One of the most nerve-wreckling experiences as a writer is when your story leaves the safe privacy of your laptop memory. The moment when it meets its very first readers is when you, as a writer, begin to question whether people will like the world you’ve created.
This week, we’ve received the first feedback from our advanced readers. They couldn’t help but fall in love with The Dead Shadow. We’re over the moon, of course, and we can’t quite believe it. Is it for real?
Anyway, if you want to find out more about what made them love The Dead Shadow, here are the key points to remember.
The Dead Shadow Has a Witty Narrator
The narrator of The Dead Shadow is a magical Shadow. He is a former Dynamis magician, which means he was a magician of the purple magic light. Following the normal path, after his passing, he became a Shadow in the colour of his magic. In other words, he has no distinctive physical features, except for being a purple Shadow.
As one of our advanced readers puts it:
First of all, you’ve made me fall in love with a purple shadow
Our Shadow loves to brag and can’t help but comment on literally everything that happens. Some incidents may be his doing, but nevertheless, that won’t stop him from commenting about the unfairness of it all and how lucky others are to have his awesomeness around.
Personally, we find Ingloriouse’s illustration does justice to his character. There’s no facial feature, but you can still tell he’s a bit of a smug prick, and that’s exactly who he is.
The Unmissable Magic & Legends In The Dead Shadow
The Dead Shadow has a unique magical world, with a number of magical lands as well as a neutral, non-magical region.
As the series progresses, you will get to discover more areas of the world. But for now, The Dead Shadow introduces readers to the eight colours of magic and their interactions. You get to watch how magical Shadows work together with their magicians and with other Shadows. More importantly, you also get to see how former magicians, once they become Shadows, continue to bicker endlessly as if they were still alive.
Behind all this, there’s the legend of Phaedrus, which is an old myth about a magician with a unique colour of magic. Obviously, like all legends, there isn’t any evidence of it… Or is there?
To give our advanced readers the last word on this:
An ancient prophecy of sorts, like a myth that comes to light the more you read.
As promised, the more you read (and the more we get to write it), the more the myth will become apparent.
The Dead Shadow Has a Pratchett Vibe To It
This is undoubtedly the most precious compliment of all. Who wouldn’t want to be compared to Pratchett? We tend to describe the book as something you’d put on the shelf along your Pratchett collection, not because we think we matched his genius for words, but because The Dead Shadow has the same intention as The Discworld series. It is designed to entertain.
We wrote it that way because it made us laugh. So, if it makes you laugh too, then it’s a bonus.
In the days when we were trying to find an agent, we used to mention Pratchett in our cover letter. To be fair, most agents want to know which authors or books your manuscript is similar to. This usually led to a complete and utter absence of responses. Agents are extremely talented at asking you to waste days of your life researching everything about them to write a personal cover letter, so they can ditch it even faster.
Some are polite and replied, telling us they liked the extract but that it wasn’t right for them. Most wouldn’t answer (I suppose they’re too busy, but then I still can’t get my mind around the fact that even though we followed all their submission rules, they wouldn’t even send one reply).
One particular literary agent, whose name I have since forgotten, didn’t reply, but a short while later, posted an interview or a blog post criticising aspiring writers for daring to compare themselves to legends such as Pratchett. I did take it personally, of course.
Anyway, take that in your face, agent. Our readers also compare us to Pratchett.
The Cliffhanger At The End of The Dead Shadow
I will start by quoting one of our advanced readers on this:
That kind of cliffhanger should be ILLEGAL!
She immediately proceeded to reach out to us on Instagram (we do answer directly; this is the perk of being an indie author) to ask whether there would be another book coming. So, I gave her a tiny hint of what is coming next because:
- I’m nice like that
- I also desperately want to talk about The Dead Shadow with people who know it
- We are in the middle of writing the second book
You’d probably find it funny to know that, initially, there wasn’t even a cliffhanger! But the draft evolved to include one, and to include a much more interesting series of events. I’m not going to say more. You should read it for yourself once it’s out!
The Characters From The Dead Shadow Will Live In Your Head
Frankly, that’s only fair. They’ve been living in ours for years now!
We’ve already introduced most of the characters in different ways, whether you like the personality tests or fake interviews, we’ve done a little bit of everything.
More recently, we’ve also reached out to artists with a brief description of our characters to see how they interpreted each of them. The Artists page is a work in progress, and we’ll keep it updated as we receive more pieces. But, for now, it’s safe to say that the characters from The Dead Shadow have been living in many, many heads already!
Do I need to conclude this?
I just want to say, please come and join the club. We promise, The Dead Shadow will be a fun read. Buy it once it’s out!