Philip Womack

Philip Womack

About Author

Philip Womack was educated at Lancing and Oriel College, Oxford, and is a Contributing Editor at the Literary Review, and writes for the Daily Telegraph, and the Guardian, among other papers. He is also a Fellow at First Story, currently being Writer in Residence at St Augustine's in Kilburn. He leads workshops on Greek Myth, Greek Tragedy and How to Write Children's Fiction for the How To Academy. The King's Shadow is his fourth novel for children. His first two, The Other Book and The Liberators, were critically acclaimed as was The Broken King. The final book in The Darkening Path trilogy, The King's Revenge, will be published in 2016.

Interview

THE KING'S SHADOW
(BOOK 2: THE DARKENING PATH)

TROIKA BOOKS

JUNE 2015


In The King's Shadow, the second book in The Darkening Path trilogy, Simon and Flora have reached the land of the Broken King, where they must fight and kill the king in order to rescue their siblings and return to their own world. But shadows, dark magic and deception reign in the Broken King's world and it will take all their courage and skills to find their siblings, and their way home.

This is a thrilling, dark and pacey story for readers aged ten years plus and we were pleased to have the opportunity to ask author Philip Womack to tell us more about The Darkening Path trilogy.


Q: There are many echoes in The Darkening Path trilogy of stories from our cultural heritage. Can you tell us a little about the traditions you have drawn on in these books?

A: The Broken King is set in a kind of Medieval world which is drawn from stories like Knights of the Round Table. I have also drawn on myths which I enjoyed as a child, particularly Childe Rowland, although there are lots of different stories about a boy whose sister is taken by the King of Elfland and knights being sent on a hopeless quest to find her. Other ideas came from literature I studied at university, like Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia and Spenser's The Faerie Queene, so there was a big melting pot of ideas to draw on.

We have a fascinating cultural heritage. When I look at literature, I see it as a long, linear progression beginning with Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey and then Roman literature, coming through the medieval period with writers like Dante and Spenser, before the Renaissance and a great rush of English literature. I feel it's really important to have an understanding of this mass of literature that came before us.


Q: Why did you decide to make the focus in the trilogy the relationship between siblings?

A: The central idea in The Broken King, the first story in The Darkening Path trilogy, was the lost sibling, the idea that a sibling has somehow been taken away from its family and safe surroundings and left somewhere 'other'; this is a theme that runs through children's literature.

I wanted to use that to explore the powerful sibling relationship, where you know each other so well. On one hand that relationship is loving but sometimes siblings hate each other. I wanted to explore that and to see how an ill thought-out action could have such terrible outcomes for siblings. The children's relationships are disrupted and while they are in the other world, they are tested and learn about things like courage, endurance and doing the right thing.

I think there can be something quite enticing for children in the idea of 'disappearing' a sibling. It's such an all-encompassing relationship and while you might love a sibling, sometimes that mist just descends and you can't bear them.


Q: The alternate worlds you create in these books are intriguing. Why did you decide to take the children out of our known world?

A: In these books, Earth is perceived as a tiny world in the middle of the universe where all these other worlds exist. I think that this is what children's fiction does so well, it challenges children to recognise that there are so many other things out there and lots of different perspectives to understand.

The three worlds in my story represent the Earth, Moon and Sun, so they have the colours blue (Earth), silver (the Silver Kingdom) and gold (the Golden Realm). I wanted the Silver Kingdom to be a bit like Earth but slightly askew; there are things that happen there that can't happen in our world.


Q: You've got some nice chess imagery in the books, too - do you play?

A: I'm not a chess player myself, I used to play when I was little but now I find it harder to look ahead for each move, but I like using chess imagery because it is such an evocative game. There are the black and white pieces for good and evil, and the idea in the book that the whole adventure could be a game. That is what good fiction does - it pulls you out of reality and then when you're completely satisfied, you return to reality.

The act of writing can also be a bit like playing a game of chess, especially when there are a lot of characters in the story. You have to remember where the characters need to be for the plot to move on so you are constantly going back to check that you've not sidelined anyone.


Q: Each chapter of The King's Shadow maintains the pace. Did that demand careful plotting?

A: I conceived this series as a fast-paced literary thriller and I wanted things to keep happening, so yes, it was tightly plotted. The overall structure is straightforward and the three parts to the trilogy were to get the children to the other world, for the siblings to find them, and to go home.

In the next and final book, you can expect a lot more action, a lot more danger, and some quite fantastical creatures. The story moves into an entirely different time and place as the children will be travelling into a different realm.


Q: How did the character of the king in The Broken King develop?

A: The King is very nasty, he basically embodies evil. He was once a man but he has lost any moral standpoint and he's doing these terrible things. He's the logical endpoint of evil and the power is concentrated in his hands.

He has no difficulty in killing people who are against him and when I created him, I was thinking of people like Kim Jong Un in North Korea and also the Roman emperors; there was one emperor who would have a dinner party and then release a lion into the guests' area.

It doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to take someone who has a great deal of power, and supernatural power, and to think what they might do with it.


Q: While it's a very exciting read, some parts of the story are also quite dark. How dark can you go in children's literature, and what is the purpose of doing so?

A: How far can you go in dealing with darkness? I think it's all to do with the context. A lot of things can be scary without being gruesome; if you're a good writer you can make an empty room seem frightening. Gratuitous violence, where there is no discernible purpose, is exploitative and that has no place in children's literature but as a place where you can explore children's fears, that is something different.

We all remember having those things we were scared of as children. When I was little I wouldn't go upstairs on my own because I was sure there was a monster under my bed. Children's literature, especially fantasy, can help us to place those fears and to see that fears can be overcome. It helps the young mind to face certain things like night terrors, to face up to them and take them down. Children already have access to this dark place in their minds; fiction can show them a way out.


Q: What are you writing next, and where do you do your writing? Do you have a favourite place to write?

A: I have another book coming out next year, Double Act, which is a retelling of the Minotaur story. It is the first of a series with Alma Books, retelling different myths.

I live in a house that was built by my wife, who is an architect, and our house has triangular-shaped rooms, including my study.

My desk once belonged to my grandfather, it's mahogany with a red top and I have shelves that are full of books, a horrible sofa for the dog, and various different computers scattered about. As I write longhand when I'm first drafting a story there are also lots of notebooks lying around.

I tend to write from 7am to 9am and then do other things during the day like tutoring, reviewing or editing. I like to have everything around me, I'm very conscious of my surroundings as I write and I like to know where things are, so my study is my favourite place to write.

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