Developing Mister D / The Infernal Aether

Milly and the Ghost

It's been a while since I posted on this blog, and apologies for that, but I've been getting my head down and focusing on posting the first substantial part of The Infernal Aether storyline. Having done that, I'm now having a (very) mini breather and so thought I'd jot down a few thoughts, impressions and backstory.

Spoiler alert - I'm going to be talking about the first five chapters of the Infernal Aether here, so don't read on if you haven't read that far yet...

I've never really thought of myself as a ghost story writer, but this is one which had been kicking around in my head for ages. Given the change in the nature of the stories from the lighter, more tongue-in-cheek Mister D to the darker N'yotsu, this felt like the ideal way to start, as well as to introduce the characters - I'm a believer in using difficult and/or terrifying situations to really draw out characters, and hopefully that's something I've at least gone some way towards.

Having said that I've not thought of myself as a ghost story writer, I do enjoy the genre. As a result the genesis of this story owes a lot to my formative years terrifying myself with a good Edgar Allen Poe (The Pit and the Pendulum - brrr), a fair portion of Stephen King (It, Pet Semetary, Christine) as well as the frankly amazing Clive Barker, whose Imagica remains to my mind one of the finest modern books. Not that I'm in any way trying to compare myself to those writers, but if I achieve just a bit of what they do, I'll be ecstatic.

The central device of the haunted girl who killed to keep her ghosts company is something that has fitted into various short stories of mine over the years, although none of it really worked properly, mainly because I couldn't find strong or interesting enough characters to bring the story to life. In Augustus, Maxwell and N'yotsu I hope that I may have found them.

This is still rough-and-ready at time of writing, and I am indebted to everyone who has commented so far - not least of whom @dlmackenzie. Plug alert - if you haven't read his "Editing Mister D" and you have any interest in writing, do so now (or when you've finished reading this, anyway!) - it is shaping up to be an invaluable source of info and advice on the craft of writing - and a lot more accessible than the mountains of books on the subject I've bought in the past!

My plan now - once I've given it a few days so I can look at the text a bit more objectively - is to take all those comments and use them to do an edit of the first five chapters. I already have a few ideas, a big one being to draw out the final fight scene a bit more and thereby add a bit more suspense to the ending. There are other comments I plan to incorporate, and some which I'm not convinced about - in my next post I'll put in some updates as to what I thought and how I got to where I did.

In the meantime, please do feel free to drop down any thoughts or comments - it really means a lot that people are reading, and any and all contributions are very much appreciated.