Today I’m pleased to welcome to my blog Dave Woolliscroft author of Kingshold (No.1 in the Wildfire Cycle)

Hi Dave, welcome to my blog and thank you so much for agreeing to take part in an interview

Firstly, Can you tell readers a little bit about yourself and your book??

The short answer, and the one that avoids regurgitating my bio from my website (dpwoolliscroft.com, go take a look), is that I’m a long time reader, first time writer, and I reached the point in my life where I finally thought, “sod it”. I better give writing a good go before I have (more) regrets as I get (even) older.

I’ve read a varied bunch, in genre and out, but it all started something like this. Tolkien to Eddings, to Weiss & Hickman (dragonlance chronicles), to Feist, to Williams, to Pratchett. I had a bit of a fantasy lull for a while in the late nineties, early 2000’s, but then Steven Erikson caught my attention and I became embroiled in the Malazan Books of the Fallen. That led to Glenn Cook and Joe Abercrombie and a great swathe of excellent authors who are producing today (don’t you think we are so lucky to have so many great books being published today?) (Why yes, yes I do)

Anyway, so thirty years of reading has created ideas and stuff sloshing around in my mind that in quiet moments will preoccupy me. Sir Terry Pratchett has been an enormous influence on me (I still go back and reread the City Watch novels), and so one day, at the beginning of 2017, I was reflecting on the absolute chaotic results that democracy delivered in 2016 in the UK, the US and around the world. It occurred to me that it was a shame that Terry never wrote anything about democracy in Discworld. I thought about how democracy almost sounds like a portmanteau of demon and crazy; and so that how’s the initial idea of tiny pink demonic pixies as the means of voting came about. And then I realized I would have to write it if I wanted to read this story.

Demon-crazy, eventually became Kingshold, and the story expanded to envelop the odd idea I’d been kicking around for nearly ten years.

Kingshold is supposed to feel comfortable to readers of fantasy in many ways: there is an ancient wizard; the city has a euro feel to it (though it’s not medieval). But then I wanted to flip some of the tropes on their head. The king and queen are killed in the opening chapter. The ancient wizard has had enough of the endless grind of protecting the kingdom and wants to retire (to somewhere warm probably). The new ruler isn’t going to be some lost child heir to the throne (no coming of age here), instead the ruler is going to be chosen by the people with money. And though I wanted it to feel epic, the entire story takes place over just thirty days and in the one city.

But Kingshold is also really a story about people believing in themselves and trying to live up to their potential. It’s about families, fathers in particular, and communities coming together. All wrapped up in a package with magic, monsters, pirates, demons, assassins and good old fashioned action!

I also think it’s worth mentioning that Kingshold works well as a stand alone read. It has five POV characters so the opening part of the book is laying some of the groundwork for both this story and the rest of the series, but by the time you hit the 40% mark it’s non stop to the end.

Oh, and it has some laughs in it. Because, if you can’t laugh when the world is going to hell in a hand basket when can you laugh?

You mention that your world has a European feel – does that come as a result of being well travelled as well as well read?  Is there any place in particular where you feel you’ve drawn quite heavily upon the culture/characteristics of the place and can you tell me a little bit more about your own process in terms of world building?

I guess I’m fairly well traveled but there are so many places I would still love to go. When I still lived in England I really took advantage of how easy it was to get around to various places in Europe from London. And then, right before we moved to America we had a six week backpacking adventure through Eastern Europe: Croatia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Vienna and Berlin. We had such an amazing time; lots of very cool castles, museums and gorgeous scenery. So travels, and also history books, have definitely acted as a frame of reference as I started world building.

World building for me is a combination of “develop it as it was needed” or “dredge up something from the depths of my brain that I have been noodling on in quiet moments over many years”. As an example of the former, I think I wrote the first four chapters and I already knew that the story wouldn’t really leave Kingshold, but I didn’t know enough about the place. So I stopped writing and drew maps of the city, named the neighborhoods, considered its place in the world and its institutions. And after that I needed to have the larger world setting in place too. I had actually hand drawn the map of the Jeweled Continent about three years ago, just for fun, and so I claimed that for these books, further developing their people, religions and political institutions even though they don’t really appear in Kingshold. But to me it was really important to think broadly early, as I knew that Edland (of which Kingshold is the capital) was an island nation that punched above its weight, largely off the back of it’s ships, both merchant and navy. And that meant that Edland would be connected to its neighbors – globalization isn’t a new thing, it really started with the age of sail.

The evolution of a map

From rough Sketch

To finished product

Not all of the locations have that European feel as we move through the series. In fact, one of the things that is of increasing importance is the Wild Continent that is mentioned in the book. You could think of it as the Americas when discovered by the Spanish, with its own very different range of cultures and civilizations.

I have quite a few things figured out when it comes to the world inside or outside the walls of Kingshold but I’ve definitely left myself room to discover new things too (which for me is huge fun). That’s one reason why my next book to be released is a collection of novelettes and shorter stories (called Tales of Kingshold, and officially book 1.5 of the series) that enables me to explore the backstories of some characters, introduce new characters and add more color to the world. Chronologically I think about a third of the stories in that book are from before the events of Kingshold, about a third are concurrent and then a third bridge books 1 and 2. I know this is an odd approach to publishing but it’s something I plan to continue for the rest of the series.

I’d like to know more about your characters. Did you have a particularly strong character in mind when you started writing, how many POVs does your book have, do you find it difficult to make them all individual and do you have a strong favourite. 

Well, Kingshold has five POV characters. Maybe a little ambitious for a debut novel but I love to look at problems and situations from many angles. And I love to read a scene of a prominent character from a different perspective, I think that helps round out your view of them. I also really wanted to make this story diverse (in a good way) with prominent female characters and characters with different backgrounds, so multiple POV was the way for me to do that.

Hopefully, all of the POV characters feel distinct. They all have their own particular challenges and issues that they are dealing with as you meet them. We have some characters with a lack of confidence in themselves and their appreciation of their own self-worth. We have one character who is not living up to the potential that was identified early in his life. And there is definitely a common theme of characters who are struggling with the expectations of family and those who are close to them. Each of the characters have their own arcs and finish the book in quite a different place than they started, and it will be fun to see how the meat grinder of life treats them in the future.

And is it difficult?

Hell, yeah! Revisions, editors and beta readers really helped me with identifying where there were gaps that needed to be addressed to make the characters pop before I released Kingshold in to the world. One thing I was proud of from the feedback of my beta readers is that the most and least liked characters differed between them, and now too with actual reader reviews. I want readers to have the opportunity to latch on to the characters that most appeal to them.

I don’t think I can pick a favorite POV character. There’s a little bit of me in all of them. But of the supporting cast I really enjoyed writing Jyuth, the ancient wizard. He’s a cantankerous, foul-mouthed old guy who loves his food and the country that he helped found. You could think of him as a combination of the Danny Glover character from Lethal Weapon (“I’m too old for this s#!t” – one for the teenagers there) and Bayaz from the First Law trilogy. But unlike Bayaz, Jyuth is secretly a softy underneath, like a tough old teacher you might have had who wants you to learn for yourself but still very much cares.

Thanks for this.  Finally, can I ask a few random questions unrelated to the book?

If you could go back in time to your younger self what advice would you impart?  Embrace and be public with your inner geek! Don’t care what other people think. Be creative. Have confidence in yourself.

Can you tell readers 3 random snippets of information about yourself that isn’t available elsewhere on your social media?

• My three deceased heroes are Terry Pratchett, Brian Clough and John Peel. Which rather neatly covers my three passions of fantasy, football and music.
• I watched the sun rise from the top of my university dormitory on my 19^th birthday. It was five floors up and required climbing up the outside of the building and through various other people’s dorm rooms to access parts of the roof. Yes, we had been out all night and I did find that I had suffered some injuries in the process after finally going to bed.
• I love pork products. Pork pie and sausage rolls are the foods I miss most about home.

If you could choose from any superpower what would you go for and why.  Super speed. I could travel to anywhere in the world without having to get on a plane (and I’ve spent a lot of time waiting in airports). I would also be able to make more use of the time I carve out every day for writing.

If you could travel to a fictional world anywhere in the universe where would you go.  Ankh Morpork. This city feels very real to me from Pratchett’s writing. It’s so colorful and diverse, and with a capacity for constant change. I’d try to wangle a meeting with Vetinari and see if Dibbler’s pies really are that bad.

Dave, thank you so much for taking part.  I wish you all the best in the SPFBO.

FYI: Dave can be found at:

Goodread’s : author’s page

Website: http://dpwoolliscroft.com

Twitter: @dpwoolliscroft