The Equivoque Principle – Darren Craske

(Note to reader: I’ve 3 SIGNED, LIMITED EDITION HARDBACK copies of ‘The Equivoque Principle’ by Darren Craske to giveaway and all details can be found at the end of this rather long (but thoroughly interesting) post)

“Dr Marvello’s Travelling Circus brings a touch of magic and wonder each time it comes to town. But when master conjuror Cornelius Quaint and his troupe take to the streets of Victorian London, little do they know of the danger that lies ahead…”

‘The Equivoque Principle’ opens in Victorian London. The mismatched lovers of a circus strongman and a blonde haired dwarf woman are introduced, examined and then thrown into turmoil. The strongman is drugged by a mysterious stranger and awakes to find himself lying in a London street, with the mutilated body of the dwarf woman draped across his prone frame. Around have massed a crowd of police all ready to draw conclusion.

Sherlock Holmes aside, Victorian police have never been the best at solving murders and it falls to the travelling circus owner, and employer of both the strongman and the dwarf woman, Cornelius Quaint to delve into the mystery. Quaint a colourful character, in my mind reminiscent of Phileas Fogg, is assisted by his trusty Eskimo sidekick, Butter. Together they try to make sense of a string of gruesome murders.

Within ‘The Equivoque Principle’ there is no doubt that its world is a fleetingly familiar one with enough references and landmarks to give the reader a sense of the recognizable, yet as the story progresses so does the author’s confidence to step away from the norm and into a world that is often bizarre. Darren Craske paints a world of gruesome murder, of hidden intrigue and of circus curiosities, with skill and with ease.

Asking Darren:

Which other works or writers do you feel have most influenced your own writing? Before I consciously decided to be an author I was a writer and artist of comic books and that is where I learned most about writing – not just about pacing and action and how to smash through a skylight into a mob den without getting your cape snagged on broken glass – they quite literally taught me right from wrong (but that, my friends, is a whole other story). I immersed my formative years in comics (and subsequently not so formative ones) emulating those whose work I admired. Comics/ graphic novels/ manga call them what you will, are not quite as damned now as they used to be when I was growing up. Now there’s a lot of cross-pollination between the writing world and the comic world with the likes of Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis etc. As well as comics, I grew up reading all sorts of stuff like Tom Sharpe, Douglas Adams, Michael Moorcock, as well as virtually every Target Doctor Who novel written (I still have them. Classic moments of an era, as anyone who heard the fab Mark Gatiss Radio 4 show a couple of months ago will know). And then… as I grew more comfortable with being more of a writer than an artist, I paid more attention to the words as opposed to the story. I realise that I’m taking an awfully long time to answer this question, aren’t I? Cutting a long story short, in a nutshell, narrowing it down, cutting to the chase, the writers that have most influenced my writing are Douglas Adams, Eoin Colfer and on a subliminal level, the goddess of all Avalon – JK Rowling (all right, she’s got her nay-sayers, but there are thousands of writers out there in print today because of what she achieved – and let’s not forget that it was her influence that compelled millions of children around the world to pick up a book and read, and without one word of sarcasm, I honestly believe she is inspirational on so many levels).

The Equivoque Principle has an incredibly convincing sense of place, how did you create this? Any ‘how to’ tips for other writers? That’s very kind of you to say. When you write Victorian fiction everyone expects cobbled streets, fogbound alleyways, Hansom cabs and gas-lit lamps. You need those things to set the scene, but at the same time when you include them you run the risk of being stereotypical and derivative. You have to either embrace it, or find a totally new way to tell the story – which, in the case of such a well-defined era as the Victorian age, is not an easy thing to do. How do you write a novel set in Victorian London in a totally unique way that it doesn’t automatically exclude you from the readers’ preconceived expectations of what the era was like? The short answer is that you just have to be true to your story, and the scene in which it is set is as much a part of the cast as your hero. However, I would say that it is important to describe your world in detail if it is intrinsic to the story – otherwise it is just a backdrop.

How much research did you have to do? And how long did The Equivoque Principle take to write? The research was sometimes extensive, and validating some of it caused headaches for the editor – for example everyone knows gas lamps are Victorian, but that time went on for over 50 years, and a hell of a lot happened. Gas lamps weren’t even invented until the latter part of the era. If you are specific about your setting, then everything needs to follow suit and if it doesn’t, you’ll get reader who email you to tell you so (even if they were wrong and you were right, so there!). The Cornelius Quaint series is set at that specific period of time for a specific reason, even if that reason is not known yet. By the end of book 2, The Eleventh Plague, you will have some sense of it, halfway through book 3, The Lazarus Curse, you will be a bit clearer and definitely by the last page of book 4, The Romulus Equation, you will know for sure. TEP took about six months for the first draft. I like to work fast, I have so many ideas buzzing around my head all the time and I have to commit them to the laptop straight away – or at the very least in my notebook. I’m not one of these write it all long hand first authors. To me, the words haven’t come to life until they are in Times New Roman in front of me. But writing the first draft was nowhere near the entirety of it. All in all, including the rewrites, the amendments following the release of the limited edition to the final draft for the paperback, I’d say somewhere in the region of just over a year.

Who do you feel would be your ideal reader? Funnily enough, I’m not precious about things like that, although I wrote The Equivoque Principle as it would be the type of book that I would buy, so we’re talking men in their mid to late thirties here. Yet, if I look at the reviews and read the emails that I get sent from people that have read it, predominantly they tend to be females. Some are getting off on the strong, square-jawed middle aged hero, some perhaps enjoying some grisly violence, some enjoying the thrill of a chase or the tongue-in-cheekiness of it all. I love it that women enjoy the books more than men (women buy more books – make of that what you will), but I would stop short of agreeing to go on Loose Women to publicise it. The weathergirl is okay, and the cruise singer is okay, and even the one from the Nolans is okay – but that other one with the blond bob can be a bit off-putting. Although, I once had a thing for Lynda Bellingham, so every cloud…

Writers often find redrafting and self-editing difficult. Can you offer any words of wisdom? Yes. Don’t give a damn about editing as you write. Just get those words out of your head and into that notebook, or hard disk or whatever. There will be plenty of time for editing. The way I work is this; I write as I think, I plan ahead and set myself milestones in the story so I know where I need to get to. Approaching the end to a story is a thrilling experience, when all your ideas come together in this one big conglomerate. And then, when I get the nod from my publisher/editor Scott Pack, I begin shaping and shaving bits of the story, refining it to remove any ambiguity or adding more detail as needed. One of the best bits of advice that Scott ever gave me was to delete all the Suddenly’s and Instantly’s and it has changed the way I write. Try it for yourself. It’s genius – but don’t tell him I said that.

And, can you offer any advice for people wanting to be published? I joined The Frontlist and stuck my work online like all the other struggling author-types on that forum, as well as many others. I got a wealth of experience from my peers also on the Writer’s News talkback forum. There are many of them, and they give you a valuable insight into the minds of a reader. No matter how fantastic YOU think your book is, you’re not selling it to YOU. You’re selling it to ‘other people’ and to make your book appeal to them, the advice and criticisms of your fellow newbie writers can be essential. So that’s my advice; stick your work online, listen to the advice you get, and keep plugging away.

What do you plan to write next? I am currently writing the third volume of a children’s fantasy series that I hope will be picked up called ‘The Argonaut’s Almanac’, which is all about an 11 year-old boy who is studying mythology at his local library for his school homework, and is given a dusty old book called the Argonaut’s Almanac – a compendium of mythological marvels – by the library’s caretaker. The caretaker is soon revealed to be Merlin the magician from Arthurian legend, and he has just chosen Eddie as his novice. The almanac is now under the boy’s care, which would have been all well and good if the book was just a book – but it turns out to be far more precious than that. The almanac is the live record of hundreds of species of mythological creatures that inhabit the world of Mythologica, and if anything should happen to the book, the shockwave would be felt a universe away. Worse still, Merlin has gone missing and Eddie has no way of knowing what is expected of him. I started writing this in about 2004, and I am still shaping and reshaping it to get it right. It’s got loads of humour, fast-paced action, Will Scarlet, trolls, fairies, constipated Minotaurs, evil witches and cataclysmic events. This is the genre where I can write the most freely, where no one can argue that anything is wrong, and the freedom that it is giving me is leading to all kinds of action, adventure and mayhem. I love it, and I want the whole world to love it too (bwa-ha-ha-haa!)

What are you currently reading? I am currently reading ‘Stone Heart’ by Charlie Fletcher. A truly imaginative piece of work sadly overlooked, taking well-known sculptures dotted around London, statues and landmarks that you might pass by every day and not think twice about – except Fletcher has, and he’s come up with an original take on a popular genre. I need to get hold of the last 2 books in the trilogy ASAP.

If you weren’t a writer, what would you like to be (when you grow up)? I dabbled as a teacher for a while (3 years) and that was fun, but an incredible sense of it being a vocation and the responsibility was huge. I think I would be drawing comics or making films or creating video games or something. Or maybe I would be Sinitta’s professional bikini stylist.

Which character in any film or TV programme would you most like to be? I love these sorts of questions, because immediately you’re open to psychological scrutiny. When I was a kid I spent half my time wanting to be Luke Skywalker because he was closer to my age than Han Solo, and he had a neat lightsabre. But then as I got a bit older, I realised that Han Solo was the cool one, the one the chicks dug. He was such a badass in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back but then, by the time Return of the Jedi came out he was a sappy lovesick dude and he lost all his toughness (he was a professional smuggler that flouted Imperial tax regulations, did deals with an underworld kingpin, raced his ship to Kessell and back for money, drank in cantina bars at lunchtimes and hung about with a seven foot-tall Wookiee playing Sabaac. Do you really think he’d be in charge of a rebel strike team? No way. Him and Chewie could have handled those stormtroopers on their own, stopped off on Endor for a couple of kumquat smoothies, and been back at the rendezvous point in Tatooine by lunchtime).

And, finally (because I feel the need to ask), do you in any way know Simon Cowell? I am aware of Simon’s work; from lucrative popular music management to Saturday evening TV pantomime dame; however it seems that sadly our paths have yet to cross. On a plus note, he used to shag Sinitta which puts him currently at #6 on my top ten list of Lucky Bastards. (David Essex is currently at #4). As an aside, it’s interesting to note that neither Cowell nor Essex have changed their image in about 20 years. Hmm…there might be something in that. Maybe Sinitta has this evil superpower like an Anti-Gok Wan whose mission it is to freeze fashion into the 1980’s…hang on whilst I write that down…

‘The Equivoque Principle’ can be bought in paperback or in hardback.

About the author: Darren Craske is 38 years-old, married with 2 kids, but no pets. He is the creator of the Cornelius Quaint series and lots more stuff to come. His website can be found here and he is on twitter @DarrenCraske. His goal in life is to see every one of his novels out of his head and into print before he dies, unless he gets very rich very soon, in which case he might re-evaluate his goals.

And, Mr Pack at The Friday Project has agreed that I can give away 3 signed, limited edition hardback copies of ‘The Equivoque Principle’. All you have to do is leave a ‘please pick me’ comment by 3pm (GMT) September 18, then I’ll pop all names in a mug and ask a small child to select 3 winners. This competition is open to all.