Beauty and Short Stories - Writing 'Touching the Sky'

Rosanne Hawke

My work in progress is a middle-grade novel. I’ve had the idea for this story for a while and even wrote a short story about the character with a different name, Zander. That short story is called ‘Touching the Sky’ and will be published soon in Dust Makers, an anthology of climate-change stories from Rhiza Edge. This is not the first time I have written a short story, then written the novel. This time I started with the idea for the novel first but wrote the short story as I began the draft to get to know my character and his voice better. I find I can’t really start writing until I know a lot about my characters, e.g. what they are like, what they want, and especially how they sound.

I also wanted to see what would emerge as a most important time in my character’s life, for this is where stories and novels most differ, I think. A short story is a slice, a moment, exploring one main event and idea in a character’s life, whereas the novel can develop many such moments into a journey the character embarks upon for months or more. I started writing with short stories – we all do because at school that’s all there is time for. One of my stories was published in a high school magazine, but my writing career began with novels. That’s what my kids wanted to read. Once I’d discovered the full canvas of a novel, I decided short stories, though beautiful, were harder to write. Rather than fine miniature painting with water colour, I think I’d prefer slapping oils on a canvas. Guess that’s not the best analogy as novels also need to be polished and fine-tuned to be beautiful – but they do give room to move with all the ideas growing from a central one. 

So why can I write a short story about climate change? I grew up in a drought in Outback Central QLD. When I wasn’t at our one teacher school or on the hour-long bus run in a converted cattle truck, I walked with my kelpie-cross dog, climbed windmills, fell off horses and was last in the bath. I learned never to waste water. 

When writing ‘Touching the Sky’ I was rereading Frederick Buechner’s books and like his father, I realised that Zander’s dad had suicided. The death of Buechner’s father affected him all his life – it is present in most of his work. Mental health is a huge problem in our rural areas, especially with the effects of climate change where crops can’t be seeded since rain doesn’t come, bushfires occur and burned animals need to be shot, and now the effects of covid on the farm business. These events have affected the most resilient of farmers. 

When writing I always hope the story will be beautiful in some way, that it will touch a reader. But what could be beautiful when a dad dies in a story? We could think of the form, the words, the way the character heals, but I’m wondering if beauty has more to do with light. There is a story about the famous Dutch artist Vermeer where he was unhappy with a painting. The character was portrayed well, the composition correct, but he knew something vital was missing. He finally realised there was no light. He painted in a window so light could shine on the side of a face, on the folds of a dress – subtle use of colour to show beauty. In our writing where does the beauty originate? From the Light of the World. I’m learning that a thing is beautiful not because we deem it so, but because Christ Jesus has made it so.

In a story, this beauty and light will shine in the way the theme is treated, the form of the story, the setting, choice of words, images, that phrase which paints a picture without even using an adjective, the arresting verbs, the light shed on the face of the character and in his heart. May this Light in our stories become God’s way of wooing a reader into a loving relationship with him. 

The anthology Dust Makers will be released in October by Rhiza Press

Pre-order at http://wombatrhiza.com.au/Dust-makers 

Image credit: Ailsa Green, Dust Storm near Hawker, South Australia, used with permission.

Rosanne Hawke is an Australian author from Penola, South Australia who has written over 25 books for young adults and children. She teaches tertiary level Creative Writing at Tabor Adelaide. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide.

Characters can Change your Story - Rosanne Hawke

 A year or so ago I sent a copy of my out-of-print YA novel called The Last Virgin in Year 10 to Rhiza Edge to see if they’d republish. The publisher said to rewrite and update it, then they’d see. What transpired defies definition. 

I quickly discovered that I couldn’t rewrite with the same character. The original one needed to change too much and the rewrite wasn’t working. It was like painting a new colour over a different one that was still wet – the colour wasn’t true. Thus, a new character arrived on the scene who could manage the text, plot, and its changes. Essie Pederick. 

When a new character like Essie walks onto the page I do a mind map to get to know her. I like to discover everything that you would want to know of a friend you’ve just met, like personality, likes and dislikes, sports, music, food, dreams, family and cultural background. Particularly, I need to know what the character wants the most. When I can work that out, then the story can start because this information will form the character’s motivations and therefore affect her goals. This then makes the plot turn so the story can move. It’s good for me to know her fears, special talents, and where the character needs to grow (i.e. her flaws). This all helps build the plot as well as having a well-rounded character. It also enables the character to reach a satisfying ending. 

New writers have said to me, ‘I love writing. Rosanne, I’ve even started ten stories but I can’t finish them.’ I ask them what they know about their characters. What is it they want to do? Often the writer will say, ‘Oh I’m writing an adventure, or fantasy. Do I need to know that?’ I gently say that whatever genre we write we need to know our characters well because they make our story and, as I found, can change it too.

Essie Pederick in Flying Blind is a person who is kind and easily manipulated. She has a new set of motivations, desires, goals and a new setting. she isn’t a city girl like the previous character. Essie is a country girl living in a coastal town on the Yorke Peninsula. Liking swimming, music and dogs is probably the only similar attributes Essie shares with the previous character. She is rekindling a relationship with a workaholic dad and navigating a manipulating friendship which involves gaslighting. Thus, Essie grows from emotional immaturity to more maturity in navigating friendships and gaining spiritual insight. But it’s not an easy road to travel. 

Some parts of the plot are similar but any kept text had to be rewritten to be seen through Essie’s perspective. Most importantly, the voice of the first-person narrator has changed. The people she interacts with become different also because they’re relating to a different girl. 

Probably I should have started with a blank page, but there were some plot points I wanted to keep. However, I rewrote all scenes with Essie’s perspective and voice. I deleted most of the original scenes and words and wrote a lot of new ones. Flying Blind is 10,000 words longer than the original. I wrote new material for the early chapters. Gave more scenes to Essie’s little sister, her father and new friend Jowan. A lot of the new material shows another new character, Chloe and how her behaviour is affecting Essie and making her anxious. Even with some similar plot points the story has become totally reconstructed. It is fresh, different. It’s proved something to me that I had always told my students: It is the character who makes the story what it is. Put a new character into a story and the story will change.

Writing Flying Blind has felt like writing a new book using some plot ideas that I’d thought of previously. The structural edit picked up anything I’d left in that didn’t suit Essie. It’s been an enriching experience. But what is a book like this called? It’s too changed to be a new edition, a rewrite, an update or a re-creation. It’s still the same form, i.e. a novel, so it’s not a remake. Is it an adaption, a reconstruction, inspired by the previous book? Or, is it a transmutation? This is my favourite definition of writing Flying Blind. What do you think?

CWD Member Interview - Catch Tilly

Most Thursdays this year we will be interviewing one of the members of Christian Writers Downunder – to find out a little bit more about them and their writing/editing goals.

Today’s interview: Catch Tilly 

Question 1: Tells us three things about who you are and where you come from. 

I come from Sydney. Up until this year I was always a bit scornful of S.A.’s lawful tendencies but since Covid19 I’m loving it. Lawful good people really come into their own in a pandemic. 

I get emotional. Like really emotional. I once had a lecturer tell me that if I got any more enthusiastic, I’d need chemicals. Combined with a generalized anxiety disorder it makes for a rollercoaster of a life. That’s where faith really helps. I once read that the opposite of faith isn’t doubt it’s control and I think that’s true. I’ve learnt to let go of any attempt at control and to trust God when I get anxious. That and prayer (mine and others) gets me through the dark times. And the good times are ‘dancing down the street’ amazing. It’s an amazing world we live in. 

I live in my imagination. I created a Facebook page for an imaginary person before I created one for myself. I can tell you the Hogwarts House for the mc of Shadowalker (Gryffindor despite being the Death Lord’s daughter) but I’ve never bothered to do the online test for myself. My second youngest daughter was named after a character on Meldin (where Shadowalker is set). 

And my name. I’ll tell you the story I don’t tell anyone. People ask me where the name Catch comes from and I tell them it’s an old nickname I adopted officially and that’s it’s based on the book Catch 22. And that’s true. What I don’t tell people is the person who’s nickname it is doesn’t officially exist. It was Danielle Warwick, the narrator of a book I started in my teens who—like me—loved the bitter irony of Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 whose nickname I adopted. 

That’s who I am, a person whose real name belongs to an imaginary person.

Question 2: Tell us about your writing (or editing/illustrating etc).  What do you write and why?

I want to write genre fiction. I’d love to be able to write exceptional Mills and Boon. And not for the money, though that would be nice, but because I’d love to conquer the craft of writing to a formula and making it good. (It’s like writing a sonnet). I’ll do it one day. But what I write now is YA. I guess I’m stuck being a teenager (see above question on who I am). 

My two published books are both YA. Shadowalker was published by Stone Table Books in 2017 and the sequel Abomination is finished and will come out later this year (God and pandemics willing). Actually, you meet the four horsemen at the end of the second book, so I guess it’s topical. I wrote this because I wanted to share Meldin. I wanted to introduce people to four different types of dragon (five if you count Uriel’s ice cream eating cousin). To take them to regency balls and laser turreted castles and lifts made of Light and air and the bones of the dead. 

The second book is Otherwise known as Pig, published by Wakefield Press last year. And that one I wrote because I had to. It’s a violent, sometimes profane book about bullying with Christian themes (the turn around point is a book of martyrs and turning the other cheek). Christianity and the f-word, I never thought it would get published but I knew God wanted me to write it, so I did. Then, nine years later, Wakefield took it up and it’s a Glam Adelaide Pick of the Year and Katherine England at the Advertiser described it as ‘a brilliant novel. Lesson one as a writer: Trust God.

Question 3: Who has read your work? Who would you like to read it? 

I want everyone to read it, of course. Because Stone Table is a small press it’s hard to get books out into the general public so Shadowalker has been read mostly by people I know but I’m hoping with the ability to create an eBook and the increase in online purchasing we can get it out there more. So, if you’re reading this and you like dragons and laser swords and a girl who walks through death then check it out. (But if you are in Australia go to Booktopia, everyone else is shipping from America.)

With Otherwise known as Pig I don’t know who has read it, a number of teachers, I think but the people I really want to read it are teens. I want anyone who’s been bullied to feel validated and heard, to know there are people out there who do understand. The review I am most proud of is a 15-year-old who wrote ‘the sense of satisfaction was overwhelming for a novel’. And I want the rest of us to read it and feel compelled to act when we see injustice, to help create a culture that says no instead of yes to bullying. 

Question 4: Tell us something about your process. What challenges do you face? What helps you the most?

I must write in the morning. If I don’t my day is a waste of space. I don’t write fast so about 500 to 1,000 words in a day is good for me. My ‘day job’ is looking after my daughter (autistic, non-verbal) and she will usually leave me alone in the mornings, so I get quite a lot of time to write. 

I think my biggest challenge as a writer is how far I get into the character. When I wrote Pig I spent 10 months thinking (and swearing) as a 14-year-old boy from one of the roughest parts of Adelaide. It’s good for voice but it means I have to drag myself out of character to understand what’s happening from outside. It’s probably why I always write in first person (a challenge in fantasy).

And confidence. Do we all have that problem? That’s where I learn on faith. My faith that God wants me to do this. God’s faith in me. And my husband who had lots of practice reminding me I am a good writer and I can do this.

Question 5: What is your favourite Writing Craft Book and why? 

I tend to write instinctively and only stop and think when I run into problems so my favourite craft book (apart from Mr. Google) tends to be the one I’m reading. Right now, that’s the Master Classes on writing. I’ve just finished Neil Gamian and Margaret Attwood and am part way through Judy Blume. When I did my Master of Creative Writing, I relied heavily on Bell’s Write Good Fiction: Plot and Structure. 

I’ve just purchased Rosanne Hawke’s Riding the Wind and am about to pick up Mark Worthing’s The Sacred Life of Words and considering how much I learnt from them both at Tabor I’m expecting those to become my next favourites.

Question 6: If you were to give a shout-out to a CWD author, writer, editor or illustrator – who would they be?

That’s a hard one. There are so many people I’ve been blessed to know. My first list was nine people long, so this is the short one.

Rosanne Hawke:  God knew what he was doing when he put Rosanne at Tabor. I learnt so much from her about writing children’s fiction, she was so apparent in her faith and yet she never restricted her students. It was one of my proudest writing moments when I broke the HD barrier and received 85% for my first four chapters of Pig.  And to sneak in two more, I want to mention Claire Bell (who has the amazing gift of editing for both voice and grammar and who was so much a part of making Pig worth publishing  and Mark Worthing, who made poetry so interesting that I did advanced poetry and I am not a poet. And who also published my first book (thank-you).  

Wendy Noble: I really like Wendy’s writing and we share a love of intelligent, unexpected dragons. I also admire her tenacity. But I think the reason I wanted to shout-out Wendy was the way she writes. When asked: “why are the griven in your book so negative about everything?”, Wendy answered: ‘because that’s the way they sounded in my head’. Now that is a response I can relate to. 

Sue Jeffrey: Sue and I were born in the same year. We both did YA novels on bullying for our Master’s (same year) and were invited by Rosanne into CWA together. We then both started working on fantasy books. We both wrote short stories about underpants for the first Stories of Life and both won prizes. (Sue came first, and I came second). In the last couple of years, we’ve been working on different projects, but I still think of Sue as my writing twin. 

Question 7: What are your writing goals for this year? How will you achieve them?

Write more. 10 years ago my husband was geeking out and asked me what would writing at level 50 (a role playing term) look like for me. I answered it would be writing the books God put on my heart and let him worry about the rest of it. I keep needing to remind myself of that conversation and just write.

Question 8: How does your faith impact and shape your writing?

See above: God made me a writer; I am as sure of that as I am of any other aspect of my faith and when I write well it’s an act of faith, of letting go and trusting him. 

I also hope my faith does shape my writing. C.S. Lewis said when he started writing The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe he wasn’t trying to write Christian literature that’s just what came out. Allegory doesn’t seem to be my thing, but I want faith to come out in my stories. In Morgan’s response to a book on martyrs or in bones encased in crystal being slowly redeemed by Light. I don’t wrote ‘Christian literature but I hope and prey I write literature as a Christian. 

CWD Member Interview – Rosanne Hawke

Most Thursdays this year we will be interviewing one of the members of Christian Writers Downunder – to find out a little bit more about them and their writing/editing goals.

Today’s interview: Rosanne Hawke 

Question 1: Tell us three things about who you are and where you come from. 

1 Hi, I am a child of God who writes for children and YA in the Australian general market.

2 I am a mother of 3 and a young grandmother of 7 children. They give me lots of story ideas.

3 I live in rural South Australia in an 1860 Cornish farmhouse with underground rooms that my husband has restored. It has also inspired stories.

Question 2: Tell us about your writing. What do you write and why?

I began by writing cultural identity as I spent 10 years in Pakistan and the UAE with a mission agency. My children grew up there and wanted stories set there, e.g. the Beyond Borders series. I also write Cornish themed titles e.g. Zenna Dare because I am a fourth-generation Cornish descendant and I believe it is important for young people to know their ancestry. It gives them a better sense of identity and helps to eliminate prejudice. I also write about children not heard so that readers can understand children from different walks of life from themselves, e.g. Shahana: Through my Eyes. I like writing history too like Mustara and The Tales of Jahani.

Question 3: Who has read your work? Who would you like to read it? 

My books are included on The Premier Reading Challenge lists and many are used as texts in schools, so I hope lots of kids, teachers, librarians and parents read them. Only 2 of my books have gone overseas, to USA and to Holland, but I’d like children in Pakistan to read my books too.

Question 4: Tell us something about your process. What challenges do you face? What helps you the most?

Once I have an idea I always start developing the idea by beginning with character. For me the character underpins the whole process. I use physical journals to draw mind maps for characters and plot line or story maps. Research will go into the journal too, notes and ideas, snatches of dialogue, images. Once I have a basic outline I start a draft. I may have many zero drafts or parts of drafts until I get a full zero draft which will transform into a working first draft. I try not to edit during this time and just try to get the story down. I try to do my own structural edit and rewrite many times. Some of the copy editing gets done in subsequent drafts. When I’m sick of rewriting it I let it sit for a month or so (if I don’t have a deadline). Then I rewrite again, then keep reading for copy editing mistakes. Structure and plot used to be my challenge. I’m getting better at plot lines and often draw a diagram to see if tension is rising steadily etc. What I miss in good structure my editor picks up by saying, for example, ‘Lovely first chapter but it sounds like your third – how about swapping them?’ And she’ll be right. I’m learning to have less problems for the editor to find, but there is always something that can improve my story and writing. One of the things I learned from my most recent structural edit is, if a scene doesn’t sound quite right when I first read it, put a note in immediately to rewrite it, because after I’ve read it 6 times it can sound okay. I’ve found it really helpful to write about my writing process and the things that I have learned in my journal. I’ve written extensively about my process in my writing book, Riding the Wind: Writing for Children and Young Adults, based on my lectures at Tabor Adelaide.

Question 5: What is your favourite Writing Craft Book and why? 

The ones I used the most in my lectures were Self Editing for Writers by Browne and King and The Lie that Tells the Truth by John Dufresne. The first one shows how to rewrite your first draft successfully, though if you read it during or before writing your first draft it will help your first draft to be better. Dufresne’s book (probably comprised of his lecture talks) is well worth the read.

Question 6: If you were to give a shout-out to a CWD author, writer, editor or illustrator – who would they be?

A difficult question, as there are so many. Nola Passmore for her gentle and expert editing, Penny Reeve for her potential to teach creative writing, Cecily Paterson for her entrepreneurial skills. Is the fabulous artist Lara Cooper on CWD?

Question 7: What are your writing goals for this year? How will you achieve them?

1) I have just finished the structural edit of a children’s book coming out next year with a fabulous editor. I have learned so much from brilliant editors. The copy edit will come soon. I also need to plan the launch of that book before the end of this school year as it will come out in February. 

2) I need to finish the first draft of an adult novel about domestic abuse and get that ready for submitting in a few months. 

3) I have just received a Covid-19 grant (make sure you apply for these from your state Art council or the Australian Arts Council) to write a new children’s book set in rural Australia. I’m starting the research for that now. My goals don’t usually include PR platforms as I deal with those as a new book comes out or as a publisher requests.

I aim to achieve my goals by breaking them down into smaller goals and by giving myself enough time to achieve them. 

Question 8: How does your faith impact and shape your writing? 

This a big question for me as I believe my faith and my daily life and work cannot be separated. Since I have a relationship with the Lord and this is my identity as being a child of God, whatever I do, including writing, will be influenced by his faith he gives me. This affects my writing practice including focus, setting obtainable goals and praying about topics. In my writing process, decisions that I or characters make in planning and in the story will be influenced, even the structure of a story, e.g. I believe there will be hope for the characters, even if they don’t achieve at the end what they set out to in the beginning. Often, I feel God prompting me to write about a certain topic like when I wrote Marrying Ameera dealing with forced marriage or Mountain Wolf dealing with child trafficking. The Truth about Peacock Blue was inspired by Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian on death row for blasphemy. It’s a partnership with the Lord and I generally just participate in what he suggests. The honing of the words is up to me and so are the mistakes. 

Rosanne Hawke is a SA author of 30 books for young people. She has been a teacher, an aid worker in Pakistan & UAE, and a lecturer in creative writing at Tabor Adelaide. Her books explore cultural and social issues, history, mystery and faith. She often writes of displacement and reconciliation and tells stories of children unheard. Her novel Taj and the Great Camel Trek won the Adelaide Festival Award for Children’s Literature and was highly commended in the 2012 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. Rosanne has a PhD in creative writing and is the recipient of 4 fellowships, the Nance Donkin Award for a woman author who writes for children, and a Bard of Cornwall.

www.rosannehawke.com

Meet Our Members – May-Kuan Lim

Most Thursdays in 2019 we will be interviewing one of the members of Christian Writers Downunder – to find out a little bit more about them and their writing/editing goals.

Today interview May-Kuan Lim

Question 1: Tells us three things about who you are and where you come from. 

1. I grew up in Malaysia, but travelled to Melbourne as an international student when I was 17.
2. Working as a newsroom engineer for a short stint in the 1990s made me realise that I would rather write stories than broadcast them. In 2007, a journalist friend offered me a parenting column with the Borneo Post and I eagerly took up this opportunity.
3. I now live in Adelaide where I teach English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), run writing workshops and record oral history.

Question 2: Tell us about your writing (or editing/illustrating etc).  What do you write and why?

For my column, I used to interview all sorts of people such from teachers to speech therapists and psychologists. My nine-year column was really an excuse to ask questions that might answer my private parenting dilemmas. Through this, I developed a habit of trying to understand the world through interviewing people and writing. I mostly write other people’s stories, in the form of narrative non-fiction. 

Question 3: Who has read your work? Who would you like to read it?

My early articles in the Borneo Post were for the general public – parents, educators, people interested in Australia. (I moved to Adelaide in 2005). In 2013, I self published my dad’s memoirs, Fish in the Well, set in Malaya, which was sold at his church and given to family members.

My latest book, Refuge, is a collection of refugee stories since the Vietnam War. My hope is that anyone touched by migration, displacement or war will read it. For this reason, I am publishing it serially online for free. The book is now at Chapter 5 Iraq, which is the story of a playwright who fell in love with his leading lady. I publish a new instalment every Friday and anyone can subscribe.

I am also adapting the stories so that they can be used as an English teaching resource. As my Port Adelaide TAFE students inspired the book, I like to think that the stories are coming full circle. 

Question 4: Tell us something about your process. What challenges do you face? What helps you the most?

My Facebook page is The Curious Scribbler. My process starts curiosity: something piques my interest or puzzles me.

I try to find out everything on the topic, whether through the library or by talking to people. Then I ask myself – what jumps out? Where is the energy? In other words, I listen to my heart. Finally, I put on my writer’s hat and try to find the voice to tell the story and the structure to contain it.

I love this quote by poet and writing teacher Mark Tredinnick: ‘How a piece of writing becomes a work of art – a plain but unforgettable thing –has everything to do with the integrity and humanity of its voice and the elegance of the work’s composition.’

Question 5: What is your favourite Writing Craft Book and why? 

The Little Red Writing Book by Mark Tredinnick because it is a pleasure to read. It is also organised into sensible chapters such as Lore (On voice, music, care and thrift), Grace (On style, economy and poise), and Shapely thoughts (On thought, planning, structure and paragraphs). I also love the memorable one-liners, for example: ‘Write to please yourself; make yourself hard to please.’

Question 6: If you were to give a shout-out to a CWD author, writer, editor or illustrator – who would they be?

Megan Higginson. I first came across Megan’s work via her contribution to the 2018 Stories of Life anthology, Three Dummies in a Dinghy. I then heard about her work organising teen street libraries in her area. What a brilliant idea – generous and practical. Wouldn’t I have loved such a library when I was a teen? Megan has a lovely engaging reading voice and went on to read several stories for the Stories of Life. Megan and Ester de Boer are also about to launch their picture book Raymund the Fear Monster. I hope that it will help me stare down my own Fear Monsters. 

Question 7: What are your writing goals for 2018? How will you achieve them?

I have just finished reading Rosanne Hawke’s book, Riding the Wind, on how to write for children and young adults. In line with her advice, I have started keeping two notebooks: one for story ideas and another for my response to other books. Instead of gobbling up words like a glutton, I am trying to read more slowly, to savour the way the words go down, to pay attention to technique and even to copy down exceptional sentences.

I am also experimenting with other genres. To my mind, the challenge to diversify was best put by vet and budgerigar expert Bob Donely: A real doctor treats more than one species.

Question 8: How does your faith impact and shape your writing?

Rebecca Solnit’s words made a deep impression on me: ‘We are our stories, stories that can be both prison and the crowbar to break open the door of that prison; we make stories to save ourselves or to trap ourselves or others, stories that lift us up or smash us against the stone wall of our own limits and fears. Liberation is always in part a storytelling process: breaking stories, breaking silences, making new stories.’

While I don’t think that we can save ourselves, I think she makes a good point about breaking silences, and about storytelling being bound up in the process of liberation. It was for freedom that Jesus set us free. Let us talk and write then about how he set us free. Thinking along these lines motivated me to become part of the Stories of Life team, a team that encourages Christians to write their true stories of faith and testimony.

Jesus is not only liberator of those in chains. He is also light in a dark world. As his follower, I therefore try not to shut my eyes to block out dark and frightening things. Cover-ups and silences don’t please or glorify the God of truth. If I can bear to look at a thing honestly and dig deep, my faith assures me that there is no darkness beyond his redeeming power.

Having said that, I often find myself wrestling with how my ancient and invisible faith is to be lived out in this visible and contemporary world. For me, reading and writing seem to be part of this wrestling. Words seem to be the medium through which I sense God’s heart, and the way I offer back something to him.

May-Kuan Lim is a member of Writers SA and Oral History Australia SA/NT. She is also the administrator for the Stories of Life writing competition. Her website is maykuanlim.com.

CWD Member Interview – Ben Morton AKA Morton Benning

Most Thursdays in 2019 we will be interviewing one of the members of Christian Writers Downunder – to find out a little bit more about them and their writing/editing goals.

Today's interview: Ben Morton AKA Morton Benning

Question 1: Tells us three things about who you are and where you come from.

I grew up in Whyalla SA, which is essentially a hot and dry city masquerading as a country town, where my friends and I camped out as teenagers to be the first three customers of the newly opening Hungry Jacks.

I first left home when I was nineteen to live over 300km from a free dinner at mum’s because I wanted to study ministry, preaching and theology and become a youth pastor, but I had to work as a t-shirt artist to pay back my fee debts.

I met my wife while studying and then teaching drama and creative writing at Tabor Adelaide and we spent a year teaching English in Japan together before settling back in Adelaide and having two girls (one more baby on the way as I write this).

Question 2: Tell us about your writing (or editing/illustrating etc). What do you write and why?

I mostly write and teach speculative fiction because I find the fantastical environments to be a more interesting place to tell stories and explore ideas. I enjoy writing poetry from time to time as well, and I like to write a good mix of adventure and humour. I also use my writing, editing, typesetting, illustration and design skills to run a small business that makes use of modern publishing methods to turn unpublished writers into published authors. I call what I do assisted publication because it has many of the benefits of self publishing and also of what used to be called vanity publishing, but avoids most of the drawbacks of both. I am excited to give writers the opportunity to see their hard work become available to their audience without having to impose the barrier of a great deal of financial expense (which, let’s face it, writers mostly don’t have a lot of money).

IMMORTALISE | creative and artistic services

Question 3: Who has read your work? Who would you like to read it?

I wrote a Y/A speculative fiction novel entitled Playing God and an anthology of fantasy poems and stories called The Tale of Alathimble Spaide and Other Such Nonsense, both with Stone Table Books, which have gained a little traction in local geek culture. Most of my published works are collected in nearly every edition of the Tabor Adelaide anthologies entitled Tales from the Upper Room or the two anthologies published by my writer’s group Literati, If They Could Talk and Something in the Blood. Those have mostly gone out to people connected in some way to family and friends of Tabor, Adelaide. I have published Morton’s Anglish Fictionary (with my own label, Immortalise) which has a small local following in and around Adelaide. I really intend for my books to be read by people who love the sorts of things I love, fantasy, sci fi, language play, adventure and a good laugh.

Question 4: Tell us something about your process. What challenges do you face? What helps you the most?

I haven’t got a solidly laid out process. I mostly start with an idea I want to explore and create characters, conflict and an environment to fit it. I only ever plan fairly loosely, but I usually have a pretty good idea where I think a story needs to end, even if I am not sure about all the steps to get there. I like watching my characters figure out how to achieve their goals. I find that I enjoy creating characters a little too much and often want to add too many of them and give them too much attention. I also like them too much to let them struggle at times. I discovered in the process of my novel that the advice I had been given about skipping a bit and telling a chapter a bit further on in the story was really good advice that I should have paid attention to earlier. Skipping ahead to a part of the story that is beyond where you’re stuck and then backfilling later is a good way to get past a blockage.

Question 5: What is your favourite Writing Craft Book and why?

I haven’t read a lot of writing craft books, and it’s hard to pick just one of the ones I have, so I’m going to cheat a bit and choose two I haven’t read. A favourite youtuber of mine has recently published a book based on the writing tips from his channel “Hello Future Me.” On Writing and Worldbuilding by Timothy Hickson is high on my agenda to read next. His tips are always well thought through and have solid and well analysed examples from quality media. I love watching his videos and always benefit from re-watching them. I also recently did typesetting for Rosanne Hawke’s Riding the Wind, which I haven't read properly yet, but I have a very good idea of the content from working on it. Rosanne has so much practical experience and such a lovely and humble way of sharing the things she has learned. She was a great teacher in person, and I value her advice a great deal.

Question 6: If you were to give a shout-out to a CWD author, writer, editor or illustrator – who would they be?

There are so many folks in CWD who are friends and have been at some time a student or a mentor to be, and it’s hard to pick one person, but I know that Wendy Noble has a third book in her wonderful Beast Speaker trilogy coming out soon. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the first two, and I hear Dragon Home is going to be a good ending for the set.

Question 7: What are your writing goals for 2018? How will you achieve them?

I am currently working on a series of spec-fic dungeonpunk-esque novellas in which a group of solo characters each go on a similar mission in the same place at the same time but with little or no actual contact with each other. I want to create the stories so each solo mission stands alone, but their plot events interact so that they each enhance the others. I am in the process of applying to Flinders to undertake a cross-discipline PhD in creative writing and theology, partly because I am fascinated by the ideas I’m exploring, but also so that I can incorporate the creation of these books into my study and unapologetically spend whole days working on them.

Question 8: How does your faith impact and shape your writing?

There are two answers to that. The first is essentially monkey-see, monkey-do. God has created me to be creative. He is a world-builder, and so am I. I am fascinated by the complexity and simplicity and interconnectedness of everything God has created, and I try in my much oversimplified way to explore what he does by doing it too. The other is that I have been created to be a communicator. I discovered fairly early in my spiritual journey that Jesus has placed in me a deep passion for that moment of realisation and understanding. I love to see it in myself, but I love even more to be the one who helps someone else to reach it. I can tell someone some truth I have learned, and it becomes knowledge they retain or forget, but if I can, through my creative work, help someone to discover a deep truth for themselves then they own it. It grows in them and forms part of who they are. That makes my heart sing.