Latest / Mythmakers / Kate Dylan: Until We Shatter and 'New Adult' Fantasy

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Kate Dylan: Until We Shatter and 'New Adult' Fantasy · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  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 have been joined by the wonderful Kate Dillon who is going to be putting out
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  very shortly. Is this your second novel, Kate? This is my third novel, my third novel,
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  English. Yes, third novel. Until we shatter, which I have here in a very attractive,
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  very attractive proof book. Thank you. But I imagine that the finished version will look somewhat
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  similar. So Kate, it's always huge joy to meet other writers because I find when we put our
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  heads together and all sorts of interesting ideas come out and my favourite question to ask
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  authors is to sort of dig out to them what were the books that actually inspired them as a young
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  reader that actually led them to being an author? What was that book that changed your direction
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  when you were little? It's really hard to say because I was actually quite a weird reader. I was
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  not a big person in the writing community when I was young. I read a lot, I read ferociously,
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  but I started off reading science fiction and fantasy, but I would just read whatever books.
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  My dad was reading because my dad, like he goes through a book like in a day. So I would just
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  pick up whatever he just put down. And then like I went through crime phases, I went through
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  thriller phases, like I jumped all around the map. So I think by the time I was just like, oh maybe
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  I want to write a book. I'd sort of had influences from all over the map. So I wish I could say it was
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  just like this one fantasy book changed my life, but I think it was just books in general. But I think
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  if so my first few books were in the YA genre, so they were young adult novels. And if I think
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  we look at the books that really kind of shaped me through that, I think it's you know the books
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  that really kind of hit big at the time. Divergent was a massive book for me. I really enjoyed that,
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  the Hunger Games. I will never admit this publicly, which I'm doing right now, but I love Twilight.
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  In fact, I'm still to this day obsessed with Twilight. But just books that put you in the main
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  character's head. And I think that's what was different with the young adult genre, especially
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  books that were coming out around 2010 to 2016. They were so different from what I was reading
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  in other genres and what I was reading in my dad's genres, which were you know much more adult
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  fantasy sci-fi thrillers, you know, so there were a little bit more removed. Whereas young adults
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  suddenly was just like first person, present tense, the immediacy of it. So I think those books
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  were probably the ones that affected my own writing the most as I was starting out in my career.
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  I think you can be unashamed of liking Twilight because it was, it may be strange for younger
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  people listening to this, but it was so huge, wasn't it? So huge. It was a quick akin to a kind of YA
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  Harry Potter phenomenon. Yeah. And I think there's something to be said actually to
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  reading a book as a group experience. It's just very different to in some ways. I love that the book
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  community in the book space has gotten more diverse and we've got much more range of books,
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  much more range of voices, which is an amazing thing. But back in those days, there were like five
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  big books a year and you were all reading them. There was always somebody to talk to about those
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  books. And in fact, I've just finished off my complete Twilight obsession. I finally found a
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  first edition of the UK cover, which was different from the US one that I've been searching for for
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  three years. So it's, you know, it's a lot of love for the books that came out of that time. But
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  I mean, even now, though, the YA landscape has changed so much. We are seeing some phenomenal
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  books publishing these days that get to do things that I think authors weren't necessarily permitted
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  to do back then and were seeing much more of range of voices in YA as well, which is really
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  exciting. Yeah, that's as we could think about whether whether or not it was about not being
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  permitted or having not yet imagined. Hmm. Perhaps discuss that when we come to the question
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  about the nature of relationships in your own book. But tell us about Till We Shatter. You are
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  known at this stage, best known for mind walker. So those of you that mind walker, what difference
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  are they going to get? Where have you gone on your writing journey? So the mind walker books,
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  which the first one was mind walker, the second one was mind breaker, which was a companion novel.
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  They are very, very much. They are upper YA, but they are YA novels and they sit very firmly in
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  the sci-fi genre. They are accessible sci-fi, but they are sci-fi. There's a lot of tech. It's not
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  real tech. It's completely fictional tech. There's not a lot of actual science in the book. It's
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  wishful science is what I call it, but it's cyberpunk basically. We're not really allowed to use
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  that word because it's very hard as a genre for publishing to break out. So we call it dystopian
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  and we call it, you know, accessible sci-fi, but really it's a cyberpunk book. It's a cyberpunk
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  duology, whereas until we shatter is a fantasy book. And it's not just fantasy. It's fully second-world
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  fantasy. In fact, it has two worlds. So it's very different in that respect until we shatter
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  is also older. I think we'll discuss this a little bit later, but until we shatter sits in the
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  in between space, which traditionally doesn't exist in publishing. We have young adult books and
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  we have adult books, but until we shatter kind of sits in the in between. And the reason for that
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  is that young adult books so often have to do with coming of age and your first as, you know,
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  as you come into adulthood. And I think mind walker and mind breaker really kind of fell into that,
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  whereas until we shatter is more about seconds. It's second loves. It's second responsibilities.
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  It's building yourself back up after, you know, bad things have happened. So it kind of sits in that
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  weird in between space between young adult literature and fully adult fantasy, which has made
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  it really exciting for me, but I don't know what publishing is going to do with that quite yet.
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  Well, it has been invented before. I remember there was about, oh, maybe eight years ago,
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  the kind of buzz round. New adults? New adult, yeah. So I think people will understand what you're
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  trying to do. Yeah, I mean, it never fully took off as a publishing sphere. We're seeing more of it
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  now, actually, that the indie space has exploded because readers wanted new adults. It was mostly
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  stores and publishers that didn't quite know how to mock it. They didn't quite succeed in making
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  books, a bookstore space for it. So we never really took off in the trade publishing space,
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  but I think readers do love it. So I think for those who aren't interested in that,
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  that's kind of where until we shatter sits. It does still appeal to the YA reader. It's got,
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  it's got the same POV, the same fast pace, the same voice. As you would find in mind walker and
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  mind breaker. So if you liked those books, if you liked my books for the pace and the voice,
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  you will absolutely still find all of those things in until we shatter. But until we shatter,
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  it's more geared towards the reader who isn't traditionally that interested in sci-fi and just
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  wants to play in a fantasy playground. Right. So thinking about the actual story, do you want to
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  give us a little tiny hint of what the plot is, like the characters and what they're getting up to?
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  Of course. So until we shatter is a heist novel. It is a fantasy heist with color magic across
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  two worlds, one of which wants to shatter the main characters' pieces. Yeah, okay, thank you.
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  So I found a couple of strong themes sprang out to me as I was reading it and they're connected,
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  which is nice. One was the impact of betrayal, how that impacts on individuals, but also on a group.
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  And the other was what it's like to exist in a sort of liminal space between things.
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  And this is both as an image of the idea of shattering when under too much strain,
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  but also the social position of those with the wrong kind of magic. In a way, if that's the correct
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  sort of description. Is there something about those scenes which you've resonated with this?
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  Well, we're not going to call it YA, are we going to call it new adult? Let's just borrow that,
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  that new adult reader in particular. I think for this kind of reader, the betrayal specifically
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  is when we sort of come into adulthood or we're coming out of childhood, it's when we first start
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  to experience real big betrayals. They might not be quite on the scale of what happens in the books.
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  You know, most of the time, the stakes in our normal lives aren't like for a day, the world isn't
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  ending. We're probably not accidentally killing our friends or I should hope not.
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  But we are going to face some sort of betrayal, you know, you're not going to get a job you want to
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  or something is going to go wrong at university or perhaps, you know, like your parents have
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  decided that you can no longer live in the house rent free. We're starting to get those moments
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  of, oh, life is actually quite hard and it can be quite unforgiving and people can be quite
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  unforgiving and quite cruel in some respects. And I think as we sort of come into that age,
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  we experience that more, we experience it more without the safety net that we have when we
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  live at home and when we live with our families. And so everything feels big, everything feels
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  bigger when you don't have that net to fall back on. And I think that's what the make,
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  that's what the characters in until we shadow really going through. Their lives are hard because
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  this is a fantasy world and actually they are wanted dead by pretty much everybody on both worlds
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  in the novel, but they don't have a safety net. The main character, Kemi, her mum is very, very sick,
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  she is the provider, her entire group of friends, including herself, they're all illegal. So, you know,
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  if anyone found out that they were half shades, which is kind of like the witches in the novel are
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  basically called shades and there are full blooded shades and there are half shades and half shades
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  are illegal. So, if they are found out, they will essentially get hunted down and killed. So,
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  they are very much operating without a net and they are making mistakes and they're making mistakes
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  because, well, they're not that old, they don't have that much life experience. So, you know,
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  young people make mistakes, the problem is, their mistakes are exacerbated by a world which is
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  making it very, very difficult for them to make good choices. In fact, it's making good choices
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  almost impossible and so, every bad choice kind of compounds and it culminates in a lot of betrayal,
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  in a lot of heartache and yeah, it's really enjoyable as an author to sort of explore those
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  kinds of big moments in your character's lives. Yeah, I think that all is a particularly strong
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  theme. When I do a course where we teach novel in the year, one of the sessions halfway through,
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  we start adding in sort of powerful storylines and one of them is betrayal because I think all of
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  us instinctively have that deep sort of gut feeling of it's not fair or how could they, and we all
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  really invest in that, the idea of someone you trust who turns on you is very much a way of
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  involving us in the novel as rooting for the characters, but it's also equally interesting when
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  it's the other way around where your character you're identifying with ends up portraying somebody.
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  And all the cascade of emotion that then happens when you find yourself on that side of the fence,
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  which again is going back to your idea of a more mature experience when we let people down.
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  Yeah, it's also a big feeling and it all comes to do with betrayal is at its core, it's a breach
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  of trust. And as you know, we get hurt a lot, people hurt us and it's quite, I mean, it's not
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  easy to get over, but it's easier to get over when you know, you understand, okay, maybe that person
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  was having a bad day or as a misunderstanding, but when trust is breached, it's much, much harder
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  to get over. And yeah, as an author, it's really, really fun because obviously the challenge
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  becomes, well, you know, if your character is getting betrayed, but they then need to work with
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  those people, how do they get over that? And if they're doing the betray, the betraying,
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  how do you then redeem them in the eye of the reader? So it presents a really, really fun challenge
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  as an author actually. And it's also a great thing to read as a reader because you're very much
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  involved. So I was interested that the, the dear old publishers blurb, all of us authors get this
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  where we're putting some kind of box. Yep. And where they've put you is in the tradition of the
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  Tickley Bardugo isn't it? Six of Crows. And I think what they mean here is a short hand for
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  high stories about magical misfits. Do you find this, I thought it was quite a good, I wouldn't
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  mind being, but do you feel your part of this subgenre, or were there some other influences
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  or genres, what you would like to sort of highlight yourself? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely,
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  it's, it's, they chose that and actually like sometimes when publishing does this choosing,
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  you're like, I'm not a hundred percent sure that's right, but we're going to go with it, whereas
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  this time it's a hundred percent right. Like it very much sits in that in that subgenre, that is
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  the main genre, I would say, for the book, and you know, when I'm recommending the book, like
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  heist fantasy is what I lead with first, because it pretty much tells the reader everything they
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  need to know. If we were going to go dig further down though, like I've never really written a book
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  that was just one genre, it's just that when it comes to selling books, we sort of lead with one
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  because we don't want to confuse people. But I think this is, and this is again where even though I've
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  moved to fantasy now, a lot of my early influences, a lot of the things I love did originate
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  in sci-fi. And for example, so we call this book Six of Crows meets Red Queen, but Red Queen is
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  just a fantasy version of X-Men, which is basically, it's powers novel. The characters all have
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  different powers, which is something that I've loved from childhood. Like I was a massive X-Men fan,
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  and then obviously I did read books like Red Queen and I was just like, this is just X-Men
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  fantasy. It's not even like, I would actually argue that Red Queen has elements of sci-fi in it,
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  but don't go saying that on the internet because the internet gets mad. I love that book. It's
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  really, really good. And those powers like always kind of intrigued me in the same way that the
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  the X-Men cartoon used to because it's kind of like, everyone gets a power or everyone you're
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  focusing on gets a power, but not all powers are created equal. And actually some powers are
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  really cool. Like I would give anything to be mystique. Like I would be mystique all day long.
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  I would just change my appearance. I would change my hair. In fact, half of the tech in Mindwalker
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  is inspired by the powers that I used to love in X-Men because I'm like, I would love to be
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  able to do this. I'm going to invent a piece of technology that will let me do this because I'm
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  never going to have that mutation that lets me do it myself. But yeah, so when I was coming into
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  this fantasy world, I really wanted to play with powers. And one of the things a few early readers
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  have said to me is sort of like the main character, Kemi's power in until we shatter. They're like,
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  it's a bit nasty compared to some of the other powers like you've got, you know, one of the characters
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  can steal other people's powers. And one can, you know, find people through the city. One can move
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  really, really fast. And then Kemi, our main character, her power is basically to touch things
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  in the shadow world that exists. So there's a secondary world in the novel. It's called The Gray.
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  And when the main characters go into it, they each have this different power. And her power is to touch
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  things. And they're like, that's kind of not as great as being able to steal other people's powers.
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  And they're not wrong. But that's what made it so exciting to me because it's like when everybody's
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  got different powers, how does having a power which is traditionally maybe not the most coveted
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  effect your life? How does having the coveted power affect your life? So we do have the character
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  who steals power. He's not having a particularly easy time of it either because it turns out when
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  you have something other people want, they get mad at you or try to use you or manipulate you.
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  So that was something that was really fun for me. And I remember echoes of that in Red Queen as
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  well, which is there were a bunch of different powers. And as I was reading the novel, I was like,
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  I would want that one, but I'm not so sure about that one. That one's kind of not great in
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  comparison, especially since that book had, you know, matchups, they made them fight. And I'd be like,
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  oh, that one's definitely winning because you know, that power's way better.
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  I guess as well, they're pitful of making your main character too powerful or the most powerful is
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  you lose the underdog sort of bed fit because it's a bit like it's hard to make an interesting film
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  about Superman. You can make the origins of Superman film. But once he's fully fledged with all his
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  superpowers, you then have to bring Kryptonite in because he's just boring when he's powerful.
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  So you need to limit powers and it's no bad position to have your main character sort of
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  weigh down on the list. Yeah, interesting writing challenge to be like, okay, well, that's the power
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  you're giving her. How is that going to play into the house? Why? Why is she the main character if
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  that's her power compared to somebody else's power? And it was really, really fun with these
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  particular, this particular world is how it limits her. So others in the gray, when they don't
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  have her physicality in the gray, they can move through walls, but she can't. She has to unlock doors,
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  which obviously for a high list is a real problem when you're trying to steal something walking
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  through walls is great, but actually what is what what good is walking through walls if you then
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  can't actually grab the thing you're stealing at the very end of it. So it was really fun to play
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  with the idea of better powers and works powers and how each of them had their kind of upsides and
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  downsides and you know, all of them essentially made a complete nightmare for all the characters.
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  Yeah, and it's also about teamwork like those sort of ocean 11 type ideas.
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  Did everybody there to make it all work? Talking of which, the book builds up to a
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  hides against impossible odds. Of course it does. It does. It'd be an easy high story, you don't
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  want to read. How did you think about structuring the story? Because when you do have those
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  intricate pieces that need to come together at the end, were you a sort of messy writer
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  by writing it and changing it as you went along or had you sat down and kind of planned your
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  heist on your own plot in advance? This is the answer that terrifies people. I plan nothing. I am
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  chaos all the way down. I've tried planning books. It does not work for me. I've tried every method
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  under the sign doesn't work. I have to kind of sit down and get through the writing. The answer
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  comes in the writing and this was actually a book that I sold to my existing publisher
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  on a partial which essentially means you are submitting the first three chapters plus a synopsis
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  of a rough idea of what is going to happen in the novel. But at the point in which I sold this book,
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  you know, I had a chat with my editor and she's like, so what are they stealing? Because the synopsis
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  was basically like, and they're going to steal a powerful artifact from the church. And that
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  was basically all that said. And she was like, well, what are they stealing? And I was like,
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  funny story. I have no idea. I also don't know why they're stealing it. I just know that they
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  are going to be stealing it, which is a really terrifying place to ride from, especially when you're
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  also trying to make things work like, you know, their powers are going to have to be necessary
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  for the heist. Therefore, you know, I would have really loved for my brain to be like, well,
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  this is what they're stealing and why. And this is where it's being kept. But most of that was
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  figured out in the writing and actually a lot of a lot of my processes having those ideas and
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  going back and saying, okay, so this is how the magic has to change to accommodate it. But
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  one of the weird things about the way my brain works and I can't explain it and I'll be
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  completely honest when I say this, it just kind of makes me sound like a bit of a wanker. But my brain
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  is doing this all and I have no control and it just connects things when I've without me knowing.
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  And suddenly I'll be like, oh, this is the answer. And then I go back to, you know, retrofit the
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  answer in and I'd already done it. Like I'd already somehow made those connections in my head
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  without even knowing it. So that is just how my brain works and it's a terrifying, terrifying
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  process. And I will say there is a lot of revision involved. So my brain is good, but it's not that
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  good. I would appreciate a little bit more, you know, structure from it. So I do have to go back
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  and revise a fair bit to be like, okay, well, this was the idea that I ended up going with.
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  And so now we've just got to tweak all these things just to strengthen everything to make sure
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  it all kind of fits together. But yeah, part of the process for me is waiting for my brain to make
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  a connection that I don't know exists yet. And just hoping that it will, which so far it has done
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  in most cases, but I eagerly know what the day when it fails me. And I can really relate to that.
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  I do, I'm writing a series of historical murder mysteries at the moment. And adults,
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  I do find there's a pressure to plan from the public who wants to know what you're going to do.
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  But I often find I get to a certain point where I think, ah, it's too easy. The answer is too obvious.
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  So therefore, I will kind of use that as a really huge red herring.
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  Had changed directions or suggested something else going on. So it gets an extra depth and it's more.
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  So even I don't find my own plot obvious.
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  It is. And I think it's every writer who is different. I know some people who were
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  square up and down that they have to plan or not. And they follow their outlines. And that's how they
• 22:42
  get books down. And I tell them my process. And like, you can see the life lead if their eyes,
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  like, how do you do this? Why do you hate yourself? But it's, I've tried everything else and this is
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  what works. And I just think it's the quirk of different brains, different people working different
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  ways. And I feel like does an alchemy to it that we are never really going to be able to explain.
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  So I just sort of have to go with it. And luckily, I have a very understanding editor who has
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  watched me handing enough books now to know that my synopsis is more of a guide.
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  Yeah, that was descriptive. And she's like, well, I'm not going to give you, you know,
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  feedback on your synopsis because I'm fully aware you're probably going to change 50% of it.
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  And I'm like, I appreciate you, but I promise the 50% I will change. I will do my very best to make
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  it make sense. And for those of you who are watching this on YouTube, there is a very cute series of
• 23:33
  pause, which are appearing behind, which is her cat to, is that it's like that?
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  And in these cases, we're animals look like their owners because she has beautiful white hair
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  like, oh, yeah. Oh, she looks at me now. She's very mad that I'm ignoring her. Yeah.
• 23:53
  Sorry. Yeah. Anyway, I'm sorry. I know it's fine. I think that's what we're both saying is that
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  we're aware it needs structure, but sometimes the structure is an emergent property rather than
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  something we impose and then fill in like a grid. And some people go that way and some prefer
• 24:09
  a grid is. Yeah, I think you, you write it. Whatever gets you to the end is thing I say is the
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  right for any writer. However, you get to the end, whatever gets you there, that's your writing
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  process. Oh, no, go there. Try different things. If you're, if you want to be like, no, I want to
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  plan a tri-planning, but if it doesn't work, there's nothing wrong with you. We just all do this
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  very strange little job very, very differently. So I guess the answer to my next question is probably
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  the same kind of area, which was there were several big twists and reversals along the way.
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  And I'm not going to give those away at all because that's obviously a no-no. But was that,
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  of all your sort of amorphous ideas? Was that something you did kind of know you were writing
• 24:56
  towards? Or did your characters lead you to them? It sounds like your characters led you there.
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  Most of the time they lead me, but when I do have an idea for a story very occasionally, I'll have
• 25:07
  an idea of something that has to happen. It's, again, it's one of those weird, nebulous things that
• 25:11
  happens in my brain. Sometimes I get an idea and I need to neutral on it and be like, can I make
• 25:15
  this work? Well, this work. And other times an idea comes to me and I'm like, this has to work.
• 25:19
  I will retrofit everything else in this book to make this works because this is canon.
• 25:24
  And sometimes those are twists. So depending on which book and depending on the twist,
• 25:29
  certain things I did know I wanted to do. I knew I was working towards them in some way,
• 25:34
  shape or form, even if the details around them changed. Other things were, and this is where
• 25:40
  it's writing books can be a really collaborative experience. One of the major twists in until we
• 25:47
  shadow was actually my editor's idea. We were in the meeting where I was like, here is three chapters
• 25:53
  in a synopsis that tells you basically nothing, but you're going to buy this book. Thank you very
• 25:57
  much. And you know, we were just discussing the very bare bones synopsis. It was one page that I
• 26:03
  gave her and she was throwing out ideas at me because that's how we kind of brainstorm because,
• 26:08
  you know, I will sit there and I will be like, I promise I'll figure out what they're stealing and
• 26:12
  why it's going to be great. And she's like, wouldn't it be cool if she will throw ideas out at me?
• 26:17
  And one of the ideas she threw, I was just like, I don't know how I'm going to make this work,
• 26:22
  but now that you've said it, I can't not do it. It's happened. And it ended up being one of my
• 26:29
  favorites with the book. So it's actually something really nice about collaborative work when you
• 26:36
  are publishing books, especially when you've got a great relationship with your publisher and your
• 26:41
  and there's somebody who can balance ideas off. Yeah, I mean, ideally the, wouldn't it be great if
• 26:49
  also came with instructions? So then I wouldn't have to go home and be like, oh God, how do I
• 26:53
  know? No, no, you don't want instructions. But you know, instructions rarely come, but the ideas,
• 26:59
  like I'm very, very grateful that when it's not my editor, I've got a lot of writing friends and
• 27:03
  we can brainstorm and really all it takes is one person saying a few words in a certain order
• 27:08
  and suddenly you're like, oh, this is what we're doing, which is, you know, kind of fine,
• 27:13
  kind of terrifying, but it's been working. Yeah. So another theme coming out of Tilly Shatter
• 27:19
  is basically the one of you love who you love, which is I think a trend in the sort of new adult
• 27:27
  and YA space and probably an adult novels as well. So Semi has relationships with both
• 27:32
  male and female friends. In fact, the big serious relationship was with a female friend and the one
• 27:39
  she's sort of moving towards is with a male friend. It's probably reached the point where this
• 27:44
  is unremarkable. So, you know, there will be one day where I stop highlighting this, but I think
• 27:50
  at the moment it's still new enough to worth being mentioned. I want to say a few words about
• 27:57
  your thinking behind this and what you feel books are doing moving into this space now.
• 28:04
  Well, it's as we kind of mentioned earlier in the chat, especially in the young adult space,
• 28:09
  we have been seeing a very, very big push for diversifying our stories. It used to be, you know,
• 28:16
  even 10 years ago, it would be quite difficult to find queer characters on the page or when they
• 28:23
  were on the page, there would be side characters. A lot of them would end up dying. That's where we
• 28:27
  got the, you know, the trope barrier gaze from, which we now actively as a community are trying
• 28:34
  to avoid. And it's basically used to be that if you had queer characters, especially as main
• 28:39
  characters, publishers would tell you that your novel wouldn't sell. I mean, I don't think we
• 28:43
  are completely clear of those days, especially on the US side, there are big pushes over there to
• 28:49
  stop banning literature with queer characters, especially in young adult novels. It's still
• 28:54
  seen as something that is, you know, that kids shouldn't be reading and that they're with sexualising
• 28:57
  kids. But when we're not, these are real identities that kids share all over the world and they'd
• 29:03
  serve to see them written in stories. And that's what the push has been, not just with queer literature,
• 29:08
  but also with diverse literature, because, you know, it doesn't make sense for all the main
• 29:13
  characters of all books in the world to feature a white main character. It simply is not the world
• 29:18
  that we live in. It's not the world, the world kids live in. And every child deserves to see
• 29:24
  themselves in books. For me personally, that choice was, there was a lot of, you know, I did,
• 29:32
  you know, grow up reading during the time where most books had straight main characters, white
• 29:38
  main characters. And, you know, like, so there was a fear against, you know, do, should I be writing
• 29:45
  this? How do I write this? How do I write this? Well, you know, as I've kind of grown from a young
• 29:50
  adult into adulthood, you know, I've also been kind of exploring my own identity. And something I
• 29:56
  did with my first novel, so with mind walker, actually, the early drafts are still in that novel,
• 30:02
  in the early drafts with bisexual. And when it was coming time to shop that novel, I got scared,
• 30:08
  and I mean, a lot of readers tell me she still reads that way to them. She reads us by her, she reads us
• 30:13
  pan, but it wasn't on the page. And I really regretted taking that out in the later drafts. I let
• 30:19
  fear get the better of me because of, you know, the young adult space can be quite scary to write in
• 30:25
  you don't want to do it wrong. There's a big responsibility when you're writing for kids that you are,
• 30:30
  you know, doing things well and not adding harmful representation into the world when you do
• 30:36
  things. So I let fear get the best of me. And I was, ever since that novel, I was just like, never
• 30:40
  again, like if I want to explore certain relationships in this book, like, you know, I'm going to do
• 30:46
  the work and make sure it's done properly, but I'm going to do it. I'm not going to just be like,
• 30:50
  well, this feels a bit big for me, so I'm not going to do it. And yeah, so I have the mind walker
• 30:57
  relationships, sort of, that was male female, mind breaker was a sapphic novel. And this one,
• 31:03
  I really wanted to explore bisexual identity, which is an identity that I share. And I wanted to do it,
• 31:10
  like, you know, to really touch on the fact that, you know, just because someone is queer,
• 31:15
  it doesn't mean they are without fault, you know, because when they've pushed for marginalized
• 31:20
  for diverse voices, first came out, it's just like, well, don't, you know, don't make them bad people,
• 31:24
  don't make them do anything wrong, because you don't want to imply that queer people are bad people.
• 31:29
  But the honest to God truth is queer people are simply people and they make mistakes and they're
• 31:34
  messy and, you know, they they mess up and they have to apologize and start again. And
• 31:40
  Kimmy is that she messes up a lot. And she has to apologize and go again. And sometimes she has to
• 31:47
  learn that some things cannot be that easily, for given that sometimes when you mess up, the
• 31:51
  consequences are long lasting, perhaps forever, you know, when you break trust, that trust might not
• 31:57
  be able to be regained. But yeah, I really wanted her, she, I really wanted her to be bisexual,
• 32:03
  I really wanted her to have on-page relationships with both a female friend and the love interest
• 32:10
  who is male. And I wanted that to be not a problem. And actually, all of my worlds are queer
• 32:16
  norm worlds, which means for all of their other faults and both the mind-worker world and the
• 32:21
  until-witch-after-world are horrifying worlds if you actually think about it. The one thing I
• 32:25
  decided, like I made an actual decision not to write was homophobia. And that is a choice that I
• 32:31
  make because we have enough of that in the real world. I think it absolutely has its place in
• 32:37
  literature. But for me personally, for these worlds, I didn't need to do that. I just wanted a world
• 32:43
  where people could love whoever they were loving and it wasn't a problem. It wasn't even a thing
• 32:48
  to be remarked on. It was just the way they were, the way the world was. And I'm really pleased
• 32:53
  with how it came out and until we shatter. Yeah. And I would also, because you've got your big
• 32:58
  prejudice against those who have, like, the half-maged status, half-witch status, that you don't want
• 33:04
  to confuse it just as a way of keeping your message back and stand in for all those things in
• 33:10
  the real world where there's prejudice against people for things they can't help. Exactly. And
• 33:15
  it's something that when we create fantasy worlds, we get to choose what to include, what not to
• 33:20
  include. And I'm like, I'm including a lot of really bad stuff. There's a lot of prejudice. There's
• 33:25
  a lot of danger that comes from deliberate misinformation. There's a lot of people
• 33:33
  keeping these half-shades, they're purging them, they're killing them, they're hunting them.
• 33:39
  I'm like, the world is awful enough. I don't need to add an extra element on top of it.
• 33:43
  Like, there are some novels where the authors make those choices. They make them for good reasons
• 33:48
  and it works and it's great. For me personally, this novel did not need that. It did not need to mirror
• 33:53
  our world in that way. And as the author, you kind of get to pick and choose. You can be like,
• 33:59
  okay, well, I'm going to have this awful thing, but I've decided that in my world,
• 34:03
  everybody's queer or, you know, if they're queer, it's not a problem. And everyone else
• 34:08
  seems just fine with it. And, you know, that is a choice that will likely keep making with my
• 34:13
  books because I actually enjoy reading books that are like that. Absolutely. So the other thing,
• 34:20
  which I gave a cheer for seeing in your story, was the value that was placed on artists and
• 34:29
  I suppose I call them art surprises, people who make stuff. Do you want to say anything about
• 34:35
  the valuing of art in society because you clearly have made a special place within your world,
• 34:40
  amongst all the other negative things going on? You've not forgotten the value of art in a world
• 34:48
  of magic. It's again, it's light in the shadows. It's when you're creating, when I'm creating
• 34:54
  worlds that I feel can be quite, you know, heavy or difficult or hard. It's nice to weave a little
• 35:02
  bit of light in. It's nice to let the characters have something they enjoy that is pure and that
• 35:07
  is theirs and that they can turn to when everything else is just awful. So one of the main characters,
• 35:15
  one of the found family characters and until we shout out her name is Eve and she is an artist
• 35:20
  and she's unapologistically an artist and wherever she can, she will take the time to
• 35:25
  brighten up their surroundings, you know, retreat into her arts and take that time away.
• 35:31
  And I think it's probably why she's one of the more well-adjusted characters and couple,
• 35:36
  which is she makes time for simple pleasures in life, simple joys, you know, those quiet moments
• 35:44
  of reflection. She uses them to brighten up the space around her, to brighten up the lives of
• 35:49
  others around her and actually that is why she is much more hopeful as a character than a lot of
• 35:56
  the others who are perhaps in slightly darker places in the novel. Camille, for example,
• 36:02
  is in a much darker place because her mum is sick. She has a weight of responsibility on her
• 36:06
  shoulders. She's carrying some pretty bad secrets and, you know, she has lost the ability to see
• 36:13
  that light and to indulge in that light. And I think that affects her as a character, affects her
• 36:19
  decisions. It's what drives all the terrible decisions she's making throughout the book. So
• 36:24
  it made for a really nice way to show that, you know, sometimes when we forget the good,
• 36:30
  we only make the bad worse. Yeah, definitely. So moving out of the book to your more general writing
• 36:39
  life. What's, how do you get down to writing? What are you juggling in your life before you
• 36:47
  actually get down to putting words on a page? Because I think a lot of people who are listening to
• 36:51
  this who are wanting to write will be doing it in the midst of perhaps other jobs, a busy career,
• 36:57
  maybe studying, and they're always wanting tips of how to actually make that space, carve out that
• 37:03
  time. How do you do that? So I am writing is not my full-time job. I'm a video editor by the day.
• 37:09
  I've actually been freelance for many, many years. Probably around the time I started writing. I
• 37:16
  went freelance, which meant I was able to pick my hours. It actually wasn't related to writing at
• 37:20
  the time. It was more related to the fact that I freelancers made more money and at the time I was
• 37:24
  sick of my staff job. But I actually found that it enabled me to be more flexible with my hours.
• 37:30
  Although for the first few years, I was writing my first probably three or four novels were still
• 37:35
  written around a full-time schedule. So I was still working most Monday to Friday days while I was
• 37:41
  writing. And for me, the only thing that has worked is discipline and sheer panic. I think other
• 37:46
  people are very, very different. Again, it goes back to our brains or function differently. So you
• 37:52
  have to find the thing that works for you. For me, it's public accountability and discipline.
• 37:58
  I find that if I don't write every day, which is not something that everybody should or can do,
• 38:03
  but if I don't at least attempt to do it, I start to lose momentum. So when I first started,
• 38:09
  I would set myself a goal of 200 words, which is almost nothing. It's almost not worth it to some
• 38:15
  people to be like, well, I'm going to write 200 words. But I kept things moving on really bad days.
• 38:19
  I kept things moving when I was tired from work and when I was rumpy and when I simply did not
• 38:26
  want to write anything, a paragraph in a half is doable on those days. And it started to set the
• 38:33
  habit. And slowly over time, you know, 200 words has become, you know, 500 words, 800 words.
• 38:42
  Now, as writing has become more serious for me, I do actually carve out more time in my
• 38:48
  freelance schedule around deadlines, for example. So right now off deadline, so I'm working
• 38:53
  basically Monday to Friday. When I'm on deadline, I will sometimes reduce to two or three days a week,
• 38:58
  depending on what is kind of going on in my life. So it is a hard balance. I think most people find
• 39:05
  it hard for a long time in their career. And I think, you know, I'm in a great position where I've
• 39:10
  published two books already, two other books in Germany in a really weird story that, you know,
• 39:17
  also has to do with weird publishing things. I've got another two coming and I'm still not in a
• 39:22
  position where full-time writing can be, you know, my full-time thing. But I am finding ways to
• 39:29
  kind of work around that. But for days that I'm actually writing, it's psychotic actually. I will
• 39:35
  just sit on my couch for 12 hours straight and hope that there will be words and get distracted.
• 39:40
  And I have to have TV shows playing in the background, which drives people nuts. They can't
• 39:44
  understand it. But I need somebody to be talking at me on the TV so that I can ignore them. That's
• 39:51
  the only thing that makes my brain work. I can't work for music. So the West Wing really, really
• 39:56
  good for ignoring. I've watched every season of Grey's Anatomy at least several times, I think,
• 40:01
  now in the background writing novels. And I just sit there until either the word count has been met
• 40:09
  or I go to bed. So I think from the outside that hand look quite deranged. But it kind of works.
• 40:17
  For me, obviously, if I'm at work, then that process will start when I get home. And something
• 40:22
  that I've been doing a lot in recent years is especially when I'm on an edit schedule is I have
• 40:26
  spreadsheets which track my progress. And I will upload them to Instagram. They are the spreadsheet
• 40:32
  months. People go, people weirdly like the spreadsheets. I'm not really sure why. But the reason I'm
• 40:38
  posting them is accountability. Like, if I know that I haven't posted a spreadsheet update in three
• 40:44
  days, then I know I'm getting behind. And that public accountability actually keeps me writing,
• 40:50
  which is weird, but it works. So that's how I do it. Yeah. When I first started out as a writer,
• 40:57
  sort of back around, more around your age that I am now, I had a young family and how I replicated
• 41:06
  accountability. This is pre-Instagram. Is I would be writing the story for my oldest child?
• 41:14
  And I'd read it to her, get to the end of the chapter and she'd say, what happens next? And I
• 41:19
  said, well, I don't know. That's tomorrow. So I knew that I had somebody who was waiting for
• 41:24
  the next installment. Yeah, it was just me waiting for it. I would find an excuse that I was
• 41:30
  super busy. Absolutely. But because she was waiting, I thought, right, I've got to find that time
• 41:37
  and it was timed round. That stage of life for those who've got kids will know. It's timed around
• 41:43
  when everybody is happy. Yeah. It's like, it's late spin. Babyously, this one in front of Teletubbies
• 41:51
  and this one doing something else. Right, quick. Yeah. And you need to set yourself up so that you
• 41:57
  haven't got complicated routines to start writing. You just need to open up the computer,
• 42:02
  get down to it. Yeah. Exactly. Hopefully our two stories might chime with the people who are
• 42:09
  listening out there might find something helpful in that. So thank you about the fantasy genre in
• 42:15
  particular. Do you have any fantasy related tips to give us? For example, a book that you think
• 42:22
  might really, well, inspire someone or a film that's taught you a lot. Just one little tip
• 42:31
  for someone to go away and look up during the week. I would say, so I don't know where you
• 42:35
  would kind of look it up. But as I was starting to write until we shouted, before that, I had
• 42:39
  written fantasy before. Like I mentioned, I have two books out in Germany, which were not written
• 42:44
  in German. I do not speak German. I wrote them here. They sold in Germany. It was a weird thing,
• 42:48
  but they're out there, you know, existing, which is lovely. So I wrote fantasy before, but I really
• 42:55
  only ever wrote contemporary fantasy before. So something I really had to think about when I was
• 43:00
  moving into the proper kind of epic fantasy, second world fantasy space is how does fantasy
• 43:05
  actually function? And so I kind of read a lot of books and I sort of realized something for myself
• 43:12
  that I don't necessarily see us talk about so often as to what kind of fantasy you're writing.
• 43:17
  And by that I mean, there are fantasy that are led by the magic. And there are fantasies
• 43:22
  where magic is part of a much bigger part where you've got politics and you've got, you know,
• 43:28
  you've got politics, you've got magic, you've got, you know, religions, you know, in the epic fantasy
• 43:32
  space, a lot of times there is a lot of magic, but it's not necessarily the thing holding the
• 43:37
  plot together. So I do think fantasy sort of, I mean, it falls into many buckets, but like if we're
• 43:44
  doing a very, very hard split, it will fall into one of these two buckets. Are you magic led
• 43:49
  or is magic augmenting your story? And I realized that until now I had only ever written fantasy
• 43:55
  where magic was augmenting the story. And actually what I really wanted to try with until we
• 44:00
  shatter was to write a book where the magic was sort of leading it. I think the best example I can
• 44:05
  think of of a book had read around that time was it's called Only A Monster by Vanessa Lenn.
• 44:10
  And it's got a lot of time travel magic. And actually if you changed anything about the magic
• 44:16
  of that book, you wouldn't have a book or you'd have a book, but it would be a completely different
• 44:20
  book. And that's the kind of book I decided I wanted to write with until we shatter, which is I
• 44:25
  want to write a book where if you take away the magic, you have a completely different book left
• 44:29
  as opposed to magic where, for example, a character who can shoot fire out of their palms,
• 44:36
  you could probably retrofit a character who can shoot electricity out of their palms quite easily
• 44:41
  into the same story. You did just some things, but it would the story wouldn't necessarily be
• 44:45
  affected in massive ways, whereas if you took the gray and the shadow powers out until we shatter,
• 44:51
  you actually don't have a lot of things left. You don't even have a title anymore. You'd have
• 44:54
  to change the whole thing. And so I would say look at the counting of fantasy that you're enjoying
• 45:01
  and ask yourself, is it magic led or is it is magic a part of the whole? Because I think I look,
• 45:07
  some people, for example, world builders specifically really enjoy fantasy where magic is one part
• 45:13
  of a whole, because then you get to world build, you get your factions and you get your religions
• 45:17
  and you get your cities and you get your politics and you get to do all of that and magic.
• 45:22
  Whereas for me, and world building is traditionally the thing that I'm not as invested in. So for
• 45:28
  me, this was almost the obvious choice. I'm not really sure why I'd never allowed myself to do it
• 45:35
  before because it's actually all the stuff that I really find really fun, which is magic affecting
• 45:39
  plot directly without too much else going on around. It's part of the reason I decided to set
• 45:45
  until we shatter in sort of an enclosed city. So there is a wider world and actually,
• 45:49
  but in the second book in the series, we will get to see some some more of that, but it also has
• 45:55
  an enclosed feel, because what I wanted to concentrate in that story was the immediacy of the
• 46:00
  magic and how the magic is sort of driving the characters and the world. Yeah, so a really
• 46:06
  interesting way of just looking at fantasy, I was thinking that one on franchise that does this
• 46:11
  is the Marvel franchise. So sometimes say like Iron Man, it's not really magic. It's just
• 46:19
  wishful thinking on technology again, right? So what do you think, Jenny? Until the aliens start
• 46:24
  coming through from this well, but until that point, it's all a basically a real world story
• 46:33
  than the superhuman elements come in a suit. And then you get something like Doctor Strange,
• 46:38
  which if you took the magic out, nothing is the same anymore. It's just a doctor.
• 46:43
  And actually, exactly, Marvel is, I mean, it's a huge influence on me. I've made that no secret.
• 46:48
  I call the mind walker books, like they're basically YA Marvel movies in book four, because I'm
• 46:55
  so heavily inspired by the Marvel universe, the X-Men universe. I loved it. I love the pace of it.
• 47:01
  I love the whimsy of it. I know most people don't find its whimsical, but I think it's quite
• 47:05
  whimsical. For me, my idea of whimsy is very different from other people. Guardian to the galaxy
• 47:11
  is total whimsical. But yeah, and it's kind of like Marvel really does it well. They play with
• 47:17
  both. I think a really good example is how the first movie in every new franchise was always
• 47:23
  smaller. So like, for example, Thor was, you know, at the very beginning, he gets dropped in the
• 47:28
  middle of the desert in a town with like six people. And the whole movie takes place in the town
• 47:32
  with six people. And then when the movie broke out, the next thought was bigger. And the next
• 47:37
  thought was suddenly like, okay, we're going to go to Asgard. I'm going to, you know, we're going
• 47:40
  to do all these things. But, you know, you can't, even within the same world, really kind of
• 47:45
  explore both. You can have, um, magic led stories or, you know, magic is a part of a big story.
• 47:52
  And actually, one of the favorite things in one of my, um, in a couple of the recent adult fantasy
• 47:58
  book series I've read actually. So the final strife, uh, my Sarah El-Arifi, which is part of the
• 48:03
  ending fire trilogy, and the Oliander sword by Tasha Suri, which is part of the, um, the burning
• 48:10
  kingdom's trilogy. Book one feels like the magic is part of an overall plot because you've got
• 48:18
  politics and you've got the world building and you've got all of the things around the magic.
• 48:22
  But then as you go through the series, you actually realize that the magic is driving the world.
• 48:27
  Um, but it happens in later books because obviously they're trilogies and it takes, um,
• 48:32
  a little bit of time to get there. But so in the first book, I could be like, oh, you could change
• 48:36
  the magic fairly easily. Wouldn't affect it. But then by book three, you're like, oh my god,
• 48:41
  like the entire world is driven by this magic. Actually, if you changed anything about it,
• 48:46
  the world would fall apart. And that is like, I'm in awe of authors who are able to a right
• 48:51
  trilogy. So I've never quite gotten to three, um, but also who are able to jump from one type of fantasy
• 48:58
  to the other so seamlessly. It's really, it's amazing to read.
• 49:03
  Thank you. So we always end, um, we're wearing all the fantasy worlds by which it can be any book,
• 49:10
  any game, even any film movie. Where would you like to go to do a certain thing or be a certain
• 49:18
  thing? So in honor of, till we shatter, I thought, well, why don't we try and stage a heist?
• 49:25
  So where would you like to put on a heist? You can bring in new characters or recruit characters
• 49:32
  from within that world for your heist, whichever makes you think it would be most fun. Where would you go?
• 49:39
  I would. I would 100% and yes, I'm obsessed with this. I'm going to go back into the X-Men world.
• 49:45
  I'm going to take my characters from until we shatter and I'm going to put them in the X-Men world.
• 49:48
  I'm going to force them to work with the X-Men, which is going to be hilarious, I think, because
• 49:55
  you know, a lot of the X-Men have really cool powers and some of them are just like, oh, my tongue
• 50:00
  is weird. Yeah. Okay, weird tongue guy. How do you fit it in his eyes? Like, what is your purpose?
• 50:06
  But you have to include him. You have to include weird tongue guy. And I think it would be really
• 50:12
  fun to add sort of that kind of magical element and to the science element, which is obviously two
• 50:21
  of my favorite things kind of coming together. It helps that everybody in my books and, you know,
• 50:27
  X-Men world is just deeply sarcastic all the time and really like obstinates. So they're not
• 50:34
  going to want to work together at all. You know, they're going to want to probably kill each other
• 50:39
  for the first half of the heist, which is always the most fun you can have when you're writing or
• 50:44
  watching. So yeah, I think it would be really, really fun. I'd like to also take Magneto
• 50:52
  into the grave from until we shatter, because it's a shadow world. There's no metal. And I just
• 50:57
  want him to be so deeply annoyed that he can't affect anything. Yeah, I thought you were going to
• 51:03
  say Twilight, but anyway, that would just don't know what they would steal. I love this theme.
• 51:13
  So I was thinking about applying it to various classic fantasies. My brain went from Beatrix
• 51:19
  Potter, you know, like, like, little creatures. I suppose, by the way, Peter Rabbit is pretty much
• 51:25
  a heist. I'm Mr McGregor's garden or Peter Pan or Nania. So maybe Peter Pan, I think it'd be
• 51:34
  really good if say Peter Pan and the pirates and the mermaids and the children from the nursery
• 51:41
  all have to band together to steal something. They all need to preserve Neverland, you know,
• 51:50
  it could be that kind of a trick. Now I'm thinking about the opening scene of Peter Pan,
• 51:54
  where he's trying to stitch his shadow back on because he wants his shadow. But what if everyone
• 51:58
  in Peter Pan's land, they've had their shadows stolen and now they have to go get them back.
• 52:03
  He's breaking to get it, isn't he? So yeah, I think that'd be quite fun. And yeah,
• 52:10
  let's do a heist in Peter Pan.
• 52:14
  That's good. I think you've got one.
• 52:15
  And 11. Thank you so much, Kate. It's been lovely talking to you. And I wish you all the best when
• 52:24
  till we shatter is out in the book shops and online. And presumably, there probably be also an
• 52:29
  audio version eventually. Is that? Yes, there will be releasing simultaneously in ebook, audio,
• 52:36
  and hardback. The hardback, actually. I basted my eyelashes at my publisher and said,
• 52:42
  can I have secret foil? And they've given it secret foil. So it's going to be super, super shiny,
• 52:47
  super, super pretty because I'm a magpie who likes shiny, shiny things.
• 52:51
  Back to you. I know. So the first version is going to be absolutely stunning. They've done such
• 52:56
  a wonderful job with this book, like from the cover to the insides. It's a beautiful book.
• 53:01
  They've really ticked, took my role. They made it look good. I really appreciate it for it.
• 53:06
  And thank you so much for having me. This has been a lovely, fun time, actually, to let me
• 53:11
  nerd out. And just now your cat has gone to sleep. He's been sued by our patients. So we've done
• 53:16
  well. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.
• 53:20
  Thanks for listening to MythMakers Podcast.
• 53:28
  Brought to you by the Oxford Center for Fantasy. Visit OxfordCenterForFatasy.org to join in the
• 53:35
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