With her second novel out yesterday, friend of the blog Anna Smith, kindly let us know about how she went about creating the next thrilling installment of her Darkhaven series, here's what she had to say:
Goldenfire is partly about second chances. It seemed appropriate for a second novel. Although perhaps that’s being a little optimistic – there are so many books out there, these days, that I’m not sure any reader has time to give a second chance to an author whose first book they didn’t like.
Still, as a reader myself, I know there are lots of books that fall somewhere in the middle: books that weren’t instant favourites, but I still liked enough to be interested in reading another by the same author. And it seems likely that my own first novel, Darkhaven, fell into that category for many people. They’re the readers I don’t get to hear about: the ones who didn’t love it so much that they had to tell everyone about it (I’m lucky enough to have had a few of those) or hate it so much that they had to do the same (I’ve had a couple of those, too) but simply read it, enjoyed it, and moved on to something else.
Of course, since I never find out what those readers thought about the book, I have no idea which bits of it they liked and which they didn’t, which poses something of a challenge for the sequel. Ideally, a second novel would be far better than the first. It would impress all those readers in the middle – the ones who neither loved nor hated Darkhaven, but liked it enough to give me a second chance – into giving me a third chance. A fourth. A fifth. But without knowing what my general audience would class as ‘better’, I might be moving in completely the wrong direction. That’s the difficulty of writing a follow-up to anything. It’s impossible to please everyone, but an author’s continued existence depends on pleasing as many people as possible.
All of this is rather a roundabout preamble to my actual point, which is twofold.
Firstly, it provides a heartfelt plea to all the readers out there to review the books you read. Authors can’t write by committee, of course, but I’ve found it genuinely helpful to find out what people like and dislike about my work. If you ask for more of something in particular from an author, you might just get it.
Secondly, and almost in direct contradiction to the first point (because that’s how I roll), I think the actual secret to writing a sequel is to forget what everyone else has said about the first book and just write the book you want to write. I love reader comments and I welcome them – sometimes they directly inform the direction I go in – but in the end, the story belongs to the author. Trying to please everyone ends up pleasing no-one; there will always be someone who doesn’t like what you’re doing. At least if you love what you’re writing, that passion will shine through.
Goldenfire probably isn’t the book that my readers are expecting. I don’t know what they’re expecting – that’s the point. Some people may be surprised to find that it’s set three years after Darkhaven, instead of picking up straight away from the end of the first book. Others may be surprised to find new characters joining some of the old ones. But it’s the book I wanted to write, and I hope it’s enjoyable enough that those who have given me a second chance go on to give me a third.
Release Date: 02/07/15
Publisher: Solaris
SYNOPSIS:
Ayla Nightshade never wanted to rule Darkhaven. But her half-brother Myrren - true heir to the throne - hasn't inherited their family gift, forcing her to take his place.
When this gift leads to Ayla being accused of killing her father, Myrren is the only one to believe her innocent. Does something more sinister than the power to shapeshift lie at the heart of the Nightshade family line?
Now on the run, Ayla must fight to clear her name if she is ever to wear the crown she never wanted and be allowed to return to the home she has always loved.
REVIEW:
A novel that introduces readers to not only a world of wonder but full of dark intrigue, murder and mystery as events unfurl that throws a city out of balance. Its definitely a book that thoroughly captivated me which when added to solid prose alongside an arc that has a lot of room to grow for future outings, all round gives the reader a thoroughly enjoyable read.
All round whilst this is my first read of Smith’s writing I really can’t wait to embark on other outings as it’s not only friendly but a style that is so engaging you’ll eagerly await the next time that you pick it up for your next read. Cracking.
Worldbuilding and plot are like the chicken and egg of fantasy: people often want to know which came first. Do authors create a fascinating new world and then figure out a plot to fit inside it? Or do they come up with a plot first and then build a world around it?
For me, at least, the answer is something in between. When I wrote Darkhaven, it started with an initial idea that was really just a vivid scene – the scene that’s still the opening of the book. So there was a vague suggestion of plot, a little bit of setting, but not much of either. After that, I probably came up with the basic elements of the main plot, which in turn suggested a certain kind of setting – and then that setting, in turn, suggested further refinements and additions to the plot. So the worldbuilding and the plot evolved together, each influencing the direction of the other.
Consider the city of Arkannen, which is where the events of Darkhaven take place. I started out with Darkhaven itself, the tower at the heart of the city, because that’s where my character Ayla is fleeing from at the beginning of the book. I knew she was trying to evade the law, and I didn’t want to make it too easy for her. In a modern city her obstacles would be video surveillance, cell phone tracking, use of credit cards; in an industrial revolution era city, where it would be far easier to go undetected, the solution was to make Arkannen very structured. So it has seven ‘rings’ or concentric walled circles, each with a single gate. Each of the city’s rings also has its own purpose and character, allowing me to present Ayla with various different environments to navigate. And in turn, this highly structured setting suggested new plot points, particularly when it came to the final act of the book.
The same was true when it came to the kind of time period in which to set the book. I didn’t want to give it a medieval setting, but I still wanted to have swords and horses alongside the steam trams and factories. So industrial revolution was perfect for me, because it’s always a time in history when new and old coexist. And once I’d made that decision, when I was seeking an unusual weapon to give my female mercenary an advantage over her competitors, the obvious choice was a pistol: a new technology to set against the old ‘technology’ of bladed weapons. In turn, that opened up a whole new strand of the plot, because – not to get all spoilery about it – it turns out that pistols have very specific effects in my world that other weapons don’t. In fact, those effects will play a significant role in Darkhaven’s sequel. So once again, a general bit of worldbuilding led to a new plot point, which fed back into the worldbuilding again.
I don’t know about other authors, but for me, I think it’s pretty much inevitable that worldbuilding and plot should be intertwined like this. In fact, perhaps it’s a mistake to think of them as being separate entities at all. Like the chicken and the egg, neither could exist without the other. Something similar is true of plot and character – it’s impossible to develop the characters of a novel and develop its plot independently of each other, because the plot has to be consistent with how the people in it would behave. After all, you can’t have a plot that exists without characters. And you can’t have a plot that exists without worldbuilding, either. Things happen to people, in places.
One of my favourite parts of writing is how exciting it can be when a previously underdeveloped aspect of the world or strand of the plot comes to life and brings something I hadn’t thought of to the story, or turns out to be connected to another strand I thought was unrelated. I imagine it would be possible to design a fully complete world and populate it with fully developed characters, then set them in motion; the plot would follow from the characteristics of the people and their setting, as inevitable as the laws of physics. Or you could come up with a detailed and clever plot, then build the people and their world around it, retrofitting their characteristics to suit the requirements of the story. But neither of those approaches would hold any surprises for the author. Letting the story and the world grow together, and develop organically, is much more fun – and, in the end, probably more satisfying for the reader too.
