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Author Q&A with Finbar Hawkins

Ghost

Hi Finbar! Thank you so much for joining us to talk about your wonderful new book, Ghost. We are big fans of Witch and Stone so we’re thrilled to get to speak to you about your latest YA novel. Ghost is powerful, dark and mythical, and we’re so excited to discuss it with you!

1. We love that Ghost is set across 3 times periods which link Aine, Sarah and Marie together. Why did you choose to write Ghost in this way and did it present more of a challenge?  

I’m glad you liked it! Well, I think my way into this structure, centring it around the three young women, came from my take on what a ghost might be. What if spirits are actually people, but in different aspects of time and space, and what if the doors opened between these people across the centuries in one magickally charged place – the woods…?

In my research, I discovered that in ancient times the blackbird was considered to be totemic, guiding and opening doors to different times and places. And so then I was away, I knew firmly that these three women would connect, helped by a blackbird, and that the woods were essentially their doorway in time.

Each book I write poses its own set of challenges. Certainly jumping across time in this way set up its own elements to solve. But I knew instinctively that I wantedechoes and connections between the three young women. Even when they are separate – they share a psychic ability, there is a sense of craft and art in each oftheir lives, and they have all experienced trauma and loss. And animals will always feature too, the ways in which humans and animals imprint upon each other’s consciousness. 

Given this is a ghost story, I realised it has an element of detective fiction too – involving our contemporary character – Marie – investigating clues, so that took some working out. But there’s also a bending of the rules – a theme of this story is fate, how seeds might be sown across time. So while I needed some clues, I also wanted to make things deliberately strange with space for the reader to make up their own mind about things as all ghost stories should do. 

2. Myth and magic and blended beautiful throughout the story and are a prominent theme in your previous books. Have you been inspired by any other books with a similar theme?

When I was a child, my favourite writers, whose stories I’ve returned to throughout my life, were people like Alan Garner, Ursula Le Guin, Susan Cooper, Joan Aitken, Peter Dickinson, Diana Wynne-Jones. All these writers were doing exactly that – blend myth and magic, and I knew that one day I wanted to write a story that would do the same. I think writers understand innately that the universe is just not defined in any way we can understand. Our physics systems are now starting to break up, or evolve, as quantum theory slowly becomes the norm. But for the most basic quantum tests even those who work in the field don’t really understand – it is a kind of magic, that taps into how we’re starting to interpret consciousness, and this thing call the soul. 

3. Each of the characters in Ghost are strong and learn how to navigate the circumstances they find themselves in. Can you tell us more about each of these powerful characters and how they develop throughout the story? 

Well, it started with the eighteenth century character, Sarah Gibson, who is based on the real life Sarah Gibson who lived in a derelict gamekeeper’s hut in the woods(locally known as ‘Sally in the Wood’) where I set the story. She earned her livingsupplying medicine and selling the things she made on the new road that ran through the wood…

The story about her – that I refer to in the acknowledgements of my novel – is fascinating, especially as she lived to the ripe old age of 100 years old. She was absolutely key to my story. What had had happened to her was that when her gamekeeper husband died, she was turned off the estate, but chose to stay in the woods, living in one of the old huts. I was completely fixated by this true story – and the important detail, that people used to leave things for Sarah in the trees near her home. I loved that, because it seems so ancient and powerful, in tune with other energies, so I knew it would go into Ghost. 

Aine, the Celt warrior, came from another story I stumbled across in the foreword of a tome I’ve had with me most my reading life, The Reader’s Digest of Folklore, Myths and Legends of Great Britain.

I’d never read the introduction but when I did, I discovered that one of the researchers of the book had had a terrifying paranormal experience, that revolved around a pair of ancient Celt stone heads found near Hadrian’s Wall. 

I was chilled by this story and knew I wanted to include it in mine. So Aine grew from there – in that I knew I needed a character in touch with that ancient time. Being a massive Rosemary Sutcliffe fan, I will always be drawn to stories of Ancient Britain, in the same way I always like to walk this beautiful and ancient landscape we have in the British Isles.

My third character is Marie, from the present day, and she’s an amalgamation of lots of people I think. I was drawn to her experience of duality, that twinsexperience, how they live intense, close lives, and I was interested in what that must feel like, and if and how a twin might want to start rejecting it. I find twins fascinating, the almost psychic connection they have. Marie has suffered a burnout, a kind of over boiling of her life, and I wanted to see how she was going to navigate finding herself – and that’s when she ends up discovering this ghost story…

4. How have the places you have visited and lived, shaped you as a writer? Have any of these places inspired Ghost? 

I live in Wiltshire, which, while always spectacular, is looking particularly on point as autumn moves into winter and the trees are full of rich and changing colours. My dog walks at the moment are a constant photo fest of beautiful trees and the wonderful crisp sunlight at this time of year. And that’s absolutely one of my loves – walking the land where we live, whatever the weather.

I’m instinctively drawn to the past, it sparks my imagination in the same way it did when I was a child. I love that we know so little about the ancient past. We have things we dig up, and we can make assumptions, but there is so much about belief, and culture and how people thought that we can only put a spin on. For me this gives rich grounding for stories, that feeling of ‘what if this person felt this way…?’ When I was first told about ‘Sally in the Wood’, while I was on a canal trip with my family on a bright May day, I knew that there was something pulling me in. I was told a ghost story – you’ll find it in the acknowledgements to Ghost – and I was off then. When, like Marie in my story, I started to find out about the area via searching the web, I realised that somewhere very close to where I’ve lived for years, has a reputation for being an extremely haunted stretch of road. There are many stories about the area – which I’ll leave your readers to explore for themselves

5. What advice would you give to any younger readers who have these mythical worlds inside their heads, on how to get started in writing? 

I think reading other writers with rich, mythical worlds is the best advice I can give on this. Seek them out, ask other writers and readers who they like. Reading them will stir your subconscious and the stories that you have swimming about there. 

Keep a notebook and use it regularly, because there will be all sorts of connections there that suddenly become apparent. A lot of writing is stumbling across things orother things rising to the surface that you didn’t see initially, but like anything you have to work at it, keep putting things into the mix.

6. When you create the ideas for your stories do you always have the ending inside your head? Do your stories ever develop and change significantly during the writing process? 

It’s useful to have a sense of the ending, but it doesn’t have to be nailed in stone. Witch had a different ending for many drafts, for instance, and only when I changed that, did the final pieces fall into place. In Stone, I always knew strongly that the ending would happen at the White Horse of Uffington. For Ghost I knew that things would need to come full circle, that where everything started, so it would end, in those haunted woods. 

For my next book, I know what the big climactic scenes will be towards the end of the book, but also at lot of things will come out of research. And yes, personally speaking, my stories always develop and change – as you find out more about your characters, they inform the story. Your characters will want to do certain things, go to certain places, and you need to let them explore, even when you might end up cutting things from the final draft. There is this whole ‘seat of your pants’ versus ‘plotters’ debate in writing. I tend to start out as writing not knowing where I’m going, with some moments in mind, scenes I would like to approach. Then during re-draft, I get more plot orientated. There are no rules to writing really, you just have to trust to yourself and turn up at your desk ;->

7. Can you tell us a bit about your writing process? Where did the inspiration for Ghost come from? Have you always held an affinity with mythical, magical stories? 

I have a study at home – but that’s also where other work gets done, so I always like to head off to Cornwall and have writing retreats, with only the dog for company. All my writing benefits from complete immersion like this. Even if you feel it’s ‘not going well’, actually it is, because you’re there by the sea with your subconscious to percolate things. 

And absolutely I’ve always been close to myth and magic. I can’t remember a time when I haven’t been. Perhaps it’s my Irish heritage, and growing up with parents who loved this kind of thing too – they were also children’s authors and wrote and illustrated wonderful (and funny!) books about witches, spooks and vampires. It’s also something about fairytales I think – they hold the keys to much of what’s fascinating about the supernatural, things we don’t really understand, but feel drawn to and tell stories about.

8. What has been your greatest challenge when writing your books and how do you overcome these challenges when they arise? 

The biggest challenge, every time, is that first draft. It does seem quite a mountain, and one where you’re not even sure where you’re going, and how to get across. The main thing is to just keep climbing, even small steps every day, and slowly you’ll get to the top. Of course, this is only the first draft, so you’ll need to climb it again, but this time you’ll have a few waypoints identified, a smoother path, and you’ll also have a view of the whole landscape. Getting that first draft done is always the trickiest of challenges, but as I say to all budding writers, keep going!

9. Are there any plans to write another book? If so, can you give us a sneak peek as to what we can expect?

Yes, I’ve started work on it now, I’m in the exploratory and research phase at the moment, before I start with the first draft. I’m working on a sequel to Witch – it’s set a few years later in Ireland, in the year 1649, a time of Irish rebellion against British rule. Evey, Anne and Dill have settled in a village where Evey is starting to become known as the local witch. But Dill is restless, and runs away to search for her father, a chieftain of one the old Gaelic tribes resisting the English. He knows that the stone is a powerful weapon. Meanwhile Grey’s daughter has arrived in Ireland looking to avenge her mother’s death. And Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army have set sail from England to put down the Irish rebellion…

10. And finally, how would you describe Ghost in just three words?

Dark. Light. Love.

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