Ebooks and paperbacks
Kath Middleton - Books
  • Welcome
  • About Me
  • Newly Published
  • Novels
  • Novellas
  • Short Stories
  • Collaborations
  • Blog

The making of The Novice's Demon

10/23/2017

3 Comments

 
I don't know for sure how other writers work but I usually get an idea, start writing the story, and only when it's well along do I begin to think about a cover. The Novice's Demon was written the other way round. 

We'd been on holiday in May and I'd been snapping views to send to friends and family as 'ecards' -  emails with a photo attached. A coach tour brought us to the Somerset village of Dunster, where I photographed a grotesque head decorating an archway at Dunster Priory.



Picture

My clever friend Jonathan Hill emailed back to say 'Book Cover'! As he designs my covers, I gave this a lot of thought. I wanted to base the story around the image, and what that might convey to a medieval mind. I grabbed the word demonic and ran with it. It was obviously only going to be a short story as I was basing it around one event.

I wanted to explore the differences between superstition and science as ways of looking at the world. I have my characters trying to explain what was happening to a young girl living an ascetic life, at the age when she might be most susceptible to suggestion and/or hysteria. The reader, of course, has modern science to interpret things - but it isn't always able to do so. We still can't explain some supernatural events to everybody's satisfaction. I leave it to the reader. What happened? 
​
Picture
Details on Amazon
3 Comments
will Macmillan Jones link
10/23/2017 08:50:40 am

In my experience the Muse is a flighty piece, and can descend on someone in many forms and guises. The trick is to recognise the hints, as you did here

Reply
Helen Brookes
10/23/2017 11:19:06 pm

Just finished reading the book enjoyed it very much as I have all your work

Reply
Kath
10/24/2017 03:00:46 am

Thanks, Will and Helen. :)

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Kath Middleton, author of Ravenfold, Message in a Bottle, Top Banana, Long Spoon, Souls disturbed, Stir-up Sunday, Beneath the Ink, The Novice's Demon, The Flesh of Trees, The Sundowners, The Angle Monument and Muriel's Bear.
    ​Contributor to Beyond 100 Drabbles. Part-author of Is it Her?



    Archives

    August 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    December 2019
    July 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Copyright © 2014 - 2020 Kath Middleton