Realm Raiders Author Interview: Derek Power

Welcome to Spotlight Indie! Tell us more about Derek Power, the author.

Well, where to begin? I live in Skerries, a coastal town in Dublin, Ireland, with my wife and two young kids. I’ve been writing for eleven years, taking the plunge in 2013 to start my first novel featuring Filthy Henry, the fairy detective. Being a huge fan of fantasy and sci-fi I always knew if I was going to write anything it would be in one of those genres, but I also performed stand-up comedy for five years as a hobby and that’s how I figured I would go down the fantasy-comedy route. Now I am staring down the spine of my sixth Filthy Henry novel and haven’t stopped writing over the last eleven years.

You’re a member of the British and Irish network of authors, the Creative Commune. What made you want to join the group and what are its benefits?

So it’s a few things really. I know several of the members from working on a shared-world anthology during Covid. It was a blast of an experience and got me out of my typical writing comfort zone. I made some friends along the way and have even managed to meet one of them entirely randomly a year after the book came out. Then there is the fact that writing is a very solitary hobby, so being able to have a group of other writers who ‘get that’ is great, you get to have peers to chat with and we all can help each other. Plus, then there are the regular zoom meetings where we can all just have a chat – getting out of the writing cave and having some craic.

It must be quite a challenge, writing a story in collaboration with eight other authors. Why did you get involved?

It depends how the project is run, if I am being honest. Having gone through this once before with “Skybreaker” you definitely need to have a project manager, or Chief Cat Herder for want of a better term. This project has that in Phil P and it’s a thankless job to a degree but one the rest of us certainly benefit from having filled. As I typically write about my main character Filthy Henry I enjoy jumping onto projects that take me out of my usual writing patterns. This project also let me work with some new writers, always cool, as well as write with some familiar faces once again.

Without spoilers, tell us a little about what happens in the story that you’ve written so far and what you wanted to achieve in it.

So one of my own main problems is that I write mostly in comedy (with one exception) and even when the story I am involved with has a serious tone I still end up writing comedy. I had an idea about a necromancer character who instead of being great at the dark arts was dreadful – instead of bringing back the dead she would heal the enemy soldiers. It was something I wanted to play around with so we did. My main character, Nicky the Necromancer, is responsible for ensuring the other two characters achieve the goal and escape from any troubles – all while being dreadful at her magic skill set. I guess I mostly wanted to write about a character who went against the norms – a necromancer who wasn’t commanding an army of the dead because they are dreadful at that sort of magic.

Your stories have a strong emphasis on humour, did this prove useful or create a problem for you and your team?

So I lucked out in having one person on my little squad that had worked with me before on Skybreaker, meaning they were fully aware I write mostly in humour and comedy. It meant that I didn’t really have to do a lot of convincing to write in that style. Once I explained the idea behind the crappy necromancer we managed to work in that character trait as something the others could use in their stories too. I guess that has fallen into the useful bucket.

Some writers might assume collaborative projects like this provoke tensions, where personalities and writing styles clash. Has that been the case in this project? (Be honest!)

Again I think I lucked out with the pair I was partnered with for the initial chapters. Any issues we had around our approach or plot were easily resolved with a little back and forth in the chat we had going. And even then I don’t think we had any real issues. We each said what POV we’d write in, what our little plot was going to be and then agreed to ‘give it a go and pivot if we needed to’. I like that in the group because it meant we were given the chance to show what we would do so that a rejection could be given on actual work, not the theory of it.

What’s next for you? 

Currently I am in edit mode on Filthy Henry number six, draft three at the minute. I want to get that out the door by the summer, but I also have a few short stories to write for the Filthy Henry podcast as we are ‘between’ seasons at the minute. Plus, because I am a glutton for punishment, I am writing a short play. I entered a contest a few years ago and had a fifteen-minute play performed by a theatre for a few weeks and they are doing a similar contest in the summer.

Find Derek’s work here: https://spotlightindie.co.uk/derek-power