Following on from last week's article about all the stuff I'm (technically) working on at the moment, I have been tagged by the lovely Eruntane (my wife) over at her blog, Josephine Must Write, in a writer's meme of sorts. Duty and some kind of memetic addiction compel me to complete it. For what it's worth, it is reproduced below.
What is the working title of your book?
Well, as I said last week,
I’m working on at least two things right now, so the novel is called The
Dream and the web fiction series is called Shadow.
Where did the idea for the book
come from?
Well, The Dream came to me in a dream… I’m kidding. I came up with the idea for that novel in
2001 or 2002, when I was trying to find a clever twist for a fantasy novel (I
was struggling with the traditional fantasy genre at the time). I found a premise I really liked and thought
I could work with, but then when I tried to write it I kept getting bored. I’ve come back to it several times over the
last decade or so and only recently have I found the right voice and the right
sense of setting to really feel comfortable with it.
Shadow on the
other hand came to me originally as an idea for a piece of chain fiction to
write with friends. I wanted to explore
the idea of a city on another world which would be humanity’s true origin, wild
and dark. It never happened. Then, when I was bored in work one day I
started writing this story for a friend and the setting of the city of Shadow
seemed perfect for what I wanted to do.
The city has turned out very differently from what I had originally
intended, of course, but the base ideas are still there and keep growing all
the time.
What genre does your book fall
into?
An easy one this! The
Dream is a traditional fantasy novel (or trilogy) with, what I hope is, a
fairly unique twist (no spoilers here!) Shadow on the other hand is a mostly
light-hearted Steampunk-lite fantasy tale.
Which actors would you choose to
play your characters in a movie rendition?
You know, for all that I love the
idea of my stories being turned into films (in contrast to my wife) I am
rubbish at thinking of actors in connection to my characters. I can see them and they don’t look like
people I know, mostly. Having said that,
Siren from Shadow was always supposed
to look a bit like Kaley Cuoco with her hair dyed black and Gulliver was inspired by Mackenzie Crook’s
Ragetti from Pirates of the Caribbean.
What is the one sentence synopsis
of your book?
The Dream: The world of Erinëa is falling apart: people
vanish without a trace, wars and plagues are rife, a darkness spreads across
the lands that is more than the mere absence of light and for four young
friends - a bard, a priest, a mountain guide and a soldier – there will be a
personal journey that will change the way they think about the world and
themselves.
Shadow: Ellis Graves is a normal English lad with his
fair share of relationship troubles and identity issues, but when he finds
himself inexplicably sucked into the world of Shadow - a world of monsters,
machines and mad scientists – he finds himself a pawn in a much larger game;
the goal: Earth.
Will your book be self-published
or represented by an agency?
Shadow is already being published weekly online. I have
vague plans to release each volume of it in eBook form as well.
The Dream is really
too early in development (yes, even after a decade) to say what will become of
it. I’m not sure I’m really good enough
a writer to attempt anything beyond self-publishing anyway, but who knows?
How long did it take you to write
the first draft of your manuscript?
This question is really non-applicable,
I think. The Dream is unfinished and Shadow is an ongoing serial publication. Still, the former has been worked on, on and
off, for around a decade and the latter for about five years.
To what other books in your genre
would you compare this story?
Again, this is another tricky
question. The Dream is, ostensibly, at least, a traditional fantasy and that
means it carries a lot of that baggage of that genre with it. Part of the reason it’s taken me so long to
get going well with it is because I was unhappy with the clichés I was trotting
out with every page. The current version
plays about with the setting a bit more even before the twist which, I hope,
makes it a lot more unique in its genre.
I could compare it to some well-known sci-fi properties instead, but, I’m
afraid, that would constitute a spoiler.
As for Shadow, I’m actually woefully under-read in the Steampunk genre and
am not sure what it might be like. It’s
really my own take on it and it’s a lot more light-hearted and frivolous (with
far less attention to detail) than many would be. It certainly doesn’t aspire to be good
literature, just an entertaining weekly read and an exploration of a crazy and,
I hope, fairly original world.
Who or what inspired you to write
this book?
I’ve discussed inspiration
already, I think, but I will say that The
Dream was partly inspired by a famous Science Fiction film, which led me,
eventually, to ask the question, ‘What would a fantasy version of this be like?’. Shadow
was inspired by not enough work to do in a Call Centre, ha ha!
What else about your book might
pique your reader’s interest?
As I’ve said before, The Dream is a hopefully fairly original twist on the traditional fantasy
genre and I hope it’s premise will intrigue and entertain. Shadow
is like an ongoing Steampunk fantasy TV series, only written down and with a
bigger special effects budget. If either
of these things sound like your thing then, chances are, you’d find reading
them worth your while.
Here endeth the meme. I know I'm supposed to tag someone else now but (sad admission) I don't have anyone else to tag and not just because I don't know anyone else working on any writing right now. Oh well. If you're reading this and this applies to you, consider yourself tagged and please post a link to your completed meme in the comments!
