Latest / Mythmakers / H.S. Norup: Do Faeries Need a Makeover?

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H.S. Norup: Do Faeries Need a Makeover? · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Are you really buying a car online on auto trader right now?
• 0:03
  Really?
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  At a playground?
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  Yeah, really.
• 0:05
  Look at these listings from dealers.
• 0:07
  Wow!
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  Your search can really get that specific.
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  Really?
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  And you just put in your info and bone.
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  Cars in your budget.
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  Mom!
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  Mom needs a second, honey.
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  You can really have a deliver?
• 0:17
  Really?
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  Or I can pick it up with the dealership.
• 0:19
  Mom!
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  One sec, sweetie!
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  Mommy's buying a car.
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  Mommy's looking!
• 0:23
  I think Kate is walking up the slide.
• 0:25
  Kyle, again, really?
• 0:27
  Auto trader.
• 0:28
  Buy your car online.
• 0:29
  Really?
• 0:34
  Hello and welcome to MythMakers.
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  MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans
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  and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy.
• 0:46
  My name is Julia Golding.
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  I'm the director of the Centre, but also an author.
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  And today I'm doing one of my favourite things to do on this podcast
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  because I'm meeting another author, new to me.
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  And that is Haley not up now.
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  Haley, have I got that right?
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  That's fine, yes.
• 1:06
  Thank you.
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  I think so much for having me.
• 1:09
  Fine sounds like I've got it slightly wrong.
• 1:10
  Haley, Haley, I think you said when we were here.
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  So, Haley, we could start by finding out where you're from
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  because I think you are actually not sitting in the UK as I speak to you.
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  No, I'm in Switzerland.
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  I'm originally from Denmark and I lived there until I was 18.
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  And since then, I've been kind of moving around living in the UK,
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  living in the US, in Switzerland, in Austria, in Singapore,
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  and a couple of times back to Switzerland.
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  And that's where I am now as well.
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  We must have a talk about how all that travel has influenced what you do.
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  But first of all, Haley, why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey to being an author?
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  And perhaps as you tell the story, you might want to say what kind of fantasy books
• 2:02
  you were reading along the way?
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  Yes, so, but I would say I have had a very roundabout way of becoming an author.
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  There was always a religious reader from when it was very little.
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  Fairytales were really important.
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  I read so many handfasteners and of course, but also Grimm's tales, which I love.
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  And I was very much a daydreamer, but I was not writer.
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  I didn't enjoy writing in school, to be honest.
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  And I had no idea becoming an author was an actual possibility.
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  I think we didn't have author visits.
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  I have never seen an author.
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  They didn't seem to be real people to me, so it was just not something I considered at all.
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  Even though I really escaped into books my whole life, I think.
• 3:00
  And so I studied economics, business management, and I had a career in kind of corporate pharmaceutical marketing strategy and things like that.
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  I moved a little bit along the way towards more communication and so on.
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  I started writing in my 30s again.
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  And I think one of the things that made me start writing was that I began to read children's books again.
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  I had a period.
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  I was always a fantasy reader, but I had a period where I certainly wasn't reading children's books.
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  And then I think when his dark materials came out, they kind of sparked my imagination in a new way.
• 3:40
  And I really wanted to try to write as well.
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  And I began several books that never got beyond, let's say, three, four chapters or something that I gave up a year would pass.
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  I would start something new.
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  And it was not until maybe 10, 12 years ago that I finished a project.
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  I finished a third draft of something.
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  And then I spent four, five years learning to write and rewriting that and having a editorial feedback from a consultancy and so on.
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  I'm kind of working on my craft and learning how to write and become a writer.
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  And I queried that manuscript and it got some interest.
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  And then I was lucky enough to me as I was dead in a who's my editor at Pushkin at a conference in Singapore.
• 4:33
  And she read this, this first novel and she liked my writing, but didn't kind of like the story, but she gave me a very, very kind and encouraging rejection.
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  And asked me to send her the next thing I wrote.
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  And that was then the first book that I had published the missing Barbigasi, which is about our time else.
• 4:57
  So what I love about the way you described all that is how positive you were in your response to rejection, which is a part of an author's life.
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  Anything you write will be accepted and the same book can be rejected by, you know, 20 publishers before one person takes it on.
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  And you phrase that as a very positive experience.
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  And I suppose that I don't think it was always positives when you get a reduction letter.
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  It's not positive, but I think for me, I mean, I had studied at university for five years.
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  And I knew I had worked for a couple of years in the company where I was working until I was really good at what I was doing.
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  So when I started taking my writing seriously, and I think that was around 2010.
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  I said to myself, OK, seven years. I mean, I will give this seven years. I will do everything I can.
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  And I know I'm not going to be picked up by anyone in the first couple of years because I need to learn this.
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  This is a craft as well as something inspired and creative.
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  But I need to learn the craft first. And I always have this long time perspective, I think.
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  And that helped me when, kind of like after four years, when I started querying and I got rejected that I could say to myself, well, I'm just not there yet.
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  I need to work some more on this.
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  And the choice of seven years does feel like you've been influenced by your fairy tales because a seven years.
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  It sounds like something a hero would do. I could do seven years of traveling on the quest.
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  Excellent.
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  So you mentioned his dark materials as part of what reignited your imagination in your 30s.
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  But what were you reading as a younger person in your sort of childhood and teen years that inspired you?
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  So I think, I mean, one of the very clear inspirations for me was the lion, the witch and the wardrobe, which I read.
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  I don't even know when I read it, but the animated film, the old animated film was always shown in Denmark on boxing day.
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  And I watched that. This was like my highlight of kind of Christmas to watch that film. And I just loved it and read it later on and read all the non year books later on.
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  So, so that that was really one of my early favorites. And then as riddling rooms books, which I think being from Denmark, I probably read earlier than many other people.
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  And especially her book, the brothers and heart.
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  Which not many people in the UK know it is, it is translated.
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  But it's this this story about two brothers.
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  The younger one is ill, the older one is like a real hero.
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  And he saves his younger brother and dies in like the first chapter.
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  And then the younger brother dies as well, and they meet in this after world life, which is not all that it seems.
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  It's not kind of a rosy afterlife, but they're dragons and evil, kind of an evil ruler there.
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  And it's this absolute magical world that they come to through death. So an afterlife to see.
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  And I got that book for my ninth birthday, and I don't know how many times I read it. I that was another absolute favorite.
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  It's funny.
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  Michael End, that just going back to what you were saying about line on the which in the wardrobe brought back a memory to me about.
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  It is one of the first books that I heard somebody else talk about with excitement.
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  Because where I lived in a sort of suburban part of London in the back garden, we had a fence along the middle and I must have been very small at the time.
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  But I remember the little girl next door who was old enough to be our babysitter talking to me through the fence about this amazing story she had read.
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  It had a witch, a white witch and a lion and you went through a wardrobe.
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  I just remember how excited she was about it telling me way before I could have read it about it. It's like a secret.
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  And that's what's so wonderful about finding a book you love is it becomes your secret doesn't it that you can share with other people.
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  Did you know how good this book was and try this as though you're passing on a kind of magical power almost.
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  That's what I love about those sorts of reads when you're a child, which really sort of take over.
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  So the one you were talking about the Astrid Lundgren book is that the brothers, what was the second part of that the brothers lion heart the brothers lion heart.
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  There we are. So everybody that's one to look up.
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  It was very controversial actually it came out I think in the.
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  I don't know when it came out early 70s was something and it was even discussed in the Swedish parliament.
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  They considered banning it because it the sort of promote suicide as it was this fantasy world beyond life.
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  So it was quite an interesting book as well from a small scholarly perspective perhaps.
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  Okay, so obviously read read read with that knowledge in advance, but yes.
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  So the book that I've read of yours, which is your latest book is called into the fairy hill.
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  Which for those who watch look at this on YouTube you can see the lovely cover here, which you like to sort of give us your little plot summary so people know the kind of book and the kind of audience you're expecting for this story.
• 10:57
  So it's a middle grade novel so for nine to 12 year olds and.
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  It's the story of a 12 year old boy called Alfred is very his root root less and it doesn't feel he belong anywhere in the world and.
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  Partly that because he's been moving around his whole life following his dad where his dad has been working and the story starts when he comes to stay at his grandmother's cottage.
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  Which is in this very rural location right on the edge of something that's called the fairy hill.
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  And early on when he's there he discovers these vicious creatures that are terrorizing his grandmother and kind of ruining her flowers and her yarn and things and he's quite overwhelmed with these the strangeness and also the nature because he's mainly been living in cities.
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  And and then he meets a saga and it's a neighboring girl a 12 year old girl as well and she's an activist and kind of an equal warrior and.
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  She has trees bright companion that follows her round and she sweeps him up in this quest she has to stop the local of protect the local nature from a motorway tunnel that's planned through this fairy hill and Alfred's father is actually the project manager kind of on on this project so.
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  There's a conflict clear conflict there, but the fairies are also very much against this project and they have their own way of dealing with people deserve their peace and and so as Alfred and saga are fighting against the motorway to know and drawn ever closer to this fairy world and the fairy creature and.
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  Alfred begins to uncover some secrets about his own heritage and and solve some mysteries that are around his own family and and it's very much a story about I would say family and friendship and.
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  Yeah, where you belong and and maybe being proud of who you actually are accepting all the parts of yourself I would say yeah yeah so i'm very drawn to some of the subject matter that you've used as well because I my first children's fantasy series was called the companions cortex where I dramatized a sort of environmental clash.
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  As part of the story what it was the it was the story I think it's.
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  You know clearly digging in a fairy hill is not going to go well.
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  Now you can see and so.
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  The actual place isn't specified is it but you have a very strong sense of topography you know like where things are in relation to each each other do you have.
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  Secretly in your mind a real place or is it just existing as a sort of exemplar world for you to do your story and what what's going on there you've got a lot of.
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  It's kind of a mix i would say it's a mix of different places.
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  That i've been and places that i've imagined so it's it's not an entire.
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  And this is a very lovely map compared to like the first map that I drew up the place but that's nice when you get published and they look straighters yeah it's right that's not let's give a shout out for illustrators yes but there's obviously the.
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  The fairy law which comes from many nations differently expressed it did you have one which was your sort of home fairy law that you were following like in Ireland or.
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  Shakespeare or something or were you something from hands christian Anderson or is it an amalgam of all those different things it is really an amalgam i'm i'm a magpie and I have stolen from.
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  British Isles fairy law from Scandinavian fairy law from German fairy law from Shakespeare yes and and even from.
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  Paul came and and other authors as well it's it's very much kind of taking everything that I love about fairies and and and and taking that I even had.
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  A YouTube video of someone in Scotland who had who claims to have had his show stolen by little people that inspired part of this as you will know after reading it so yeah.
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  So that's it really stolen from everywhere that's interesting because I thought that that part about that shadow stealing might have come from Peter Pan.
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  Because of course there's the no no okay because you know there's a bit where he comes to get it is in the it's been rolled up and put in a draw somewhere which was his quirky idea oh well that's so interesting that.
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  The actually that I was assuming a source and and it had come from from someone's.
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  Real.
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  The conception of their real experience yes what about how you actually get down to writing you've got all these ideas you've watched your YouTube videos and you've read your fairy tales and all the rest of it and you've got your sketch map what then happens are you a.
• 16:31
  Plana or do you feel your way through the story.
• 16:35
  I very much feel my way through the story I would say I mean I think some stories they need time to steep and this one has really been percolating my mind for a long time I think from all of these different fairies and and fairy law and.
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  And of course I have read different books also before writing it from like Catherine breaks and Diane Perkins have written really excellent books about fairies.
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  But I first I was in a writing workshop in 2016 that I attended and there was this character workshop and we had to enter character and in that workshop I invented this water sprite.
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  Along to see the ocean and lived in the mountains somewhere and I later I wrote actually a story about this water sprite for a children's magazine but I always knew I wanted to explore.
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  This kind of these different types of sprites and elves and fairies and and and have a story where where they work together and it took some time before they found the right one.
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  But other than that I will start with kind of having a character and setting and a first one that is really what I definitely need I also always know the ending of a story and I like to know a couple of maybe major points in the in the middle of the book it's not so much in terms of actual plot I would say I'm very much.
• 18:10
  When I'm planning most of my planning goes into planning the character and and looking at the character how the character will develop and then.
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  Finding out what are the events that will force the character to develop in this direction and and make sure that that they change throughout the story.
• 18:34
  So a lot of work on the character and I also do a lot of work on the setting and so my first two books were actually set in real places one in a real village in the in the Alps and the other in the middle of Singapore.
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  So so very replaces but with the first one with some fantastical elements in the real world and the second one also with a portal to to a kind of a sanity realm.
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  And I really need to go to get to know these places so for those was kind of easy look at real maps go go around take photos of real places and and and kind of know the roots of the characters.
• 19:21
  And for this one I did a lot of forest walks and it was I wrote most of it during the pandemic so I could only walk in the forest.
• 19:30
  Yeah that was quite helpful to write a kind of a nature novel at that time.
• 19:39
  And I am a hobby photographer so I take a lot of photos and I have a lot of photos of places I've traveled to other forests I travel to limestone cabins and underground places and and everything.
• 19:56
  So I always take a lot of photos and I use a lot of photos when I'm writing and to to as kind of springboards for for the set that I'm imagining yeah.
• 20:09
  So yeah so you don't have the experience of your publisher saying we need a breakdown of the book before you've written it because I've had that a couple of times recently and I'm actually more of a feel my way through to a story person but I've had to write basically write the novel before I write it.
• 20:29
  Which is I have written kind of outlines but they don't exactly follow the outlines I don't think they look like again I think they they I don't think they do actually.
• 20:46
  Tiki a book so yes she knows what she's doing but yeah I famous last words about to hand one in where I've deviated slightly and well you know I just had to because that's the way the story went when I was writing it.
• 20:59
  I think it's it's it's freezing imagination not to there's things that suddenly happen when you're writing that that that is unplanned and I think sometimes those are the best bits.
• 21:15
  The only thing I will say to this kind of this kind of way of writing is that there's usually quite a lot for me to do in the second draft because that's about finding the shape of the story and finding out what actually belongs in the story.
• 21:30
  And what needs to be scrapped so so I think the second draft from me I really love revising and and kind of finding the way through this whole kind of mess that that the first draft is once I have an idea how I'm going to get through it but.
• 21:48
  But I like seeing the improvements and how the story takes shape but there is a lot of work and some of my books have really taken a lot of work and a lot of rewriting.
• 22:01
  But I feel that I need the material that first draft that's more loosely based that that that generates and it also enables me to create layers in the story and and kind of take from different parts of what I have.
• 22:20
  Surged onto the page and make that more of a tapestry than than a straight forward kind of narrative.
• 22:29
  It's one of the things we do on our courses we do courses that either you can take a novel through a year with some tutors or a six week intensive course and I always make sure we have tutors who are on both sides of this there are those who plan and those who don't.
• 22:50
  Because different different creative types need different sorts of input but the the lady who is the most planning orientated she always says well I don't have to sit and undo it as much as you do you know once once I've done my plan has been the months on that.
• 23:09
  Then I just write it where to me I just couldn't do it that way I think I feel as though it was I did somehow the writing was already done in somewhere so I have to be much more do the sketch first and then fill it out you know much more like you do.
• 23:27
  But everybody finds a way you know you try to protect another time and you know helps with problems if you think well I need to be planning now you know those things do actually knowing that it's not the only way of doing it I think really helps to.
• 23:43
  So when I was reading so but but I like this kind of I like to have a couple of lighthouses in that I can aim for when I'm when I'm writing and and it's interesting I've always kind of ended up with the ending that I had thought I would I would want so.
• 24:01
  So even though sometimes I might change the route that I got there quite quite a lot in the second draft it's a I always get towards the end point that I had in mind.
• 24:13
  Yes I like the idea of it being called a lighthouse that's a new new version of this that's a very nice image so when I was reading your book I was thinking of.
• 24:25
  Things that we should have felt in this area of using a children's adventure in a kind of traditional.
• 24:33
  Very landscape and it made me think of the wonderful books that were around when I was growing up the darkest rising series by Susan Cooper and Alan Garner who of course is still writing and has just been.
• 24:47
  He was shortlisted for the booker prize this year but his the our service and we're stone of Brissingham and those books and if someone is thinking what's hell is book like I think it's a sort of.
• 25:02
  Slightly younger version of those in the I felt your characters were a year or two younger in terms of their way they relate to each other and so perhaps those books are editing.
• 25:17
  Edging into why a fiction upper end of middle grade and yours are firmly in the middle grade were you aware of these are the books or is that just something that.
• 25:29
  You know you came out came to yourself spontaneously.
• 25:35
  I never read Alan Garner or Susan Cooper I don't even know if they were translated but I have read quite a few of their books I mean I've read Susan Cooper's whole sequence and I really love the darkest rising and and some of the other books as well and I've read the our service and all Alan Garner's news book and.
• 25:59
  I think a few others but but only after I started writing myself so I wouldn't say something that I'm aware of but it's interesting my hungry ghost so my previous book although it takes place in Singapore and tropical heat.
• 26:14
  One reviewer compared it to the the dark is rising and found some similarities between those two books so it can very well be that I'm a little bit in in that direction and and I don't mind that at all.
• 26:30
  No it's it's good.
• 26:33
  I think the difference I would say is that those books have a very specific location so that's maybe why this Singapore based book made that connection using some kind of local legend which is then.
• 26:50
  Explored in in a in a child's adventure I mean I'm also thinking there is the John Maysfield books from early I think it's like the box of delight it's definitely I'm not sure what people there must be a name for this genre and I'm not sure what it is.
• 27:06
  folkloric fantasy maybe it's got that feel to it and because it's not it's not a fairy tale and you spell fairy F A E R I E to differentiate it from kind of the disdified.
• 27:23
  Sweet cute yes very yes really important so that leads me to my next question which is the role of fairies in fantasy and the question I put down here is do they need a makeover well you've sort of done your own makeover and I think.
• 27:39
  fantasy has a lot of fantasies pushing against the kind of fairy flower fairy version of this but tell me how you think about the world of the fairy the world of the fair.
• 27:55
  I'm definitely most attracted to the fairies that are tricky and fearsome and spiteful and kind of interesting and also this kind of wide because I I categorize all of the creatures in my focus as fairies and that's kind of from the.
• 28:14
  do you I don't know if you know the Brian fraud and Alan Lee book of fairies oh wonderful comes there yeah oh it's so beautiful it has the most beautiful illustrations i love you can see them no like this yes everywhere these illustration of fairies and so on.
• 28:36
  Alan Lee is the same Alan Lee as did the concept art for the Peter Jackson films which a lot of our listeners will as Tolkien fans will be well aware of we must put a link to that book in the show notes that people can find it yes and actually my my first version of the Lord of the Rings has his illustrations as well.
• 29:00
  um so that so that particular book emalgamates all of these categories of sprites and brownies and.
• 29:13
  and fairies and areas back to your question I think it is getting fairies are getting a makeover in in middle grade and there's been some wonderful books published in recent years I would say.
• 29:25
  Michelle Harris and 13 treasures series I think it was published maybe 10 years ago the first book something that has but very tricky fairies and there there's been like other land by Louis double and.
• 29:42
  the chime seekers by Ross Montgomery have been they were published while I was editing and and both have also kind of these vicious fairies and also influences from a German fairy law and and so on so.
• 30:01
  So there is a makeover and I think in YA there has been a longer period of kind of dark or fairies.
• 30:10
  When we say a makeover really it's a going back isn't it because I think that the the sweet and cute pretty fairy was something that came up during the Victorian period really with particularly with illustrations for stories and what they thought children should be exposed to.
• 30:31
  and these flower fairies they were a lot of I think books yes I know that they were yeah I had those and I was little they they are wonderful ways of teaching you.
• 30:41
  well about flowers and trees and there's a little poem and a picture of flower fairy describing what a daisies like what a daffodils like and so on I can conjure up the pictures as I'm saying it here to you so it served a purpose as a educational tool for noticing what's in the garden and on your woodland walks.
• 31:06
  But these older version of the the wicked dangerous scary fairies are what has been in the older fairy stories and of course you just have to think of someone like puck.
• 31:23
  That is that kind of fairy the one that heard also milk and mixes up the juice that you put in the eyes of lovers you know it's they're the ones I suppose they were thought of as a way of explaining why things went wrong at home so it wasn't my thought.
• 31:38
  No I think they've always kind of been used to explain different things in nature particularly and and in Denmark we have these kind of little Christmas elves that are also quite tricky unless you give them the the porridge for Christmas or whatever they need and so on so they can also create.
• 31:58
  Create a be mischievous and create problems in the homes and so on so I think there are but other than that you're right we need to go back and back to the original many of the original stories about fairies were a lot darker like the fairy tales were much darker yeah.
• 32:17
  Yeah rims tales were much darker than the disniversion something it's and also of course you mentioned talking in passing but his elves are an attempt to completely rewrite elves.
• 32:28
  Back to the other the more like fair the kind of people who rode out of the fairy hills and changed the world and took people off for captivity for seven years these were not these were not kind and gentle creatures in the landscape though he was trying to make his more.
• 32:49
  Invent a whole kind of new elf.
• 32:53
  And as an original people kind of ideas but he was doing a similar job as you and other writers are doing to the smaller fairy should we say the sprites that level of in our in our height in our height.
• 33:08
  Yes yes yes so we touch briefly already on the importance of maps for your world building but you also seem to have visited places which in so you may have visited a particular street in Singapore or a particular blade in a forest that you use to locate your story so when you're doing that do you literally go with a pen and paper and take notes or is it thinking back from your cat.
• 33:37
  No I will I will when I was walking here doing during the lockdown period I speak notes into my phone about what I could hear what I could kind of smell and and and sense and in addition to taking photos and I've done that quite a lot other for my other books as well kind of getting all of the senses into.
• 34:07
  Into the setting which I think is is really important.
• 34:12
  But I am very visual so I'm very I think and that's why I use photos a lot and maps a lot and so on but I'm aware that I'm visual so I need to bring in all the other senses as well that's a really good point because we do tend to.
• 34:31
  In description people tend to.
• 34:34
  Start with what they see yes.
• 34:37
  And that and that is obviously doesn't speak to everybody because everybody is cited but also when you actually think of your reaction to a place the way you interact with it may be something else like how cold it is how warm it is.
• 34:53
  Well the humidity is like how Lloyd loud the noises are how quiet it is and so you're right one of the top tips are writing is to.
• 35:04
  Step out of close your eyes in that world for a bit and see what then see what happens.
• 35:11
  Yes yes no and I think that all the world builders are amazing and kind of doing that they they take this full rounded view of of the world and the landscape and and and I think I also like this I mean talking is of course the ultimate world builder I would say.
• 35:31
  No one is is is better than him and and more detailed than him and and.
• 35:39
  It's so amazing this how big a world he has created and.
• 35:46
  Well there's so much smaller but I like to have this sense of the landscape that it's more expansive than what.
• 35:55
  What I actually put in the book that the reader get a feeling that that there's a lot more to be explored if they were to enter this world.
• 36:07
  Yeah absolutely and so one of the things I noticed reading your book is how you have places I called them liberal and we were talking before we started recording about what I meant by that so there are spaces in your landscape which belong both to fairy and to the.
• 36:28
  I don't know not the real world our world and.
• 36:32
  Do you feel I mean I think in a way a book is like that a book is a space which when you're sitting reading it you are in our ordinary world but also your brain is somewhere else it's gone somewhere else so I think about the power of those liminal spaces do you find yourself drawn to writing about.
• 36:54
  The places that are changeable and can be one or other you mentioned that you've written a portal fantasy that seems like you know absolutely in this way because a door is.
• 37:07
  And I would say this is also a kind of the interior is also a portal fantasy and I've always been drawn to these books that are set in the kind of borderlands between what's real and fantastical I think like like for instance a line which in the wardrobe this thing that there can be a wardrobe that you could open and you could enter another world is.
• 37:31
  This just has just always been the most amazing thing and I your right books are like that and.
• 37:38
  I wanted to mention another book that I love going up and that's a never ending story don't know if you've read it but that is actually that you go through the book the reader of the book becomes the character in in the story and.
• 37:54
  And I think that has been a huge inspiration as well because there is especially with these liminal spaces that there is an infant from one world to the other that they can there's a course and effect perhaps between between the real world and the fantastical and maybe even the other way around as well I think that is really interesting to explore and and.
• 38:22
  In into the fairy hill with that kind of part of the climate aspect aspect of it is also that when we in the real world destroy nature that kind of also destroys part of the fairy world so that that that is a course and effect that happens.
• 38:40
  Between the worlds but I'm very drawn to all stories that kind of open from the real world and into another world and it is interesting to write that and it's but I would say one of the challenges is then also to invent and create these liminal spaces and create the portal from one place to another in something that.
• 39:10
  feels new and feels a little bit fresh because they are of course a lot of tropes and in this area.
• 39:18
  So I think it's also about what we do when we play particularly as children in make believe play so you give a child a box of dressing up close and go away and when you come back they're in a throne room.
• 39:32
  Or they're in outer space they say right you know this place here is now also this yeah but watching we went on family holiday to a sort of very basic little house in Tuscany so there wasn't much there was no play toys when we had sort of lots of small children with us and.
• 39:53
  Initially the children was saying you know I'm bored you know that that thing and then left alone they organized themselves into taking all the sort of broken bits of garden furniture to build a rocket and off they went on their adventures in the minds it was a bit like watching them turn into.
• 40:12
  You know going up the hill on adventures with the oldest one leading the way and the youngest one you know being looked after at the back and I'm thinking yes that we have this natural instinct don't we particularly when we're in the outdoors.
• 40:26
  To look at a space and think what else can this be who else could live here be a historical idea back in time or a fantasy idea.
• 40:36
  So bring in magic so I think what we're doing as writers in a way is just an adult form of play putting it down in words yeah completely which is children we're just children.
• 40:49
  So another thing sort of the last question I had for you about the fairy hill is about Alfred the main character who's very.
• 40:58
  Relatable child for a number of reasons one of which he has a something which is seen as a sort of mile disability something which he feels the same apart.
• 41:11
  But also he has a sort of superpower as well goes along with this.
• 41:19
  But underlying all this is his sense of not knowing who he is not knowing who he is identity is even to the point of questioning our his parents his parents you know that kind of thing.
• 41:33
  So I was wanting to ask you hello about the role of fiction in helping children frame these questions which I think almost everybody has that thought you know am I.
• 41:44
  It's really my parents or am I you know the things that you thought you think through if you're unlike your brothers and sisters you know how do we all fit together.
• 41:54
  Is that what's going on with him using fantasy as a frame to look at this yeah I think so and I think fiction and especially middle grade fiction is very much about characters finding out who they are and where they belong I think at that age.
• 42:12
  Kid said they're just on the cost but becoming teenagers they are in this transition period from kind of depending entirely on their families and being in the family group to becoming part of friends group and friends becoming more and more important to them.
• 42:32
  And and at the same time they have this growing independence I would say.
• 42:37
  So I think it's a period where it's difficult to balance everything and find out where do I belong where do I belong in my family where do I belong among my friends who am I am so on.
• 42:53
  And I think for kids seeing characters in fiction who struggle with these things is really helpful and gives them a perspective and ultimately can also make them feel better about who they are.
• 43:10
  I hope so I think they will I think that was I will once boil the the twist but just that that is one of the big mysteries in it which is has a satisfactory conclusion shall we say.
• 43:22
  Thank you.
• 43:24
  We have a recurring segment in our podcast there were two things we do one is we decide where is the best place in all the fantasy world for something and also a tip a fantasy tip so.
• 43:36
  Thank you about what would be the appropriate location or or thing to ask you about one of the key locations in fairy hill is a limestone cavern and that got me thinking about caves and their presence in fantasy stories.
• 43:56
  So I wanted you to say where in all the fantasy books that you've read all watched as a film doesn't matter if it's a screen version of this where would you think it'd be best place to be a cave to go caving.
• 44:11
  Well, I think I wouldn't actually want to be a cave a very fascinated but also a little bit scared of being underground and I think when we look at fantasy fiction and sell them anything good underground it's it's often kind of kind of scary places but.
• 44:34
  I think I would go to talking if I were cave and I would probably go to the lonely mountain going to the lonely mountain and see arable hopefully when smug is not there or maybe this is like more yeah but not when the fellowship is there but before long before when it was at the height of its glory days.
• 45:00
  There's also the caves at Helm's deep that gimli discovers during battle but she is one of those times we're talking stops stops for a big one for description of the caves as seen by gimli yeah and he manages to twist legeless his arms says that you know I come I come to fangle with you if you come to the caves with me.
• 45:23
  Yeah so no I think I agree but actually pick that I'm going to have to come up with someone somewhere else.
• 45:31
  Well I suppose pirate caves is one place where you do get the concept of sort of you know caves of treasure so we were talking about Peter Pan earlier but there's a great pirate cave there with the face that looks like a skull.
• 45:48
  Yes you're in so that would be a fun one to visit not very safe but then I suppose as you said caves don't tend to be safe no they don't but I and I have actually I have been to New Zealand when we lived in Singapore and I have visited.
• 46:05
  But also visited the these white some of glowworm caves that have inspired the setting in my book and that is actually where they recorded a lot of the sound for the film some for the underground setting in.
• 46:21
  At least in the Hobbit movies I'm not sure if they did already with the Lord of the Rings movies but they are absolutely magical caves and there's an underground river and you have all of these glowworms hanging down from the ceiling and lighting everything up it's it's a really beautiful place.
• 46:39
  Delightful absolutely lovely little bit of trivia for us all and so finally would you like to give us a fantasy tip something that you'd like to recommend to our listenership.
• 46:52
  Well if it would be a writing tip it can do either you can you can define that as you like.
• 47:02
  I would say for kind of for writing fantasy it's we touched on this earlier but to make the setting and the world as believable as possible.
• 47:17
  It's about bringing all the senses in bringing kind of familiar sense and and and sounds and sites and so on into this fantastical so it can be angered something in something the read already knows.
• 47:34
  And and the same I would say for characters of fantasy characters bring in familiar motivations and characteristics that the readers and for me that that's child readers that they know themselves and kind of bring bring the characters to life for them in giving them something that the reader understands.
• 48:05
  That I think is really key to placing it and I would also say in the kind of books that I write that I set both in the kind of a real world setting and enter fantasy setting.
• 48:20
  It's just extremely important that the reader can't find thought with the real world it has to be really really real and if they're historical elements they they have to be as real as possible because as soon as the real redefine something that doesn't make sense there.
• 48:38
  It automatically makes the fantasy part less believable as well so so that I would say anchor kind of the real world in a very real place.
• 48:52
  So I would say my tip is about reading sideways so if you're writing a book like yours say set in folkloric fantasy world I would probably avoid reading other people who writing in that same area whilst I'm writing it because I'm worried about interference on my antenna.
• 49:12
  Yes, but it's really really good to read sideways so think of like you've had that book of that nonfiction well nonfiction you know what I mean an encyclopedia of various something like that which is or a collection of ballads or a history book and have your research eyes open because I get loads of ideas whilst I'm writing from the things I'm reading adjacent.
• 49:42
  To my project and it keeps it fresh and often if you've got a problem a plot problem you'll find the answer by something else you're reading in a completely different area so that's that's my tip carry on reading but go a bit sideways from the project you're actually working on.
• 50:03
  Yeah, thank you so much hello for joining us and we wish you all the best for the publication well it's is it out now in no second of March so so very soon I've got oh it's a non corrected bound proof so I think mine is quite like the finished item but it's a fantastic book and you've also as you mentioned have written two other fantasy books already the missing Barbagazzi.
• 50:30
  And what was one in Singapore the hungry goes the hungry goes yes so yes it sounds a wonderfully diverse collection of stories that you're building up so thank you so much for joining us.
• 50:44
  Thank you so much for having me.
• 50:46
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• 51:01
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