By Freda Warrington

Writers may give a small inward groan when people ask, ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ but, the truth is, it’s an eternally fascinating question. My own ideas seldom arrive fully formed, but develop in a tree-like fashion and usually in need of considered pruning. Everyone has ideas, but the real question is, what makes us want to turn them into novels?

I began writing in childhood, always in search of the thrilling ‘otherworld’ feeling I got from my favourite books, and from the landscape of Charnwood (near Leicester, England) where I grew up. Fantasy was the genre that spoke to me. Although often unfairly derided as escapism, fantasy can reach deep into the heart of fundamental ideas; concerns of friendship and passion, bravery, suffering, heroism. The scholar Joseph Campbell insisted that the hero’s journey—the staple of myth and fantasy—applies to us all, because it’s the adventure of being alive. Even my first published novel (re-issued by Immanion Press as A Blackbird in Silver Darkness) had its roots in my childhood fears of cold war and nuclear annihilation. I couldn’t do much about it in real life, but I could send my heroes (anti-heroes?) Ashurek, Estarinel and Medrian to confront the terrifying Serpent.

Heroism is less obvious in Elfland, which has a more natural, contemporary edge. Still, I always write for the same reasons, a need to work out my fears and fascinations in story form. A single mental image—a face, perhaps—can inspire a whole novel. In the case of Elfland, it was the slow fusion of several elements. First, I’ve long been intrigued by the concept of beings who are human-like yet ‘other’: angels, vampires, elves, elementals, demi-gods, what you will. My Aetherials (or Aelyr) evolved as my own interpretation of such a race; ancient creatures embodying something mysterious, untouchable, erotic, potentially dangerous yet spell-binding. They’re chameleon-like, moving between other worlds but able to live among humans if they choose. And in Elfland, my characters have become so nearly human that they’re deeply torn between mortal and Aetherial instincts. Which self is authentic?

Houses fascinate me, too, because every household is a micro-world in its own right. You live one life in your house, while yards away your neighbours are living an entirely different one. An infinity of different worlds all around us! So an image entered my head of two households, as unalike as alien planets. A friendly house containing a loving family, the Foxes. A cold granite manor on a hill, containing a broken family, the Wilders. I pictured a crag of rock, concealing the Great Gates to the Otherworld… which I knew had been suddenly barred without explanation by the sinister gatekeeper, Lawrence Wilder. I needed to know why!

And most importantly, I knew this was a tale about unrequited love; the story of a young woman, Rosie Fox, trying to make sense of human life and love when she’s not truly human at all. From such simple origins grow the passionate tangles of a novel.

(from the Tor/Forge September 2009 newsletter)