Hi ghouls!
My new book has been out for a month now, and it's been so amazing seeing all of your reactions as you read it.
"A wildly original, pleasantly diverse and wickedly engaging supernatural thriller. Fans of anti-heroes, the found family trope, queer relationships, and cool mythology will enjoy this one!" - The Nerd Daily
I started writing the novel back in 2016, and never thought it would get published. It's come such a long way - I'm so glad I persevered with it, even when it didn't seem like it would work. From struggling to write the first few chapters, to getting tough feedback on the draft, and changing the writing style to make it work, it's taken a lot of hard work to get here from the original pitch. But it was absolutely worth it.
It was inspired by my love of lewd supernatural comedies like Misfits, Being Human & What We Do in the Shadows. I love it when magical beings like ghosts & vampires are just as stupid, silly and boring as normal people. It makes them so much more relatable.
Signed copies from my Etsy shop come with the following gifts:
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I really wanted to write about a villainous girl. One of the big things that surprised me when I was first published was how unforgiving reviewers were of female characters – people didn’t like it when they did anything wrong! They were seen as very unlikeable and mean if they made mistakes, which isn’t something we see for male characters. Once I started reading about different ghost myths from around the world, I thought it would be a fun setting to use for my anti-hero, as she explores the world of the afterlife and gets herself into trouble of various kinds.
Writing a paranormal fantasy with magic is very different to writing a book based on real life science. The plot possibilities seemed endless and overwhelming at first – where do you stop when you can do literally anything? Everything clicked into place when I realised the importance of a magic system with rules and limitations. When your characters have powers – each of the ghosts can do something unique, like hypnotism, shapeshifting or clairvoyance – it’s very important that the magic has restrictions. Otherwise, what are the consequences of their actions? What is stopping them from becoming impossibly powerful? That gave my plot a structure that made the novel a lot easier to work with - and the story exploded in my imagination from there.
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A DEFINITIVE RANKING OF GHOSTS IN FICTION
My ghosts all have magical powers, based on their personality and heritage. These powers can be anything from shape-shifting and hypnotism to clothing manipulation, so some are more useful than others. Harriet finds out exactly which powers are best when she struggles to defeat the other ghosts.
I love ghosts as a trope because they’re so unpredictable - there are no rules in how to write them, and every story does something different. There are thousands of cultural myths about ghosts from all around the world, so writers can draw on many sources of inspiration in creating unique ghosts. The hardest part for me was picking which ideas I couldn’t use.
I wanted to share some of my favourite ghosts in fiction, and rank them to see who would win if they had to face off against my villainous Harriet in a battle for power.
Casper (1995)
I must have watched this film over a hundred times when I was little. Casper is a bit of wuss in this film, more interested in romance than battling other ghosts. He has some pretty decent powers – he can touch objects, shape-shift and fly - but he mainly uses those powers to flirt and tie shoelaces together. Harriet would probably beat him (sorry, Casper!).
Likelihood Harriet could beat him in a fight: 8/10
Annie from Being Human (2008)
This TV series featured a vampire, werewolf and ghost living as housemates. It was a huge inspiration for my novel, which started out being called Ghost House, because it’s about ghost housemates. In the series, Annie is a young, insecure murder victim who is very protective of her living friends.
Annie can teleport (!), touch objects and read minds, but only in heightened states of emotion. In the show, she has defeated other ghosts and closed the door to death – she isn’t to be messed with.
Likelihood Harriet could beat her in a fight: 2/10
Noah from The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
This contemporary YA series features a group of friends searching for the burial site of a Welsh King – while also driving around in cool cars and flirting a lot. One of the Raven gang is Noah, the ghost of their dead classmate. He is very mild and shy, with a ‘smudgy’ appearance. He tends to disappear if people aren’t paying attention to him - though, disconcertingly, he does re-enact his own death occasionally.
I love Noah immensely – he’s a very endearing character - but Harriet would absolutely destroy him. Sorry, pal.
Likelihood Harriet could beat him in a fight: 9/10
Betelgeuse in Beetlejuice (1988)
In this classic cult film, a pair of newlywed ghosts hire a freelance ‘bio-exorcist’ ghost to chase the living people who have moved into their house, so they can have some peace and quiet.
Chaotic and crude, Betelgeuse has a whole host of powers, which he mainly uses to harass the living. He can fly and shapeshift, teleport and summon objects, possess people and influence their minds. He can also be summoned (or removed) by saying his name three times, which seems as if it could be strategically useful in a battle scenario. He’s also just really mean – I don’t think Harriet stands a chance; he’d probably make her cry within seconds.
Likelihood Harriet could beat him in a fight: 0/10
Makepeace in A Skinful of Shadows by Frances Hardinge
In this historical YA novel, Makepeace is a living teenage girl who has a group of ghosts living in her head – one of whom is a bear. Angry and vicious, she has to control her own emotions as well as the animalistic desires of the ghosts possessing her. I think Harriet would have a hard time defeating her, as the ghosts in Makepeace’s head have amassed centuries-worth of wisdom. But Makepeace is still human, which makes her vulnerable.
Likelihood Harriet could beat her in a fight: 5/10
The Skull in a Jar in Lockwood & Co. by Jonathan Stroud
The skull in this paranormal action YA series is possessed by a ‘type 3’ ghost, who is witty, murderous and – occasionally – helpful to a group of teenage ghosthunters. While stuck inside the jar, it can’t do much except be rude, but when unleashed it can create spirit-wind stronger than an explosion.
Likelihood Harriet could beat it in a fight: 4/10
The gang in BBC Ghosts
This silly comedy series about a group of ghosts from different eras living in an old dilapidated mansion is so much fun – especially because all the ghosts are utterly inept and foolish. They’re more interested in bickering than fighting, and Harriet would probably be too disdainful to even engage them in battle.
Likelihood Harriet could beat them in a fight: 8.5/10
The Nadja doll in What We Do in the Shadows
In this mockumentary, the group of ancient vampire housemates get to meet their own ghosts, since they technically ‘died’ the moment they were turned into vamps. The 700-year-old badass Nadja keeps her ghost around for company, possessing a doll. These ghosts can release projectile (?) ectoplasm (?) vomit (?) which is kind of icky, but not definitively dangerous. I’m also not clear on the strength of their ghost-on-ghost powers. Harriet probably stands a good chance here, I’d say.
Likelihood Harriet could beat her in a fight: 6/10
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I'm so glad to see so much love for Kasper in people's reviews. Kasper was a rower when he was a fresher at Warwick Uni. So, of course, I had to make sure he was part of the iconic yearly Warwick Rowers naked calendar. You can get your copy for 2020 here (Kasper would have been featured in the 1994 edition.)
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In conversation with Alice Oseman about the book and our writing craft
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Unreliable narrators in fiction
If you’re a voracious reader, you probably recognise the structure of familiar plot formats as soon as you start reading a novel. It can sometimes get a bit boring when you can guess the twists of stories before they happen. The solution? Seek out books with unreliable narrators. You won’t guess the twists if the main character is actively lying to you, the reader!
You may be familiar with this writing style from books like We Were Liars, We Have Always Lived in the Castle and Fight Club. In all of those books, the characters have hidden integral truths about their lives from the reader, usually to shield themselves from some kind of trauma that they’re not willing to process. In some cases, entire characters don’t exist in reality in the form in which they’re presented.
I’ve always wanted to have a go at writing like this – not only because these books are some of my favourites and most memorable as a reader – but because it’s a fun challenge as a writer. When I’m creating a new character, I always think about what secrets they’re keeping, what they’re afraid of, and what they desire most in the world. Having a character create a whole fake narrative for their world combines all those factors of their personality into something that’s tangible on the page.
A well-drawn character’s inner life should dramatically impact the events of the story and the plotlines. Nowhere is that more clear to the reader than when they actively interfere with the story being told, changing it into a narrative that they prefer.
In The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker, an all-knowing, possibly immortal narrator interferes with the story to give her take on the events as they happen. As Harriet, a new ghost, stumbles around the afterlife meeting the ancient ghosts who live in the same building, the narrator comments on Harriet’s mistakes and victories. This narrator can see the future – so she has the benefit of hindsight and future-sight, all of which she uses to be very opinionated about the actions the characters are taking.
Just a few catches, though: she never tells the reader who she is (why? Every unreliable narrator keeps secrets for a reason!), and she’s not entirely truthful about her own involvement in events. Sometimes, it seems like the story she’s telling is purposefully misleading, as if she’s trying to convince the reader that her version of events is the best one – or that she’s in the right.
It was a lot of fun to write an unreliable narrator – especially one who is such an outrageous and obvious liar. I enjoyed it so much that I gave it another go, writing an unreliable narrator into my serialised online story An Unauthorised Fan Treatise, in which a teenage fangirl tries to convince the readers of her blog that she isn’t a stalker of her favourite actors.
If you read the book, remember: don’t believe everything you’re told. Everyone has motivations, whether they reveal them to the reader or not. And the afterlife is a dangerous place, especially for a captive audience.
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Here's some stuff I've posted recently:
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Gorgeous fanart by ilkaohnem
Upcoming Events
Monthly: Sparks Young Writers classes, Coventry – book here for September 2020 onwards
Sat 26th Sept: WOWCON zoom workshop on working with agents, 8pm – book here
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The number one way a book spreads is through word of mouth. If you like my writing, please spread the word!
If you're an aspiring author you may be interested in my editorial critique services.
 The current cheapest places to buy my books are:
The Next Together - W H Smith (£6.55)
The Last Beginning - W H Smith (£6.55)
The Loneliest Girl in the Universe - Amazon UK (£6.35)
The Quiet at the End of the World -Amazon UK (£6.35)
The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker - Waterstones (£6.49)
If you've missed any issues of my newsletter, you can read the archive here.
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