Interview with Brian Ruckley

On your blog, you once mentioned that the weather around you would sometimes work its way into your writing. Has anything similar ever happened—say, a particularly great piece of dialogue, or a character from real life worming its way into your fiction?

A: If the characters in Winterbirth were based on real people I’d met, I think I’d be too scared to ever leave my house for fear of running into them. The bits of reality that made their way into Winterbirth are pretty much limited to weather, landscapes and places (and history, I suppose, but that’s a slightly different thing). Castle Kolglas in the book, for example, is distantly inspired by a real castle on the west coast of Scotland (Castle Tioram, for those who care).

If you want to go back a bit further, though, I had a couple of short stories published in the 1990s, and both of them owed their entire existence to real life, though in very different ways. One – the first piece of writing anyone ever paid me money for – had its origins in a distinctly odd and disturbing dream I had. The second was called ‘Gibbons’ and is set in the jungles of Borneo, and it’s no coincidence at all that a few years previously I had spent three months in the Borneo rainforest volunteering on a gibbon research project.

With what part of your writing are you most pleased that fans have picked up on? Some have criticised Winterbirth for being very methodical at the beginning, which looking back seems unfair. If there was one thing you could change about the book, what would it be? (Question kindly submitted by Raith Rover and slightly mangled by me!)

A: Most pleasing reader response? Probably that various people seem to like the characters and the way they develop over the course of the book. I was really keen that as many as possible of the characters should have a realistic ‘texture’ – I wanted them to come across as plausible people, with flaws and foibles and capable of change, so whenever a reader says they think I achieved that, I’m happy.

One thing I’d change? My instinctive answer to that is remove some of the apostrophes I used in names, but that’s a bit of an easy answer. The point about the beginning of the book is interesting. It undeniably does have a slightly more leisurely pace at the start compared to what happens later in the book. That was a deliberate choice on my part, going for (in theory) a gradual build up towards an outbreak of violence. I personally quite like it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m right and anyone who says they think the start of the book could have a bit more ‘zip’ is wrong. Not sure; most readers I’ve heard from seem to be happy with it the way it is. But to be honest, there’s no point in me sitting around pondering what I might change: the book’s done, published, out there. It has to stand or fall on its own merits. I’m happy to have my name on it, just as it is.

Though it may be a "Godless World" the now-gone gods of the old world obviously played a large part in the book. Are there any plans for the gods to take a more corporeal part in the trilogy? And do you have any plans beyond the Godless World Trilogy? (Question submitted by rhodry the red)

A: The Gods will not be making an appearance, no. It’s important to the tone and sense of the trilogy that there are no Gods around, and changing that would mean I was writing a different kind of story from the one I set out on. You’re right to say they are an important part of the story, but – to my way of thinking, at least – their greatest importance is the fact of their absence, since it creates a vacuum that other things can fill. (I hesitate to add this, but I will, just for fun: I wouldn’t assume that it is absolutely 100% certain that there ever were any Gods, exactly as they are described by the characters anyway, in the first place. I’m not saying there weren’t, but I’m not saying there were, either. That’s very helpful, isn’t it?)

As for what comes after this trilogy – that depends on all sorts of things. If things go well, and I get the chance to pitch some more ideas to the publisher, I’ve certainly got a few up my sleeve. I hope I’m not finished with fantasy; there’s another trilogy already substantially sketched out in my head, for example. I’ve got this neat idea for a scene involving dead beetles …