Harry McLain Writes Posts

Don’t touch that dial! It’s a tale of murder, intrigue and badgers a-comin’ down the pipeline.

Hello!

Black Magic released yesterday (available currently on Amazon, links to follow).

I began working on this story in 7th grade (2002-2003), which at the time of the writing of this post is, astonishingly and a little depressingly, just over two decades ago.

Throughout these past two decades, my life has changed dramatically.

I experienced young love.

I experienced young heartbreak.

I graduated from high school.

I began college.

I dropped out of college.

I took a chance on a new career path.

I went back to college.

I fell in love with a woman halfway across the country.

I fell into a deep and miserable depression.

I graduated.

I moved halfway across the country.

I moved back halfway across the country.

I got married (again, halfway across the country).

I started a new new career.

And then, a 5 years ago, I self-published a book under the name Finnick and Prat.

And it was, to be clear, awful. It was the product of years of tweaking and rearranging and re-writing. I created characters, removed characters, re-added characters, changed plots, changed motivations and any other sort of meddling you can imagine.

The original theme I was going for, way back in November of ‘09, was “Hamlet but it’s a murder mystery comedy,” which, depending on your interpretation of the bard, was already the case.

But that version died a mere three thousand words in.   It grew and changed and became this un-tameable beast.  It defeated me, and in my defeat, I published it.

It… existed.  It was purchased a few times and I truly was embarrassed every time.

I removed it from the marketplace the following fall and began to rewrite it, but at the same time I was still thinking about that original story, which had its roots in a serialized story written two hundred words at a time every two weeks on our “free write” days.  It was terrible, of course, but it provided the seeds for a rich world of my own creation.

Even before Finnick and Prat’s clumsy creation, the story which would become Black Magic (originally titled Shadows Walk) was there, slowly being chipped away, both at and from.

Over the coming years I expanded and grew this world, adding bits and pieces as they came to me. I still have, somewhere in storage, an original map of the main setting I painted for an art competition.

Then, in 2008, I discovered Terry Pratchett.

Prior to this, my reading experience was vast, but tended to be more “serious,” raised as I was with what seemed in school to be the American definition of Important Literature: “Depressing and boring.”

That is not to say the books and novels I voluntarily read were boring, far from it, but they were not, on the whole, laugh factories.

I fought the elves in Osten Ard.

I adventured with Frodo and Sam to Mt. Doom. 

I went 20,000 leagues under the sea, around the world in 80ish days, and journeyed to the center of the Earth.

I fought Grendel. 

I feared for the children of Elharairah.

I flew with a nimbus of dragons.

I was the Abhorsen.

And, of course, I went to Hogwarts.

But I –rarely– laughed.

The discovery of Pratchett’s Discworld turned my literary world on its ear.  This was funny, this was biting, this was satirical, this was moving. There were so many emotions created. And I was blown away by the idea that all of these different stories could exist in the same world and might sometimes interact!

In 2009, having been thoroughly Inspired, I looked at this world I had created and the Serious Fantasy novel I was creating in it, and I asked myself where the humor could be.  And I realized it could be anywhere.[1]

I put aside my more serious story and started writing what would become Heir of Misfortune.  But I did not abandon the original story. And that is what I have just published as Black Magic.

Let me be clear: I do not pretend to believe that I am in the same tier as Sir Terry.  

Having said all of this, it is clear to me that Finnick and Prat was a tremendous misstep.

This is something which I can happily say I wrote. The characters here, though somewhat modified and adjusted since their original creation twenty years ago, are some of my favorites I have ever created and I am incredibly proud of this work.

Hopefully, it will be something you will be proud to have read.

If you have not yet read Black Magic, I encourage you to do so with the link below.

[1] Even in a footnote.