Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #19 October 2015 | Page 24

Author Interview

lowed. In fact, I had a nightmare one night from which
I drew the basic situation of the story, Dagr is trying
to rescue a girl who has been captured and taken into
slavery. I also knew the ending. I just let the characters
tell me everything that happened in the middle. In
this way, I ended up with more climaxes, not one or
two giant climaxes. In some ways, the story resembles
Raiders of the Lost Arc, which was written to have 7
acts, with 7 climaxes. I liked the action-oriented way
that tells a story.

Gudrod Hanson
Angry Shadows Rising – Zharmae Publishing, Luthando Couer

I think that worked out very well.

wrote.

is it?

Tell us a bit more about the last book you

Do you have a set writing process, if so what

I want to get the benefits of having a story
outline, and yet also benefit from spontaneity. I am
writing the sequel now and I’m following the Hero’s
Journey format much more tightly than I did before. I
am structuring this one more than I did Angry Shadows Rising. And actually, I am using a model from
film screenwriting. But I am leaving room for characters to take the story in a different direction.

I wrote Angry Shadows Rising, which is a
traditional fantasy novel, with some dark themes of
slavery and a growing number of dark spirits walking
the earth. The book is about being a hero and struggling for what is right, against tremendous odds. It’s
also about how two people, Ingrid and Dagr, grow up
during a great adventure. I wrote the book to be full of
action and bold, vivid opponents because I found so
many fantasy novels to be full of a lot of talk or theoretical discussions. I wanted fights, giant monsters,
and dark dungeons full of evil spirits. So that’s what I
wrote.

I think one of the most important things in
writing is being willing and energetic enough to make
the big edits and big changes to the story when things
are just not working. I am never afraid to cut out
whole sections or chapters of a novel and put them
into my archive folder.

What did you learn about writing whilst writing the last book you wrote?
I learned a tremendous amount from my editor.
I learned to be very clear in what you write because
often if a reader can misunderstand your sentence,
they will. The first goal for every writer is to be clear.
Once you are clear in your communication, then you
can tell the story.

Otherwise writing is work. I work at it in the
mornings, and in the evenings. I put a lot of time and
energy into it. I wish that things flowed quickly on
the first draft, but they just do not. Again, what can
help the process is listening to the characters. Let the
characters tell a story. That usually works.

Do you write a lot of short stories?

I don’t write a lot of short stories. I find it difI also learned the value of letting the characters
ficult
to
find a good idea that can be captured in short
tell the story and letting it go in directions that might
seem a bit wild. Characters will go where their desires form. I would prefer to write a couple really good
short stories rather than write a lot of them that are
take them. I did not have a strict outline that I fol-

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