Over the last few weeks I’ve been giving talks for World Book Day and various other occasions (shout out if you were one of the schools I visited! I had some ace questions along the way but do post below if you didn’t get a chance to ask me yours). Anyway I was talking about my books and the process of becoming a writer, and along the way I mentioned that the first story I could remember writing was about witches – only told from the point of view of a factory caretaker called Cardie.

There must have been something serendipitous in the air because a few days later I got a call from my aunt. She was clearing out some boxes from my grandmother’s attic, and she thought that some of them looked like old school books of mine. Could I come and take a look?

I duly went… and among the dusty exercise books and old school reports I found… my original story. The timing is weird because my mum died more than ten years ago, and I thought we had sorted through all the paperwork at the time and thrown most of it away. However this box somehow got moved to my grandparents’ attic and only just surfaced.

So here, for your reading pleasure, is The Witches – a sort of early prequel to A Witch in Winter?!

Points to note:

1) I was 8 years old

2) I clearly don’t know how to spell “rickety”but I DO know how to spell “hysterics”. Odd.

3) My speech punctuation is shaky (I can hear my editor muttering “no change there”)

4) My handwriting is AMAZING – what happened to it? I can barely read my handwriting these days, let alone other people.

5) Please note the artistic swirls to the title font – not dissimilar to A Witch in Winter. I think I may be wasted as a writer and should branch out into being author/illustrator/designer as well.

You can click on it for a larger view, but in case you can’t read the scan (the quality isn’t brilliant) here is the story complete with original spelling – insertions are shown in square brackets.

The Witch[e]s

All the people had gone home from the cooking pot factory and only old Cardie (Mr. Cardinal) the caretaker was left. Up on the gallery he saw a shadowy figure. “Hi” he called gaily thin[k]ing it was a late worker. To his surprise the shadow gave a shrill scream and darted behind the burner. Cardie quickly clambered down the rickity old ladder, forgot about the missing step (about a metre above ground level) and fell giving an agonised yell. He held his breath as the figure crept towards him. Too his surprispise the figure was a young girl…. more frighted of him than he of her. Quickly she bundled him on a trolley and weeled him outside. Once out of the building he gave an unearthly screechowl call and another person… an old one this time [came]. “I have him Mother” she said “Gggood girl” croaked the elder “You did well”…”Bring him to the cave” It was getting late the moon was rising and Cardie was on the point off hysterics. After all it was Hallowe’en.

As soon as he saw the couples cave he new they were wi[t]chs and really did hysterics. The was a fire burning in the middle of the cave and on it was a cauldron. The old witch lifted a ladle off the wall dipped it in the mixture and wafted some steam towards her nose. Cardie saw her back legs turn green and then subside to their normal colour (a mouldy pink). Suddenly she whipped round shrieked “Shorkvadenvoushalae” and forced a ladleful of mixture down Cardies throat. His back legs hunched up and he began to croak.

The cooking pot factory are looking for a new caretaker…. I don’t suppose they know their old one is hopping in the marshes.

Ruth Warburton

Very good *

I am particularly proud of the ending which I think is an artistic triumph in the way it pulls back from Cardie’s point of view to a grimly comic omniscient narrative voice… however I think the witches’ motivation could be worked on a little. It’s not very clear why they want to turn poor Cardie into a frog.

My teacher has written “Very good” and a star on the bottom so it was clearly critically acclaimed.

So you may remember that a couple of weeks ago I did a post with CJ Daugherty, Zoe Marriott and Katy Moran giving me their take on writing sequels and in the wake of it I got chatting to various other writers about the issue. One of the people I was talking to was Laure Eve, and we were discussing how tricky it was writing a sequel when the first book is not yet in the shops.

This is something I’m doing at the moment with the sequel to Witch Finder. It was also how I wrote A Witch in Love (though A Witch Alone was mainly written after the first books were out).

Obviously this is kind of a weird thing to do – you’re trying to move on, to capitalise on your first book and learn lessons from any mistakes you’ve made, without the first book even having come out. How can you move on from something you haven’t even published yet? It’s a bit like trying to get over a divorce from someone you’re not even engaged to yet.

At the time, I was trying to start the sequel to Witch Finder when no-one, not even my editor, had read it yet. Which was REALLY weird. I kept writing a scene that led on from a point in book one and then thinking “but what if I have to cut that thread in book one? What if she doesn’t like the main character and wants him to be a butcher instead of a blacksmith. Or wants to make him a girl? Or a unicorn? WHAT THEN??”

(Luckily my editor has now read Witch Finder and assures me that there is probably no need for unicorns.)

Anyway Laure  is currently going through this with the sequel to her first book Fearsome Dreamer, which is due out Oct 2013.

She was typically funny and wise about the whole thing (as you will see, she did not go with my divorce metaphor for some reason? Instead her take on it is more  water-based.)

You can find Laure at her website www.laureeve.co.uk or on twitter @laureeve. Here is what she had to say:

 

 

So writing the sequel to a book that isn’t actually published yet is sort of like going skinny dipping at midnight.

Fun at first, in a squealy sort of way – the danger! The possibilities! But once you’re in the middle, it gets a bit cold, and lonely, and you can’t really see where you’re going, and OH GOD IS THAT A SHARK COME TO EAT MY STORYTELLING ABILITY (probably just a bit of seaweed, but you never know).

Then there’s dreaded ‘second album’ syndrome. Put bluntly, you have to top the first book in a myriad of effortlessly cool and original ways. Book 2 must be bigger and better than book 1 – but not the same thing bigger and better, because that’s just book 1 with added sex explosions, and everyone will be all, ‘oh you’re like a one trick pony where you try to recreate the magic, but because it’s basically the same thing it all falls flat on its face’ and who wants to be compared to Speed 2: Cruise Control?

So book 2 must be different, but not so different that everyone you got hooked into book 1 gets very confused and asks you why you now have robot dwarves with magical powers in a story that started off life as a teenage girl’s awakening over one long hot summer. It’s a delicate balance.

It feels odd, because this world you’re writing into being hasn’t even really been shared yet, or at least not beyond your editor and agent. So trying to move it down a fabulous exciting book 2 road, without knowing if anyone will still want to read about these characters’ journeys and what they even think of them at all… that’s a leap of faith. Much like the leap of faith you took in writing the first book, that trust that there would be people out there interested enough to invest their time and money in your creation.

All you can really do, in the end, is what you do on everything you’ll ever write: tell a story that is everything you are. Tell it in a way that makes you yourself want to keep reading; and hope that others will too.

Well, isn’t that the truth. See, I told you she was wise.

You guys, I can’t believe I didn’t do a giveaway for A Witch Alone! I’ve given away copies of all my other books around publication so how could I forget the final instalment of the trilogy? *smacks forehead*

Anyway, it is clearly NOT TOO LATE to rectify this. I will give away a signed copy of A Witch Alone and a bunch of bookmarks and postcards to one lucky reader.

To enter, just post a comment on my previous blog entry about writing a trilogy http://www.ruthwarburton.com/2013/02/07/two-three-four-or-more-writing-sequels/ telling me your favourite book series – can be children’s, YA, adult, trilogy, ten-book set – your call.

Competition closes on Friday 15th Feb at 12 noon GMT and a winner will be chosen at random from the commenters after that. And as per usual, my blog requires manual approval on some comments so if your entry doesn’t appear straight away don’t worry, as long as it’s submitted before the deadline it will count, even if it doesn’t appear on the blog before then.

GOOD LUCK! xxx

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about the pleasures and pains of writing sequels. A Witch Alone, the final book in the Winter Trilogy, is in shops today, and of course I’m biting my nails to find out what readers and reviewers think of it, and I’m also just about to start the sequel to my next project – a two-book series set in Victorian England starting with Witch Finder in 2014.

Writing a sequel is definitely different to writing a first or standalone book, for obvious reasons. Some of those are advantages – you already know your characters, you’ve done the hard work in imagining and describing the setting and establishing the rules behind the mythology (if your series is fantasy or paranormal), and of course you have a lot more room to spread your wings in terms of plot and scope – I never really set out to write a trilogy with my first book, but it quickly became apparent that I wasn’t going to be able to tell the full story in 80,000 words.

But there are also huge challenges involved in writing sequels and series: tying up complicated plot ends; wondering how much to recap for each book and whether to cater for the new reader or just assume everyone has read the first instalment… there’s also a definite pressure (at least I found it so) to keep upping the ante. You naturally want your first book to be the biggest, bestest, baddest book you can manage, with all the tension and excitement you can muster. After all, that’s the one that has to hook in the readers. But where do you go from there? A story is supposed to build to a climax, not fizzle out, even if that story is told over three volumes.

I definitely found A Witch Alone the hardest book of the trilogy to write. There were a LOT of plot threads to tie up, a LOT of twists and turns I still had to reveal, and a LOT of information from the previous novels that had to be woven in. And somehow, I had to do it in a way that was a step up from the previous novels. It also had to have its own inner story arc which made sense to a reader coming fresh to that book (even if some of the bigger story arc wouldn’t make sense to them totally).

Now I’m starting on the sequel to Witch Finder (this is only a two book sequence at the moment) and I’m having the same butterflies. How can it be its own story, and yet still part of the whole? How can it be the same, but better?

If there’s one thing writers excel at, it’s procrastination, so while I was pondering all this, I spoke to three other writers currently going through sequels-angst and got their take on what they found hardest about the process.

First up was Zoe Marriott, author of Shadows on the Moon and the forthcoming The Night Itself, the first in The Name of the Blade trilogy, due out in July 2013. You can find Zoe at her website www.zoemarriot.com, on her blog thezoetrope  or on twitter at @zmarriott.
Here’s what she said.

I’m currently working on the third book in The Name of the Blade trilogy. I’m finding – even more so with this final volume – that one of the biggest challenges of writing books in a series, especially where the books are tightly plotted and do NOT stand alone, is the beginning of each new book.

If anything’s to make sense to a reader who perhaps hasn’t read the last book, or read it a year or more ago, then a tremendous amount of exposition, of unravelling backstory and making sense of current events, needs to take place over a really short space of time. And the new story still has to feel like it’s alive and moving forward while you achieve this – but nothing really important can happen because the reader may not get the significance before the exposition is in place, and so the impact would be wasted.

On the other hand, the payoff of unfolding events over three books is just huge. I’ll never forget how awed and overwhelmed I was by the Scabbers/Peter Pettigrew reveal in The Prisoner of Azkaban – and when I was plotting this story out, I definitely kept it in the forefront of my thoughts. With the extra build up and depth of attachment between the story and the reader that you get in a series or trilogy, I know that when I finally offer up the solution to this mystery or unveil that character’s true motivation, it will blow minds. It blows MY mind! I can’t wait.

Next up was CJ Daugherty, author of the Night School series.

Unlike Zoe and me, CJ’s books are a projected five-book series; the first book Night School came out in 2012 and the second, Night School: Legacy went into the shops last month. You can find her on facebook and on twitter at @cj_daugherty.

CJ is on deadline for book three, Fracture, RIGHT NOW! But she took five minutes to tell me about how she found the process…

Writing Legacy, the second book in the Night School series was a breeze. It was easier than book 1 because now I knew these characters and I knew how they would react to the difficult situations I put them in. I remember thinking, “This whole series thing is going to be a lark!” Then I started book 3. And oy vey, how different.

I love my characters, but getting them through the third book in a five-book series wasn’t easy. The plot grows more complex with every book; I am weaving a tangled web – intentionally – and it’s only going to get more knotty. The process was painstakingly slow until I began to employ an array of spreadsheets to help me with the storyline, the characters, and the plot. I write more slowly and I backtrack constantly to check up on myself. It’s been a fascinating process but sadly, it is, in no way, a breeze. Still, it’s a fascinating journey and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Roll on Book 4!

Now, get back to work lady! *cracks whip*

The final writer I spoke to was Katy Moran, author of the Bloodline Trilogy, and the stand-alone Dangerous to Know.

Katy, as you can see, is an experienced series-monger who has already got a trilogy under her belt, but she is currently working on a two book series which begins in March 2013 with Hidden Among Us.

You can find her at her website katymoran.co.uk or on twitter at @katyjamoran

When I began the sequel to Hidden Among Us, I wrote myself into a quagmire. Despite endless chapter-by-chapter planning, I just couldn’t seem to find the right place to start the book – I must have deleted almost as much of the manuscript as now remains, and the first draft is nearly complete. I think this was partly a problem caused by the ending of Hidden Among Us, which really does only lead one way – and I have to admit I felt constrained by that. It’s a path that for a while I was afraid to tread.

After some fruitful conversations with my two brilliant editors, Denise and Daisy, I finally got to grips with where to begin, and it was five years later than I’d thought – Denise’s excellent suggestion. There’s really nothing like a good editor. I was already a significant distance into the book by then, but by making everyone five years older, everything suddenly rang true, and my doubts were burned away – although I was left with some tricky plotting conundrums to resolve. I don’t have many hours in the week to write, so had worked myself up into a lather about getting a certain amount of words down on to the page each week. What really helped me see my way through to the end of the book, though, was just sitting down and brainstorming my characters, something I hadn’t done since the early stages of Hidden Among Us. There are still plot threads left untied, but I know that Rafe, Lissy, Larkspur, Connie and Joe will knot these up for me if only I let them.

I think one thing that really struck me from talking to Katy, CJ and Zoe (apart from their general brilliance, obvs) is how similar our challenges are, and yet how differently we all tackle them. I guess I’m somewhere between CJ’s spreadsheets and Katy’s faith in her characters. I had a pretty clear idea with the Winter Trilogy what was going to happen – in fact the one thing that I knew all along was what the final scene would be – and a whole pile of notes about stuff that had to happen and threads that had to be tied up, but the characters definitely took their own sweet time getting that final scene, and they surprised me many times along the way.

And now, halfway between Witch Finder and Witch Hunt, I’m back in the same scenarios. I have a book behind me – with all those characters ready and waiting in the wings – and I have a destination far ahead in my mind’s eye. I’ve just got to steer them towards it. And on that I have to agree with Zoe: I can’t wait.

UPDATE!!

I am giving away a signed copy of A Witch Alone to one lucky reader – to enter just post below telling me your favourite trilogy or series.

Competition closes Friday 15th Feb at 12 noon.

Good luck!!

So we are just a week away from the release of A Witch Alone – the final book in The Winter Trilogy – which seems incredible! It’s only just over a year since the first book came out, but now I can’t imagine life without them – without their covers looking out from my book case, without keeping an eye out for them in bookshops and rearranging the shelves so they are face out. (Not really. Honest. Cough.) One of the things which has surprised and delighted me most about the process has been the brilliant jackets. They are nothing like I imagined when I wrote the book but I love them.

As next week marks the release of the final book in the trilogy, A Witch Alone, I thought I would take the chance to introduce you to the designer of all three Winter book covers, Michelle Brackenborough, and ask her a few questions about her job and the process of designing jackets. My questions are in italics, and her answers are in normal text. Being a designer she has included loads of cool images to explain the process – you can click on any of the images to make them a bit larger.

Hi Michelle, and thank you for agreeing to answer these questions! So first up – simple question, but what does a cover designer do exactly – can you tell us a bit about a typical day?

A simple explanation is that a cover designer takes a written story and turns it into a jacket that hopefully catches the reader’s attention and makes them want to pick it up.

But really there is so much involved in the process. We start with a brief from the editor, who will have been working with the author for a while and will know the book already. The brief may give us an idea of what could go on the cover, or it may just tell us what else the reader is reading at the moment. A designer reads and researches the book and its characters, comes up with ideas for the cover, commissions illustrators to create the cover image, does research to find the right photograph, or creates the whole cover themselves. And all of this has to work with the title, which becomes an integral part of the design.

We usually come up with a mood board of ideas that we think have the right feel for the cover and the title style. Next we mock-up a few cover visuals based on our ideas, and discuss these with our art director, editor, and the author sometimes gets involved at this stage. This is the stage that we might commission artwork, or find photographs to create our cover from. We’ll probably mock up two or three ideas to take to a cover meeting. From here, usually one cover is preferred and we work this up to final artwork. Etc etc etc…….

[This page of ideas was worked up by a different designer who started the project - Michelle took over in the middle. It gives you an idea of how many different looks are considered!]

When a book or series comes in, how do you go about creating a look? What kind of factors are involved in the decision-making process?

The first thing I do is to read the manuscript. Not all designers do this, but I find it difficult to design a cover without having a feel for the book and the characters. Next I’ll do lots of research into the content of the book, in this case I looked into witchcraft and magic and had great fun doing so.

From a sales and marketing point of view, when creating the look I also need to be aware of what the reader wants, what the current trends are, what books are selling well, what will this book be sitting next to… I need to create a cover that will fit in but – at the same time – stand out. All of these factors are taken into consideration in the final decision.

I know you experimented with several different looks for A Witch in Winter. Is this normal, or do you sometimes have a clear idea from day one?

It’s normal to try out lots of different looks for a jacket, even if you think that one idea is strongest from the start. Looking at a page of different ideas helps you to pick out the strongest cover/s to develop further.

We ended up with two worked up ideas, we were asked to design an alternative for comparison but really we always favoured the jacket we ended up with.

What made you choose the final look for A Witch in Winter and was it your decision or a collaborative one?

We were really sure we had the right cover, but a few people weren’t as confident as us. I think at the time the trend for girls on the covers of teen jackets was seen as a bit old fashioned, but we thought Anna was perfect! We had to convince a lot of people that this was the right cover for the book, and we won everyone round in the end.

For the back we nearly went with a spell [shown left] but in the end we used an editorial blurb. I still think the spell looks pretty cool though!

For book two I nearly chose an image of Anna’s house burning in the woods, but decided to go with the ocean in the end to avoid repeating the house.

[Below left is the mock up of how the burning house cover could have looked - below right is the finished final cover for comparison.]

One of the aspects I love most about the Winter jackets is the font! (I know this sounds geeky – but the font is just so beautiful). How did you find it? Do you have a big book of fonts you can scroll through?

I was looking for a font which had the right feel for a modern day witch, but nothing too spiky! I knew I wanted to add the swirly flourishes onto the font so I needed something that worked with these. I just scrolled through hundreds of fonts (and yes, we do have a digital font book) until I found the right one. I tried out at least ten others on the cover before deciding on this one.

[The image on the right shows the Witch titles with and without the swirls.]

I love the Winter jackets (phew) but have you ever had an author hate a jacket? What happens in that scenario?

I’ve had plenty of ideas that authors haven’t liked, but I try to avoid turning these ideas into hated covers by doing lots of research and chatting through my ideas with the author and editor early on.

If there is a cover or an idea that an author hates, we will change it, we can’t have an unhappy author!

Do you have any covers you are particularly proud of?

Here are a few of the covers I’ve designed in the last year or so that I’ve really enjoyed designing. I love layering lots of photographs and drawings, and playing around with typography, so this sort of cover is great fun to create.

So there you go – thank you so much Michelle, firstly for making The Winter Trilogy look so magical, and second for coming on to explain how it all happened.

I’d love to know what you guys think – which cover do you prefer?

UPDATE: If you’re interested in a different take on cover design, check out this post by author Zoe Marriott about the process behind the jacket for her new book The Night Itself http://thezoe-trope.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/the-making-of-cover.html

Since a few people have been asking how they can get hold of signed copies of A Witch Alone (and since, however much I’d like to, I can’t come to every single town with fans) I have arranged with my lovely local bookshop a way for you to pre-order a signed and/or dedicated copy of A Witch Alone.

To order, just click on the link below. I will sign (and dedicate, if needed) pre-ordered copies as soon as the shop receives them and they will be shipped out right after publication.

As an added inducement (as if that’s needed! ) I will even throw in one of my lovely limited edition bookmarks while supplies last.

http://www.biggreenbookshop.com/signed-copies/signed-copies-of-witch-alone-by-ruth-warburton/prod_614.html

In the flesh! Or perhaps I mean in the paper – or something.

I can’t believe this this the last of the Winter books. I only have this one copy at the moment, but when I get a few more I will think up some kind of contest to celebrate publication of the conclusion of the trilogy, so watch this space…

So as some of you will already know if you follow me on twitter or facebook, I have some brilliant news, which is that I have two new books coming out with Hodder, starting with Witch Finder in 2014. I am SO excited, I’ve been basically breathing into a paperbag non-stop for about the last four weeks, while Hodder drafted out a contract and then a press release, and then FINALLY I was allowed to tell you guys the news! It nearly killed me keeping quiet about it until then, although I couldn’t stop myself dropping a few heavy hints on twitter…

Before I tell you a bit more about the books I have to say a massive, heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who has bought, read, recommended and loved the Winter books. It’s really thanks to you that I have the chance to carry on the story with these two new books and I’m so thrilled that I can.

The two new books are called Witch Finder and Witch Hunt and I’m pasting in below the press release that Hodder put out about the acquisition (minus some of the boring rights and publishing stuff they put in for the trade).

Hodder to publish a new spellbinding series from YA author Ruth Warburton

Hodder Children’s Books are delighted to announce the acquisition of new publishing from Ruth Warburton, author of The Winter Trilogy. The deal is for two new books, Witch Finder and Witch Hunt, with the first publishing in January 2014.

Ellen Holgate comments: “Ruth is an immensely talented storyteller and I’m very excited to be publishing these new novels. Witch Finder is a wonderful combination of all the things Ruth does best; a powerful female lead, a spine-tingling romance and a dark, witchcraft-filled adventure. It’s a page-turning thriller that will delight her increasing army of fans.”

Eve White comments: “We’ve so enjoyed working with the Hodder Children’s team and are thrilled that they will be building on the success of Ruth Warburton’s Winter Trilogy. It’s a testament to Ruth’s fantastic writing that her dedicated readership will be treated to new books that answer some of the questions posed by the first three romantic, paranormal adventures.”

Witch Finder is a Victorian romantic thriller for 12–16 year-olds set in 1880s London. It follows the story of eighteen-year-old Luke Lexton who is about to undergo his initiation into the Malleus Maleficorum – the secretive brotherhood devoted to hunting witches. Luke’s final test is to pick a name at random from the Book of Witches, a name he must track down and kill within a month, or face death himself. But when he picks out sixteen-year-old Rosa Greenwood, Luke realises his task is going to be harder than he ever imagined.

Those of you who’ve already read A Witch in Love will recognise the Malleus – for anyone who hasn’t read that book, as the press release explains, it’s the name of a secretive brotherhood whose mission is to hunt down and destroy witches. Witch Finder is set over 100 years before the Winter Trilogy, in Victorian London, but it’s in the same universe and the Malleus is one of the threads that links the two books.

I am already deep into research about corsets and carriages and side saddles and LOVING it, so I hope you will too!

Ruth xxx

What do you think?

So, as promised, a giveaway to celebrate 300 likes on facebook, as well as my super awesome BOOKMARKS.

(The story of these is that I did a book reading event where some of the other authors had bookmarks, and had a short but painful attack of swag-jealousy. So I composed a carefully crafted email to my publishers that went something like “but she had these bookmark things and so did he and I want some and they were really nice and it SNOT FAIR”, and they were like, “um yes, of course you can have book marks”. Anyway they are SUPER GORGEOUS and an excuse to say yet again how much I adore my lovely publishers.)

Here they are, attractively arranged on my bedroom floorboards.

Anyway, to celebrate all this, I’m going to give away to ONE lucky person, a signed copy each of A Witch in Winter and A Witch in Love, as well as some postcards and bookmarks. And then THREE runners up will get signed bookmarks and postcards.

How does that sound?

To enter all you have to do is post below with a favourite quote from a book. It doesn’t have to be a quote from A Witch in Winter or A Witch in Love, although if it is I will of course be flattered

You can post comments and quotes up until midnight on Sunday 9th September. I will then use my high-tech winner selection procedure (ie I will write down the names of all the entries and pick one out of a hat, then three more to be runners up). The winners names will be posted on Monday 10th, so be sure to check back.

Good luck!

EDIT: due to spam problems, some comments have to be manually approved so don’t panic if your entry doesn’t show up straight away, it’s just me being slow on the approvals button. If you’re posting close to the deadline, your entry WILL still count if it’s submitted before the deadline, even if it doesn’t get approved in time.