We chat with author Charlotte Bond about The Fireborne Blade, which features a rich history of dragons, ill-fated knights, scheming squires, and sapphic love, with deceptions and double-crosses that will keep you guessing right up to its dramatic conclusion.
Hi, Charlotte! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi Nerd Daily! Thanks for having me over. I’m an author of dark fantasy and horror. I’ve also been a ghostwriter, where I’ve tried my hand at everything from vampire romance to cosy mysteries and a children’s fantasy series. I’m a freelance editor, working with individual clients and publishers, and I also find time to submit the odd review to places like Ginger Nuts of Horror or the British Fantasy Society. I’m a co-host of a podcast called Breaking the Glass Slipper; we focus on diversity and feminism in speculative fiction.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
Oh, I’ve had it since I was really small. In Year 5 of primary school, I missed out on winning a writing competition. I found I was surprisingly upset and super annoyed at myself because I knew I could have done better. So next year, I researched and wrote a really cool story – and it won! After that, it just kind of snowballed.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Well, if we’re discounting the Roger Redhat books (probably a British thing), then it would have to be The Hobbit. This was my bedtime story when I was very young (I’m too old for Julia Donaldson), so I was pretty much able to quote it by the time I was ready to read on my own, and I sort of just guessed what most of the longer words were because I remembered the story so well!
- The one that made you want to become an author: That honour would probably go to The Whitby Witches by Robin Jarvis. It’s a horror story set in Whitby, and I was just blown away by the idea that a place you knew so well could appear in a story. That really got me thinking about how fiction interacts with real life and how anywhere could be the setting for a story you’d never heard before. Thanks, Robin! I owe you lots.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: When I write my own stuff, I frequently think of The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly. I mean, obviously, his Charlie Parker books are awesome, but even the best Parker book will never hold a place in my heart like this one. Whenever I’m writing (particularly when I’m writing fantasy and fairy tales) I often think: How can I make this as good as The Book of Lost Things?
Your latest novella, The Fireborne Blade, is out May 28th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Dragons. Knights. Peril. More dragons.
What can readers expect?
Possibly some dragons…? Podcast listeners will know I don’t much care for Chosen One stories, but I really do like redemption stories, and that’s a strong theme in The Fireborne Blade. Female knight Maddileh has disgraced herself in front of her fellow knights and been stripped of her tourney armour and her honour. To regain that as well as the trust of her king, she must prove herself with a great deed. So she decides to try and retrieve The Fireborne Blade, a legendary sword held by The White Lady, the oldest living dragon. But things are never as straightforward as they seem.
Where did the inspiration for The Fireborne Blade come from?
I got the ending of it first and then kind of worked backwards! In fact, the novella started off as a short story with the main character being a man. But it didn’t quite sparkle enough for me, so I put it aside for a bit. Then I had the great idea of making the main character female, and that changed the stakes and introduced more conflict.
When it came to creating all my dragons and the various knights hunting them, I did plenty of research. The gorgeous Dracopedia: Field Guide by William O’Connor helped to give me ideas on how my different dragons would look (and my descriptions went into the stats cards that Tordotcom posted online – have you seen them? They’re gorgeous). I decided that all the dragons in my world would interact with species around them, either mimicking them so they could slot into the evolutionary niche or by breeding with them. So I have dragons that resemble birds, bears, and even eels. As for the mythology and stories surrounding them, I rented books from my local library (such an amazing resource – support your local library!) like British Dragons by Jacqueline Simpson (so useful I bought my own copy) and the surprisingly helpful Demons and Dragons by Alice Peebles. That last one might look like a kids’ book, but I’ll be honest with you that sometimes, by simplifying bigger ideas or adopting a very broad brush approach, a kids’ book can actually provide interesting, thought-provoking information that an adult book lacks.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
As I was writing, I realised that I’d set dragon-hunting up to be a dangerous business, but I was lacking a way to show just how dangerous. To fix that, I put in a couple of extracts from an in-world book called The Demise and Demesne of Dragons so that the reader will know what perils Maddileh is facing. Each entry has a different style and charts a different dragon hunt. I’ll be honest, I almost had more fun writing those bits than I did writing Maddileh’s story!
And while Maddileh is my main character, I did enjoy writing Saralene. They make a good couple, showing different ways that women can conform to a patriarchal system while still fighting against it. Sexism is something I come across regularly in real life, and it can be incredibly frustrating. It’s wonderfully cathartic to write about women bucking the system.
What are some of the challenges you face when writing a novella and how do you overcome them?
The challenges are often the bits you don’t enjoy! For example, I love worldbuilding. It’s my absolutely favourite thing. If I could just research novels, build a world, draft a plot, and then move on then that would be my career. But publishers require actual books in return for cash, so that’s scuppered my dream.
Writing the first draft is also good fun, but it’s the next bit I find challenging. You ever see those memes about where there’s a picture of what a book looks like in your head (beautiful, rolling meadows, flawless skies, elegant birds, an intriguing lone figure in the distance) and then what it looks like on paper (some random squiggles and a stick man)? I suffer really badly from that worldview. I hate the second draft because you want to cry: “It looked so much better in my head!” But usually, once I’ve read it, I find it’s not so bad. And then I send the third draft to my agent or editor and (on good days) they say, “Yeah, that’s pretty decent, here are some tweaks” or (on the bad days), “Well, it’s got promise but here is a list of changes you should make” and then I cry a bit (in the second instance) and get to work, and then I find that, suddenly, I’ve got a pretty decent book. So I guess the way I counteract my weakness is just to try and get my head down and faith that it’ll all turn out all right.
As to the challenges of writing a novella over a novel, I think the main issue is: reconciling myself with all the bits I left out. I found the second book, The Bloodless Princes, particularly challenging in that respect because I had a whole subplot I had to cut out. In addition, I couldn’t do as much character development as I wanted because of all that pesky worldbuilding, and I couldn’t incorporate all my worldbuilding notes because I had to put in some gosh-darn character development. It’s a very fine balance when you only have a limited number of words to work with, and you just have to trust your gut that you’ve got the balance right.
Because of those issues, there’s always the worry that people will find your novella too rushed or not deep enough (and some do put forward that criticism because not everyone is going to like your book). But then you hear that some people just loved the fact that they could race through it all in one sitting, so it all balances out in the end.
What’s next for you?
Ooh, I don’t know! More books, hopefully. As to “which books”, that’s a more difficult question. You may pour your heart and soul into a book only to find that the publisher you had your eye on already has a book about carnivorous ferns and a plucky young red-headed teenager on their list, and then you’re a bit stuck. I’ve got a few projects I’m working on, but publishing is as much about serendipity as it is talent, so which will make it onto the shelves first is anybody’s guess.
Lastly, are there any book releases that you’re looking forward to picking up this year?
Well, that’s tricky, because my to read pile is already huge so I don’t want to be adding any more to it! And we often get sent lots of books for the podcast to read. So books that I will be reading this year include Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett, Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward, and The Siege of Burning Grass by Premee Mohamed.
