Happy Blog Day Everyone!
Let's dive into the Comic first of all, then I've got some rather big news to share! After that, we'll talk about A Boy and A Rat, if you need a copy, click here.
The Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz
Marketing is hard in general, I think Riz as a director would just make it downright impossible!
Now, onto a massive announcement, of an Imaginomnibus scale...
Malarkey's Imaginomnibus
Thanks to the overwhelming efforts of the Boss man himself (Ross Young, author of the Dead Heads series and writer of Grim and Beezy on twitter), a new anthology has been brought into being. Introducing Malarkey's Imaginomnibus!
Ross brought together some of the best of the best writers that the #writerscommunity had to offer! How I ended up in this lot, I have no idea. Every author listed on that cover is worthy of your time. They are:
NT Anderson, Evelyn Charles, SJ Covey
Rose J. Fairchild, Jon Ford, Kayla Hicks
Chris Hooley, Samantha Kroese, me
A.C. Merkel, Melissa Rose Rodgers, Halo Scot, and of course, Ross Young.
The book is free in ebook form, so what are you waiting for? Go and get yours now! Click the link here, and make it happen.
Next week, I'll talk a little about my story, Ghost Duty, which has spent rather a long time swimming around with all the other ideas in my head, ever since 2007 in fact...
A Boy and A Rat Focus
Feels like an age ago that I talked about this book on these web pages (looks it up, okay it had been a while). So a refresher, from the blurb on the back of the book:
"The story of how a boy and a rat met... and how their magical adventures began.
With the human race under threat from an evil Fae overlord, it falls to Brennan, a teenage boy from Thornaby-on-Tees, to step up and fight.
The only problem is he has to do it with Riz, a talking rat with darker origins than Brennan could ever realise...
Based on real folklore and real locations, combined with witty characters and a dry dynamic between Brennan and Riz, the debut novel from Peter James Martin is packed with the familiar and the unusual."
Of course that's not the whole story but hopefully enough to get people interested.
I should point out that there will be spoilers ahead, so proceed with caution.
******spoiler warning!******
So where to start. From my last look at this book on here, it was in the hands of the publisher but nothing in terms of a contract had been spoken about, and thus it was till early September 2020 when the contract was signed and the editor dove into the text, hoping for a 2021 release...This wasn't meant to be.
At this point the story was how I described before, Brennan finding Riz which kick-started a series of events that lead to the culmination of the terrible Christmas Eve where Brennan's family were murdered by the fused Faine and Jack the Ripper. Riz then banishes Faine with the unexpected help of Gallows (who was Brennan's arsehole friend, Merrick).
During this journey Brennan also was introduced to the 'Other' where he was subject to a cross-examination from the Seeley Council. Something he only survived (abeit with his memory erased) thanks to the efforts of Riz and the Fae known as Temperance...
Also helping out is one Valarie Turner, whos backstory as a teenage girl doing everything she can to uncover the truth about her fathers possession by the creature known as Umbral (fun fact: Umbral was a name I considered for an organisation set against Brennan and Riz before I ditched the idea completely) was surely set in stone...
Yeah...then the Editor got in touch with me about her opinion on the book as it stood. This was also coupled on my own thoughts about certain parts.
Her biggest two take aways were that: 1)I'd made Merrick too easy to hate and that (while I'd always considered his turn to the darkside as obvious thus saw no point in trying to cover it up with a red herring) he should be made to be a bit nicer, thus making his fall even harder. 2) and possibly the biggest cardinal sin, I'd made Riz too nice.
Ironically the last comment was the easiest one to fix, giving Riz his trademark edge back, though I will say it was tough to balance against him wanting to help Brennan out early on...enter the revised plot point 1, Riz is actually after Merrick the whole time, wanting to reach him before Faine does. Riz using Brennan as a means to an end is perfectly keeping in character.
Sorting Merrick out required a bit more rewriting though I got to work on his mindset a bit more. Even now, I still don't know if I'm fully happy with how he is, but Gallows is certainly fun to write.
The changes didn't end there though. The Seeley Council was gone because it didn't add to anything and only served to add exposition. Not that the content will be gone forever, no, it just served as the inspiration for A Boy and A Rats sequel...
Now Valarie...while nothing was explicitly said about her, I took the opportunity to spice things up, cutting her backstory out and inserting a new one that better reflects her and who she is. No longer after the creature known as Umbral, know she was looking for cousin called Artemis...Which is a subtle clue to the direction her back story now points to...Can't say anymore than that!
There was one other suggestion, an ironic one really. When I was writing the early drafts of the book, I toyed with the idea that there was something special about Brennan, something in his blood that made him stand apart. In the version I submitted to the publisher, I had scrubbed it out, opting for a normal family...just one where the extended family didn't talk for some reason...The publisher wanted it back in. Thus, Brennan the half banshee was born, and plot for the potential third book in the series was born along with it, afterall, what's a little friction between family, eh? It should be pointed out that I made it a rule where only female banshees got the screaming powers, but special blood is special blood.
Throughout all this though, the folklore strands I wove into the book, largely stayed intact, whether it be the Spring Heeled Jacks (which I've discussed on this very blog) or the origins of Merrick's curse which ultimately corrupts him (that being the death of the last Welsh Prince, and a bog hag's curse on his murderer). The fae folklore I invoked for the now deleted Seeley Council scene didn't go to waste as previously said.
Right, I think I waffled enough for this week, please excuse my lateness, I've been ill which has completely buggered up my schedule.
I'll be back next week with another new comic and a look at my addition into Malarkey's Imaginomnibus (go buy it now!). Till then,
Keep on writing!
Peter James Martin
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