Author interview
with Alyc HelmsAuthor bio:
ALYC HELMS did her graduate work in anthropology and folklore, which
makes her useless for just about anything except writing. She lives and writes
in a dilapidated beach bungalow outside of San Francisco, near a horse trail, a
troll bridge, and a raptor preserve (hopefully of the veloci– variety). The Dragons of Heaven is her debut novel.
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Hi Alyc, welcome
over at The Book Plank and for taking your time to answer these few questions
for us.
BP: First off could
you give us a short introduction as to who Alyc Helms is? What are your
hobbies, likes and dislikes?
AH: Well, I can try
for short. I'm a bit of a dilettante, which actually helps with being a writer
because I tend to know a little bit about a lot of things. I've been a gamer
(primarily tabletop RPG) for most of my life, which includes playing, running,
and even writing games. Mostly my own home-brews (including a World of
Darkness-styled Dragon game), but I've now officially done a bit of
professional game writing for tabletop companies.
BP: Your first
plans were a possible career in academic writing but you choose to follow your
heart to writing fiction. When and where did you decide that you wanted to
pursue this different career?
AH: I don't think
it was a decision so much as a lifeline. I really loved doing academic work. I
was pursuing my doctorate in anthropology by looking at the presentation of
identity and locality for tourist consumption at archaeological sites in
Ireland. But the deeper I went into it, the more I began to question the point
of it, not because the topic wasn't interesting to me, but because I seemed to
be the only person interested.
Writing—and
especially writing The Dragons of Heaven—became my way of talking about things
I care about (identity, gender, representation, global power relationships,
activism) in ways that would interest other people. And it was more fun. AND I
didn't have to worry if I couldn't secure grant funding or a tenure-track
position!
BP: You have
written several short stories prior to The Dragons of Heaven, writing a first full length book is a
daunting task. How did you went about and plan writing your first book? Was it
different than writing a short story?
AH: You have been
fooled by the magic of publication schedules! I actually wrote almost all my
published short stories AFTER I finished The Dragons of Heaven. Even my first published
short story was sold about six months after I put period on the first draft of
the novel.
This is different
for every writer, of course, but I prefer novels—both for reading and writing—over
short stories. In part this is because short stories are HARD. They have to be
tightly focused on a properly sized idea. You see this in the best short stories
by writers like Connie Willis or Ted Chiang. But I like to meander, explore,
build character in tiny moments that are fun in their own right without
necessarily needing to do all the heavy lifting of the novel. The most
consistent bit of feedback I get on my short stories is that they read like
they're novels, like there's a whole world packed away behind the words, and
the reader only gets to see that world in glimpses. And that's because there
usually is. With novels, I get to breathe.
And then I take a
razor to that sucker, kill my darlings, trim the fat, and all the other large
and small-scale revision efforts that are the particular challenge of novels!
BP: What gave you the idea behind the story of The Dragons of Heaven?
AH:[mumble mumble] started
as a character fic for a tabletop game [mumble mumble].
I was playing in a
game we'd lovingly titled the Sunday Afternoon Comic Stack, because each player
had their own genre they were exploring, from four-color supers to hyper-violent
revenge fantasies. Imagining the game as a comic stack was the only way to
force it into thematic coherence.
My character was a
legacy hero overshadowed by her grandfather's reputation. I decided to take her
to China to train with the ancient dragons who'd trained her grandfather, and
my ST told me to write it up as a side adventure. So I did.
40k words of
write-up. Like you do (when you're avoiding writing your dissertation
proposal).
At the same time, I
was also working the worldbuilding for a for-realz secondary world epic fantasy
with a Venetian Renaissance flavor. I looked at Dragons and I looked at
Chiaroscuro, and I decided that Dragons would be the easier first novel to
write. I revised the structure to be a call-and-response between Missy's past
in China and her present return to China, rewrote most of what I'd written (the
parts I didn't throw out wholesale), and finished the final draft about seven
years after I started that first character fic. A lot has changed, but I still
owe a shout-out to that Sunday Afternoon Comic Stack game.
BP: The Dragon of
Heaven has a supernatural superhero theme to it. If you could choose any
superpower what would it be?
AH: Time control,
which is something I gave to the dragons in The Dragons of Heaven, since... you
know... they're basically gods, and time control is all superpowers in one. I'd
love to be able to stop my own entropic decay (immorality), to slow my time
relative to other people's time so that I can live a lifetime—or read a book—in
moments (super intelligence). I could go anywhere in an instant
(teleportation), pluck moments out of time that were inconvenient to me (hah,
no parking tickets ever!)... and this is starting to slide toward
supervillainhood, so I'll just leave it at that.
BP: Superheroes in
my opinion are difficult material to write about, often they are portrayed as
omnipotent characters but there has to be a balance, like Superman has his
kryptonite. How did you balance everything?
AH: From a story
perspective, I think it comes down to the sorts of challenges a superhero has
to face. If it's a challenge they can solve with their powers, then it isn't a
narratively interesting challenge. Sure, kryptonite weakens Superman, but the
most interesting Superman stories come from the way his ethical framework is
tested by Lex Luthor. You can't heat-vision a moral dilemma (or you can, but
Superman wouldn't, which is what makes him an interesting character).
I try to craft
Missy's challenges along those lines. If she can kung-fu or Shadow control her
way out of the challenge, then I haven't created a very good challenge. The
other side of the balance is that I gave her a ridiculously over-powered
nemesis, which means she's forced to rely on collaborative problem-solving, her
wits, and her opponent's underestimation of her in order to win the day. And finally,
at least a few of her challenges are a result of her own misguided actions,
which (hopefully) allows her to reflect and grow as a character.
BP: The Dragons of
Heaven will be released later in June this year, if you would have to sell your
book with a single sentence, how would it go?
AH: You know how I said I struggle with short stories due to their compact length?
I'm even worse at
elevator pitches :-)
"It's little
trouble in big China when a young woman takes on her grandfather's hero legacy
to stop a rogue dragon from being a total wanker."
I should probably
revise those last few words to be more epic, but that's really what's going on.
BP: What has been
the most difficult or most challenging part in writing The Dragon of Heaven?
AH: Describing the
past/present structure. I'm so grateful to Arrow (the television show) for
giving me a model to point to when I'm talking about how the book is structured
to show the past informing the present in order to give action a sense of
immediacy that flashbacks don't allow for.
BP: Besides the
hard bits in writing, which chapter, scene or character did you enjoy writing
about the most?
AH: I hit a
folkloric cadence, especially during the sections where Missy is training with
the dragons. You can see my folklore background peeking out all over the place
as I employ patterns and tropes from Chinese folklore and epics like The Water
Margin and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I think it helps to marry the
wuxia aspects with the pulpy/noir aspects.
Also, it means I
get to throw a bunch of Western tourists into a cannibal inn scenario, which
just makes me cackle. Cannibal inns are the BEST.
BP: If you would be
given the chance to make one final change to The Dragons of Heaven before it
hits the shelves would you do so? If yes, which part and why?
AH: I misspelled Kim Cattrall's name, and somehow I made it through eight years and endless rounds of editing without catching it. I'm sorry, Kim!
BP: Now that your
debut will be published do you have any other projects that you wish to pursue
in the near future? Will The Dragons of Heaven be made into a series?
AH: I'm already
working on the sequel, The Conclave of Shadow, which will be published by Angry
Robot next year. I pitched it as Thelma and Louise take on A Thousand and One
Nights. This one definitely has more of a Womance vibe, with Missy teaming up
with Dr. Abigail Trent, aka The Antiquarian, to 'forcibly repatriate' some
looted artifacts. Abby is my chance to toss in some real archaeology stuff.
Gotta use my degree for something?
I've also finished
revisions on that Venetian-esque fantasy I mentioned earlier, and I will be
sending it to my agent soon. That one is about as different from Dragons as
you're likely to find. I've pitched it as "Game of Thrones meets Queer as
Folk by way of Kushiel's Dart." We'll see if anyone wants it.
BP: Everyone enjoys
fantasy and science fiction in their own way. What do you like most about this
genre?
AH: People throw
around the term 'escapist' like it's a bad thing, but sometimes distance from a
subject helps clarify and focus thinking and talking about that subject. I
think F&SF offers a variety of positive escapes. Readers escape into the
PoV of characters with different experiences from our own, encouraging us to
learn how to see things from other peoples' perspectives. We escape into
stories where action and agency matter, where we can see the impact of personal
ethics and small choices, and that teaches us that agency, action, and ethics
have value and meaning, even if we don't always see results in our everyday
lived experiences. Even the most mediocre F&SF can be escapist comfort food
for people who are overwhelmed by stress or trauma (it was a lifesaver for me
as a teen, and again when I was struggling with leaving grad school), while the
best (I'm looking at you, Ann Leckie and Ancillary Justice) balances complex
character, high concept, engaging story, and critical analysis of real world
problems as seen through a fictional model.
BP: If you would
have to give your top 5 favorite books in fiction, which would they be?
AH:
Ann Leckie's
Ancillary JusticeConnie Willis' Impossible Things
Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn
Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (but honestly, mostly for the opening 150 or so pages)
Tanith Lee's The Silver Metal Lover
BP: And just
lastly, can you tell us a bit what is in store for the readers of The Dragons
of Heaven?
AH: Fencing,
fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love,
miracles...
Wait. That’s The
Princess Bride. Let's try this again:
Fast-talking Fencing,
fighting, magic torture, revenge, dragons giants, monsters,
chases, escapes, true love, miracles...
That's better.
BP: Thank you very
much for your time Alyc and good luck with your future writing projects!
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