Blog Tour: Kingdom of Ash and Briars by Hannah West - Behind Nissera
Bristal, an orphaned
kitchen maid, lands in a gritty fairy tale gone wrong when she discovers
she is an elicromancer with a knack for shape-shifting. An ancient
breed of immortal magic beings, elicromancers have been winnowed down to
merely two - now three - after centuries of bloody conflict in the
realm. Their gifts are fraught with responsibility, and sixteen-year-old
Bristal is torn between two paths. Should she vow to seek the good of
the world, to protect and serve mortals? Or should she follow the
strength of her power, even if it leads to unknown terrors? She draws on
her ability to disguise herself as a man to infiltrate a prince's band
of soldiers, and masquerades as a fairy godmother to shield a cursed
princess, but time is running out. As an army of dark creatures grows
closer, Bristal faces a supernatural war. To save the kingdoms, Bristal
must find the courage to show her true form.
Building on homages to Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Jane Austen’s Emma and the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan, Hannah West makes a spectacular debut.
Building on homages to Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Jane Austen’s Emma and the Chinese legend of Hua Mulan, Hannah West makes a spectacular debut.
READ AN EXCERPT here
Behind Nissera: Building the world of Kingdom of Ash and Briars
World
building is so much fun to me. So much fun, in fact, that the first draft of
this manuscript was 154,000 words. That’s about 40,000 words too long to be
even remotely taken seriously as a debut author!
A
good portion of those extra words were there thanks to an excessive amount of
world building that should have stayed in my brainstorming notes. So it’s no
surprise that I have some thoughts on different aspects of the world building
process.
Setting
There are different ways for
a new story to materialize. Maybe you get the premise first, and then you build
the world around the characters and story arc. But in the case of Kingdom of Ash and
Briars, evocative visuals led me to write the opening scene even
though I didn’t know where it was going. I was studying abroad in Orléans,
France, where cathedrals, cobblestones, and castles were part of my real life
for the first time. It also snowed for about three solid weeks during my stay,
and I’d recently been admiring the cover of Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver.
The wintery images all blended to inspire a girl’s winter trek through mystical
woods, and the deadly Water that determined the fate of those who dared to
touch it. But then what?
My
parents sent me a care package that included Disney princess pencils. While I
was sitting in a two-hour French grammar class one day, I noticed that one of
the little heart shapes on the pencil showed Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella
together. At that exact moment I realized I could build an epic world around
these tales, using that unfamiliar girl trekking through the wintery woods as
the glue that held it all together.
Servicing the Story
The need for multiple
kingdoms within the realm branched out of needing separate stages for the
fairytales to play out - a canvas on which to expand the politics surrounding
the familiar princesses and princes.
Even
though the realm of Nissera encompasses three kingdoms, it had to be small. As
an elicromancer, Bristal materializes, which is similar to apparating or using
portals. So I needed certain mortals traveling by horse to not be WEEKS behind
her. Otherwise, the timeline would start to feel draggy. I’m not great with
maps or scaling, but I decided all of Nissera had to be about the size of the
U.K.
I also wanted the deep,
isolated places to feel ancient, while the royal cities feel on the cusp of
transitioning from a medieval period to a more Tudor-like period. This is
reflected in the familiar names of the characters who hail from the royal
cities (e.g., Anthony, Charles, Elinor, Rosamund), while the isolated villagers
and the descendants of the elicromancers tend to draw on more ancient naming
traditions (Brack, Tamarice, Drell).
The
capital cities are just beginning to bridge connections with outside nations.
Originally a land to the east called Perispos (comparable to Greece) played a
bit more of a role. But for the sake of overall concision, some things had to
go! I’m excited to start on a companion novel and explore other elements of the
world.
Place
Names and Language
I got ideas for several place
names and terms from a Greek and Hebrew NIV concordance. Some readers may
recognize Biblical symbolism, like Galgeth (inspired by Golgotha, “place of the
skull”), or Darmeska (inspired by Paul’s encounter on the road to Damascus).
But I didn’t necessarily set out with the goal of alluding to Biblical places.
The concordance was just the perfect tool for giving me beautiful words that
only needed to undergo a small evolution to take on a fantasy feel.
The
concordance also helped me a bit with the fragments Old Nisseran in the novel,
an ancient language that only the elicromancers still use or know due to the
way certain words and phrases work in tandem with elicrin magic. As a student
of French, I had fun thinking about the nuances of a new language and how the
basic structure might differ from English.
World
Building Advice
My
biggest piece of world building advice for fiction writers: avoid getting so
wrapped up in the details of your world that you neglect your plot. You don’t
want to create this incredible, fantastical world only to write a story that
doesn’t let your characters PLAY in it - that will feel info-dumpy. Build the
world around your plot and characters as they unfold and take life.
Hannah
has been writing fantasy since kindergarten, when she penned her first
tale about a runaway princess who lived on top of a flagpole with two
loaves of bread. But it wasn't until she studied abroad in Orléans,
France during her junior year of college that the premise for her first
novel materialized. The fairy tale castles, the snowy winter days, and
a Disney princess pencil that arrived in a care package from her parents
provided the inspiration that allowed her to wrangle all her untold and
unfinished stories into a book.
She
lives in the Dallas area with her husband, Vince, and their
rambunctious blue heeler, Robb. She proudly writes articles about
sustainable living and home renovation for Modernize.com. She loves the
outdoors when it's not hellishly hot, camping, and watching shows like
Outlander, Game of Thrones, and Orange Is the New Black. While she may
have avoided several southern clichés, she can't live
without half-and-half sweet tea and can be caught saying "y'all" about a
dozen times a day.
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