Welcome to OPEN BOOK, where we open the book on our authors and discover their literary stories!
In this edition, we'd like to introduce A B H Hall, author of Dawn's Mistake.
What is the story behind the title?
The title of the book is Dawn’s Mistake. “Dawn” is the goddess of the Dawn, Eos, and the “Mistake” is one she makes, which has devastating consequences for her lover Tithonus and their eternal love together. The ‘mistake’ is lifted straight from the myth BUT was it her mistake?
Who or what inspired your characters?
I found inspiration for the romantic feel in popular songs such as Something (Beatles), God only knows (Beach Boys), Your Song (Elton John), Perfect (Ed Sheeran) and dozens more. All these songs bought Eos and Tithonus alive for me. It is worth bearing in mind that Eos is the dominant partner in this love affair. The songs also brought the characters I had assembled as their support group to life.
The ‘villains’ of the piece are Aphrodite and Zeus. Their mythical characters are frankly awful; rude, arrogant and self obsessed . I imagined various people as I wrote, rather than actually base them on any external individuals. For Aphrodite it would be the likes of Patsy from Ab Fab and Alexis Carrington, Joan Collins character in Dallas. For Zeus various politicians with just the right blend of Ego, narcissism and rudeness more than sufficed.
Where do find your writing inspiration?
I have written dozens of songs (none of which have worried the nations pockets!) and one poem. A song generally fits on one page, I have long wanted the challenge of writing a whole book.
I was inspired by other writers who, like me, were born in working class Leeds. In my view they had found success in a world far removed from their humble upbringings. Writers like Alan Bennet and Kieth Waterhouse; if they could do it then so could I!
Where do you find it easiest to write?
At a table, in a large, light and airy room with a big window overlooking a garden, pretty but with little in the way of distraction. No-body else in the room except for the sleeping cat.
What piece of writing advice have you found the most helpful during your writing career?
Set a time and a place to write. Identify the location and maybe a timer, then sit down, and write ….no excuses or procrastination!!
Did you encounter Writers Block? If so, how did you overcome it?
I occasionally suffered from writers block. My remedy is to just sit down and write. It doesn’t matter how poor the prose is, just get some rough ideas down. Then finesse them tomorrow!
Are there any books which have inspired your writing?
For this book; Madeline Millers ‘Circe’ and ‘The Song of Achilles’. Jennifer Saints “Electra” and ‘Ariadne’. ‘The women of Troy’ by Pat Barker and ‘Mythos’ by Stephen Fry. All illustrated the possibilities of weaving a new narrative round an existing story
Why should people read your book next?
‘Dawn’s Mistake’ will take them to a magical world where immortal gods walk the same earth as we mortals. Anything is possible. But be careful what you wish for, as promises of immortality can turn sour.
What was your planning process for writing this novel like?
Having only just met Eos and Tithonus immediately prior to writing the book, I felt that it would be judicious to research their story in particular and Greek myths in general. I borrowed a book on Greek mythology from the library. I have to come clean and point out that is was a large illustrated children’s introduction to the myths, but it was the perfect introduction. For background reading I read various fictional re-tellings of Greek myths. I didn’t want to write an academic tomb, I wanted an accessible story that would speak to people, regardless of how little they knew of Greek mythology.
The myths are fiction but I wanted the story to align with the actual myth as accurately as possible. To facilitate this I created a timeline of events and pinned the major scenes and characters to it. Most of the info came from Wikipedia for which I paid a contribution. I didn’t want my narrative to be linear in terms of time so I played around with the scenes throughout the writing process. Moving scenes up and down the timeline to work with the narrative rather than fixed to a time. The beginning, middle and end, did of course remain in their correct time slot!
I then looked at the ‘players’ and ascribed emotional depth and character traits to them. Sorted the goodies from the baddies. I also invented a couple of characters to allow parts of the story to flow better.
Finally I had to invent the world in which the story would unfold, this was part research and part imagination. All ideas were written in notebooks as reference throughout the writing process.
