Latest / Mythmakers / The Curse of the Silvan Oaks: Meet Debut Fantasy Writer, Georgia Channon

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The Curse of the Silvan Oaks: Meet Debut Fantasy Writer, Georgia Channon · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and
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  today I am joined by Georgia Channel. Now Georgia, I believe this is your first book.
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  It's called The Curse of Sylvan Oops, aimed at children, but Georgia will have a lot to tell
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  us about getting a journey to being an author, but first of all welcome to MythMakers.
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  Well thank you so much for having me on and I'm very excited.
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  So Georgia, I noticed from the little press release that I got given with your book that you
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  mentioned of influences like CS Lewis and other authors like that in your background.
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  Do you want to tell us why you've decided to do this dotty thing of being an author and who were
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  the authors that cheered you on your way? Well right from the start I literally
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  adored reading fantasy novels, even the Iniblite and the Magic Far Away tree, the worlds
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  turning on the tree at the top of the tree used to just I found so exciting and I love that
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  feeling that you get the sort of pinpricks of excitement as you go through the portal or whichever
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  of gateway it is. And then I moved on to Lion and Witch that magicians met few. I love those two
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  and obviously the horse and his boy, but and I also Joan Aiken was a great love of mine.
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  I love those books you know World of Willoughby Chase is less sort of fantasy but they are living
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  in a fantasy world because it doesn't exist. It's sort of James the Third made up historical time
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  and I love Midnight is a Place is one of my favourite books. But and then in the part I then also
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  loved EM Nesbit and their different fantasy worlds and the reality that she brought to it although
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  it was very fantastical. There was also down to earth children and comments that sort of a humorous
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  person. I loved all that and then this sort of idea for this book all really started when I
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  went to a mid-summer night's dream as a child taken by my school and I became really
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  beguiled by Oberon and Titania and their scenes in the wood I found the most exciting part of the
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  play and mainly the fact that they were having this huge sort of elemental argument between
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  each other about this little Indian boy and their arguments were so violent that it was creating
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  storms and earthquakes the world has been ruptured and so it was obviously incredibly important
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  to both of them that they would let all this happen and I became very interested in who this
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  little boy was why was he causing this massive argument and at the end of the play I remember
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  feeling slightly disappointed sort of because we're told in passing that Titania she'd just hands
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  over the boy to Oberon and he walks off with him and and I I just didn't believe it. Titania
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  was so feisty and strong and proud I just knew she wouldn't give up this boy because she tells
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  how much she loves him and so this sort of this idea of what the boy who the boy was of my he was
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  so important scratched away at the back of my head for a long while you know many years and then
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  one day I just sat down and just wrote his story and the story of sacrament which is the world
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  where Titania and Oberon have their kingdoms and where you know that this little boy had obviously
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  been hidden from Oberon and in my book I then the idea came to me that Titania hid him in the
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  Elizabethan world you know in the human world and so so Oberon couldn't find him and that's when
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  the story started to expand and then sacrament the fantasy world because sort of it just grew of
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  its own accord and I sort of started writing and it just sort of came flowing out.
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  So if this idea was planted when you were back in the day when you were at school it took
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  obviously been a long time in an adjustment so is there much more to sacrament that you know
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  that isn't in this book? Yes there's a lot more to sacrament there's a lot of themes that get
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  started in book one that are in book two and in book two is almost only in sacrament and it takes
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  on a whole life of itself and to me sacrament is as important as the characters in this book
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  I love it so much and it's sort of its own living breathing world and character itself
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  and yes so it took a long time for it to develop and but now it's put a life of its own and it's
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  expanding. So this is one of the things I think that might be interesting to people listening who
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  perhaps are developing their own other worlds or alternative parallel world or whatever it is
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  or sci-fi world is how do you make those decisions as a writer to keep out the extra information
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  the you know the the things that you've developed which aren't relevant to your story how do you
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  pick a line through your material? Well I mean actually initially a lot or quite a lot of them
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  in the book and then I edited it because it was at least double almost trickle the size and it
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  was just it was too long and overblown so I took those pieces out rather reluctantly but they were
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  always there in my head anyway and then the very important themes for book one were obvious then
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  I knew which ones were the ones to stick to but with the knowledge of the other bits of information
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  about sacrament which I've also gone into book two so I sort of felt that they weren't lost and
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  but so I had this whole biography ought to you know of it all on you know in my head and written down
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  so I knew I could draw from that and was that a choice that you were making or was that with
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  a editor's help that you saw it away? It was a combination but when I sent it out I got good
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  feedback but a lot of people said it's too long and they go on a lot of journeys a bit like in
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  the Hobbit you know when they're always marching on another mountain path I suddenly realized
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  they were constantly traveling so I cut some traveling scenes out and and then it became quite clear
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  to me that if the more you took away in some ways the the stronger the actual story that was left
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  became so how long is it just because I think people are sometimes mystified by the business
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  so I think there is a at the moment the industry is looking for slightly shorter books
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  than they're previously so just so people know what they should be aiming for how long is your book?
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  It's about 70,000 words approximately it's still quite long yeah it's about 70 but I sort of
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  I think it was 90,000 words yeah and then I cut and cut and then I put a little bit more in but
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  yeah I think that I think it's I think sometimes these long books can overface I think they're
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  brilliant some in some cases but I think if you want to send out if you want to get published
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  don't make your first book too long because it's sort of more accessible if they're short-term
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  and in this case I felt it was a much better book for it and were you writing this on your own or
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  how did it come that you actually found the time to do this were you doing was it running
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  alongside your working life or how did I sort of initially I sort of I had a shot that I ran
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  and I was doing that with a friend and but I started writing this and then I did it all different
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  times but this was eight years ago I started it I sent it to a competition and it got turned down
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  and then I started sending it out to agents and I did get an agent for a little bit of really
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  lovely agent called Christopher Little and he said he loved it then he loved the imagination
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  but it had a problem it really needed editing and I went away and started editing it to what I
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  thought was the right standard but I was completely untrained and I didn't really know what they
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  were looking for and I didn't sort of edit up to standard and so then we parted ways and then
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  I this my cousin who who lives up in the north of Scotland and wrote many books when she was younger
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  she started to sort of help me look at it and see ways we could sort of cut it a bit so I did it
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  with a sort of my my cousin really and it was a wonderful sort of co-production because it was so
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  happy and every time I got another rejection she would pick me up and and so it was a really
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  happy process yeah and I think the willingness to be edited is such a key skill for writers people
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  aren't you you're not geniuses who immediately produce an amazing thing first time we all
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  have this process because we can't see you can't see it and sometimes you've you've read
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  this book you know over a hundred times so you don't you can't even really you can't see the
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  word for the trees and yes exactly the editing thing I actually enjoyed editing and it by the
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  end my poor cousin was saying you can't cut Eric the ferrit who was a sort of big character in it
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  and I want Eric he's gone we've got to get him out we need to get this book more slim slim
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  lined and streamlined and and so and I actually quite found it quite cathartic this process
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  but but also I knew I was going to keep all the bits that I'd cut so that I could reuse them which
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  made it bearable otherwise it would have been a bit of a sad process yeah and I think this idea of
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  reusing I don't know what you feel about this but when I do cut things and put them in a sort of
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  graveyard document or whatever you call your you know your that bit of your babies I often find
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  the when I go back to them I need to rewrite them anyway yeah I've moved on so take the example
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  of Eric the ferrit if I was then going to include him like he wouldn't be how he would have been
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  in book one there would be a new version of him and you rediscover those pieces that you have
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  rejected it's so true and actually I'm glad to say Eric the ferrit does come into book two he is
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  slightly different he's left yeah it's very true that so as you mentioned it's a
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  a porful fan see it an event your story so would you just like to give us like the kind of blurb
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  type approach that people got more of an idea of who is involved in your story
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  yes so I mean in this in my book there's this world sacrament this so dangerous beautiful world
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  that was the world of tatanya and obron who the the king and queen of the forest from mid-summer
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  night stream and sacrament is connected to our world the human world by a series of portals
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  and in the olden days like well 600 years ago or and more everyone traveled backwards and forwards
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  through these portals before we went into the scientific age and and so it was there I mean in
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  my story but not in this actual book but there's that's how Shakespeare Shakespeare traveled through
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  a portal and that's how he met tatanya and then went home to Stratford and went on to ride to
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  mid-summer night stream and so that's that's the premise and so this little Indian boy that I
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  mentioned earlier who is being pursued by obron who tatanya is hiding in her desperation she finally
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  hides him in the Elizabethan world in a house called Foxley Hall that's owned by someone called
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  Lord Rivers and then in the modern day the descendant of the little boy who obviously grew up in
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  Elizabethan England and then had children and grandchildren his descendant moves back to the area
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  she moves into a damp cottage near Swindon because her mother is now working in Foxley Hall
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  and the living Olly Gill she's the descendant she wanders through the house and strange things start
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  to happen to her and eventually she is plunged back into the world of sacrament where obron and
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  tatanya's descendants great great grandchildren are in the midst of a sort of bloody bitter war which
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  only she can really resolve I was transported back to my own sort of childhood taste and reading as
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  I was reading your book in fact I reminded me that one of the very first stories I wrote when I was
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  about ten which I've still got somewhere was called the tapestry room which took place in an old
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  manor house like this and the portal there was a big tapestry which kept changing and being so
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  in into different shapes I should write it as an adult and then anyway it was a wonderful sort of
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  concept which I had got from the same sort of reading matter that you were talking about the
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  I also was thinking of the children of green no as I was reading it another wonderful classic novel
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  so every time somebody approaches the portal fantasy they want to do something new with it
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  what are you saying about your portals what where are you going that's a little bit different
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  I already can see some differences with the connection to the sort of pre-scientific age for
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  a couple tell us a little bit about the the doorway that you have chosen well there's more than one
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  doorway because obviously that people had portals going backwards and forwards and there's one hidden
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  in a maze in my book that leads into at the old oakwood near Foxley Hall but there's there's many
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  different portals because they are the gateways to other worlds and there's there's one in a
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  standing stone because I've always felt that standing stones you know there's such mysterious
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  wonderful things and in my head I just believe that gateways because why would they I know there
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  were other reasons why they were moved across and put in these extraordinary sort of placements but
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  but at the same time I think they contain portals so that's also a great theme that comes through
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  all that the books that I'm going to write as well but and yes the portals are sort of the
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  passageways that are two ways street so that you know people from sacrament were travelled to the
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  human world and vice versa so I don't know that they're particularly different to other portals
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  but that those are the ones I've got with sacrament and the mortal world but to know other worlds
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  at the moment until I write another series of books yeah I think what was interesting as well
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  to read it is you took the choice of starting in sacrament and then going to Swindon now for
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  those of you who are listening from outside the UK Swindon is a kind of medium sized town
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  not known for being particularly architecturally exciting you know it's quite close to Bath which
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  everyone goes oh you know Jane Austen and beautiful buildings Swindon is the opposite
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  the other sister of Bath not ugly plain plain sister so as a reader you're sort of
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  smiling at the choice of Swindon nothing against Swindon I look quite near it but it is not
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  the sort of sexiest location in the country but you start with the fantasy world to make the point
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  that for the fantasy world the child from our world is the magical person exactly and I love the
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  contrast I mean it was always went in my head do you remember with the Wizard of Oz when it's in
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  black and white at the beginning and when they arrive in all suddenly you get the technique colour
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  well for me sacrament was the technique colour and Swindon in the drizzling rain was the black
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  and I just wanted to start with the exciting very vivid world of sacrament and then the contrast is
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  even stronger when you the second chapter you've got rainy Swindon everything's a bit gray a bit
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  depressing and Ollie's a bit sort of you know lonely and a bit sad and and it just I just like
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  the contrast of that with the sort of multicolored vision of sacrament so tell us a little bit about
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  Ollie I noticed from your dedication that you've got Ollie's in your life yes and was that
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  in knowing yes it was well as she Olivia was my sister who died when I was young so and she
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  was a avid reader we used to almost compete on reading you know who could read first which books
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  and and so that it was definitely named after her and dedicated to her um and um yes sorry
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  what what did you ask me after that well I was asking about the actual character of Ollie
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  yeah exactly and her journey well so she's she's quite lonely because she's been made to move
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  from her school in Swindon where she lived in the town in the city to this damp cottage because
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  her father's died and so she's very sad about that and the mum has financial problems and has had
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  to move from their flat and get this job at Foxley Hall and so she's really quite so angry with
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  life finds her mum quite annoying and misses her dad and has no friends nearby so it's all looking
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  pretty grim and she hasn't even started the new school which is slightly dreading because she's not
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  she doesn't find it that easy to meet new people um and so she's in a bit of a slump
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  and they've sort of got packing cases all over the cottage floor that got to start keep unpacking
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  and and she sort of misses the lights of the city and the you know not having dodgy wi-fi and all
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  that stuff so she's she's sort of forced to go over to Foxley Hall by her mum because she's
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  sitting at home on her phone and that's when suddenly she explodes into this extraordinary world
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  so the um the other hero is Corey who is the main sort of child in the
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  magical world sacrament world but he's not I wouldn't say classic hero material his brother
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  reads more classic hero material do you want to talk about the two brothers yes exactly was so
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  yeah so the older brothers and or is the typical silvenheart prince very good at fighting very brave
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  and sort of naturally sort of good looking not he's not horrible or anything but he's just
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  perfect in a way whereas Corey is quite clumsy and nervous not good at fighting quite you know he
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  likes his studies and but he's just a bit of a nervy can be a little bit petrolant child but he's
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  quite young you know he does he's learning and he's a bit resentful that his brothers got all the
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  sort of classic sort of wonderful traits of a normal fighting silvenheart prince but he then
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  learns he he grows throughout the book and at the end is very brave which in a way he's
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  braver than anyone because to he's had to sort of dig much deeper but and also what is within him
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  is the deep magic which is very rare in sacrament now it's almost dying out and it's
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  no one knows if he has it but people think it but but that's he doesn't even know he has it himself
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  but he that's where he is special in that way as well yeah I was going to ask you about your
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  magic system because magic is like a book's currency so you could be in Harry Potter where it
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  seems to flow freely all the time without running out as long as you know the spells whereas in say
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  Lord of the Rings it's kind of infused in the landscape and very rarely used in a sort of
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  spell way how would you describe your magic currency well in sacrament there's sort of two types of
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  magic there's the deep magic which is incredibly and all powerful and in the wrong hands is devastating
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  and then there's the green magic which is lighter more they would still use it today in sacrament
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  for just every day things it you know cure a cold maybe or just a silly practical joke type magic
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  but the deep magic has been lost it was banned many years before Oberon and Titania because it was
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  so destructive almost you could say like nuclear and so it was sort of banned and then all the old
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  and ancient magic sort of died away because it was people were persecuted and and so now but it
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  doesn't have to always be bad the deep magic it's just got to be in the right hands and so now it's
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  sort of like an ancient myth almost people don't like Zandor doesn't really believe in all the old
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  magic and all that stuff and he's a bit scathing of his great uncle who's a bit of a magic
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  druid type and he's scathing because he just thinks it's all rubbish and he just wants to you know
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  save his kingdom which is sort of basically being defeated by Oberon's troops but
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  so the magic is dying away in a way and the trees are cursed the oak trees that are a great
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  they're the great allies of the Sylvan hearts and that's another feature in my book is that the
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  the landscape is as important as the characters in my view the trees and the mountains and the
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  animals are all as important as the humans sort of people so and there's magic everywhere in that
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  respect but it's not sort of obvious doing a spell magic I was always been very taken by
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  the sort of agreement between Tolkien and Seas Lewis that books can be applicable rather than
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  allegorical the difference being the allegory rests in the power of the author and the applicability
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  rests in the power of the reader you can apply it to whatever you like what are you expecting
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  your readers to sort of take away from this what kind of applications because I could see several
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  messages is the wrong word because it's not like a poffaced message novel but there were some
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  applications that I could think of well I mean I think Kory for instance as an example isn't
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  you know is he's obviously not the hero but he's got the deep magic and he can talk to the
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  murb the moon mermaids and the trees are his allies so in a way you could say that that that
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  it's taking away the fact that you don't have to be all shiny and brave to be a hero you know and
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  Oli is the same she's down at mouth not particularly popular sad you know because of her father
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  and feeling lonely and isolated and in fact she's the biggest hero in sacrament with
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  you know it's just it's not what you think you know what you think is the obvious shiny magic
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  ingredients is actually it's it's sometimes much more simple than that and it's what's inside you
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  and what you achieve rather than the outside aura yeah and also just reading the description of you
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  I don't know if this is made up by your publisher or something you offered but you make sure
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  out to be quite a dreamer I am and it's funny enough I've just spent the day yesterday with my
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  oldest friend who I've known since she was in her she was in her mother's womb came to my
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  christening well her mom was proud and she just said you know you always had it in you because they
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  had a gate at the end of their garden and apparently I always used to make a sit on the gate
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  and we pretend when the gate swung open we were in another land and I completely forgotten this but
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  yes I always it's totally true every time I used to walk through a wood or see the mist
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  thriving rising across a field or here and now who you know on a moonlit night I always get
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  the shivers and think you know this is the time that you would be brought through a portal or into
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  another dimension or century and you know sometimes I'd look around and sort of think you know
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  is this going to happen to me I kind of I'd love it you know it's so exciting and and I sort of
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  I always will I'll never forget I don't know if you know the book ghosts as in the amazing Mr.
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  Blondon but it's it at one point these three children come through you see these figures coming
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  through the mists and that's their portal and they're from two centuries before and they walk
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  through into the garden and it's one of the most sort of haunting exciting experiences so I'd
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  always look at miss thinking you know if I walk through that will I walk out into another world
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  or another land or another century so the question I have for you then is if you're a sort of
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  dreamer by nature does this mean that when you sit down to write you are equally unstructured in
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  the way you approach it or are you actually secretly ruthlessly organised I'm certainly not
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  organised but I can be quite organised in my head with how I think something should happen
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  chapter wise but I mean I've written this book in car parks waiting for children I've written it
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  sort of in bed I've written it sort of on a train I sort of I feel quite lucky the minute I get my
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  head down I can immediately do it and I kind of know when a chapter should end it just so I don't
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  know it's a sort of natural thing I feel the rhythm of it it'd be good to finish it here I'm not
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  organised enough I've got piles of paper and it's like where did I put that list about Corrie's sort of
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  character traits and where did I put this but it's sort of it is sort of all there in my head
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  in various different sort of dusty bookcases but it's it is there but it's not that organised
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  well I think quite a few people will find that reassuring I've found as I've as I've gone on that
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  I have a sort of hybrid version of this a bit of dreaming and a bit of organising and I think
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  the more you do it the more you have a story instinct which means you don't have to plan as much
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  in that you are in a sort of it's a bit like when you know how to drive you don't have to think
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  about mechanics acting anymore a bit similar when you got a story instinct so you've already
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  mentioned there's going to be a part two do you have a title for part two yet I do have a title
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  I mean it may change but at the moment it's called the death of the deep magic ah so we got
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  idea of the theme there yes and do you see this as a long series or is it already got a
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  it was a trilogy but it's possible it's got to be a bit longer than that because I can't quite
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  see myself resolving all the plot lines and stories in book three because there's some huge ones
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  to come which I think and book two sort of burst out and he's got so many I've left myself at
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  the end on such a clear plan that's going to be quite difficult I've got to think how on earth
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  am I going to write book three and I've got a feeling it won't quite resolve everything but that
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  makes me very happy because I'm always happy when I'm in sacrament and writing new stuff yes I'm
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  but I'm my first fantasy court series was a quartet yeah I'm fond of the quartet me too actually
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  so that's fascinating Georgia thank you so much for sharing this with us and the curse of
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  the silver notes is probably I'd say aimed at a middle grade reader yes it's sort of it is
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  it's seen as nine to twelve but I think older I mean a lot of adults have read it and enjoyed it
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  so I think it's from nine till ninety nine to be honest yes and in the American market they tend to
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  put what we call middle grade a little bit older anyway so it might be the young
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  end of YA over there but perfect for the dreaming child perfect for the dream child exactly
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  so we always have a little bit of fun at the end of our interviews where we let let go of where
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  we've been talking about and just take a theme from that book into all the fantasy worlds available
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  to us and I was thinking what would I like to take from your book and the thing that struck me
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  is unlock this idea of the normal girl from Swindon who pitches up in the fantasy world to find
• 29:07
  that she's the hero and quite unprepared for it so I wanted where in all the fantasy worlds you
• 29:15
  would like to discover that you're the hero imagining you've stumbled into it by some mischance
• 29:23
  well it's possibly a bit of a cliche but I think I would have to say I'd like to take the
• 29:28
  second start of the right and straight on till morning and end up in Neverland just because of
• 29:34
  the beauty of the landscape and the wildness and you know the mermaids and the lost boys and obviously
• 29:41
  then you have the pirates and I do love a bit of a pirate ship and what results from that so I think
• 29:47
  Neverland I would like to end up in maybe just by the mermaids by the the water
• 29:53
  I have a very fine answer but I wouldn't I would advise you not to get stuck in Wendy's role
• 29:58
  yes it's interesting to involve a lot of sewing and sewing and being a
• 30:03
  big answer thinking after hell no very good point yeah um I was actually tickled to remember
• 30:11
  a previous uh interviewee who we had maybe a couple of years ago a lady called Richelle Diner
• 30:17
  who writes adult fiction and I'm particularly fond of her class five science fiction stories
• 30:24
  they've got a love story in but the conceit in those books I really enjoy is um people have been
• 30:32
  abducted from earth to be taken into this scenario of warring planets but the planet don't they don't
• 30:41
  sing particularly well in in this world but they love music so when this lady I think she's
• 30:49
  something ordinary like I know a librarian or something or a schoolteacher she turns up and um
• 30:57
  she starts humming along and sings happy birthday to somebody and like the world screeches
• 31:03
  to a whole oh wow you're amazing I think but I'm just I'm just ordinary you should really hear
• 31:09
  people who can sing you know I love it here Adela and um Frank's culture um and so it gets there's
• 31:17
  series of these characters turning up in this in the books in this series until the third one where
• 31:24
  they've abducted a music teacher and wow um and so there's a scene a brilliant scene where
• 31:30
  um they're trying to get protection for her she's amongst the enemies and the and the allies
• 31:37
  are trying to say well she's really important sing sing and she's thinking why do I gotta sing you
• 31:41
  know she's maybe just arrived so she's really angry so she starts singing Bohemian Rhapsody
• 31:47
  including all the operatic bits and that makes me absolutely hoot and laughter just that so as
• 31:53
  I sing okayish I would like to find myself in that world where I would be regarded as like you know
• 32:00
  Deva could command any price for my concert so that's a class five series that's brilliant yeah a little
• 32:08
  so we'll encourage people out there to have fun imagining where you might end up as a hero
• 32:13
  if you don't feel very heroic in your ordinary life there is there is a place for you in fantasy
• 32:19
  true yeah thank you so much Georgia and your book publishers in April do you have a date for that
• 32:25
  yeah April the 10th April the 10th that's if you're listening to this later that was
• 32:30
  April the 10th 2025 so thank you very much for being with us it's been a wonderful chat with you
• 32:36
  about the curse of the Sylvan Oaks thank you so much for having me
• 32:46
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• 32:53
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• 33:00
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• 33:07
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