‘Sensuous and intense – buy it, read it, love it!’ – Melanie Rawn
Writers may give a small inward groan when well-meaning people ask, ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ but, I must admit, it’s sometimes all I can do not to ask an author whose amazing book I’ve enjoyed, ‘How did you think up all that lot?’ It’s an irresistible question, because truly comprehending what goes on in someone else’s mind is impossible, intangible, and all the more fascinating for it. Truth is, I don’t always know where my own ideas come from. They seldom arrive fully formed, but tend to develop in a tree-like fashion, usually in need of considered pruning. But what makes us want to write in the first place?
I’ve been writing since childhood, always in search of the sort of thrilling, mystical ‘otherworld’ feeling I got from my favourite books, and from exploring the hills and woods of the Charnwood Forest area (near Leicester, England) where I grew up. Fantasy in various guises was the genre that spoke to me. I felt embarrassed about being a ‘fantasy writer’ at first, led by conventional opinion to think that only realistic, mainstream, serious fiction really counted. Years ago, before I was published, I met a well-known mainstream author and as we had a writerly chat about her work, I began to tell her (timidly seeking validation, I suppose) that I wrote fantasy. She responded in a withering tone, ‘Perhaps you have a block.’
This put-down – well-intended, I’m sure – didn’t stop me writing. Nineteen novels later, I no longer feel remotely apologetic for the genre I work in. Aside from the fact that fantasy is now a massive and enormously diverse market, I came to see that far from being mere ‘escapism’ (if you even consider escapism to be a Bad Thing, which I don’t), we need to tell ourselves stories. Myths can reveal the truth in its purest form. Fantasy can be the perfect vehicle to get to the heart of ideas that real-world fiction can’t reach, to explore fundamental questions of friendship and passion, bravery, suffering, heroism, everything. As the scholar Joseph Campbell put it, ‘Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of human life… They’re stories about the wisdom of life.’ And the hero’s journey, the staple of myth and fantasy, Campbell says, applies to us all. ‘That’s the basic motif of the universal hero’s journey – leaving one’s condition and finding the source of life to bring you forth into a richer or mature condition… When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.’ The adventure of the hero is the adventure of being alive. Even my first published novel, begun while I was at school (now re-issued by Immanion Press as A Blackbird in Silver Darkness) had its roots in my very real fears of the cold war and nuclear annihilation. I couldn’t do much about it in real life, but I could send my heroes (anti-heroes?) Ashurek, Estarinel and Medrian to confront the terrifying Serpent.
It felt quite strange to be re-editing those early Blackbird novels and working on my latest, Elfland, at the same time. I’ve moved away from the drama of high fantasy to a more natural style, which is less about huge, save-the-world issues and more about the vagaries of the heart (human or faerie). Although memories of an idea’s origins can become cloudy, in this case I actually can remember how the ideas for Elfland originated. First, I’ve long been fascinated by the idea of enigmatic beings who are human-like yet ‘other’ – angels, vampires, elves, elementals, demi-gods, what you will. I’ve already written a lot about vampires, but the ‘Fair Folk’ are another expression of this archetype; creatures who embody something mysterious, untouchable, erotic, potentially dangerous yet spell-binding. My Aetherials (or Aelyr) have evolved as my own interpretation of such a race. They’re not ‘elves’ as such – although that’s easy shorthand – but they are ancient beings who can move between deeper layers of reality, between other worlds. They are also chameleon-like, enabling them to live among humans if they choose. And in Elfland, my Aetherial characters have become so nearly human that they’re deeply torn between their human selves and their Aetherial instincts. Which self is authentic?
The other seeds were quite simple, too. It’s easy to look an ancient rock crag and imagine that it conceals an entrance to the Otherworld, or to glimpse a granite mansion in the distance and picture a tormented, not-quite-human family rattling around inside it. Houses fascinate me, because it seems to me that every household is a micro-world in its own right. You live one life in your house, while yards away your neighbours are living an entirely different one. An infinity of different worlds all around us!
I knew this was a story about unrequited love, set against the two different planets of two households. So there were the key ideas. A friendly, beamed house containing a loving family, the Foxes. A cold stone manor on the hill containing a broken, dysfunctional family, the Wilders. A young woman, Rosie Fox, trying to make sense of human life and love when she’s not truly human at all. An outcrop of rock concealing the Great Gates to the Otherworld… suddenly mysteriously barred by the sinister gatekeeper, Lawrence Wilder. There’s a short synopsis below if you’d like to know more.
Certain archetypes still hold the popular imagination; ‘dark patriarchs’ such as Dracula, Heathcliff, Mr Rochester and similar characters are immortal, transcending the parodies that cluster around their feet. Another of my favourites is Lilith; the wild, witchy goddess whom we’re supposed to regard as ‘evil’ because she’s everything that, even today, ‘good’ women aren’t supposed to be; powerful, willful, sexual. I’ve used such characters consciously in my stories, but it amuses me to realise that they also creep in when I’m not looking! A few years ago I wrote a sequel to Dracula for Penguin (UK) called Dracula the Undead, which is being issued this year in hardback by Severn House. It was strange to be answering online interview questions about it recently. It seems such a long time since I wrote it. And yet… I realised that the archetype is still right there at the heart of my recent work! Lawrence Wilder, although not a vampire, represents a similar dark force, the pale, cold and unreachable patriarch in a desolate stone fortress, a lonely, scary and potentially tragic figure. I suspect many writers find themselves returning to the same themes over and over again from different angles, as we gnaw away at the edges of our obsessions to discover why they’re so fascinating to us.
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Freda Warrington was born in Leicestershire, UK, where I still live with my mum and my husband, Mike. I’ve worked in medical illustration and graphic design, but my first love was always writing. My first novel A Blackbird in Silver was published in 1986, to be followed by another seventeen (so far), including A Taste of Blood Wine, Dark Cathedral, The Amber Citadel, and The Court of the Midnight King – a fantasy based on the life of the controversial King Richard III.
Immanion Press has released my earlier novels (with fabulous covers) as A Blackbird in Silver Darkness and A Blackbird in Amber Twilight. My 1997 novel Dracula the Undead will be issued in hardback by Severn House in September 2009. I’m now working on my nineteenth novel, my second book for Tor, Midsummer Night.
Elfland is published by Tor (US) on August 18th 2009 with stunning cover art by Kinuko Y Craft. You can visit Freda’s website, at her blog or at her livejournal.
Synopsis for Elfland:
Auberon Fox is the warm heart of the English village of Cloudcroft and father of a happy family including his daughter, Rosie. But on the hill lives the mysterious, aloof Lawrence Wilder, Gatekeeper to the inner realms of the Spiral. Tortured by personal demons, Lawrence is beset by trouble on all sides. His wife has left him; his sons Jon and Sam are angry and damaged, and when he refuses to open the Great Gates, preventing access to the Otherworld, the Aetherial community is outraged. What will become of them, deprived of the home realm from which their essential life-force flows?
Rosie, an Aetherial among mortals, knows the Wilders are trouble, but she and her gentle brother Lucas can’t seem to keep away. She falls in love with the alluring Jon Wilder; she is tormented by his notorious brother Sam, who is always in trouble. Rosie becomes caught in a classic conflict between trying to live a ‘normal’, hard-working human life, or surrendering to her wild, Aetherial instincts. Ultimately she makes a disastrous choice that leads to tragedy…
Journeying deep into the Spiral as she tries to pick up the pieces, Rosie can’t escape her destiny as she learns about life, love… and her role in the terrifying conflict to come.
‘A real page-turner and a very magical book… Even the most jaded fantasy reader will quickly fall under the spell of her characters and the warm, intimate voice Warrington uses to tell us their stories. Highly recommended.’ – Charles de Lint
‘A glittering treasure-trove and a stunning read for Warrington’s multitude of fans.’ – Tanith Lee
‘Prolific British author Warrington (the Jewelfire Trilogy) puts a distinctive spin on human/nonhuman relations in this sensuous, relationship-driven story. Solid wordplay, great pacing and a thrilling conclusion will definitely earn Warrington some new American fans.’ – Publisher’s Weekly
