The Mate Games: A Romantasy Universe Comes to Life in Full Sound

Romantasy (or romantic fantasy) may be a microgenre, but it has a big imagination. With epic world-building, paranormal plot lines, and fantastical casts of mythical characters that are especially fun in audio, it’s no wonder it’s catching fire with fans in romance and fantasy genres alike. The Mate Games, a romantasy universe dreamed up by authors K. Loraine and Meg Anne, is a masterclass in world-building—as easy to get lost in as the biggest budget cinematic universe. Taking full advantage of the audio medium, these creators are bringing their paranormal romantasy stories to life with a full cast of talented voice actors and judiciously employed foley effects [the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to films, audiobooks, and other media in post-production to enhance audio quality] that make it a movie for the ears. The universe is comprised of four standalone series of four books each—The Mate Games: War and The Mate Games: Pestilence are already available in ebook and audio, and with The Mate Games: Death out this year, we decided it was time to catch up with the authors of this ambitious series to talk about co-writing, world-building, and what makes their audio editions so special. To start with, can you tell us a little about the Mate Games series? The apocalypse is here, or at least, that’s what the four horsewomen are hoping to achieve in The Mate Games. Each series is one horsewoman’s game as she attempts to end the world. Currently it’s Death’s turn at the board. The Mate Games: Death is about Dahlia Moore, a plus-sized, anxiety-ridden romance writer who has a very public breakdown when she sees the spirit of her dead father at her book’s movie premiere. She ends up sent to Blackwood Estate which turns out not to be a luxury rehab facility in Scotland, but an asylum for supernatural villains. In addition to having her world turned upside down with that bombshell, she also meets four very different men who could all be antiheroes in one of her books and who all claim she’s their mate. Thankfully, Dahlia doesn’t have to choose. With a combination of paranormal, urban fantasy, and romantasy woven through these spicy series, The Mate Games is for fans of American Horror Story and Supernatural, and listeners who like Sarah J. Maas, Jennifer L. Armentrout, and Peckham & Valenti. What’s your co-writing process like? How do you collaborate? We’ve co-written 4 series together and think our process is pretty unique. Every morning we get on a video call and use a shared Google document where we write in tandem. Sometimes we will finish each other’s sentences as we work. The number of times one of us has shouted “Get out of my head!” or “That’s exactly what I was thinking!” are too high to count. Outlining is very important for us, especially with such epic overarching storylines that require a lot of planning and careful weaving of details throughout. That said, we’ve learned to always leave room to deviate. Some of our best moments come after one of us says, “Okay, but what if…” The characters have to have a voice and sometimes they take us on wild adventures. There’s definitely a lot of laughing and no short supply of dirty jokes. Why does this series lend itself so well to audio? We are both big audiobook listeners ourselves and have been for a long time. One of the things we take into account is how everything will sound as we write it. Audio is its own medium and we want listeners to have an experience they will enjoy and never forget. That starts by writing with audio in mind. This production has a full cast of voice talent—did you give direction to your actors? While we’re writing we create a character list to give them with basic information about the accents needed, any really important aspects of the character, and from there we let them self-direct. We wanted to work with people who we knew would understand our intentions as authors and bring their own flair to the material, and the bonus with the group we work with is they know our voice so well by now that they are able to take the words on the page and breathe life to them in such incredible ways, sometimes far beyond our expectations. Hopefully all the emotion they need is there for them on the page so they nail it. That’s been the case so far! Also depending on the character’s arc, we might include any major plot twists so they are in on the secret ahead of time and can act accordingly. How was the recording done? The majority of the scenes were all recorded separately in home studios. A few chapters here and there were done while the actors were on a zoom call together from their own studios so they could play off each other, but honestly, they’re so intuitive they didn’t need to be together. We do love any opportunity for bloopers though, and zoom records definitely give us that. I noticed you employ some really fun foley effects in the book—can you tell us a little about how those show up and where that idea came from? Remember the “Ok, but what if…”? That’s what this was. We started writing Death with that first therapy session transcript as a concept, thinking it would be fun to be a fly on the wall during some of these sessions. Almost like we were eavesdropping on the characters. From there it just popped into our heads to add sound effects and make that scene really come to life. We’d never experimented with foley effects before but thought the therapy sessions that would be a fun way to use them and make them stand out as something special for the listener. How did you decide where and when to use the sound effects? It was important for us to keep the sound effects limited to the sessions in order to make those scenes a special experience as they are a very important part of the story. The sound effects had to have a purpose and not take over the production because there is a fine line between enhancing the listener’s experience and overwhelming them. One of our favorite things to hear from listeners is “It’s like a movie in my ears!” and the foley effects only add to that. It does also have relevance to the plot, but we can’t really get into that without major spoilers. Marketing a project like this—it seems like there are so many opportunities! How did you promote this series? It’s really a grassroots effort. We’ve built an amazing reader base that stuck with us from series to series as The Mate Games grew and we’re so grateful for their support and willingness to get out there and tell their friends about our audiobooks. Our narrators have been very supportive as well and if they have a social media presence, they take part in podcasts, live streams, and more to get the word out. Your website for the series has these great profiles for each character—are there other unique elements in your marketing plan that were made possible by all the audio elements you had to work with? We introduce the characters to our audience using audio teasers of the narrators in character for each series. This is a great way for the actor to get in touch with their character as well as for our listeners to meet them. Casting announcements are so fun and we love to celebrate the voices behind our words. This series builds on existing worlds and fandoms in such a creative way, with fun nods to mythology, fairytales, other sci-fi and fantasy worlds. How do you use those references as inspiration? We love pop culture and you’ll be hard pressed to find any of our co-written works without a handful of references to things we love. The Princess Bride is referenced in every single series because both of us are die-hard fans. As far as inspiration for characters, TMG: Death is very purposefully crafted with fairytale themes. Tor is a prince turned into a beast. Caspian is literally Captain Hook. Kai is a fae dragon inspired by Maleficent. And Cain…well, he’s the mystery villain no one wants to meet in a dark corner. There’s a reason there are so many Beauty and the Beast, Hades and Persephone, Peter Pan retellings. We love these stories and tropes. We are readers too, and we know what we like. If we’re not 100% invested in the story we’re telling, we won’t write it. Anything on the horizon you’re excited to share? We’re about to dive into plotting the 4th and final series in The Mate Games universe. We’ve already got our cast and can’t wait to get going. How can our readers keep up with you? If they’d like to stay up to date on our latest projects they can sign up for our newsletter (which also provides access to fun audio bonus scenes and even an interview with our MG cast) on our website at www.themategames.com. We also have a reader group called The Den: https://www.facebook.com/groups/themategames and a discord server called Iniquity: https://discord.gg/eTCK5S27NZ.