AMANDA DYAR: Before we talk about your new book Ecko Burning, we want to talk about your early life and career. How long have you been writing stories and when did you first decide to do it as more than just a hobby?
DANIE WARE: Not sure I ever made a decision! After I left Uni, I took up Dark Age re-enactment – running round old battlesites with weapons – and my mates and I spent a lot of our time gaming. I’ve always loved writing, but that was when it crystallized, if you like – it was just creativity because I had the time and space and the energy and the inspiration. And it was fun!
If you’re a writer – or an artist, or a crafter, whatever your chosen form may be – then creativity is a compulsion. Its expression is important; it gives you an outlet and makes you happy (mostly!). For a long time in my thirties, I stopped writing – just had too many responsibilities – and I missed it like you’d miss the sun. I lost my confidence completely, and it took courage – and help – to start again. Though I’m very glad I did!
AMANDA DYAR: Ecko Burning features a unique fantasy storyline and setting unlike few other works. Can you tell us a bit about the novel and series in your own words and tell us where some of the inspirations for the narrative originated?
DANIE WARE: I owe Ecko to my friends and to all that bonkers early gaming. In those days, we had no limits, only our imaginations, and the only rules were those we made up ourselves. When I started writing, no-one had told me what was possible and what wasn’t, or that you ‘can’t put SF and fantasy into the same book’. I wanted to see what would happen if I threw a hard-bitten, cyberpunk character into some (initially) radiant, fantasy world… and the result was a spectacular bang!
AMANDA DYAR: You've labeled your writing style as "Sardonic Fantasy." What is your own definition for this type of writing and how what are some examples of the style in Ecko Burning?
DANIE WARE: ‘Sardonic fantasy’ is my own private label – a little sub-genre joke. I’ve always thought of Ecko as tongue-in-cheek epic fantasy, though my publishers call it SF, and it’s been in the top hundred cyberpunk books on Amazon for months at a time. It’s also been filed by bookshops under everything from ‘horror’ to ‘YA’ (though not sure I understand the last one)!
Its sardonicism comes from Ecko himself – he’s a cynical, sarcastic, savage little man. He swears too much and he refuses to as he’s told. Faced with the classic ideals and needs of a fantasy world (and plot), he doesn’t play nice with others and he has a tendency to answer back…
“I’m not going to do this. You’re not going to make me play splat-the-bad-guy again. Not demon-summoner 101, not dungeon-bash, not dragon-flight, not save-the-maiden, not fight the ****ing final war. There’s going to be a way outta this…”
As for a ‘definition’, well, feel free to give it your own!
AMANDA DYAR: Ecko Burning includes several important tales including a corrupt Lord, a questing adventurer and a bard that appears to be in over his head. How difficult is it to cram so many important events into a single novel and which character's perspective is your story told from?
DANIE WARE: While Ecko is the lead character, the story is told from several different points of view. I wanted the matter of the fantasy world’s existence to remain in question – for the reader to not actually know whether Ecko world was real or not. Using other points of view made that world three-dimensional, gave it more realism.
Other point-of-view characters include the corrupt Lord you’ve mentioned, a Bard with no memory, and a half-damned Angel. Plus there are Ecko’s companions-at-arms who are (of course) a bit of a motley bunch. The narrative follows from one character to another, and it all comes together to form the overall story!
AMANDA DYAR: You've written several other books over your writing career. How did some of these works help prepare and inspire for writing the series and Ecko Burning?
The Ecko series is a redraft of the writing I did in my twenties. After eight years of not writing at all, I came back to the concept to see if I could reinvent it, and many of the core plotlines have remained the same. Some of the characters have changed, others have been updated, and a lot of stuff had the Big Red Pen treatment – but everything I wrote when I was younger has contributed to the end product.
Everything you write is important. Keep it. You never know what it might turn into!
AMANDA DYAR: Ecko Burning is actually the second book in the series that began with Ecko Rising. Can you tell us about the process of going from the original release to the new storyline and did you always envision your tale as a multi-novel series when you first started your work on it?
DANIE WARE: It was always going to be a Big Story! The storyline for the Ecko trilogy is ongoing – everything that happened in Ecko Rising has a purpose, and will all come together as we reach the climax of the third book, Ecko Endgame. In Ecko Burning, the challenge was to pick up the threads already there, and to continue with the overall narrative, and also to make the book a story in its own right, with its own ending.
As I approached the end of Ecko Burning, it kind of took on a life of its own. I had an idea as to how I wanted to finish it, but it absolutely ran away with me - and its final scenes weren’t what I was expecting. The end of the book exploded outside my control – and it was everything I could have imagined and more!
Though I guess that’s what happens when Ecko gets away from me!
To learn more about Ecko Burning, visit the official Titan Books website.