“Daughter Of Blood” (The Wall Of Night #3) Q&A Thursday — The Second!
w00t! w00t! It’s Thursday and you know what that means — it’s time for our second Daughter Of Blood Q&A!
The first Q&A posted last week: “Daughter Of Blood” (The Wall Of Night #3) Q&A Thursday
All part of celebrating Daughter of Blood while it’s a Kindle Monthly Deal for this November. And although the deal may be for USA/Canada (& territories) readers only, we can all have Daughter Of Blood fun here, right? Right!
And a very big thank you to today’s Questioneers. 🙂 (Now without further ado…)
—
Katrina: This isn’t really a question (I hope that’s OK) but I love Myr. She’s quiet but she’s also really strong. I was glad Kalan came to appreciate that even if they didn’t fall in love, like you said last week.
It’s completely OK, Katrina. 🙂 I’m glad you like Myr so much because she’s quite a favourite of mine, too. I wanted to have at least one important character who has no superpowers so I’m really pleased if her character “speaks” to readers.
Sam: When Daughter Of Blood first came out you posted some deleted scenes. Any chance of more of those to come?
The deleted scenes were fun—but the book evolved in a way that moved beyond them so putting them out there after the event also felt a bit odd, yanno? The other reason for only doing a few was because some of the others could potentially be long short stories or novellas in their own right if I had the time to put a bit more work into them. I don’t feel justified in doing that, though, until WALL #4 (The Chaos Gate) is in the can. After that, though, we’ll have to see… And when it comes to “deleted scenes”, WALL #4 could cut quite a swathe, so once it’s done and dusted, I shall definitely be taking a look at whether there’s any bonus material or complementary publications in the mix.
Rosie: The Web of Mayanne is a fascinating part of the plot which really comes to the fore in Daughter of Blood. Can you tell us about how you came up with that kind of ‘thread magic’ and the influences behind it?
I suspect that the Web of Mayanne’s origins lie in my love of history and the importance of tapestry as art and artefact throughout a considerable portion of history. The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the more famous examples that records a significant historical event, albeit from the perspective of the victors. Picasso’s Guernica, although not a tapestry, is an example of a similar work but from a wider perspective. Both works, despite the differences of medium and almost a thousand years in-between record major events of their times, demonstrating that art can be an important medium for reflecting and passing on historical and cultural information. The Web of Mayanne is such an artefact, but its significance has been lost over extended periods of time. (A team of archaeologists and anthropologists may need to be parachuted in. 😉 )
The Web, with its connection to the Hunt, is also based on medieval tapestries that depicted hunting scenes, including the famous Hunt of the Unicorn and the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries. Similar scenes, including lovers in enclosed gardens, featured in medieval Books of Hours. Throw in the prevalence of myth and folklore around wild hunts, the white hart, and magical hinds, and its possible to discern at least some of the mythical threads woven into the Web of Mayanne—although I would not discount precedents from myth and legend, such as Penelope of Ithaca’s weaving, or the Lady of Shalott’s web in literature.
In terms of how I came up with the Web of Mayanne in WALL, though… I think it would be fair to say that the Web wove itself into the telling, shuttling warp and weft about the pre-existing thread of the Hunt, as the story evolved. The Lovers version in Daughter evolved out of the first Hunt, based on the evolution in medieval tapestries that I understand saw more attention given to more domestic and intimate images in the late Middle Ages. And then, of course, there’s always Sir Thomas Wyatt’s famous line:
“Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind…”
Jason: In The Lord of The Rings almost all the weapons have personal names, like Sting and Glamdring and Narsil. I’ve noticed you don’t do that, except for Malian’s helmet. Why is that?
Traditionally, in the major epics and sagas, only weapons that are really important have names, the name-giving being a reflection of their status. Mostly, it’s the more “individualised” weapons that have names, too, e.g. swords that are used as weapons of state and in single combats, or a spear like Narsil that belongs to an Elven king. It’s much rarer for a pike or crossbow to have a name. The named weapons in The Lord of the Rings reflect these traditions.
In the case of the three weapons of Yorindesarinen, only the “moonbright helm”, Nhenir, has a name as opposed to an attribute. This highlights the point that Nhenir, of all the three, is “most like a person.” (The Heir of Night.) So the others are named for their attributes alone, i.e. the Frostfire Sword and the Shield of Stars, also called the Shield of Heaven. Those attributes still denote that they’re “special” in a traditional sense, especially as you’re quite right, relatively few of the other weapons are named.
The other main instance is the “black blades”, which includes both Kalan’s spear and Asantir’s swords, which she loans to Kalan. Attaching the word “black” to a class of weapons in this context ascribes mystery (night, darkness, the unseen), power (again, night and darkness, but also black belts 🙂 ), innate danger (e.g. the unlit darkness of caves and black water), death (the underworld), and prohibition (blacked out, blackballed, blacklisted etc.) While not impossible, personalised names would struggle to achieve the same end, individually and collectively. So “black blades” just worked better overall.
On the Wall of Night, too, weapons are a utility. So although some individuals may give their weapons nicknames, and a few will have proper names, the majority will not have either. Names also romanticize weapons—and although the WALL world may not be grimdark in a fantasy sense, from the outset I’ve tried not to romanticize war, its trappings (such as armor and weapons), or its effects.
Robin: You’ve had readers give their names to a character in both Daughter of Blood and The Gathering of the Lost. (I think it’s called Tuckerization?) Are those characters hard to write into the rest of the book? Or do you just change the names of characters you already planned to have in the story?
The process of real-world people giving their name to a character, or sometimes a place or object, in a book is called Tuckerization. For example, I was Tuckerized in Julie Czerneda’s Search Image (2018), by giving my surname to a continent, Lowesland. 🙂 The Tuckerization character in Gathering was Jan Butterworth; while the Daughter character was Che’Ryl-g-Raham: aka Cheryl Graham. Both were also double namings, as Butterworth was also the name of Jan’s village, while Che’Ryl-g-Raham was the name of both a Sea House ship and its navigator.
I definitely don’t just rename an already planned character because—having given the Tuckerization away as part of launch celebrations—I want the whole process to be special for the recipient. Giving the name to a pre-conceived minor character would feel a little like cheating on that process. So far neither Tuckerization character was difficult to write or include: they both pretty much came to life and wrote themselves. In fact, with Che’Ryl-g-Raham it was more a case of saying a very firm authorial “no” to her cutting a swathe through Daughter and assuming a greater part in the story, especially since she’s already a reasonably significant player in the Grayharbor section.
—
Again, another great round of questions, building on last week’s start to the Q&A series, which will be running every Thursday until the end of November. Or until I run out of questions—so don’t let that happen, OK?!
To Keep The Questions Coming:
Just email to my webmail: contact[at]helenlowe[dot]info
I’ll take it from there!
See you again next Thursday.