Author Interview: Celine Domenech and Paul Newman for ‘The Dead Shadow’
In a world where Booktok and Bookstagram take over the reins of fantasy, fiction and romance books, The Dead Shadow by Celine Domenech and Paul Newman has a classic charm that traditional fantasy brings with it. The Dead Shadow follows the story of a chaotic group of magicians, their shadows and a mysterious Earthling as they take off on a quest to save the world. There is chaos, there is bloodshed, and there is a whole lot of humour that readers will encounter as they take a deep dive into the world of Nekros magicians and their secrets. Here is what Paul and Celine have to say about their book and the world of fantasy:
The Dead Shadow follows the story of a chaotic group of magicians, their shadows and a mysterious Earthling as they take off on a quest to save the world
Can you walk me through your writing process?
Paul: It all started off as friendly conversations and passing ideas about this magical world. None of that was serious back then, until it was…
Celine: I was inspired by Jonathan Stroud’s character Bartimaeus – a five-thousand-year-old djinn. I wanted us to try and incorporate that into our protagonist, with a modern twist to make it more relatable to the young adult audience. As the character was being built, we realised that the element we were missing was its humour, and so we added that trait in to give its personality a voice. And as we kept bouncing ideas off of each other, this was followed by another idea about making this character a shadow. It took us about 10 years to convert our ideas into actual plots, sit down and write them, edit them and redraft them to produce this final product.
How is a co-authored book actually written?
Celine: Imagine chaos. That is nothing compared to what we felt while writing this book together.
Paul: We used a sort of Trello Board to make planning the plot easier, which is essentially a mapping tool with columns for each chapter. These columns are then used to note down the events that would take place in that chapter. And then we took one each and went on writing it out. At the end we got it all edited about 600 times. The first draft ended up being 75% longer than the actual book obviously. And at that point, editing is more than just getting rid of stuff, even though that’s the toughest part to do. And so we thought, why don’t we add footnotes? Because that way, we can let go of the unnecessary. We ended up having as much of the footnotes as the actual text. But eventually, we got the hang of it.
I think the major source of inspiration was our crazy
What was the major source of inspiration behind the book?
Paul: I think the major source of inspiration was our crazy. We’ve always been talking about the most random stuff and this ended up being the most sensible topic to expand on enough to write a book series about it. Also, in retrospect, we ended up realising that a lot of our ideas fit into the plot and not the other way round. So, we didn’t necessarily start writing thinking that this was what we wanted to create.
You end up creating your own rules and principles that you work on and see how successful that turns out to be
What were your biggest challenges while writing the book?
Celine: I think knowing how and when to start was really tough. Because even if you have stories in your head, it’s hard to organise them when you start writing. Personally, I like to give all the background information before the main plotline starts but nobody wants to read that and it’s just boring. Because of this, we had to start with a chapter that happens much later in the story. It’s the same with film and any other media, you never start at the start. But my brain works like that, so it was tough.
Paul: We’ve never done a full writing course before, almost intentionally, because we want to write it our own way and go through that process. Therefore, you end up creating your own rules and principles that you work on and see how successful that turns out to be.
Do you read a lot of fantasy?
Celine: Yes, absolutely, we do. I end up buying one book every time I go to Waterstones.
Paul: I probably used to read more fantasy when I was younger, especially Terry Pratchett’s work. These days, I read things like Convenience Store Women, and more stuff that involves people. I went through a phase where I was reading a lot of Latin American fiction, which is gaining popularity these days too.
How do you think fantasy has evolved over the years, as readers and as writers?
Celine: It feels like we have way more branches of fantasy now. I’ve seen a lot of cosy fantasy, which genuinely feels like how people talk about it – a hug in paper form. That’s nice because they want something comforting to read and the book offers that. Interestingly enough, a lot of young adult fantasy is being read more by adults than young adults. This says a lot about what people want to read; they want something that’s easy to understand but good enough to help them disconnect from reality. A lot of Booktokers, I’ve noticed, elevate the romance elements of a fantasy, as it is easy to read. I feel that readers need to turn more towards contemporary and dystopian fantasy, which tends to be easy to read but harder to digest.
What is one book that you would recommend to your readers?
Paul: Neither Wolf nor Dog by Kent Nerburn.
Celine: The New Seoul Park Jelly Massacre by Cho Yeeun.
Why title the book ‘The Dead Shadow’?
Celine: Every shadow is essentially a dead magician, so they’re already dead. But in the book, you’re soon going to meet a shadow who hasn’t died. Also, this ended up sounding the classiest of all the titles that we could think of.
Paul: It was going to be ‘The Shadow of Phaedrus’ earlier but then when we thought about it, we realised we would want that to be the name of the entire series and not just the first book, because the first book is about the ‘dead’ shadow.
And with that promise of a second book in the making, Paul and Celine are thrilled to present The Dead Shadow, out now and available online!
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