A Chat with David Wragg

To celebrate the publication of The Righteous by David Wragg (review coming very soon), I was able to sit down and have a chat with Dave on the intricacies of novel-writing, the inherent emotional and structural balancing required therein, and also a little bit about pig-fucking.

The Righteous is the sequel to The Black Hawks, and the final book in the Articles of Faith duology. If you haven’t read The Black Hawks yet, then I’d consider checking it out! Peter McLean describes it as “a cross between Nicholas Eames and Joe Abercrombie”, which I’d mostly agree with! It’s an epic fantasy focusing on a small group of mercenaries, with a lot of the humour coming through the insults and banter in the dialogue. I wouldn’t call it grimdark, and it’s not quite as joke-heavy as something like Kings of the Wyld, but it tries to find the humour in most situations, and I really loved that balance between the serious and the funny. Take this example of a character lamenting their impending death via wolves:

She replaced the knife in the bag and went back to rummaging, muttering as she went. ‘To think I left Clyden for this. Eaten by a fucken dog with a hairstyle.’

But that’s enough from me. There’s always my review of The Black Hawks if you want any more opinions. For now, let’s hear from David!

_{Covers of David Wragg’s Articles of Faith series}

Hiu
HELLO David, how have you been? How does it feel to (almost) not be A Debut Author any more?

David
HELLO your good self, Super-Hiu. I have been entirely fine for the last year, not great not terrible as they said in Chernobyl. It is exciting to be releasing a second book, but also makes me a bit wistful, as now I’m no longer hot, new and exciting. You may be wondering whether I was ever those things, but the release of a second book removes all doubt.

Hiu
I always hear a lot about “second book syndrome” from authors! In your experience then, would you agree that second books are a lot more challenging?

David
Well, just between us, I cheated. I wrote the first draft of (the book that became) the Black Hawks in 2015, then immediately started a draft of the sequel as I wanted to see what would happen next. It was a bit of a gamble, but it meant that when I pitched the series it was always going to be a duology, and the second book was standing by to be put through the editing mill as required.

Hiu
Oh wow so you’ve spent a long time with these characters then! Speaking personally, I love how the dialogue from each of your characters feels so distinctive (Lemon!!). Was this something that was there from the start, or did it develop over all those years?

David
That’s a good question. I think the foundational relationships were there from the get-go, and the manners of speech flow from the relationships. There’s been refinement from there (in one draft, Foss called everyone “amigo” which was a bit naff) but that’s been more about finding the right wording to express the characters. Rennic was always Rennic, calling Chel “little man” as he resents being called “boy”. Loveless calling him “cub” tells its own story, and of course Lemon is there with “wee bear”. As far as Lemon goes, she always sounded like that in my head, but I didn’t want to pepper her dialogue with cod-Scots. The “aye, right” verbal tic was an important one for her to have the whole way through, although the scene which paid it off then got removed in the edit!

One of the advantages of having both books planned (and first-drafted at least) was knowing exactly where the story would go, what the characters would reveal and where they’d end up (edits notwithstanding!). This allowed me a certain confidence in deciding what we could put in from the start and cash in on later. Again, edits notwithstanding…

Hiu
Another thing I wanted to touch on… With all of these strong personalities in the cast, it must have been hard to balance them without over-shadowing our “main” POV character in Chel. (Especially with his duty to Tarfel.) Was that balancing act ever something that you were conscious of, or did things just develop naturally?

David
The original draft of Book 2 did spread the POV around – some with Rennic, some with Foss, even a couple of small ones with Lemon – largely to cover events that Chel wasn’t around to witness, and also to add a bit of history and flavour. BUT in the finished book we stuck solely with Chel, which was absolutely the right call – he’s the heart of the book, and it’s his attitudes that define and frame everything we, as readers, witness. It’s a shame that we lost some very cool scenes as a result (keep an eye on my website post-release), but I hope the end result is a consistent narrative voice and perspective. In terms of balancing, I think what we’re really talking about here is the “passive/useless protagonist” issue – he’s generally less-capable and less-informed than any other character (bar Tarfel) all the way through the books. Of course, that’s something I did entirely deliberately, but it can make things frustrating for readers waiting to see a main character spring into action and seize control of a plotline. I would say that Chel outstrips every other character in the series with his tenacity, and his determination to at least try and do the right thing – and that, fundamentally, is what the series is about.

(another way of saying that everything that happens across both books is his fault)

Hiu
He’s supposed to be lucky. 😔

David
😢

Hiu
Talking about book 2, I noticed that there’s a very intriguing new bio inside the front cover! And I feel like I have to ask… Is there foreign office story there to be told? 😂

David
Well, I did once run into the Foreign Secretary in one of the hallways. Like, literally ran into him, I was late for a meeting. Sorry Mr Milliband. And I got told off in the staff canteen for overloading my plate from the salad bar.

The FCO is an amazing building, all marble and white stone, huge gilded portraits hanging over gleaming polished stairways… and then underneath it’s all crumbling, the lower floors are riddled with rats and water leaks and the whole thing is coming apart at the seams. SOMETHING SOMETHING METAPHOR FOR BRITISH GOVERNANCE.

(Of course, if I’d done undercover work, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.)

(But also if I hadn’t.)

Hiu
I feel like this talk of past British governance leads suspiciously smoothly into my next question. So how far did you think you could take the Pig-fucker joke in book 1 before eventually naming Rennic? 😂

David
HAHAHAHA! Further than my editor considered wise! There weren’t a whole swathe of edits in the first book (certainly compared to book 2), but one bit that got the chop was Chel and Tarfel escaping their initial capture by the Black Hawks, and running into Marekhi (remember her?) and her company. Then Hurkel and co turn up and murder everyone, and Rennic drags Chel away before he can run in to try to help. There’s then a set-to where Chel calls Rennic “pig-fucker” in increasingly vivid detail and Rennic punches him each time in return. Eventually Loveless makes them stop and they get on the boat. I thought of it as a tender character moment, but Natasha my editor referred to it as flogging a dead something. Maybe it was a pig.

Hiu
I love the idea of this ridiculous contrast between formal edits and characters calling each other “pig-fuckers”. 😂 It’s very entertaining to imagine the serious discussion about how much pig-fucking is optimal.

David
If you listen to Tash, she claims to have removed 50 instances of “pig-fucker”. I don’t believe it was that many, but the remainder were load-bearing “pig-fuckers” and important for structural integrity. Some of the comments in the manuscript markup would make for eyebrow-raising reading in isolation.

Hiu
There’s such a fun and under-the-radar transition from colourful insults towards developing strong bonds. Was it much of a different experience to write book 2 when those bonds are now, to an extent, pre-existing?

David
Book 2 was undoubtedly easier to write (and I suspect it will be easier to read) as it’s essentially a continuation of where we left off. There’s no need to unpack the situation, introduce you to the world and the characters, have them all get to know each other already – that bit’s done, hooray! HOWEVER, it’s never as simple as that, is it? We’ve got a new character thrown into the mix relatively early on, who brings a new set of interpersonal and intercultural dynamics into the mix, and of course the relationships within the main crew continue to evolve and shift, as of course our relationships do in real life. The only constant is change. The two foundational relationships, between Chel and Tarfel and Chel and Rennic, are what give the book its emotional centre, and it’s the evolution of those relationships that drives the plot (and vice versa). That aspect provided a continued challenge, without question – if everyone’s attitudes to each other had stayed in stasis, it wouldn’t have made for a particularly riveting read!

Hiu
It’s interesting you say that, actually. Because while there is obviously an “overarching” plot (what with certain nefarious royalty), these really are quite intimate, small-group-focused stories, huh? Are those the kind of stories you find yourself gravitating to?

David
Without question. That overarching plot takes its shape from almost genetic imprint – this is epic fantasy, our heroes must save the world – but I don’t want to do everything on a grand sweeping canvas and a cast of thousands. For a start, others do it way better, but ultimately I want this to about a small group of people, their place in the world, and their effect on it. If anything, the events of the book (especially those in the latter half) are purely there to drive the characters into facing up to each other…

Hiu
And it’ll all end in a hug, right? …right?

David
Weeeell. (Have you got any further?)

Hiu
(reading the beginning of part 3 as we speak!)

David
Ah so it’s pretty clear that everything is going to work out fine.

Hiu
Looking beyond the Articles of Faith series for now, then. In an interview you did for sfandfreviews, you mentioned writing a wild west standalone in the same world. Is that still the plan for your next book, or do you have anything else in the pipeline?

David
Ha! It’s funny how much things have changed and in many ways how much they haven’t… there are a whole load of potential items backed up in the pipeline, it remains to be seen which will plop out first.

Hiu
So two fun questions to finish off, then I won’t have to take up any more of your time! First up… If you were thrown into the world of the Black Hawks, and had to take the place of one of them during the events of the story… Who would you pick and why?

David
Oh jesus. I mean, I’d just die. So probably Fly from book 1? I’d love to be anywhere near as competent as any of them, even Spider (boo), but I’d probably be killed off by the waterborne parasite that keeps giving Lemon tummy trouble. Could I be one of landless nobles who just hangs out in the Bridge House?

Hiu
Hmmm, depends on how brutally book 2 ends.
To round off, you have anything you’d like to say to any readers coming into book 2?

David
Aside from “welcome back” and “hope you enjoy it” (and “sorry for the delay ffs”), I’d maybe ask them to think about what they might do in Chel’s shoes, and whether they’d make different choices and why. My goal with the series was to take someone who wasn’t a good fighter and didn’t want to kill anyone, and put them through the mangle of an adventure fantasy narrative, and see how things turned out. I like to think that most of us don’t want to kill anyone, and we want to do the right thing, even if we’re not always sure what the right thing is. But you’ve got to try, eh?

Hiu
Was that try to do the right thing, or try to kill people?

David
Ummm. Well now I’m not sure.
Do what comes naturally?
No, not that.

David Wragg really got into writing stories just as he finished his English GCSE, then took about twenty years to get back to it. In the meantime, he studied software engineering, worked in global shipping and technical consultancy, and once spent a year in the foreign office ‘hiding in the basement’.

David lives in Hertfordshire with his wife, two small daughters, and two smaller cats. He has a dog now, too.

The Righteous is out today! Add it on Goodreads., and buy it from Bookshop, Amazon, Waterstones, or other retailers.