking back, I would say it’s okay to care about things. It’s okay to have those big emotions. I would also say you can trust yourself.