There have been two writings of Ferren and the Doomsday Mission, a birth and a rebirth! Here’s the whole story of the Ferren Trilogy …
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, there was another trilogy called the Heaven and Earth Trilogy. It came out from Penguin, only in Australia, , had some success, but wasn’t marketed very well (internal publisher politics!) and after several years Penguin let it go out of print.
The old Penguin edition of Book 1, also called Ferren and the Angel, came out 25 years ago!!
That might have been the end of the story. I moved on to other projects and had international success with the Worldshaker books. But at the back of my mind was always this niggling thought – that the trilogy had had so much potential, but I hadn’t made the most of it.
But here’s the best bit! Other people remembered the first Ferren books too. Although they hadn’t sold in the millions, some readers had fallen in loven them and refused to let them die. And those readers kept harassing publishers for over 20 years, demanding a reissue. I feel very lucky to have such devoted fans! They wanted those novels to re-read and hand on to friends and family, they wouldn’t let them be forgotten! And in the end they won. Yay for people power!
One day, out of the blue, I received an email from IFWG Publishing, saying they’d like to do a reprint of the Ferren books. I said yes, on one condition, and laid all other writing aside, on one condition. A reprint wasn’t enough – I wanted to do a total rewrite! I’d had twenty years thinking about those stories at the back of my mind, and I wanted to do them justice at last.
So the contract was signed, and I started on Book 1. Since IFWG sells mainly in North America, there wouldn’t be much overlap of audiences, so I didn’t worry about having the same title. I thought the first book didn’t need a lot of revision compared to Book 2, but when I was back in Ferren’s world, I soon discovered major improvements to be made.
But Book 2 was the biggie. What happened with Penguin was that I wrote Ferren and the Angel as a standalone. Only when we were approaching publication did they tell me, We’d like to turn this into a trilogy. Hooray! Gasp! Help! I loved the idea, but they wanted it in 12nmonths, and I wasn’t ready for it. The only obvious ongoing story was about Ferren and Miriael travelling round from tribe to tribe joining them up into the Residual Alliance.
I needed more developments – and I brainstormed frantically for new ideas. And the amazing thing was, I came up with them! Ideas that could expand the story and take it to new heights, far stronger ideas than just building the Residual Alliance. I give myself a huge pat on the back for creativity under pressure – and I realised the potential of what I’d come up with when those ideas started to pay off in Book 3. But still potential, still only starting to pay off …
The trouble was, I didn’t have time to let those sequels grow and fill out naturally as they deserved. Writing the first version of Book 2, which was then titled Ferren and the White Doctor, I remember having to keep pulling the reins and hauling the story round in better directions. It was a struggle, and I made an OK job of it in the circumstances. But it was never the book it should have been.
For me, writing a fantasy novel is like being on the back of a great lumbering beast – and I guess the same goes for a fantasy trilogy too. You have some idea of where you’d like to end up, some point on the horizon, but you can’t simply force the beast – the story – to go there. It has a will and mind and life of its own. All you can do is apply a nudge here and a small prod there. You can encourage it – but you have to start the encouragement from way, way back. If you try to cheat and yank the beast by force at the last minute – disaster.
Or another simile: you nurture the plant, but you don’t make it grow. It does that by itself, and you only help it along the way. (Being always open to new possibilities – but that’s a separate angle.)
Because I hadn’t thought in terms of a trilogy from the start, I hadn’t set up those growing points in Book 1, and I was too late trying to set them up early on in Book 2. But with the IFWG edition, I had a second chance! And this time I got it right! At least, I had the feeling of getting it right.
What I mean is, the feeling when everything unfolds naturally, one development out of another. It’s as though the story is taking care of itself – and also generating momentum towards a big, rolling climax. (I always want my books to end in big, rolling climaxes – it’s what I love to read, so it’s what I strive to write!) The difference between writing the old Penguin Ferren and the White Doctor and the new IFWG Ferren and the Doomsday Mission was chalk and cheese. With the old version, I wrote for publication; with the new version, I hardly seemed to be writing at all. The great beast just carried me on its back!
