Author Q&A with Una Verdandi

Author Q&A with Una Verdandi

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Una Verdandi is a writer of science fiction and fantasy novels. When she is not exorcising her muses into a Word document, she is probably painting, embroidering, or pondering the meaning of life. (Just kidding—life is meaningless.) As a professional editor, she helps other fiction authors mold their demons into a marketable form and tidies up legalese and financial babble for corporate clients.

Her first novel, Black Wolf: The Binding of Loki, is available on Amazon and through Renaissance Press, Ottawa.

1. Tell us about your writing/published book(s).

My first novel, Black Wolf: The Binding of Loki, re-envisions the lives of the Norse gods to create a complete narrative arc for the mythology overall and for Loki in particular. 

Norse mythology focuses on society—how it works and how it fails. The gods face challenges both within their own society (usually because of Loki) and from outside forces, but their laws and other codes of conduct allow them to resolve most difficulties. What they can’t resolve is the rot that sets in when one brother kills another, and the laws and social bonds that hold society together break down.

Black Wolf uses the apparent simplicity of the myths to describe the complexity of society in any age and explore the interplay between power and human frailty.

 

2. Do you do research for your books? If so, what kind of research?

Always.

For Black Wolf, I had to learn how to interpret the Norse myths in a way that was consistent with what we know (or think we know) about Viking cultures from both textual and archaeological sources. These myths may be just stories to us, but to the Old Norse people they were a reflection of social and environmental realities. When you begin to understand how they lived, the challenges they faced, and the laws they made to address these challenges, even the most bizarre and horrific myths become meaningful.

I’ve also tried writing science fiction, but I lean towards hard sci-fi in my own writing. (I read “soft” sci-fi, I just don’t write it.) This means doing heavy duty research in areas I’m not already familiar with. The first novel that I ever worked on was set in the early stages of human exploration beyond the solar system, and it required me to use physics (good to go), neuroscience (needs work), and computer science (major kryptonite). I never got the story off the ground, if you’ll pardon the pun, but I still think about it. I have another science fiction idea that I think is much better, but it requires a lot of research into environmental science and biology. But first, I have more mythology-inspired stories to develop.

 

3. How do you approach ‘world building’?

World building, character development, and plot are the three pillars of any story, and they all have to work together as a unified whole. Geography and culture are intimately intertwined, and the interactions between them dictate the kinds of events that are likely to occur, which then feed back into the characters’ responses. Changes to the landscape, whether natural or human-made, may change the cultures that live there, creating opportunities for new types of events, and so on.

If you’re writing stories in real-world settings, you’ve got some of your work done for you. However, I prefer to write in fictional or futuristic settings, so I try to pay close attention to how the settings I create will influence the other aspects of the narrative. In Black Wolf, there are some parameters set out by the myths, but because the construction of the Nine Worlds is only vaguely and inconsistently described, I ended up doing a lot of headscratching and a bit of handwaving. I also drew inspiration from actual Viking settlements for some regions, but because most of the story takes place between Asgard and Jotunheim rather than Midgard (Earth), I still had plenty of room to play.  

 

4. Describe your perfect character to me. 

Deeply flawed and emotionally and morally complex. I despise caricatures of moustache-twirling villains and goody-two-shoes heroes, and I don’t write stories that have clear heroes or villains because I’m not particularly interested in reading those stories. While there are certainly people in the world who will cause harm because they want to or because they just don’t give a shit, everyone does damage sometimes. Ignorance and miscalculation can be as deadly as ill will.

 

5. Would you want your book made into a film?

Black Wolf would have to be a series, and I’d want it to be as gritty and earthy as possible. The story is about relationships and interpersonal politics—the entire plot depends on a fragile web of social relations, but it has almost two dozen major characters, so it develops slowly. My biggest fear is that a Hollywood-style film would be a slick, soulless production that lurches from action scene to action scene until everything finally blows up at Ragnarök. 

I really don’t want it to look or feel anything like the Marvel films, because Marvel lifted a handful of details out of the myths and constructed an entirely different world from them. The comic book Loki bears blessedly little resemblance to his mythological counterpart, who has no use for power (likely because it comes with a lot of responsibility). The Loki that the Vikings knew mocked and undermined the powerful—he never sought to become one of them. 

Most importantly, the men will have beards long enough to braid. There will be none of that People Magazine cover didn’t-have-time-to-shave peach fuzz clinging to any grown man’s face. Get the f*ck out of here with that nonsense.

 

6. What advice would you give to someone wanting to write their first book?

First, don’t get hung up on rules. Art is not art by virtue of following rules. If Picasso had stuck to painting traditional portraits, you might never had heard his name. (Frankly, I’ll bet you didn’t even know he painted traditional portraits.) Instead, think in terms of effects and techniques—what do you want to achieve and what tools do you have to achieve it? Play with words and structures to find your style. If the three-act structure works for you, then use it; if it doesn’t, toss it. Maybe your style is sparse and spartan, or perhaps you’re better at writing descriptive slow-burn prose. There isn’t one correct way to write any more than there is one correct type of book to read.

I strongly suspect many writers become obsessed with rules because they’re looking for a sure path to success. Perhaps they believe that finding the right template will solve all their writing issues, but as a professional editor, I’ve seen clients destroy their writing by trying to adhere to other people’s rules. Even if these rules don’t actively detract from your work, an over-reliance on them may stunt your long-term development as a writer. You can hang on to the old “you have to know the rules before you can break them” cliche, but once you see what you can achieve when you ditch the rules, you may wonder why anyone would follow them in the first place. As far as I’m concerned, slavish rule-following is a just a shortcut to mediocrity.

Remember that making art is inherently risky. Become friends with your doubt. You’ll never be rid of it, so learn how to make it work for you. If you’re overconfident in your writing (or just to scared to really look at your work critically), you’re virtually guaranteed to produce weak writing. Every word choice, every sentence structure, every action needs to be interrogated. You won’t be able to make everything perfect, but consider all the things you need to do to address your doubts. Check definitions to make sure you’ve got the right word, and do your research about the place/time/culture you want to write about. If you’re going to veer away from facts, make sure you know why you’re doing it and what the consequences for the story might be. Do everything you reasonably can and then find some beta readers or editors. No matter how good your writing is, you’ll need a second opinion or three.

Perhaps the most important thing you can do is learn how to identify and use constructive criticism and how to shrug off criticism that is dismissive, mean-spirited, or simply off the mark. Not only will this help you improve any given piece of work, but it will also help you find a community of supportive writers, editors, and readers who can truly help you grow as an author.

 

You can find Una on Twitter.