C.J. Ruby
asked
Scott Hawkins:
I think it takes a lot of courage to write so dark about children. Who inspired you to go so far? I'm sure you got a lot of feedback from your first readers. Did they encourage you to stick with it or did you just go with your gut?
Scott Hawkins
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)[Hi CJ,
That's a tough one, and there's more than one answer to the question. Cross my heart, I didn't set out to write a book about brutalizing little kids, it just sort of happened. I'm sure you've read the book, but for anyone else who happens on this, the answer below is pretty spoiler-y.
Part of it is that I've always had a fairly high tolerance for ghastly stuff in stories. I'm not one of those horror fans who seeks out gore just for the sake of gore, but it doesn't really bother me much either. So as a writer, it's part of my toolchest--I'll throw it in a dash of horror whenever it feels like a little "yikes!" is called for. *
I should also emphasize that when I was writing Mount Char, there was no realistic reason to think it would ever make it out of my basement. I was pretty much just writing for myself. In case you're not aware, it is insanely difficult to get a novel published. At the time I wrote this, I'd been reliably failing at writer-ness for three decades. Ronald Reagan was in his first term as president when I got my first rejection slip. I still had hopes that Mount Char would be the one, but I wasn't really holding my breath, you know? I figured I should just write whatever I felt like writing. And I like dark.
That said, it really wasn't ghastly for the sake of being ghastly. For instance, the bull scene was pretty much a direct result of one of my "make this less boring" rewrites.
As originally written, the way Father emphasized that the kids weren't supposed to share their catalogs was that he just gave them a little lecture. Yawn. I mean, he yelled and waved his arms around, but overall it was pretty forgettable.
So in this one rewrite, I was trying to think of ways that Father might make his point a bit more forcefully. And at the same time I was also playing with the idea that Father had been a sort of unsung mover-&-shaker throughout human history. Mayan & Egyptian pyramids? They bear a strange resemblance to the Library. Father's alias Abla Khan wasn't coincidence. So I was trying to remember any ghastly historical stuff I knew of. Then I remembered reading something about a Greek ruler who did go so far as to manufacture one of those bronze bulls. (Yes, really. The mind reels.)
I actually did hesitate a little bit before writing that scene because it was so mind-bogglingly ghastly, but only a little. It really felt like a strong image. It was suitably antique and exotic, but also something you could convey in only a few words, and also a feast for the senses (sights! smells! sounds!). So I typed it up one Saturday and then got drunk and cried myself to sleep.
The other major one was the rape scene. That one I really did straight-up agonize over--sleepless nights, a zillion different versions, the whole nine yards.
Around the time I was working on Mount Char, one of the luminaries of the fantasy field did a blog post about how rape of a female heroine was lazy writing. I won't recap the points she made here, other than to say 'ouch,' but I did think long and hard about whether and how I wanted to do that scene. I ended up with around five separate versions ranging from "something else happened" to "full-on, all-stops-pulled horror."
The reason that scene existed in the first place was to get the reader hyped up with righteous fury for Carolyn's ghastly revenge in the next chapter. (Fun fact: I wrote the revenge scene before I knew what she was revenging.) I knew it had to be bad though. Like I said, I tried a couple of approaches, but the "something else happened" version just didn't have the same punch. It also felt to me like a cop-out on my part in that David wasn't really the sort to have boundaries.
So anyway, with great trepidation and the conspicuous lack of objection from beta-readers, that's the version I ended up submitting to the person who eventually became my agent.
She (my agent is a she) did think that the cumulative effect of all of this ghastliness added up to a bit much. She suggested a number of changes. Margaret's maggots used to be a lot more prominent (I think we did a 40% reduction? Something like that. I actually counted.) In earlier drafts, many of the minor characters became incontinent with terror, now they mostly retain bladder control. Stuff like that.
But the biggest change was that we toned down the rape scene by having Carolyn recount the events after the fact. (It was originally told in first person.) I also took out one (1) paragraph from the bull scene.
I didn't really get much objection from my beta readers. One of the things you hear a lot from writing instructors is to try and take stories on their own terms--don't criticize a romance for not having enough machine gun fights, or whatever. That may be part of the reason? Or not. But it really wasn't something I got pounded on. The main gripe was that no one had any idea what was going on in the first couple of chapters.
TL;DR - Most of the really dark stuff sprang from storytelling motives, but I got surprisingly little objection from beta readers, agent, editor. That said, the version that was published has been toned down slightly from what was originally written.
Thanks for the interesting question, and pardon the wall-o-text.
Scott
* That said, the bull scene was the only thing I've ever written that I got a little shaky over. It's toned down a little bit from how it was originally written , but no one (beta readers, agent, editor) ever really objected too much. (hide spoiler)]
That's a tough one, and there's more than one answer to the question. Cross my heart, I didn't set out to write a book about brutalizing little kids, it just sort of happened. I'm sure you've read the book, but for anyone else who happens on this, the answer below is pretty spoiler-y.
Part of it is that I've always had a fairly high tolerance for ghastly stuff in stories. I'm not one of those horror fans who seeks out gore just for the sake of gore, but it doesn't really bother me much either. So as a writer, it's part of my toolchest--I'll throw it in a dash of horror whenever it feels like a little "yikes!" is called for. *
I should also emphasize that when I was writing Mount Char, there was no realistic reason to think it would ever make it out of my basement. I was pretty much just writing for myself. In case you're not aware, it is insanely difficult to get a novel published. At the time I wrote this, I'd been reliably failing at writer-ness for three decades. Ronald Reagan was in his first term as president when I got my first rejection slip. I still had hopes that Mount Char would be the one, but I wasn't really holding my breath, you know? I figured I should just write whatever I felt like writing. And I like dark.
That said, it really wasn't ghastly for the sake of being ghastly. For instance, the bull scene was pretty much a direct result of one of my "make this less boring" rewrites.
As originally written, the way Father emphasized that the kids weren't supposed to share their catalogs was that he just gave them a little lecture. Yawn. I mean, he yelled and waved his arms around, but overall it was pretty forgettable.
So in this one rewrite, I was trying to think of ways that Father might make his point a bit more forcefully. And at the same time I was also playing with the idea that Father had been a sort of unsung mover-&-shaker throughout human history. Mayan & Egyptian pyramids? They bear a strange resemblance to the Library. Father's alias Abla Khan wasn't coincidence. So I was trying to remember any ghastly historical stuff I knew of. Then I remembered reading something about a Greek ruler who did go so far as to manufacture one of those bronze bulls. (Yes, really. The mind reels.)
I actually did hesitate a little bit before writing that scene because it was so mind-bogglingly ghastly, but only a little. It really felt like a strong image. It was suitably antique and exotic, but also something you could convey in only a few words, and also a feast for the senses (sights! smells! sounds!). So I typed it up one Saturday and then got drunk and cried myself to sleep.
The other major one was the rape scene. That one I really did straight-up agonize over--sleepless nights, a zillion different versions, the whole nine yards.
Around the time I was working on Mount Char, one of the luminaries of the fantasy field did a blog post about how rape of a female heroine was lazy writing. I won't recap the points she made here, other than to say 'ouch,' but I did think long and hard about whether and how I wanted to do that scene. I ended up with around five separate versions ranging from "something else happened" to "full-on, all-stops-pulled horror."
The reason that scene existed in the first place was to get the reader hyped up with righteous fury for Carolyn's ghastly revenge in the next chapter. (Fun fact: I wrote the revenge scene before I knew what she was revenging.) I knew it had to be bad though. Like I said, I tried a couple of approaches, but the "something else happened" version just didn't have the same punch. It also felt to me like a cop-out on my part in that David wasn't really the sort to have boundaries.
So anyway, with great trepidation and the conspicuous lack of objection from beta-readers, that's the version I ended up submitting to the person who eventually became my agent.
She (my agent is a she) did think that the cumulative effect of all of this ghastliness added up to a bit much. She suggested a number of changes. Margaret's maggots used to be a lot more prominent (I think we did a 40% reduction? Something like that. I actually counted.) In earlier drafts, many of the minor characters became incontinent with terror, now they mostly retain bladder control. Stuff like that.
But the biggest change was that we toned down the rape scene by having Carolyn recount the events after the fact. (It was originally told in first person.) I also took out one (1) paragraph from the bull scene.
I didn't really get much objection from my beta readers. One of the things you hear a lot from writing instructors is to try and take stories on their own terms--don't criticize a romance for not having enough machine gun fights, or whatever. That may be part of the reason? Or not. But it really wasn't something I got pounded on. The main gripe was that no one had any idea what was going on in the first couple of chapters.
TL;DR - Most of the really dark stuff sprang from storytelling motives, but I got surprisingly little objection from beta readers, agent, editor. That said, the version that was published has been toned down slightly from what was originally written.
Thanks for the interesting question, and pardon the wall-o-text.
Scott
* That said, the bull scene was the only thing I've ever written that I got a little shaky over. It's toned down a little bit from how it was originally written , but no one (beta readers, agent, editor) ever really objected too much. (hide spoiler)]
More Answered Questions
Melissa
asked
Scott Hawkins:
I don't have a question that hasn't already been answered. However, I do want the answer to said question "when will the sequel be out", to be soon!!! I really do hope that you will work out the kinks and give us more!!! I will admit, this type of book, but I really enjoyed the book. It was weird, imaginative and gripping. Also it makes you pay attention. I loved that!!! THANKS FOR A GREAT READ?!?!
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