Latest / Mythmakers / Alice Worth Series and Writing Urban Fantasy - Part 1

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Alice Worth Series and Writing Urban Fantasy - Part 1 · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
• 0:12
  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding. I'm
• 0:19
  an author but also a director of the Centre. And today I am joined by a special guest
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  from America, Lisa Edmonds, who is well best known to me for her Alice Worth series.
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  Now before we talk about that, Lisa, perhaps you might want to take us on your own personal
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  story of your journey to becoming an author. What happened before to get you to this point?
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  Well both my parents were librarians so I'll start with that and when both your parents
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  are librarians you grow up in libraries, you read a ton. So from a very young age my
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  dad was also very nerdy so I grew up watching reruns of the original Star Trek. So I grew
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  up on science fiction and fantasy and mysteries. Started with Nancy Drew when I was little and
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  then in my teen years I kind of graduated to cozy mysteries and hard-boiled detective
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  fiction. And I especially really loved private investigator but I also read a lot of police
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  procedurals like Ed McBain. So I was reading a lot of Sue Grafton who wrote the Alphabet
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  Mysteries. I know that's a little bit out of the purview of MythMakers but and Sarah
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  Perrettsky who wrote the V.I. Worshawski books. There was a movie made of that. So I just
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  kind of read a lot of genre fiction. I kind of envisioned myself writing really science
• 1:59
  fiction. So it was a bit of a surprise that I started writing urban fantasy but I discovered
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  the genre through Kim Harrison's books, the Rachel Morgan, Hollywood's books and it
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  was sort of like a gateway drug. After that I just started reading every urban fantasy series
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  I could get my hands on. And it was like the perfect melding of the science fiction,
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  the fantasy and the mysteries because every book in the urban fantasy tends to have some
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  kind of mystery to solve. What kind of creature is that who's causing all this disruption.
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  And then you have these wonderful characters that the typical urban fantasy heroine has
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  a lot of snark. She tends to be a self-rescuing princess which is also a great, you know, creates
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  great storylines and I just love imagination so I love the world building. So all that kind
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  of came together and a couple of years ago, I guess well, it's been more than a couple
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  of years ago now but back in about 2015 I thought, you know, well, maybe I could try my
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  hand at this. So I, you know, developed a character and a world and, you know, that's how
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  it all got started. Did your journey on the way include the JD Rob stories because they
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  were one of my entry ways into that kind of sci-fi police procedural. I've been following
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  it all the way because I think she started writing those in the 90s, didn't she?
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  Yeah, it's been a really long time. I'm sure there's no one in series but that was the
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  thing that showed me the way that you could mash up genres of something which was familiar,
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  you know, contemporary police procedures and then, but then put it 50 years in the future.
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  Okay, we're catching up, aren't we? With the historical period she's chosen.
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  Well, and I also really like the Scandinavian sort of psychological thriller mysteries as well.
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  Like the Heningmankel series. Oh gosh, they turned it into a TV series, Kenneth Branagh,
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  and a bunch about it. Like there's just nobody that does that dark, psychological,
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  really twisted mysteries like Norwegian and Swedish and Danish authors. So I feel like my
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  series is like an amalgamation of all of that. Alice is a little, a little bit Kinsey Milhoun,
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  who is Sue Grafton's PI and a little bit via Worshawski, but then also influenced by all the
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  fantasy and all of the mysteries and sort of across all the subgenres, sort of all put together
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  in one body. Yeah, Tolkien had this thing he wrote about the Cauldron of stories, the idea that
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  all these other elements from everything you've read and the traditions of go into this and then
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  you ladle out your own version of it. And then of course, I would say Alice is definitely her own
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  character. You know, she may have had these seeds in her origins, but I love her as the character
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  she's grown to be. So looking at the Aliceworth series, for those who haven't yet read it,
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  and I'm stressing the yet, is in the urban fantasy genre, would you like to give us a little
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  kind of taste of what they will find if they start reading the series? Sure.
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  My particular world is sort of it's very similar. Alice's world is very similar to our own
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  with the addition of supernatural and paranormal creatures and beings. So there are shifters and
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  vampires and ghouls and things like that. And so I like my preference on urban fantasy is
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  like our world, but with these interesting twists, excuse me, I also enjoy urban fantasy that steps
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  much farther away from our own world like ambitious the other series, which is very, very different.
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  So I sort of imagined what would have to change in our world if we suddenly had these creatures
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  walking among us. And so I envisioned like, well, they would have to be like a federal agency
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  dedicated to sort of tracking monitoring and serving as law enforcement, who are set up for
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  interactions with creatures that aren't human, don't think like humans and aren't vulnerable to
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  the same things that we are. And then sort of just sort of grew from there. So Alice herself is
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  a mage. So she has magic. She has what I call natural magic. So air and earth magic as well as
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  a few other abilities that kind of develop throughout the series. And she is a private investigator
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  in my world. A mage private investigator sort of specializes in supernatural and paranormal
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  type mysteries and almost all of her cases involve solving a supernatural related mystery.
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  She has a ghost sidekick. Malcolm, right? His name is Malcolm. He calls himself the comic
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  relief in the partnership. You know, he's a lot of fun. He tends to be a crowd favorite.
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  But in some ways, he's her anchor like he's the one who very much sort of the conscience in some
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  cases, isn't he? He correct. He's doing because Alice had a really not to spoil anything,
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  but she had a very difficult and traumatic childhood and upbringing. And so there are a lot of times
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  where her reactions are very much shaped by her past and Malcolm in some time and a few other
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  characters come in as like her Gemini cricket. And I was sort of like Alice, you know, think about
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  this a little bit. And you see her changing over the course of the books and adjusting and,
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  you know, becoming a little bit more, well, she calls it a little bit more human. You learning how
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  to interact with others and how to love how to love others and care for others and how to let them
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  care and love her, which is a difficult journey for her, you know, considering she didn't really
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  have that growing up. So each book, they're not designed to be read as standalone. Each
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  contains its own story, its own mystery, but there are overarching stories. There's a
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  there's a major antagonist that everything is sort of building up to her dealing with. There's
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  storylines that run throughout each book. So although each book has a self-contained mystery
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  for her to solve because she's a PI, you would want to start with one and then go forward. It's not,
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  you know, not really designed to be read out of order. And she's also in, I wouldn't call it a
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  love triangle. That's the wrong word because there's another side to it, but she's sort of in the
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  middle of pools between a shifter friend, a very close friend, a lover, but also somebody within
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  the vampire community who's very interested in her, but also the major community. So there's
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  three points. It's not really a federal agent, you know, a federal agent as well. Oh, there we go.
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  It's, you know, there's there's definitely a romance angle to it as there is with a lot of
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  urban fantasy, but I, you know, I definitely wanted, I didn't want to get into the love triangle
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  thing too much, but there definitely is a little bit of, what's the word? Like there's a,
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  like she's trying to find the person who like, you know, who completes her, who supports her,
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  who compliments her. That's the word of, like a farmer who compliments her the best.
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  And, you know, there's a lot of power plays going on too, as, you know, as you would expect with
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  any, anytime that you have, you know, you have a, like the vampires, they've been hundreds of
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  years old. They're all about the power. They're all about the, what can somebody do for me? What
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  benefits me? And that's not necessarily the type of partnership relationship that someone like
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  Alice would be interested in. So I think what I was most interested in is exploring power dynamics
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  in personal relationships and, you know, letting Alice sort of figure out what's the healthiest
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  type of relationship to be. Yeah. One trope in urban fantasy and paranormal romance that
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  I'm less of a fan of is the ones where you have a, a real like difference in power and you have
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  one partner asserting that dominance over the other. I mean, I think there's room in any genre
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  for all kinds of, you know, types of relationships, but I definitely wanted to focus on a,
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  more, a healthier type of relationship. So I think that is an exploration of what's a healthy
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  relationship. What's going to be mutually beneficial? What love really is, as opposed to what can
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  this person do for me? How can they advance my, my goals, you know, which isn't to me a healthy
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  relationship? Yeah. And because you've got a long series that you're working on that, for example,
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  the main central relationship with Sean does become more and more important to the readers as you
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  go on. And I found it really gutting in, I think it's shadows where she loses, I think it's not too
• 12:08
  much with spoiler say that she's, Kazoo loses her memory. I think it's in the blurbs. I'm allowed to
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  say that. So it's a reset of her relationship with Sean, but it's absolutely, it's just terrible
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  to see, no, you can't forget all these things you've had, you know, that the reader is really involved
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  in that. I thought that was a very good thing to do to a relationship from a craft point of view
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  in the middle of what I, my otherwise, be, and they lived happily ever after, you know, keep putting
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  the grit in the relationship so that it can move on and become actually even deeper as a result.
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  And they, you know, they have a lot of ups and downs, you know, as they both kind of adjust to
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  the relationship and, you know, Sean has always wanted, and you know, he very much did believe and
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  does believe he wanted an equal. He's not wanting what the rest of the pack wants him to have,
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  which is a very submissive, um, uh, mate partner, you know, who's going to just follow orders. He
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  wanted someone to stand beside him. Um, but that's all well and good in theory until he does get
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  someone who wants to either stand in front of him or stand beside him or stand in front of him.
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  And then he's got to try to figure out, you know, exactly what that means. Um, you know, an Alice
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  isn't ever going to be anybody's, um, you know, she's not going to be bossed around, uh, too. So
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  there's a lot of dynamics there. Um, so you have to put your relate, you know, your, your
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  relationship through some ups and downs and, and uh, because I think that's realistic, you know,
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  I don't know any relationship that's all sunshine and roses, you know, from day one, you're going to
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  run into problems. You're going to run into differences of opinion, um, especially when you have two
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  people who have, you know, or so kind of set in their ways, you know. So above all, I wanted it to be
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  a realistic series. You know, I want my heroin to be relatable, um, and, um, realistic. I want
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  the relationships, the, the mysteries, the drama. It all to feel like all things that make sense,
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  all things that are relatable, even though it's, you know, there's magic and all sorts of other
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  creatures around, like I still want people to read it and feel like, yeah, this is something that
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  would really happen. And just to help people find these books, the title sequence is heart of,
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  so heart of man and so on. And so when I say shadows, I'm referring to the book called
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  Heart of Shadows, just if you're looking, if you're googling it now, that's how to find them.
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  Right. Yeah, sorry, go ahead. I was going to ask you, um, when you write, so I'm now going to
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  actually sort of ask you to think about the process. Do you, you said there's a like a long arc you've
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  been working on? Is this something that you sat down and sketched out? So in a draw, there's
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  the entire plot of the entire series is written down or are you someone who, um, is a discovery
• 15:05
  writer? You may have a vague idea, but you write into the dark. How do you approach it?
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  Ooh, annoying answer, a little of both. I definitely sketched it out because I was planning a long
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  series. Um, the current plan is 12 books. Um, it went from 10 to 12. Um, had to do a little
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  bit of growth because that's the discovery part. Um, you can plan all you want, but characters
• 15:31
  for me are, are living living things. And so they will do and say things that I didn't see coming.
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  And then you have to, you have to work with that. So I definitely sketched out kind of the arc.
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  I have definite plans for like, what's the going to be the mystery going to be in each book?
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  Um, and then how is that going to relate to, um, I kind of have the, I guess three main over,
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  over arching plotlines, you know, the deal, the conflict with the main antagonist, um, Alice's
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  personal development and growth and then her really, her personal relationship.
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  Uh, yeah. So I need to have the, yeah, the family built the route around her is it becomes a kind
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  of story in itself, who, who becomes part of that, the, her, her, made family, not the born family.
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  Right. So the one family is a problem. Yeah. So, um, when you set out, I don't know if you can
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  remember what it was like to think it up, did you start with Alice as your character or did you come
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  come up with a situation and then think who's the character to carry the story?
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  Well, um, it's kind of, it's an interesting, um, and I do remember actually, I remember the moment
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  it happened. Um, in fact, um, I was sitting out on my porch, I was a lovely screen porch over
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  looking at River and I was sitting out there and a sentence popped into my head, um, and it ended
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  up being the first sentence of the blurb of heart of Malice, um, or what would become heart of
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  Malice, which was, um, the first time Moses Murphy's granddaughter killed on his orders, she was six
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  years old. That sentence popped into my head, um, you know, some people say, call it the me,
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  call it a muse, some, I don't, you know, it just, it just, it that sentence fully formed popped
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  into my head. So I actually met Moses before I met Alice, um, because in that sentence, I
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  sort of imagined who he was and then who his granddaughter would be and it sort of, it just grew
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  out of that. I envisioned Alice as the granddaughter and then the whole, the whole setup just sort of
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  grew out of that moment. Um, it was a very magical moment. Absolutely. And also looking at your
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  biography, you have a background in forensic criminology, which seems to me to collect to the
• 17:59
  private eye story, would I be, because there's quite a lot of detail, um, in a fantasy form of like
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  tracing and, um, uncovering crimes, is that something that you've picked up from your reading of
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  real world criminology? Oh, definitely. I mean, I think it comes the, the, the college courses were
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  an outgrowth of my lifelong fascination with mysteries, um, pretend like not just putting the
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  clues together, which I personally find amazing. Um, and Alice is living my dream life as a private
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  investigator. Um, but as an undergrad, I was really seriously interested in pursuing criminal
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  profiling, um, as a career. I would have liked to have gone to work for the FBI, um, and, and done
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  that. And so I took a lot of, um, criminal justice courses, uh, as an undergrad. And of course,
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  I was an English major. So the instructors always thought I had it accidentally enrolled in the
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  wrong class, um, because they would be looking down their rosters and there would be 100 criminal
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  justice majors. And then me, the English major, um, um, but I had, I was lucky enough to take courses
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  with, um, all instructors who were actual former or current law enforcement. And, um, a couple
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  of courses with an actual practicing forensic psychologist, um, whose job it is to go to prisons
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  and secure wards and talk to, talk to serial killers and talk to, you know, all kinds of people.
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  And so I got to absorb all of that real world knowledge, um, through courses like death
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  investigation and serial killers and, um, forensic, our forensic psychology. And, uh, you know,
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  I ended up not going that route professionally, mainly because as a very empathetic person,
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  I thought it will be, it will be too difficult a day in and day out, uh, particularly to interact
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  with, um, you know, family members of people who, you know, who lost their lives. I just thought
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  that would take too much of a toll on me personally. Um, but it remains a real fascination. Um, and so
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  I feel like, um, I definitely want to use that, you know, in the investigations as Alice is not
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  just following physical clues, but trying to figure out motivations and understanding not just the how
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  and the wind, but the why of why people do the things they do because I think that's a fundamental
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  question that we all ask ourselves, um, whenever we read about it in any particular case, um, is
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  why did this happen? Um, what was this person's motivation? So I want that to be, you know, sort of
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  at the forefront of the stories as well. I mean, hopefully most, most people are fortunate enough not to
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  experience this in their own lives. I mean, we all know it's a possibility, but whilst, well, when
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  you don't have it, you can have a certain comfort blanket around you that it happens to other people,
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  whereas you're writing a character to whom it has happened. Do you find it a difficult place to go
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  when you're writing Alice in her traumatic backgrounds? Um, yes. I really do. Um, I struggle
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  particularly during the writing of shadows, I will say, um, because that is, to me, the darkest of
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  the books, you know, a lot happens to her, a lot happens that kind of, um, you know, calls back to
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  mine, you know, what she went through, you know, during her childhood as she was growing up, um,
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  after her escape, um, and while she's been in hiding, um, not just the darkness of the people that she
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  has to interact with, um, in that book, which are, you know, sort of the, the darkest. Um,
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  but I feel like I, on the one hand, I like, I like tapping into those, those, um, again,
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  it's about relatability, right? And it's a, like, tapping into fears that I think a lot of us have
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  of that feeling of helplessness, that feeling of wanting to help and protect those around us,
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  and not always being able to do that. Um, and I think that's a lot of what Alice has to go through,
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  um, you know, and especially like at the end of part of Malice, you know, that, I won't spoil anything,
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  but, you know, the end of that book carries over into the next book because she's struggling
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  with what she witnessed and, and was a, uh, was a part of, and that's another thing I wanted Alice
• 22:30
  to be in terms of relatability. I, I've read some series where the main character goes through
• 22:35
  really difficult, like she loses someone or she goes through really traumatic event, and then,
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  because she's a strong character, you know, she just goes on as if it doesn't bother her,
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  and that really bugged me because I know that's not how, that's not how we, we, we operate as human
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  beings, like we can't, we don't brush things off that easily. So, you know, when Alice goes through
• 22:57
  something, you know, it's, you can still see the, the ripple effect, not just in that book,
• 23:03
  but even in subsequent books as she's trying to deal with it. Yeah, also, it, also in shadows,
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  you, um, depart from your usual more, um, straightforward timeline, orientated plot structure,
• 23:17
  and you break it up, uh, in order to, I suppose it gets a sense of the disorientation, but also,
• 23:23
  it's a way of telling a really difficult story because you have other moments where it's before,
• 23:29
  this is, you know, the, you don't have it like unrelenting big slab of negativity sitting in the
• 23:35
  middle, which would have been the alternative. Yeah. And, you know, from an artist standpoint,
• 23:41
  you know, that book was a challenge to write, um, because it was, um, the first one I wrote
• 23:47
  where the point of view changes depending on, which switches back and forth between two main
• 23:52
  characters, because really that's, as I was planning out the book, I was like, that's the only
• 23:57
  thing that makes sense to tell the story is to have part of the book told by Sean and part of it
• 24:04
  told by Alice because of what's going on. And then it didn't really work very well when I was
• 24:09
  planning it out to, to tell it simply in a linear timeline, um, because of the things that happen.
• 24:16
  So I felt like the way I put it together made the most sense to me. Um, and, and I tried to be very
• 24:23
  clear with headings and so forth like where we were in the timeline and, you know, who was telling
• 24:30
  the story and, and so forth. I really honestly don't think it would have worked very well if I had
• 24:35
  just told it linearly, um, and only from Alice's point of view. So, you know, it's good,
• 24:42
  as a matter of you want to stretch, you know, you want to stretch, um, yourself from time to time
• 24:47
  and challenge yourself and I'd already written in Sean's head, um, because there's a novellicle
• 24:53
  just for one night that retails part of part of Alice from Sean's point of view. So I wanted to
• 24:59
  kind of continue with that and, um, tell, tell part of that story from Sean's perspective as he's
• 25:06
  also going through the difficulty of, you know, start almost, almost starting over, um, with Alice,
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  um, and, you know, trying to help her and I also felt like his impressions of who she was
• 25:22
  in this particular situation without all those traumatic memories, uh, shaping how she thinks and
• 25:29
  reacts, I wanted to also get that perspective across like how he's reacting to this version of Alice.
• 25:39
  Thank you for listening to part one of this week's podcast. Come back next week to hear part two.
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