Alice Jackson: Writer, DM, Friend.

So first off who are you and how do we know each other?

I'm Alice (Jackson), and we met during BA geography at the University of Leicester.

Tell me about your history of reading. Has it been a lifelong love, love-hate? A friend you talk to occasionally?

Definitely a lifelong love, but lately it's been an occasional friend simply because of coursework and video game distractions. I generally am very picky about which books I read as well, so it's quite hard for me to find something I really enjoy, but when I do I read very very quickly and devour it within a matter of days!

Do you feel like you are neglecting reading, which society sees as good, over watching TV or playing video games?

To be honest, until recently when I was doing my course I still was reading a lot, it just happened to be academic books. I think it's because video games are easier than books sometimes, I get distracted very easily so unless it's a book that takes up 100% of my attention (which as I said, hard to find!), I tend to gravitate more towards things that can.

So it's less that I'm neglecting reading because of societal expectations, and more I'm not reading right now because I have something that can keep my brain occupied. When I find a good book, I will drop everything and just fixate on it the same way I do with a good TV show or games.

I know you’re a DM/GM, and have played your fair share of D&D, how has that played into your reading and writing habits? Did you play Dnd because you already had an interest in fantasy books or vice versa?

Absolutely. I used to get really bogged down in writing because I was trying to emulate authors I admired rather than just trying to do what I needed to, like describe a scene and get people feelin' stuff. Being a DM means that I know how people are going to react, I can predict what will hold their attention and I know how to subtly make scenes more suspicious or comforting, etc. In terms of why I play D&D, like I said I read a lot of fantasy and D&D is a way to 1. Finally, live it and 2. Use my other interests like acting. It's a way to live stories that previously I've only managed to experience through another character's eyes in books, so for me personally, I'd definitely say it was because I have that pre-existing love of fantasy stories.

Also, I now tend to write how I would talk while DM-ing a session, which isn't really related but it's a fun knock-on effect of playing!

You are in the progress of writing, on and off, what in my opinion is going to be a bestselling epic fantasy series. Walk me through how you got the idea and how you went about world building, characters, general aesthetic, and plot.

First of all, thanks for having the faith in me that even I don't have in me at this point! Secondly, I got the idea while working in Waterstones, which is a bookshop in the UK, and I was messing around in my notebook and came up with the idea of a story about 4 guardians, one for each element, and a land that would essentially become the basis for the story years later. I planned towns, profiles, everything. That got forgotten pretty quickly, but every so often I went back and was like there's something here, but what?? I then went to Iceland years ago and [insert fantasy music here] everything changed. I was completely enthralled by the desolate landscape that I'd only seen in films, and it was like my fantasy world had come to life. I was looking at a mountain that stood all by itself in the middle of the lava fields (that are rocks covered in moss, look them up, they're gorgeous) and started to essentially see bits of the final story I would come up with.

So that happened a lot, I was just seeing landscape that was just waiting for fantastical elements to be put in, like flat fields of black, volcanic rock that made me go "What if there were holes underneath it from burrowing dragons that ate sand and formed obsidian from the fire in their bellies?" or mountains with so many colours I immediately just thought "These are the painted mountains, they border Din Allara" and so on.

Basically, if I hadn't gone and seen the fantasy world for myself, I wouldn't have got all these ideas for the story. It's still a working project because I'm still too focused on the locations rather than the characters, but without the location, I wouldn't have developed the story or the characters. To be honest, the only clear point I developed one of the characters was on a plane to Portugal when I was fucking around with a notebook again and wrote a short story called "A Short Rest in the Valley of Rain", which had Arden in it. I just loved him so much I put him in the Trinity Saga! Do you want to know more or is that ok?

No that's great! So, the same questions, but for your current project.

I feel like this will make me feel better because oh god, I abandoned my babies for that first one.

So Battle for Endercry was a D&D campaign which was super successful, the players loved it so that's what made me think I should turn it into a book after I started campaign two in the same world. Initially, the setting sprang from me, once again, making random notes and trying to come up with something, and I came up with the idea of an ancient world hidden away from the present one, and a princess who was missing and had gone into it.

I knew I wanted a steampunk one, so I started writing about random names and places. Unlike Trinity, the names came first and the places sprang from what image they conjured up, so for example, Farthings Reach sounds isolated and small, so that became the area that had been abandoned after the station holding inter-dimensional portals exploded. I don't know where these names come from, they just happen, it's great!

What is your opinion of quintessential fantasy narrative and aesthetic elements, good and bad? Like the existence of elves and dwarves, different languages that are exclusive to a series. What have you used and what have you made unique to your stories?

I'm going to say it's fantasy if there are magic, armour, and swords. Trinity doesn't have classic fantasy races like elves, just weird creatures, and Endercry has all of them plus weird creatures. I think what makes it fantasy though, is the fact both of them play into classic storytelling tropes, like sweeping adventures, destined paths for the characters, peril, and danger but also heroic acts and things like that. Trinity is unique because of the setting and the fact it plays with assumptions of fantasy. I don't want to spoil anything, but I definitely play with ideas of what is "light" and what is "dark. What makes things evil and good, essentially, and where is the line or grey areas. Endercry is unique mainly because of the setting. One of my players actually came up with a phrase to describe it because none existed, which is a patchwork fantasy, meaning it has a lot of different elements like steampunk, high fantasy, pirates etc. The characters are also pretty unique, especially the main one which is Xephyr. I like writing male characters that go against what you'd expect from a male character in a fantasy!

I'd also like to think the story in Endercry is pretty unique, going from what the players have told me! It's kind of trope-y but it's more about how you use the tropes more than how you change or go against them; because every fantasy book uses tropes.

One additional question before the final question. I know you are a fan of The Adventure Zone (can't remember if you finished the Balance Arc or not), but have you taken any inspiration from Griffin McElroy in how he is able to tell an equally hilarious and heartbreakingly beautiful story, like dude just came up with a lot as he went. Do you find yourself doing that as a DM?

Honestly, I had to stop listening to TAZ because I adore Griffin but he makes everything funny. For the campaigns, I run I want less a constantly joking situation where the players don't do serious things, and more one where we can have fun, but it's also emulating real situations and real emotions. Plus at the time I was running a Gothic Horror campaign and I was trying to scare my players. If there's a DM I definitely try to use the method of, it's Matt Mercer, but obviously, he has the benefit of playing with professional actors and people who really get into it. The best thing for DMing though is just experience, you could watch all the TAZ or CR you could, but at the end of the day, nobody is going to teach you how to get a situation pitch-perfect than you and the players themselves.

And finally thanks so much for doing this and I hope it went well since this is the first time I’ve done this. Last question: What is your favorite book of all time? Feel free to give a few answers if they from different genres. Like I have a favorite book and a favorite classic novel.

Favourite book, aka the only book in the world worth reading and I will fight anyone who says differently: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Then, the runners-up are The Expanse series by James S. A Corey and the Farseer books by Robin Hobb. To be honest I don't really like classic books? I find them hard to read, but gun to my head I'd probably say A Little Princess, which I know is a kids book but honestly? Classic books are too. Hard.

I am more likely to read kids' books than adult classic fiction, because it tends to fall into a lot of reasons why I find it so hard to find modern fantasy books I like (pretentious language, overly complex, and where are all the women??) Very good thing for a writer to say, for sure.

Awesome! Thanks so much!

Hey, no worries. Would it be ok if you added a link to that Tumblr I made for Endercry? Get some buzz going?

Yeah I will!

https://battleforendercry.tumblr.com/