Lost Village of Delta
Posted: October 16, 2019 Filed under: Books, Fantasy, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Inspiration, Writing, Writing for a YA Audience, Young Adult | Tags: Books, Delta, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Historical Inspiration, Inspiration, Jordan Elizabeth, Writing for a YA Audience, Writing to be Read 3 Comments
My earliest years were spent in Westernville, NY. Right down the street was the beautiful Lake Delta, a place we visited frequently. My parents and I played on the beach. We walked the trails through the woods. One day my father mentioned that when he used to fly his plan over Lake Delta, he could see the foundations beneath the water. That puzzled me – why would there be foundations down there? Were they like the shell fossils we found in our backyard sometimes?
Photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels.com
He explained that a village used to be there, but it was flooded to create the lake. My imagination went wild. He also told me that my grandmother’s house on the farm where we lived was moved from the lost village. That amazed me, and gave me my first glimpse at history. My fascination with Lake Delta continued, but we moved to a neighboring village and didn’t visit the state park as often.
One day, the Westernville Town Clerk, Mary Centro, spoke at my hometown about Delta. My mother and I attended the lecture, and we were enthralled. I wanted to write a story at once, but I didn’t know where to take it.
My parents moved back to Westernville and I met with the town clerk to discuss Lake Delta in more detail. She told me about walking the land while the lake is low and finding treasures washed up on shore. The next year, my parents and I walked the lake, but we didn’t find anything. Again, I felt the need to write about the lost village of Delta, but I didn’t know who my main character would be yet.
The town clerk wrote two non-fiction books about Delta and my dad bought copies. While visiting my parents, I looked through them, and then did some research online. I learned that one house hadn’t been torn down the first time they flooded the land. It wasn’t until later, when the water receded, that they demolished it.
That was my story. A little magic seeped into the tale, and Lottie came to life. You can read about Lottie in DELTA, my first historic fiction novella that is appropriate for teens and adults.
About the real Delta…
Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com
New York State decided it was time to expand the Erie Canal. Many of the ports along the canal were no longer being used, because shipping goods by train became the more popular method. Shipping by train was cheaper than shipping via canal. It wasn’t just the price, though, that encouraged manufactures to choose train travel. The modern barges that were needed to ship the goods couldn’t go on the Erie Canal, which was too small and far too shallow. The water level of the Erie Canal tended to fluctuate. By expanding the Erie Canal, the ports would flourish once again. Many farmers were excited by this. They would be able to transport their goods to cities elsewhere in New York State. Expanding the canal required the use of five reservoirs. These reservoirs would provide enough water to keep the level of the canal even. New York State chose Delta because they would only need to build one dam.
The village of Delta rested inside of a deep valley. This made the perfect bowl-shape to fill with water from the Mohawk River nearby. Flooding Delta meant that privately owned land would need to be seized by the government. Everyone living on that land would need to move elsewhere.
In 1903, surveyors arrived in Delta to measure the land and create maps. In 1908, New York State officially authorized that Delta would be cleared to make way for the reservoir. Blue evacuation notices were presented to the village’s five-hundred residents, forcing them to relocate. One hundred buildings were torn down and destroyed. Some, however, were dismantled and moved to other towns in the area, where they were rebuilt. People moved away and their village became a reservoir. The dam was completed in October 1912. Water first went over in May of 1916.
Despite the great expenses incurred in the relocation of the Black River Canal, it closed in 1921.
Jordan Elizabeth is a fantasy author who is obsessed with history and ghosts. You can connect with Jordan via her website, JordanElizabethBooks.com. The photo above shows Jordan on the shores of Lake Delta. You can often find she and her son enjoying the beach.
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Interview with horror author Roberta Eaton Cheadle
Posted: October 14, 2019 Filed under: Author Profile, Books, Dark Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Interview, Stories, Writing | Tags: Author Interview, Author Profile, Nightmareland, Robbie Cheadle, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Through the Nethergate, Whispers of the Past, Writing to be Read 61 Comments
Today my guest is an author who I’ve gotten to know well, because she is a member of the Writing to be Read team, where she writes a monthly blog segment on children’s literature that’s proven to be very popular, “Growing Bookworms”. By day she walks in the world of fondant and children’s fiction, but when darkness falls she transforms into an emerging horror author. But this author doesn’t just emerge, she explodes onto the scene with this month’s release of her first novel length horror tale, Through the Nethergate. In addition, this month she also has a short story appearing in Dan Alatorre’s Nightmarland anthology, and another coming out in the WordCrafter paranormal anthology, Whispers of the Past. I’m really excited to be able to interview her about her experiences with horror, so please help me welcome author Roberta Eaton Cheadle.
Kaye: You started out writing children’s stories with your son, but you’ve recently leaped into the horror realm, which is kind of at the opposite extreme of the spectrum. Was that a hard transition for you?
Roberta: It wasn’t a hard transition for me at all. I have always loved supernatural, horror and dark psychological thrillers so I think this genre comes naturally to me. More recently I have been reading and re-reading a lot of dystopian fiction such as Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and The Long Walk by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King).
I can remember reading my Mom’s copy of Stephen King’s The Shining behind the couch in the lounge when I was ten years old. After that book, I worked my way through the rest of her Stephen King collection and several other adult horror books too.
Kaye: Can you name one thing you have to think about when writing horror that you might not ever think about when writing for children, (or any other genre, maybe)?
Roberta: When writing from the point of view of the victim, I need to imagine their fear and describe this in a way that brings out the same emotion in the reader. When writing from the point of view of the party who sees a ghost or discovers a body, I need to imagine their shock and horror at what they are seeing. To describe the tumultuous feelings that would bubble up inside them at seeing something truly frightening or gruesome.
I would never attempt to scare children or invoke feelings of fear and anxiety in them. My Sir Chocolate books series is my attempt to draw children into a happy and safe world of complete fantasy where good always wins and any less likable characters are drawn into the circle of friendship and become part of the team.
Kaye: When making the move into adult fiction, why did you choose to write horror? What draws you to the genre?
Roberta: As mentioned above, I have always liked supernatural horror. I was drawn to it from a young age even though it scared me half to death when I read both The Shining and Salem’s Lot by Stephen King.
I have also always gravitated towards psychologically disturbing books that make me think such as Roald Dahl’s short stories for adults. I have never forgotten Lamb to the Slaughter about a pregnant woman who kills her husband after discovering he is having an affair. She saved her own skin, and that of her unborn baby, by making the murder weapon disappear in the most innovative way imaginable.
The idea of writing about ghosts came to me while I was writing While the Bombs Fell, a fictional biography about my mom’s life, growing up in the small English town of Bungay, Suffok, during WWII. My extensive research while writing this book led me to discover the history of one of the oldest inns in the town which is purported to be haunted by over twenty ghosts. The little bit of information that is available about each of these ghosts intrigued me, and I decided to write a selection of short stories, each featuring the circumstances leading up to, and the death of, a specific ghost.
As I went along with Through the Nethergate, Margaret injected herself into this story and it took on a whole new direction with her having the power to reincarnate the ghosts.
Kaye: What is the biggest challenge for you in writing horror?
Roberta: I think like many other new writers, my biggest developmental area has been learning to show instead of tell in my stories. I believe I have improved a huge amount in this area. As I came from a non-fiction writing background, I have also had to learn to write more descriptively and really reach into myself and find the whirlpool of emotion my characters are feeling in any given circumstance. These emotions must be shown and not told which takes me back to my first point.
Kaye: Your latest release is a work of horror, Through the Nethergate. Where did your inspiration for this story come from?
Roberta: As mentioned above, my original idea was to write a selection of short stories, each featuring the death of one ghost.
As I went along the idea for Margaret with her power to reincarnate ghosts and experience their deaths and pain came along. Margaret has recently lost her parents which gives her heightened sensitivity to the world around her.
At the same time, the idea of having one ghostly master to rule over the others popped into my head and this evolved into the ghostly black dog, or Black Shuck, which is an ancient myth in Suffolk and its surrounds. Legend in Bungay has it that Hugh Bigod, a most evil descendant of the original Normandy invaders and the man who erected Bungay Castle during the 12th century, still haunts the castle in the form of the black dog. The inn around which Through the Nethergate is centred, shares a wall in its cellar with Bungay Castle.
There are four other descendants of the Bigod family who are also alleged to haunt the town in their ghostly carriage drawn by fire breathing horses.
Initially, the reader will believe that Hugh Bigod is the villain of the book, but this is not the case. There is a far greater evil force at work who covets Margaret’s power and who makes Hugh Bigod look quite pathetic and ridiculous in his small attempts at evil.
Kaye: Can you tell me a little about Through the Nethergate?
Roberta: Through the Nethergate is intended to demonstrate to the reader how evil has always existed in our world and how evil forces manipulate human inventions and greed for power and wealth to their own ends. Evil has always existed, and it always will, but there is the counterbalancing force of goodness and the kindness and empathy that exists in an equal number of people. This is a book about faith and my belief that goodness and faith always prevail.
Kaye: If Through the Nethergate were made into a film, who do you see playing the lead as Margaret? Who do you see playing your villain, Hugh Bigod?
This is a tough question for me as I don’t watch movies or television. I will have to base it on my previous experience of movies.
I would choose Drew Barrymore to play Margaret in a similar manner to her portrayal of Charlie (Charlene) in the movie version of Firestarter by Stephen King. She would need to be a few years older, however, as Margaret is sixteen in my book. The mixture of innocence, toughness and a strong will to survive are the qualities in Charlie’s character portrayal that underpin my selection.
For Hugh Bigod I would choose Richard Chamberlain in a mixture of his portrayals of Father Ralph de Bricassart in The Thorn Birds and Captain John Blackthorne in Shogun. In both series he portrays someone who is able to separate himself from the anguish of the people around him and ruthlessly pursue his own ends and survival.
Kaye: The setting for Through the Nethergate is an ancient inn with quite the history. How much historical research went into it?
Roberta: I do a massive amount of research for my books with partial or total historical settings.
Each ghostly character in Through the Nethergate came from a different historical era and I had to do meticulous research into what people wore, drank and ate during those particular time periods, as well as how they traveled and the political agendas and attitudes towards servants, masters, females and religious figures that prevailed at the time of their stories and deaths.
For example, Katharine is a reluctant Benedictine nun who comes from a wealthy background and is forced into Bungay Priory during the 14th century. She is in love with William and conspires to escape her dreary life by running away with him. James Wilson was a Benedictine monk who was the cellarer at Glastonbury Abbey during the 15th century when Richard Whiting, the last Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, presided. James originates from Bungay where his father was the local blacksmith. Peggy and her husband and child are survivors of the great fire that destroyed much of Bungay in the 17th century. The book also includes other historical figures such as John Collins, the famous Chartist from Birmingham, Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed, a Hungarian Countess and one of Europe’s most prolific serial killers, as well as Tom Hardy, a highwayman who rode with the infamous Dick Turpin and Amelia Dyer, Britain’s most famous female serial killer.
When featuring real people, I must research their stories in as much detail as possible to ensure I get the facts correct. I usually check between five and ten sources, depending on the amount of information available.
Kaye: You also do a lot of short dark fiction, and have stories included in several dark anthologies. In fact, you have two stories “Last of the Lavendar” and “Missed Signs” coming out this month in the WordCrafter paranormal anthology, Whispers of the Past, and “The Siren Witch”, “A Death Without Honour” and “The Path to Atonement” are featured in Dan Alatorre’s Nightmareland horror anthology, also released this month. Do you prefer writing short dark fiction or novel length horror? Why?
Roberta: I like writing both kinds of story.
Short stories are fun to write, but they are restrictive because of their length of 1 500 to 3 000 words. It can be tough to get all the necessary background and detail into a short story in a clear and concise way. I had to cut quite a lot out of “A Death Without Honour” to get the length and sharpness right. Dan Alatorre was great at helping me with that. Sometimes I struggle to get the ending wound up in a concise and exciting way with short stories, as I did with “Last of the Lavendar”, the ending of which you helped me improve greatly. I like writing for anthologies because I learn so much. I also get a lot of guidance from the experienced editors and also from reading the stories included in the anthologies by other authors. They really are a wonderful learning and growing experience for me.
I have written two novellas now, While the Bombs Fell, and my recently completed A Ghost and his Gold which is about the Second Anglo Boer War fought between the “Boers” [farmers] and the British Empire in the early 19th century. I love the length of novellas because it allows for more detail and depth than a short story, but is still fairly short and concise. I think that modern readers prefer shorter stories due to their busy lifestyles.
Through the Nethergate is my first full length novel and I enjoyed writing it and “seeing” how my imagination could take off and extend to a much longer story.
I am currently 40 000 words into a dystopian novel which will be part of a trilogy about a future world dealing with drastic climate change and the fourth industrial revolution. Trilogies are popular and this idea came along so I thought I would jump right in. I love to experiment and learn about new things.
Kaye: What is your biggest fear? What scares you?
Roberta: Real life scares me. The prospect of climate change wreaking devastation on our planet, overpopulation, poverty and criminality which are changing the way society operates as well as the Fourth Industrial Revolution which will forever change the nature of the working world, these things scare me far more than “monsters under my bed.”
Dystopian novels like 1984 by George Orwell and The Long Walk by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King) really disturb me, but I can’t help reading them. It is better to be informed than not. Even H.G. Wells gives great insights into the nature of society and how it could evolve in his books The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, which are really frightening.
Kaye: What is the scariest story that you’ve ever read and why do you think it is the scariest?
Roberta: I think 1894 by George Orwell is the scariest dystopian novel I have read. Living in the world he describes is so awful I think people would be better off dead.
The Shining is the scariest supernatural horror book I have ever read. The ghosts in the Overlook Hotel that become visible and can harm Danny and his family are most frightening. The invasion of his father’s mind in order to bend him to the will of the evil in the hotel was terrifying. Stephen King has a way of describing things in such a visual way, you feel as if you are living them with the character in the book.
Kaye: What is the scariest story that you’ve ever written?
Roberta: My short story about Amelia Dyer called “Justice is Served” in the murder mystery anthology, Death Among Us, is quite scary as it is based on a real serial killer who murdered babies.
From a purely fiction point of view, I think “The Path to Atonement” in the forthcoming Nightmareland anthology is quite eerie and chilling. “Missed Signs” from the forthcoming Whispers of the Past is frightening because it is within the realms of probability.
Kaye: What methods do you use to create suspense and make a story scary?
Roberta: I use a slow build up to the deaths as a tool to create suspense as well as a lot of visual descriptions and emotional language. Dialogue and onomatopoeia are good ways of conveying literary “sound effects” and tension in a story.
Kaye: Who is your favorite villain or monster from a horror story or film? Why?
Roberta: My favourite villain is Dracula. I loved his sly intelligence and sneaky ways of manipulating his victims and also the heroes of the book.
Kaye: Is there more dark fiction in store for the future readers of Roberta Eaton Cheadle? What are you working on now?
Roberta: I have recently finished the first draft of A Ghost and his Gold and sent that off to my developmental editor. I am hoping to have it available on Amazon in March/April 2020.
I am also working on book 1 of my dystopian trilogy about a world where drastic measures are required to address climate change and the unemployment caused by the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The first book is called Russian Roulette Anyone? And will probably be available in October 2020. I also hope to participate in more anthologies next year as I really enjoy those.
I want to thank Roberta for sharing with us today. I too have been a fan of dark fiction since a young age, and at one time delved into all works Stephen King. I read The Shining while babysitting one night when I was 15. I was totally immersed in the story and couldn’t put the book down, but I had to call and wake up my mother to talk to me about three a.m. because the story scared me silly. I finished the book before the sun came up though. Although I grew up reading the masters like Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Anne Rice, John Saul, and Peter Straub, doing so set a high bar for the writing of horror.
Roberta gets cudos though for having the nerve to do what I’ve not found the courage to do, the nerve to immerse herself in a world of fear and terror in order to write a novel of dark fiction. You can learn more about Roberta and her books by visiting her on her Amazon Author page or on her Facebook page. You can also learn about her children’s books and her creativity with fondant at Robbie’s Inspirations. And don’t forget to catch her “Growing Bookworms” blog segment on the second Wednesday of every month right here on Writing to be Read.
Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.
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“Through the Nethergate”: A supernatural journey through time
Posted: October 11, 2019 Filed under: Book Review, Books, Dark Fantasy, Fiction, Horror | Tags: Book Review, Dark fiction, Ghosts, horror, Robbie Cheadle, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Spirits, Through the Nethergate, Writing to be Read 12 Comments
Through the Nethergate, by Roberta Eaton Cheadle, is a captivating journey in the here and now that reaches through the barriers of time to bring legend to life, and it’s a very scary legend. This is a tale of horror, but not all spirits are evil, and many of Cheadle’s ghosts make up the cast of characters. Cheadle brings the characters in this story life masterfully, even the ghostly ones, whose backstories are woven into the legend’s tapestry to become part of the whole while still standing on their own individually.
When Margaret comes to live with her grandfather in a haunted old inn that has been in their family for centuries, she discovers that she has the uncanny ability to bring spirits back and make them more real and substantial. But, she doesn’t possess the ability to release them from the tethers that bind them to this plane. As she meets each of the inn’s ethereal occupants and learns their stories, she finds they are all held by an entity of local legend, Hugh Bigod, who prefers to appear in the form of a huge black demon dog. Hugh Bigod was a truly evil man and his spirit is just as nasty. When he feels the spirits pulling away from him, as Margaret’s presence breathes new substance into them, he blames her and vows to stop them by putting an end to her.
Through the Nethergate is a brilliant production of the stories within the story, and an excellent example of god vs. evil dark fantasy. Filled with plenty of suspense and clever story twists. I give it five quills.
Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.
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Should we read the sad and the scary to our children?
Posted: October 9, 2019 Filed under: Books, Children's Books, Fiction, Growing Bookworms, Horror, Reading | Tags: Children's Books, Children's Stories, Growing Bookworms, horror, Robbie Cheadle, Roberta Eaton Cheadle, Scary stories, Writing to be Read 42 Comments
When I was a young girl, I loved to read and so I did. I read and I read, until there were no children’s books left in the children’s section of the library for me to read. South Africa during the 1980’s was a conservative place to live, so the librarians did not allow children to go into the adult section of the library, never mind take out books for it.
Fortunately for me, my mom was a big reader herself. Her taste ran to classic literature, horror / supernatural books and the odd sexy book too. The temptation of her collection was to great for me and I resorted to reading her books behind the couch in the lounge. By the end of my tenth year I had read, possibly without full understanding but with enough for me to enjoy the stories, The Shining, The Stand and Salem’s Lot by Stephen King, Princess Daisy by Judith Krantz, Lace by Shirley Conran and the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. By the time I was thirteen, I had added all of my mom’s Charles Dicken’s books and her collection of books by Winston Churchill to my list. I read these ones with a dictionary and looked up words I didn’t know, some of which I have never forgotten.
When I had my own children, I didn’t want them to have to lie about the books they read. My motto was “If they can read it, I will let them read it,” I do not believe in sheltering children from life, death and everything in between, within reason. I do not have the same view about visual products like television or video games. The reason I see these differently is that I believe a child can only visualise the things he/she reads to the extent of their personal experience. A visual depiction puts the picture into the child’s mind and that content will be outside of their experience and could be very frightening.
Greg quickly evolved into a big reader and I had trouble feeding his book appetite. He read all the books I read as a child, including the sad and unusual ones like I am David by Anne Holm, Struwwelpeter by HeinrichHoffmann and Fattipuffs and Thinifers by Andre Maurois. Some books I offered to him, but he didn’t fancy their themes such as The Diary of Anne Frank and Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders. I had read both of these when I was twelve, but Greg has never read them and probably never will.
Other moms from his school were shocked that I didn’t restrict his reading, but my son had the freedom to choose while their children did not. Some of their sons read books behind their mothers back so they could not discuss their content with their children and demystify it. Greg has grown into a balanced and intelligent young man with strong views on personal freedom. He always support the human rights of the “underdog” and I think he will turn out okay.
These are my thoughts, but what do other people think about this. I did some research on the internet and this is what I found:
- Children need to know that all circumstances in life can’t have a happy ending. Sometimes people and animals we love die and our sense of loss is profound;
- Many sad and scary stories for children come from folklore. Folk stories are good for children as they gain cultural awareness and learn about life among different peoples of the world;
- Know your audience, if your child is highly sensitive or prone to nightmares, or simply doesn’t want to read the book [like my son, Greg], don’t force them. Respect their views;
- We live in a scary world and our children need to be prepared and also learn how to deal with emotions like fear, anger, frustration and jealousy. Scary and sad books help them learn how other people deal with these emotions;
- Scary stories can get children interested in, and exhilarated by, reading; and
- There are life lessons to be learned in scary and sad books such as don’t take sweets from strangers.
As October is Halloween month and I love scary books of all kinds, I read a review a few to include in this post.
The Haunting of Hiram by Eva Ibbotson – Goodreads review
The Great Ghost Rescue by Eva Ibbotson – Goodreads review
The Witchlet by Victoria Zigler – Goodreads review
Dragon Kingdom & the Wishing Stone by StacieEirich – Goodreads review
About Robbie Cheadle
Hello, my name is Robbie, short for Roberta. I am an author with six published children’s picture books in the Sir Chocolate books series for children aged 2 to 9 years old (co-authored with my son, Michael Cheadle), one published middle grade book in the Silly Willy series and one published preteen/young adult fictionalised biography about my mother’s life as a young girl growing up in an English town in Suffolk during World War II called While the Bombs Fell (co-authored with my mother, Elsie Hancy Eaton). All of my children’s book are written under Robbie Cheadle and are published by TSL Publications.
I have recently branched into adult and young adult horror and supernatural writing and, in order to clearly differential my children’s books from my adult writing, I plan to publish these books under Roberta Eaton Cheadle. My first supernatural book published in that name, Through the Nethergate, is now available.
I have two short stories in the horror/supernatural genre included in Dark Visions, a collection of 34 short stories by 27 different authors and edited by award winning author, Dan Alatorre. I also have three short stories in Death Among Us, a collection of short murder mystery stories by 10 different authors and edited by Stephen Bentley. These short stories are all published under Robbie Cheadle.
I have recently published a book of poetry called Open a new door, with fellow South African poet, Kim Blades.
Find Robbie Cheadle
Blog: https://bakeandwrite.co.za/
Blog: robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com
Goodreads: Robbie Cheadle – Goodreads
Twitter: BakeandWrite
Instagram: Robbie Cheadle – Instagram
Facebook: Sir Chocolate Books
***Just a note here, since Robbie is so modest. She has five stories of dark fiction coming out in anthologies this month. “The Siren Witch”, “A Death Without Honour”, and “The Path to Atonement” will appear in Dan Alatorre’s Nightmareland horror anthology, and “Missed Signs” and “The Last of the Lavender” will be featured in the WordCrafter paranormal anthology, Whispers in the Dark.
Want to be sure not to miss any of Robbie’s “Growing Bookworms” segments? Subscribe to Writing to be Read for e-mail notifications whenever new content is posted or follow WtbR on WordPress.
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“Chatting with the Pros”: Interview with award winning horror author Paul Kane
Posted: October 7, 2019 Filed under: Books, Chatting with the Pros, Dark Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Interview, Writing | Tags: Arcana, Author Interview, Chatting with the Pros, Dark fiction, horror, Paul Kane, Writing to be Read 3 Comments
This month as we explore the darkness of horror and dark fiction, we have a special treat. This month I have for you, not one, but two “Chatting with the Pros” author guests, which is why this segment is posting on the first Monday rather than the usual third Monday spot.
For today, I have the pleasure of interviewing an award winning, bestselling author of over ninety books, who is also the expert on Clive Barker’s Hellraiser films and his own work has been optioned and adapted for the big and small screen, including for US network prime time television. A former British Fantasy Society Special Publications Editor, he is currently serving as co-chair for the UK chapter of The Horror Writers Association. I’m really excited to present all he has to share. Please help me welcome him now.
Kaye: You began writing comics as a boy. Are there aspects of those comic book characters that can still be seen in your writing today?
Paul: I just drew them first, copying the kinds of comics my dad used to buy me – but it was definitely a way of sorting out in my head how story worked. Later on, I’d write dialogue and action for them as well, so that they looked more like proper comic books, and I’d show them to friends and family. It wasn’t until years later that I learned how to write actual comic scripts, but even then I sketched out the panels beforehand so I could work out what needed to go on the page and where. As for characters, I think that was certainly where I started to create and build characters – as well as making up stories for my toys and acting them out like little films. By my teens, though, I was writing prose and emulating the kinds of books I’d read as well, so I think that was when I learned how to flesh out and develop characters. I still love writing in a comic book style, yes, which is something I did for a story of mine called ‘The Return of Mortis-Man’ in the collection Death. I had such fun writing that, creating my very own horror superhero, and I’m planning on doing a couple more featuring that character.
Kaye: What do you think is the single most important element in a horror story?
Paul: That’s a tough one. I think the single most important element in any story, for any genre, is to tell the best tale you can. That’s your responsibility as a writer – and I take it very seriously. Make sure the characters are there first and people will care about them, because if you don’t do that nobody will bat an eyelid if something horrible happens to them. Make sure the journey they’re on is credible, even if things are happening to those people that are totally out there. For example, in the latest short horror novel I wrote for PS Publishing – The Storm, out in 2020 – I had to make sure the bunch of characters were living and breathing, had their own problems and histories, so that when monsters attack you’re right there with them in the thick of it. You care if someone gets injured or loses a loved one. You have to totally understand their motivations for doing what they do and acting the way they act. If you don’t have that then bad things are simply happening to cardboard cut-outs you couldn’t care less about.
Kaye: What was the most fun interview you’ve ever done? Why?
Paul: You mean an interview I’ve conducted with someone myself? We once interviewed George A. Romero for a magazine and went back to his hotel room, where he regaled us with stories about making the Living Dead movies and his career in general, whilst drinking copious amounts of rum. That was a surreal afternoon, a kind of ‘pinch me’ moment. In terms of live interviews, probably Clive Barker on stage at FantasyCon 2006 – which I did in front of an audience of about 600. That was nerve-wracking, but Clive – lovely as he always is – really put me at my ease and we had a whale of a time. I did a smaller, more intimate interview with he and Simon Bamford – Butterball from the Hellraiser movies and Ohnaka from Nightbreed – later on that day and that was such fun! There were about 30 or 40 people in the room for that and we were able to chat a bit more freely about their careers. In terms of myself being interviewed, then probably my times on Nicholas Vince’s Chattering show. We did one at Christmas once and the guests were me, the Soska sisters, Barbie Wilde, Ashley Thorpe, and Tim Dry. That was a terrific experience, very funny. It’s still online somewhere if you want to track it down.
Kaye: What is your biggest challenge in writing dark works of horror?
Paul: Biggest challenge? Probably nothing to do with the actual writing of dark fiction, but rather getting published in the first place and building a good reputation over the years. It takes a lot of time and effort, but is totally worth it. I was lucky enough to discover the small presses back in the ’90s, who were willing to take chances with who and what they published, and that got me a foot in the door. Organisations like The British Fantasy Society and the Horror Writers Association were also vital in terms of meeting creative people who are into the same things, are on the same page, so to speak. I’ve made so many good friends going to events organised by places like that, and been given so much good advice. I even met my wife, Marie O’Regan – a very talented writer and editor herself – at an FCon in 2003! And now we’re paying it forward, of course, by organising a StokerCon for next year with Guests such as Grady Hendrix, Gillian Redfearn, Kim Newman and Mick Garris – so people can do the same. You can find out all about that one at https://stokercon-uk.com
Kaye: Is there anything unique or unusual about your writing process?
Paul: I’m not really sure, because it’s not something I tend to talk about that much with other writers. I try to work office hours, which comes from my background in journalism I think, but that’s not always possible if I’m on multiple deadlines. Summer 2018, for instance, I was writing a novel in the daytime and then editing an anthology in the evenings, which got pretty gruelling. It’s a weird kind of process, because I go into this fugue state and then come out of it having written 1000 words or whatever, not really quite understanding how I did it. When I’m writing prose I try to do 1000 words before lunch, then a couple more afterwards, to make about 3000 in total. Over this last summer, though, I was managing 4000 words a day, which was taking its toll a bit, but I got my novel done in time.
Kaye: What’s your favorite time of day to write? Why?
Paul: Probably in the afternoon, because I’ll know I’ve got some words under my belt – hopefully – in the morning, so I have that fallback. And by then I’ll have built up a head of steam and it should just be a matter of continuing on in that vein. Sometimes things crop up, like I might have to write a review or something, and that throws you out of what you were doing for a little while – but at the same time is nice and stops you getting into a rut.
Kaye: How do you get into your villain’s head deep enough to transform the words on the page into a visual image for the reader?
Paul: I love writing villains personally, because it gives you a chance to do and say things you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to in life – unless you were an actual villain, of course! A lot of villains I’ve written don’t care what people think, so they can be brutally honest, which is somewhat liberating. The flip side of that is, if they’re doing really terrible things to folks you have to distance yourself for the sake of your sanity. My character Lucas Peck in Before was a nasty piece of work and I found myself wincing at some of the stuff he did, but it was also for the good of the story and you found out why he was the way he was by the end of the novel – rightly or wrongly. The Infinity was the opposite: he was all about the language and just whispering in people’s ears. Messing with them essentially, and that was fun to write.
Kaye: What are your secrets for creating intricate, detailed story lines?
Paul: I plan. A lot. Always have done, I’ve always kept notes on stories and novels, done my research and outlines. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to stick rigidly to those plans and if something comes up that sends the story in a different direction which makes it better, you go with it. But it does means you have a kind of safety net, a rough map to follow. I don’t think I’d be able to even start writing without that, it would send me loopy. I’m plotting and researching quite a bit at the moment for the crime novels I’m writing as PL Kane for HQ Digital/HarperCollins. They’re not something you can just wing, so I do months of prep before even writing one word. You’ll see what I mean when you read the first one, Her Last Secret, which comes out in January 2020 and has just gone up for pre-order (po.st/herlastsecret)
Kaye: What techniques do you use to build or maintain suspense?
Paul: I’m never really sure whether a suspense scene has worked or not until I read it back, and even then I’m not 100% certain. I try to work through a scene like that as if I was in there with the characters, like a chase scene I just wrote in which my main protagonist was trying to hide from the bad guy. Will they catch them? If they hide, will it be a good hiding place? That kind of thing. But you also can’t lose sight of the fact you’re in charge of what these people are doing and can direct matters for maximum suspense. There was something Hitchcock once said I think, and I’m paraphrasing here and might get it wrong… But he said if you show a character finding a ticking bomb under the table they’re sitting at, there’s not as much suspense as showing the audience there’s a bomb and the main character has no idea. So, you might show the stalker getting closer and the victim not knowing a thing about it – or they might even know the person, but not be aware of their tendencies. If the reader or audience know they’re evil but the victim doesn’t, that makes for some great suspense.
Kaye: You are an expert on the Hellraiser films, by Clive Barker, and their themes, and in fact you wrote a book on them, The Hellraiser Films and Their Legacy. Can you tell me something about Pinhead that the average fan may not know?
Paul: I’m not sure there’s much left that fans don’t know. Clive told me once on the phone that Pinhead came to him in a dream, I’m not sure how widely known that is. I mean, there were lots of different factors that went into the making of that character… Pinhead in the original novella The Hellbound Heart is described as being quite effeminate, which was something we brought back when I adapted it into an audio drama for Bafflegab (https://shop.bafflegab.co.uk/album/the-hellbound-heart). Then when the film was made you had people like effects genius Bob Keen coming up with a certain look, and Doug Bradley’s performance. But, yes, he came to Clive to begin with in a dream. It’s like Clive’s been telling me for years, “Write your dreams, Paul. Write your dreams.”
Kaye: Which of your books would you most like to see become a film? Why?
Paul: Well, one of my stories – a novelette called ‘Men of the Cloth’ – has actually just been turned into a movie called The Colour of Madness by Loose Canon/Hydra Films, directed by Andy Collier and Toor Mian, and starring Barbara Crampton from Re-Animator – so all that’s rather exciting! It’s a Lovecraftian, folk horror deal and should appeal hugely to horror fans.
My Hooded Man post-apocalyptic novels for Rebellion/Abaddon were almost filmed a couple of times, and I would still love to see those made because they’re quite close to my heart – I only live about twenty minutes away from Sherwood Forest, and was taken there every bank holiday when I was a kid. I also think Before would make a cracking TV show along the lines of American Gods, because its scope is so massive. It’s part road movie adventure, part historical drama, part horror, all about past lives. People often tell me they’d like to see my Hellraiser novel Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell turned into a movie, but the rights for that would be a nightmare. Plus the budget would be astronomical!
Kaye: You’re a pretty prolific writer. In the first half of 2019, you published The Controllers, The Dead, Exit Wounds and White Shadows, as well as a Robin of Sherwood novel, The Red Lord. Can you tell me about these latest releases?
Paul: Absolutely! The Controllers was published by Luna Press, and gathers together all of my stories featuring those characters from the whole of my career, and includes a couple of new ones – not to mention scans of handwritten tales, a gallery where artists offer their interpretations of The Controllers and an introduction by Richard Christian Matheson.
The Dead is my third mini-collection for the Black Shuck Shadows series, and gathers together three interlinking zombie stories, the first of which was adapted for TV back in 2008 as New Year’s Day by Lionsgate and shown on primetime US TV as an episode of the show Fear Itself.
Exit Wounds is a mass market crime anthology from Titan edited by myself and Marie and features the cream of the crop: names such as Dean Koontz, Val McDermid, Dennis Lehane, Mark Billingham, John Connolly, Alex Gray… the list goes on. It was recently given a starred review in Publishers Weekly and even favourably reviewed in The Times, so we were incredibly happy about that.
White Shadows is a collection of my dark YA fiction as PB Kane, including the short novel The Rainbow Man and the prequel to that, ‘The Rainbow Coat’. Published by Things in the Well, this was designed to be read by the young and the young at heart alike. The Red Lord is a prose adaptation of my own audio drama for Spiteful Puppet/ITV, which allowed me to expand on a few ideas I had to leave out of the original. I’ve been a fan of the RoS series since it aired, and indeed it inspired so much of my own Hooded Man saga, so it’s a bit of a dream come true this one. That sold out of its print run incredibly quickly, but is still available as an ebook.
Kaye: You also released Arcana through Wordfire Press this year. It has an interesting alternative world where magic is real, but forbidden. Can you talk a little about that book?
Paul: I loved writing Arcana, which one reviewer quite aptly described as ‘Harry Potter vs The Sweeney’. It’s set in an alternate universe where the witch hunts of old never died out and real magic exists. The people who practise this are hunted and imprisoned, tortured, then, more often than not, horribly executed. The division of the police that do this are called Magick Enforcement Officers, or M-Forcers, and we follow one young recruit Callum McGuire as he begins to realise something is terribly wrong with this regime; that the people who are being hunted aren’t what the government say they are. It’s all tied in with a prophecy one magic group – Arcana – have about a hero who will save them all. I was delighted with the way this one was received, and the audio of it has actually just been released on Audible so go and check that out.
Kaye: Describe yourself in three words.
Paul: Hard-working. Loyal. Curious.
Kaye: What’s next for Paul Kane? What do your readers have to look forward to in the future?
Paul: As I say, I’ve signed with HQ/Harper who are bringing out three thrillers under the PL Kane name, starting in January 2020. I’ve just finished the first draft of the second one which will be out a bit later that same year. Marie and I are running StokerCon UK as mentioned, so that’s taking up a lot of time as well at the moment.
There are a few collections coming out in the near future: a Body Horror one from Black Shuck called Traumas; a collection of my ‘Order of the Shadows’ tales called Darkness and Shadows from Shadowridge, introduced by MR ‘The Girl With All The Gifts’ Carey; and a more general one that gathers together my fiction from the last few years called Tempting Fate. Then there’s The Storm from PS, introduced by Rio Youers – a proper ‘creature feature’ of a novel – and I’ve just signed on the dotted line for a post-apocalyptic novella from Silver Shamrock Press.
The Colour of Madness should also be out next year, plus The Torturer – a short horror film I wrote, directed by Joe Manco, starring Paul T. Taylor who was Pinhead in Hellraiser Judgment and Lawrence Varnado from Sin City 2 – and a supernatural drama called Presence, directed by Dave Morgan of DLM Media. Then there’s more comics work, hopefully a theatre production… Plenty to keep me busy and hopefully readers and audiences entertained.
I want to thank Paul for sharing with us today. It has been a pleasure to get a glimpse into Kane and his books on his Shadow Writer website, or visit his Amazon Author page.
As I mentioned at the start of this post, this was a bonus “Chatting with the Pros”, because we have a second author guest who I will interview in the regular “Chatting with the Pros” spot on the third Monday, October 21st. My second CwtP author guest will be bestselling horror and dark fiction author Jeffrey J. Mariotte. You will also find a double review featuring Paul Kane’s Arcana and Jeffrey. J. Mariotte’s Cold Black Hearts. I do hope you all will join me as we explore the darkness together.
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Jeff’s Pep Talk: The Long-Term Effects of Rejection – No is Never the Final Answer
Posted: October 6, 2019 Filed under: Pep Talk, Publishing, Self-Publishing, Writing, Writing Inspiration, Writing Tips | Tags: Jeff's Pep Talk, Rejection, Writing, writing advice, Writing Tips, Writing to be Read Leave a comment
The Long-Term Effects of Rejection – No is Never the Final Answer
By Jeff Bowles
Every month, science fiction and horror writer Jeff Bowles offers advice to new and aspiring authors. Nobody ever said this writing thing would be easy. This is your pep talk.
To begin with, this article is written with the upstart in mind. The midnight worker, the weekend toiler, the writer who’s still slaving away in obscurity, penning story after story, unpublished novel after unpublished novel, and for whom the word ‘rejection’ has become a special kind of poison.
When I seriously started writing almost fifteen years ago–and by “seriously” I mean “cared enough to finish a single story and try to publish it”–I discovered pretty quickly that receiving rejections was almost as common as losing at a rigged carnival game. I couldn’t figure out why my writing wasn’t good enough, in what areas it was deficient, and to tell you the truth, it would be several years until such things were even remotely clear to me. Regardless, the absolute worst part of it all was receiving the rejections themselves, because I’m kind of a sensitive guy, and damn, they really tended to bruise the old ego.
Writers vary pretty wildly in how we respond to rejection. Some of us never seem fazed by it. Regardless of how often, how impersonal, and how heavy a solid “no” is, these guys seem to take it all in stride. I’ve never been able to tell if the impressive shrug of their shoulders is a put-on, but I do know one thing for certain: I cannot count myself amongst them. When I got rejections, I’d mope and whine and pout for hours or even days. Just ask my wife, who was my new girlfriend at the time. I’d turn into a real bear, and it was because it hurt so much. Like I said, sensitive guy. Plus, no one could get through to me about one very crucial thing: this is the way it’s supposed to be.
If you’re like me, and you tend to take rejection hard—or even if you’re not like me, and moving on to the next story submission is the easiest thing in the world—might I recommend a little tried and true advice. Accept your rejection phase as a given, and if you can go just one more country mile with me, learn to welcome it as a friend. Your rejection phase is helping to make you the writer you’ve always wanted to be. Your rejection phase is purifying your desire to write, and in so doing, allowing you to really decide if a writing career is what you want.
Because if it is, no amount of rejection will ever dissuade you. I thought I’d quit a million times. Now I realize there is no quit. No is never the final answer. And anyone who’s been publishing work for years and years will tell you rejection doesn’t end. Sure, you’re likely to receive less and less of it as you progress, but it’s not the kind of thing that disappears entirely. I know it hurts. Trust me, I’m with you on that one. But unless you plan on going all-indie, it really is a necessary part of your growth as a writer. Kind of a raw deal, I suppose. But then again, nobody ever climbs Mount Everest because it’s easy.
Now a brief word on indie publishing. A lot of older writers—and I don’t necessarily mean older in years, but rather older in experience level or maybe in their stance on traditional publishing—tend to believe that self-publishing inherently makes for worse writers. The idea being, of course, that without the resistance provided by steady rejection, a writer can never become all he or she is meant to become. I came up this way. I’d published dozens of times before I ever self-published on Amazon. The thing is, I don’t necessarily find it to be the case.
Sure, there is a lot of disposable material indie-published on the internet. And yes, I also believe adversity makes us better. But a writer can pick up all sorts of lessons and professional techniques in all sorts of different ways. Every time an indie author publishes something online and gets a few bad reviews, it’s not entirely unlike receiving a standard form rejection. In other words, the negative reinforcement can still become a positive.
All of this might lead someone to ask, what are the long-term effects of rejection? Well, this can go one of two ways. The majority of people who try their hand at writing will never even finish a single manuscript. Statistically, that is absolutely the case. Of those who finish, few will ever submit their work for publication. Now, those who do submit their work (or as the case may be, self-publish it) are likely to meet up with a little adversity. I’d say 90% of them will cut and run as soon as rejection gets too much to bear. But that remaining 10% will soldier on, and they’ll likely receive quite a bit more rejection in the months and years ahead. Is there a long-term legacy of rejection? Yes, there is, but it’s seldom a negative one. I think you’ll find one day that you treasure all those formal beat-downs you received.
Here’s what I would say. No matter how you ply your craft, regardless of whether you choose the path of the traditional publisher or the indie upstart, continuous work, practice, blood, sweat, and tears, are the only things that will make you better. Rejection is at times the name of the game, true enough, but it never has to be the final word on anything. Right?
Right.
Until next time, everybody!
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“Arcana” & “Cold Black Hearts”: Two different flavors of horror
Posted: October 4, 2019 Filed under: Alternate Worlds, Book Review, Books, Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Fiction, Hooks, Horror, Post-Apocalyptic, Writing | Tags: Alternate World, Arcana, Book Reviews, Cold Black Hearts, Dark Fantasy, Dark fiction, Hooks, horror, Jeffrey J. Mariotte, Paranormal, Paul Kane, Story beginnings, Writing to be Read 1 Comment
I recently had the pleasure of reviewing two horror novels written by this month’s author guests; Arcana, by Paul Kane and Cold Black Hearts, by Jeffrey J. Mariotte. I found it interesting that these two authors chose one or two lines that were so similar to begin these very different horror stories. Both beginnings are designed to grab the reader and reel them in, and in both stories, it worked. The hook was instantly set.
Kane begins Arcana with,
“They were all going to die.
But it was for the cause, and they were not only glad to do it – they felt compelled to do it.”
Mariotte starts Cold Black Hearts like this;
“They were dead, all of them dead, and so was she.”
Both authors bring us into the story in the middle of the action at the point of impending death. We don’t know what is happening yet, but we know the speaker in each case is about to die. How does anyone walk away from that without reading more?
Both Arcana and Cold Black Hearts are horrific stories of evil and death, but they each present horror stories of distinctive and different flavors. Although each presents the battle of good versus evil, the resulting stories are very different, yet each has the ability to captivate their audience and satisfy whatever it is inside of us that makes horror such an appealing genre to us.
Arcana, by Paul Kane takes place in an alternate universe with a future where magick is very real and has survived through the Arcana culture, despite repeated efforts to exterminate them from the planet. It’s a world where torture is still used to extract confessions from those suspected of using the the ancient arts, and Callum McGuire is an orphan who bears a hatred for the magick communities responsible for the terrorist attack that left him alone, to be raised in an orphanage with a brutal matron. As a young M-forcer, dedicated to stopping Arcana after a recent series of terrorist attacks carried out by the group. The viciousness and brutality against Arcana is broadly directed, and as Callum watches innocent children fall prey to it, his own morality tells him that something isn’t right. When he guesses that his friend and neighbor is secretly Arcana, he is swept into the Arcana culture as he tries to protect her from being apprehended by his fellow M-forcers. This tale is cleverly crafted to let the story unfold in a series of discoveries which lead Callum to think that things are not the way he’d been lead to believe, even as more terrorist attacks take place, and his friends in Aracana try to convince him that he is the savior of their prophecy. Savior or destroyer? The power is in Callum’s hands and only he can decide.
Arcana takes readers on a hero’s journey beyond death and back in a world where anything is possible. That, my friends, can be a very scary journey. I give it five quills.
In Cold Black Hearts, by Jeffrey J. Mariotte, evil stirs the ancient legends into reality. When Annie O’Brian is caught in a bust gone bad and the resulting explosion, she loses both her hearing and her job, but she gains an uncanny sense of empathy for the people around her. So, there’s nothing to stop her from taking a job investigating a four year old murder where the original investigation was botched, and working to free the convicted man, even though he gives her the creeps and is probably guilty of numerous crimes, if not this one. Her investigation uncovers not only the evidence needed to free Johnny Ortega from prison, but also evidence that there is something much more sinister going on in Hildalgo County than a simple cover-up, but when Annie manages to put all the pieces together and tries to stop the return of an ancient demon, it could cost her her life, or worse.
Filled with sacrifice and betrayal, Cold Black Hearts will chill you to the core of your soul. Lots of unexpected twists and turns to this story. I give it four quills.
Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.
