A.L. Willis
What made you decide to become a writer?
I really didn’t decide to become a writer at all, I kind of stumbled into it by accident. I’ve been playing Role Play Games, like Dungeons and Dragons for years, and during Lockdown a number of us were getting together online, at least once a week, a social gathering over the Internet so as not to go mad, as much as anything else. One of the evening games was a campaign, using the science fiction rules Traveller, a set of Role Playing rules that are really old, the original format goes back to the seventies. We really got into our characters and those supporting characters created by the umpire, who was running the whole thing.
Unfortunately at this point, I ended up in a hospital, due to heart failure, and in an isolation ward, for ten days. I had got exposed to Covid. Fortunately, The Tour de France was on and that relieved a few hours of boredom, along with working my way through the Star Trek films. That is when I suddenly had a crazy idea that I should record our Traveller campaign from the perspective of my character, and that’s how the writing began. Each scenario we had experienced was expanded upon, and I continued to write on leaving hospital, sci-fi is not my forte though. I much prefer fantasy wargaming, and in particular a set of rules called Burrows and Badgers, anthropomorphic gaming where red squirrels, rabbits, mice and plenty of other species are the characters. I had already created a slice of world called Badgers Brewery, it was set in a fictional medieval Albion, roughly around the Scottish border, and I had created it not only in my head, but also physically creating a miniature world for gaming around, buildings like The Sunrise Inn and The Immortal Red’s Judiciary building were also made. And then I had populated it with all manner of creatures, some with bare minimal back stories others with more elaborate ones.
It was time I thought, to take those back stories and commit them to paper, even if it was electronic. Taking one of my favourite characters, the white rabbit doe, Suzie Sue Jefferson Whitetail, named after my favourite Pans People dancer, and influenced heavily by Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit, I began writing the first short story. Bringing in characters already created for my gaming and introducing new ones. The world of Badgers Brewery was being fleshed out more and more.
My first short story, Witch Hunters, actually got abandoned in about October 2021 after only a few thousand words, I was feeling low, my health had hardly improved, and I was not in the best of places, mentally. Fortunately I managed to turn that around in the following January, I returned to writing, and finished the first draft at around about nineteen thousand words. My second short story, Grey Killer, soon followed, I returned to Witch Hunters, adding to it, trying hard to bring the characters to life, adding emotions, describing their physical appearances, making each character unique, and totally ignoring the use of grammar.
Suddenly I had fifteen short stories, that continued up to what I thought at the time was the grand finale. Guess I was very wrong about that!
Anyhow, I had been reading them to my wife, I think she has got to hear everything at least three times, and I persuaded a pawful of others to read some, if not all. Meanwhile, back at writing central, a major character got a whole backstory, and yet again I thought, finished, once again I was wrong. I’m sitting on the bike in the trainer peddling away to a playlist, as I try to do most mornings for about an hour. And into my head pops an idea, so I take a character that appears in the later short stories, has a minor role, and then I go and write four complete novels around her. And in between the last two, I write another quite long short. Then a huge tome that is set two hundred years after all of this.
It is at this point I’m being persuaded that I should be publishing, that I’ve created something that needs sharing. As I said, there was no decision, becoming a published author was a by-product of a world, created and populated by characters to while away Sunday afternoons, gaming.
How do you decide your plots?
My characters are definitely not based on real people, but I do try to imagine certain people in that role, which helps with ensuring that character stays within what I suppose could be called parameters.
What comes first for you – the plot or the characters?
That’s definitely a mixture of the two. As I previously said, a good number of my characters got created for a Role Playing Game, the six which are mentioned in Suzie Sue’s thoughts as she travels the road to Badgers Brewery in Act 1. Then others were added as the small slice of world I created, began to have flesh added to the bone: Hoppy at the Slaughtered Rat Inn, Kilgore the big owl, and the crew of The Skye’s Revenge. Then as the storyline progressed new characters were created.
Apart from Suzie Sue and Winters Flame, all the other rabbit does were created specifically for the first short story. Winters Flame had been a character I had created for a warband called The Spear’s Tip. But the likes of Patti and Kiki were brand new, so in my head I had to start giving them their own personalities. Some eventually got a complete back story, others just got a few lines or a few paragraphs to explain why they were here at Badgers Brewery.
How many books have you written and/or published and which is your favourite?
Published one, but I have another eleven manuscripts ready in the wings, the twelfth is set well after the last of the initial eleven, and could probably be split into two parts.
Which is my favourite? That is really a hard choice. If I was pushed to having to make a decision, then probably The Chronicles of Kate Meadowsweet Part I. Kate is a character that makes a small appearance in one of Suzie Sue’s adventures, and then plays a minor role throughout, and then she gets her own storyline, which initially weaves its way through Warlord Suzie Sue Jefferson Whitetail’s existence. Moving on, taking the storyline beyond Suzie's timeliness, I thought after the last Suzie Sue storyline, The Battle at the End of the World, I was finished, turns out that was far from the truth.
Why is she my favourite? I can’t really answer that without giving away a lot of the plot, but she is a character I really enjoyed developing, from a very humble beginning, to... well, you’ll have to hope I publish those, so you can find out. And I’m afraid I’m not always nice to her, although I do try to make it up to her. I suppose I had to, my wife got well annoyed when I read The Chronicles of Kate Meadowsweet Part I to her the first time, in the early days of the manuscript.
What is your favourite genre to write in?
That would definitely be fantasy, because there are no limits, anything is possible, because literally it is a world of fantasy. I have a world of talking creatures, from rabbits to badgers to mice, and they wield swords, they drink ale, eat freshly baked baguettes with runny butter, some have magic, and maybe the gods do exist, demons certainly do, maybe Patti was wrong, maybe there are dragons. Fantasy is so free, it is only bounded by the extent of one’s imagination.
Did you need to do research for your book?
I stop now and then and do some research, mostly regarding weaponry and bows of various types in particular, and I’m now quite knowledgeable about the Roman Scorpio. It’s a heavy bolt thrower, not the only Roman invention for war I researched, but that you will need to read about. Some research was done on ships and rowing boats, mostly about speeds.
A quick Google, imagine at 06.30hrs, suddenly wondering how long it would take a rowing boat to cover five miles of reasonably calm water, and there is no Internet. So to find out the information that’s yet another bus ride to the nearest town, visit the library and delve through a number of reference books, blimey!
How do you feel about killing off popular characters?
I’ve killed off characters, including major ones. Do I enjoy it? It’s definitely not something I’ve enjoyed, but bad things happen even to good folk. But as I never really knew where my plot and storyline was going until I got there, a number of deaths were inevitable.
I killed off one character and I hated myself so much for doing it, as did my wife, that I nearly brought them back. In the end I did both; it’s fantasy remember!
Does your family read your work?
My wife has had all my works read to her at least three times, as the manuscripts evolved. We’d sit down for anything up to an hour during the winter months, and I’d play the Jackanory theme tune, before asking if she was sitting comfortable.
Being able to read my scribblings, as Patti Hammertail would put it, out loud was a tremendous boost. My wife Christine has been well supportive, stopping what she is doing to listen to a piece, and then feeding back on it.
How many hours a day or week would you say you spend writing?
Usually I spend ninety minutes per day. I’m up early, and by 06.15hrs I’m writing or reworking a storyline, break around seven for toast and another coffee, until about 07.45hrs. No interruptions at that time in the morning, I’m sat back in the armchair, tapping away on my keyboard. As I’m retired, this is now my official career.
Is writing therapeutic for you, or does it cause you to stress out?
It is well therapeutic, I absolutely love writing and reworking my manuscripts. Everything I've written has flowed with ease. I’ve written things that I’ve only realised why I’ve written it, a couple of short stories later.
How do you market your books?
Advertising through various social media, or spamming as I believe it is called, oh, and when I get asked, what do I do for a living, which I was asked numerous times in hospital, my answer is now, I’m a published author. Lovely Lilly at A&E actually bought my book for her Kindle, there and then.
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