Realm Raiders Author Interview: Patrick Samphire

Welcome to Spotlight Indie! First of all, tell us more about Patrick Samphire, the author.

I wrote my first novel when I was sixteen, maybe seventeen, by stealing equal parts from Terry Pratchett and Piers Anthony (not the pervy parts; even then I could recognise Anthony’s weird, pervy stuff). After that I went to university, and I didn’t write anything again for at least 10 years. Life, you know…

But, luckily, boredom came around. I was stuck in the most tedious job I’d ever done with very little to do, so I found an online critique group, joined it, started writing again, and a few years later published my first story. It’s been the rock and roll lifestyle ever since.

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?

Okay, you know how I said the rock and roll lifestyle? There might be a few very minor differences to my actual lifestyle. One of them is that writers don’t see any other humans most of the time. You spend your entire time locked away on your own with just a screen or a notepad, creating a world. But, contrary to rumours, writers are actually human, and we need human contact with other people who do similar things. Creative Commune is great for that, for meeting other authors, and just chatting about this strange thing we do. It’s been a lot of fun hanging out with other writers and making something together.

What have you gained from collaborating with other authors? Is it a helpful process? Challenging?

Writing with others in this way has honestly been easier than I’d thought. I think it’s because none of us are precious about the story. It doesn’t belong to any single one of us, so the brainstorming sessions, the picking up what the others have created and running with it, and then seeing what others do with you’ve added, that’s been quite liberating. I’m quite strict with my own books, in that I put a lot of effort into making them exactly what I want them to be. I don’t think I’d work well with someone else on those. But this? Yeah, it’s been great.

You’re a freelance editor. Give us three helpful tips that improve the quality of writing in your opinion.

– Make sure you know exactly whose eyes you’re seeing things through. What the character sees, how they view the world, how they interpret it, what they notice or don’t notice, how they speak, all those things should come into your descriptions. Descriptions can tell you a lot about a character, so don’t waste them being generic.

– Dialogue is conflict. Not in terms of being arguments, but every character comes into a conversation with things they want to say or find out, things they want to hide, things they want the other character to do. They answer questions with other questions or just don’t answer them at all, they talk at cross-purposes, they digress, they redirect. Dialogue where one character asks a question and another answers it straight, over and over again, is boring.

– Be ruthless in cutting your work. In self-published fantasy in particular, authors often allow themselves to use too many words and their prose to become bloated. As an exercise, go through your book and delete 10% of the words on every single page without losing any of the story. Almost every writer can do that, and your story will be better as a result.

Discipline, deadlines and drafts – the 3 Big Ds that makes an author’s life so challenging. Which one has been the greatest challenge and why?

For me, it’s discipline. This is partially down to ADHD, but it’s always been a problem for me. Deadlines I can generally manage, because they focus my mind, and I’m happy to do multiple drafts. I actually like editing my work, because I can see it getting better every time.

Marketing and promotion – the bane of every author. Give us a few tips that work for you.

My friend, if I had any idea – any idea at all – of how to do these, I would sell a lot more books.

You’re left with a cliffhanger in the previous chapter – how do you pick up the narrative thread in the next one?

In terms of my own books? I don’t tend to end chapters on cliffhangers very often. Or, when I do, I always know what’s going to happen, because I tend to plan in complete scenes. A cliffhanger will be where I’ve split the scene at an exciting point, but I already know the end of the scene. In the Realm Raiders story where the buggers before me have left me hanging, well, that’s part of the fun of the exercise, seeing the challenge they dump on you and seeing what you can do with it.

Give us your best tips when it comes to world building. Have you used any of these tips in your Realm Raiders chapters? What do we need to look out for?

For me, the world evolves with the story. I don’t think I’d know how to create a world until I had the characters and the story to begin growing it. Then I try to create a world that reflects them and their journey. Sorry. That’s not enormously helpful. My story creation process is very iterative, so things get added, refined, and taken away all the time, until the whole story is done. My only rules are, don’t be boring and don’t be generic.

What’s next for Patrick Samphire, the author? Do you have more books in the pipeline?

Right now, I’m writing a (semi-)literary historical fantasy set in London in 1929 called Brittle Things. I am regretting the decision enormously as it’s so slow when every line almost you’re having to do some research: did this thing exist? How did people talk about it? What did that place look like? How did people dress and act? And all the rest. Terrible idea! Next time, I’m doing a secondary world fantasy. I’m also writing a prequel novella to my Mennik Thorn snarky fantasy mystery series. The novella is called The Dead Man, and I’m still hoping to release it this year.

In 50 words or less, give us a tag line that will encourage people to read Realm Raiders!

A madcap adventure through wild realms. Sometimes brutal, sometimes funny, sometimes surprising, and always exciting.

Find Patrick’s work here: https://spotlightindie.co.uk/patrick-samphire/