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Welcome to another episode of the Fantasy Writers Tour Shed.

I'm your host, Richie Berling, and today I'm delighted to be joined by the New York Times bestselling author Calcade Cal Welcome to the show.

Hello, thank you.

My pleasure to be here.

Thank you very much for joining me on the day we're recording this, your brand new book, Sanctum of the Soul.

It comes out in just seven days.

Very exciting.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

It's the last in the trilogy.

Is this right in the current series?

That's correct.

Yes, the final book.

How does it feel right in the final book?

It's a weight off my shoulders for sure, but it's also really exciting because I get to see, you know, all that I've been creating kind of wrap up and and come to the conclusion.

So I'm really excited about it.

Yeah, and I mean, it sounds like you're like, you say you're ready to move on to something new.

Was there any sort of sort of sad aspects of moving on, like saying goodbye to the characters or anything like that?

Well, I really enjoy writing these books and I always leave the option open that maybe I'll revisit these characters in this world in the future installment or something, but but I don't have any plans for that at the moment.

But yeah, it's a little bit, a little bit sad, but exciting at the same time.

Nice.

So for anyone who may not have read Yeah this series before, do you fancy telling us a bit about it?

And what it's all about.

I really love the the sort of trope twist in this one, but would you mind telling us about it?

Yeah, so this is a, you know, hero's journey kind of story.

It starts out with a prophecy.

And of course, the the chosen 1 is is destined to either win or fail.

And there's a little bit of a little bit of A twist at the beginning.

And I don't want to really go into too much about that because it'll spoil it for anybody who hasn't read the series.

But we see some unusual characters going on through throughout the series.

There's there's a cranky Forester, there's Reaper and the undead and mages and Wizards and just a colorful carrot cast of gods.

A lot of different types of people come together and and create this story.

That sounds amazing.

So I think a nice tapestry of of characters as well.

Do you?

Do you place a lot of emphasis on the characters when you write your stories?

I, I believe my stories are primarily character driven.

I really write it from from the character's perspective and, and draw a lot on their their feelings and emotions and how they respond and react to the events that are happening around them.

So yeah, I definitely lean heavily into the characters.

Yeah, what you think's the most important part of of writing a character driven story.

You know, I see I'm I'm working with the right at the moment and we were talking about this the other day.

And when you're writing those first drafts, like it's some some aspects of that character developments and it's just aren't there in the first drafts are the and it's for me anyway, sort of I was just to go back and add in and develop a bit more.

But what's it like for you?

What's your process like when it comes to exploring what these characters are like and helping the reader build like solid connections with them?

Well, I, I kind of lean heavily into the dialogue both between characters and within a character, him or herself.

I think it's important to show those those inner thoughts and feelings that the character experiences to really help the reader to connect with them, that are to understand them, to understand their motivations and their strengths and weaknesses, and just fill out the character as as if it's a a real human being.

I think that that's the best way to unite the the reader with the story.

Yeah, it's, it's definitely a tricky thing.

I I always remember reading a line and a book on writing and said you don't just need to know what a character wants for breakfast.

You need to know why he wants it.

And that when you think of it like that, it's like you've got to go the extra step.

It's like it's OK for this character to feel like this, but you've got to look at the why as well, haven't you?

That's a really reveal who they are.

They're very fascinating.

And so the world is quite unique in the story.

And does that come from your background in science?

I do really enjoy creating the world's and I definitely draw from my background in geosciences to kind of flesh out the world and make it make it realistic, but also add that element of fantasy to it to make it a little bit more than what you experienced in in real life, but also make it believable at the same time.

Nice.

So tell us a bit about this world, in particular in in the series.

Well, as as I mentioned, there's there's a whole multiple pantheons of gods who have created this, this world and many other worlds as well, but it's focused on this one world.

And these these gods are kind of reminiscent of the Greek Roman gods.

You know, they have their petty squabbles and, and their strengths and weaknesses and their their interactions and then their motivations for interfering in the lives of of the humans that live in the world are often petty and and other times they have life altering circumstances.

And then there's the plethora of beings that that live in the world besides the humans who add a little element of fantasy to the story.

And then of course we have the humans.

And some of these humans have abilities that others may not have.

They may have some magic or unique abilities that make them special and others others don't.

They're just people who have to go through the world and exist and survive as just average, average people.

So it's it's a whole cast of of characters that have to satisfy these different roles that they play.

Yeah.

Do you spend a lot of time on the world building process?

It kind of comes to me as I write.

I don't.

I don't spend a lot of time in the beginning fleshing out the world.

And really when I dive into a story, I'm first thinking about the characters and what is this character doing and where are they and, and who are, are the influences on this character?

And then their world kind of starts expanding.

And as it's expanding for the character, it's expanding for the reader and it gets larger and larger and, and integrates more of, of the universe that exists around them.

So the reader gets to experience that awe and and the new experiences with the with the character.

Yeah, it's definitely an approach of hearing more and more people take that one.

It's what I follow as well, because the reality is we don't have the time to be spending days building details that we potentially may never use.

So this more efficient, supposed to.

Well, it's definitely work.

Works well for the reason you just said as well, because it's more natural, it's more organic, like the characters discovering things as they're moving through the story.

And yeah.

Well, and and nobody really wants to read a big information dump at the beginning of the book.

Nobody wants to read a long drawn out explanation of the world and it's, and all its features and, and you know, whether it has deities or, or the religious system or the magic system, you know, they, they want to experience it, like you said, organically as, as the story is progressing and to really be presented of what's with what, what's relevant at the time.

And you know, if we bogged them down with too many details in the beginning of our fantastic world building, then the story gets really slow and maybe a little bit boring.

Yeah.

Do you ever worry that you've gone too far with like the world building details and do you have any sort of ways to try and catch whether you've gone a little bit too too detailed?

Well, there's always a lot more that I know about the world than I actually include in the books.

And so I would like to integrate some of this information into the books, but it doesn't really have a place in the book.

So it's important, not, like I said, not to bog down in the details and just let it happen as as it's presented and only only include what's relevant to the story.

Yeah, very good advice.

And one thing I wanted to ask you about, without giving too much away about the book, was fantasy tropes.

Just generally we don't have to talk about the one that the book, the book looks at.

But what do you think about tropes and mixing them up?

Because do you speak to some writers and especially some sort of newer writers and the the sort of look at this, these sort of classic tropes and sort of put them on a pedestal?

Like we can't, you can't touch them.

That's like, this is what people love.

This is what sort of inspired us to get into fantasy in the first place.

But there's so much fun to be had and just taking a hammer to them and smashing us a bit.

So mixing them up a bit a little bit as well.

So what's your view?

You're the the professional hey with the brilliant track record of doing this and I'd love to get your insights.

Well, I think it's, it's definitely important to include some of these well worn tropes because that's what gets people excited about, about the genre is getting to experience these elements that, that they've experienced in other stories.

And they, they really, really enjoyed them and, and want to see more of that.

And so when I started writing my books, I decided that I wanted to include all of the things that I really enjoyed about reading and exclude the things I didn't like about it.

And so I, I drew on, you know, inspiration from things that I'd read and then added my own element to it and in some cases completely flipped it upside down because it's, it's fun to approach it from a different perspective and show sometimes these tropes don't work out.

And I think it's fun to show that when when something goes awry and and it doesn't happen the way it typically happens in a fantasy story.

Yeah, have you got a a trope that you particularly dislike?

For sure there's there's one trope that I I think is a very sensitive subject.

I think that far too many fantasy series want to make the female character.

Maybe it's the protagonist, maybe it's a supporting character.

In order for her to develop and grow and become stronger, they think that it requires her to be raped.

And I've had even readers message me about some of my characters saying, oh, this character needs to be raped so she'll become stronger.

And I think it's it's a horrible trope.

I don't think it should be included in in fantasy stories.

Yes.

To be honest, I don't read a lot of stories with that kind of thing, but I didn't realize it had become quite common.

It is a strange, I've read it, I've read it in a number of in a number of books.

It it happens pretty frequently.

And I mean, it's important to to show a bit of reality, you know, in a realistic world, if there's, there's war and strife and sometimes these horrible things happen.

But I don't think it should be a requirement or a mechanism for helping your character to evolve.

I, I think that people depend on that far too much.

It it there should be other ways to make characters stronger.

Yeah, definitely, yeah.

Is there any sort of like sort of new newish tropes that you quite like or you found quite interesting?

Wow, yeah, I I kind of lean back on on the on some of the older tropes.

I really like the coming of age stories, you know, the, the rags to riches kind of kind of tale.

I.

Can't think of an underdog story, don't we?

Yeah, it's great.

I can't think of any newer tropes off the top of my head, but I'm sure I'm sure there's plenty that I would appreciate.

Yeah, it's interesting because just because when you said there about that trope, it's like, it's not like say, it's not something I'd say.

So it must be like a one that develops in the last few years, but one I'm not really a fan of.

And I'll tell you why.

It's because I came from a broken home.

But I don't like the mental figure because it's it assumes that like the only way that you can sort of grow or overcome obstacles is with the help of some kind of parental figure.

When I think the reality is a lot of people are just left to sort of do it themselves and make their own way.

And the mental figure, when I see it used, they just cause a sort of swoop in and save the day.

And I don't know, I just don't think that's the reality for a lot of people.

So that's my least famous.

Well, that's that's certainly a good one.

And and it's often often used.

There's always the the wise old wizard that that helps, you know, helps them get along or, or the grandfatherly figure or or whatever.

Yeah, that's a good one.

But but I can see from your perspective how how not having that mentor in your life and having to depend on yourself would be valuable.

Yeah, I suppose it's like it's one of the good things about playing around with these troubles is that the different perspectives that you can take and like what you've done, you can you can really find a lot of originality and just spinning it.

So it's always a good one to play around with.

And something I was to talk to you about was your journey through writing, because your latest series is published by 4 and you've got a very successful self-publishing self published series, haven't you called The King's Dark Tidings?

Yes.

And So what was it like for you?

Like starting out with writing?

Is that where you began with The King's Dark Tidings?

And how has it been for you?

Yeah, I, when I first started writing, I was actually working on my doctorate in geosciences and I ran out of funding.

And so I was taking a bit of a hiatus and I started writing just for the fun of it, to give me something to do.

And I started writing a different series in the beginning, but then quickly this character kind of took over my mind.

He kept revisiting me and I and he was it was so funny to me that I, I started writing little bits and pieces about that character and and eventually I just switched completely to a new book and started writing.

And that was that was reskin from the King's dark tithing series.

And so I started publishing those myself, self-publishing.

And after they became very successful, I was contacted by my editor at Tor who asked me if I would be interesting and and writing a series for them and and I just jumped on it.

I I really enjoy being a self published author, but I also enjoyed publishing with Tor so I just consider myself a hybrid author.

Yeah, it's a, it's the best of both worlds, isn't it?

I think.

I think nowadays a lot of like traditionally published writers are trying to do more of the self published stuff from that's from a lot of the writers that I've spoken to in the last year or so.

What was it like when you began self-publishing your stories, and what was the sort of the catalyst, Do you think that sort of sparked all of the attention around them?

I think I, I was, I was putting a lot of my, my stress and anxiety into writing it and it kind of provided me a release of, of that energy.

And I think that really struck A chord with readers.

A lot of people have written to me saying they were going through a hard time and that reading the books really helped them to.

Kind of relax and feel some sense of security, which I found to be interesting considering the content of the books.

But but I think that maybe that that emotion that I was expressing during the writing phase really must have come across and and kind of worked it way into the readers.

I think it was also good timing.

I think I, I published it the first book, December 29th of 2015.

It was right at the end of the year.

It was right after Christmas, you know, people had had their gift cards or whatever and, and people were off of school or work and they were looking for some entertainment.

And I think it was partially just really good timing.

So there's there's so many elements that that could go into it, but in some ways maybe it was a little bit of luck.

That's amazing.

I can say it's the story is is spoken to a lot of people, which is a powerful thing.

And and do you just continue to expand that series?

Yes, that's an ongoing series.

I'm currently writing book 7 and that series the which I hope will come out maybe around the summertime.

Nice.

So.

So what's it like then in living this hybrid life as a sort of self published off and traditionally published over?

Are there any sort of benefits to one side over the other or any negatives that you found?

What's your view so far?

Well, I've, I've been part of the self published community a lot more than with the traditionally published community.

I've attended a lot more conferences and things like that with self published community.

So I feel a little bit more connected with the self published community.

With the traditionally published, There's this, there's this idea by some people that some people carry that you're not a real author unless you were traditionally published.

And I think that's really changing a lot now a lot of people no longer hold that opinion that, and I think deservedly so people, people who self publish are, are definitely authors and nobody should be looking down upon them because self-publishing is hard.

It's it that you have to do everything yourself.

You know, you, you have to do your advertising and your book formatting and your, your artwork and you know you have to do it or you have to hire someone to do it.

And you are your own publisher.

So I think there's a lot of growing respect for self published authors.

Yeah, definitely.

Like you've got a.

It's not just being a writer, is it?

You've got to do what, two or three different professions?

Yeah.

So verify it's.

It's great to see success stories like this and we do have a lot of indie authors, self published authors, listening to the show and I'm sure they'll take a lot of inspiration from seeing your fantastic success.

So yeah, go and check it out.

We'll put the link for King's Dark Tarding books in the description.

Do you have any advice for anyone who's maybe going considering going down a self-publishing?

Like what would you say is the best place to start and what are the sort of hurdles to avoid?

Well, I think the the 1st place to start is you need a good book.

I've met a lot of people who spend most of their time focusing on marketing and advertising, trying to find the newest algorithm and the newest gimmick to really push their books.

But if you don't have a good book, no matter how much you push it, it's, it's just not going to find the success that you hope for.

And even if it does find some success through intensive marketing, you may not find success with subsequent books because people may not like it very much.

So you need to start with a with a really good book.

And I think it's really important to write what you love.

Write what you want to write.

Write the story that you want to read as a reader.

And we all started out as readers.

That's why we love write.

We love books, so I think it's important to write what what you would want to read.

I don't write to trend.

I don't follow the trends.

Some people try to publish in genres that maybe aren't their their cup of tea because they want to hit that trend and and get popular.

Maybe that works for some people, but it's not the way I write.

I prefer to write what I love to read, so.

Yeah, I completely get that.

I mean, it just feels like a chore, doesn't it, when you're trying to find something that you're just not interested in.

And I definitely agree that like the reader would can almost feel the enthusiasm and that you put into writing a story that you want to write and that you're interested in as well.

And I think.

I think the writing is going to be better if if you're if your soul is invested in it, the writing will be better.

Yeah, amazing.

So I've got one more question for you.

It's something I always ask every writer that comes on the show, writing life.

A lot of highs, a lot of lows, probably more lows than highs.

But for you, what was your biggest saw?

What has been your biggest challenge as a writer and how did you go over cover?

Well, as a writer, my biggest challenge Probably imposter syndrome.

Yeah.

Yeah, I I got very popular very quickly and I just didn't believe it.

It, it never really struck and all, all along I've felt like I was just kind of playing catch up to the rest of the writing community, like I, I didn't really belong.

And it's only, it's only been recently that I've started to feel really comfortable being in the community and saying, you know, I, I really am an author.

I mean, I've written 10 books and yet I, it's only now I'm, I'm feeling like, like this is this is where I belong.

No, it's, it's weird, isn't it?

I mean, I suffer from it a lot.

What do you think?

Where do you think it stems from for you?

I could just.

Have you been able to pinpoint anything in particular that could make you feel like this more so than other people?

I think that it's, it started with with my motivation for publishing.

I, I never intended to become an author.

As I said I was, I was working on my doctorate in geosciences and that was where my mind was.

That was what I, I thought I would be doing for the rest of my life.

And so when I, when I started writing, I, I had no intention of publishing it.

I was just writing for myself to see if I could do it.

And then once I had two books worth of material, I said, well, why not throw it up on Amazon and just see what happens?

And so I think it was because I went into it without the intent to become a writer.

And so when I suddenly was one, it didn't feel real.

And, and I've had a hard time switching in my mind from a career in geosciences to one of writing fantasy novels.

So which to me I think was was the right decision.

But but yeah, it definitely didn't feel real for a long time.

Yeah, hopefully it feels very real now.

Kel, thank you very much.

It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you.

It's wish you all the very best of luck for the new book.

Please go and check it out.

The link is in the description.

If anyone would like to learn more about you and all of the books that you've published, where's the best place for them to go?

Now you can go to my website itskelkade.com KELKAD e.com.

I'll put the link in the description as well.

Kel, thank you very much again.

It's been an absolute pleasure and again, all the best for the the new book.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I really appreciate you.

Appreciate you having me on.

No.

And thank you very much for listening at home.