Way back in October, the lovely and talented Nikki Hopeman tagged me to answer 10 questions about my work in progress. I… um… sat on those questions for a while. *hangs head in shame*
Meanwhile, my alter-ego got tagged with 10 questions about a work in progress as part of The Next Big Thing blog hop. And I recognized those questions!
So while I was writing up the answers for my pen name’s WIP, I wrote up The Next Big Thing for me. So here it is:
What is the working title of your book?
As you can see from the various snippets that litter this blog, the working title of the novel is Herald. This will change, I’m sure.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
Fanfic.
No, really. While procrastinating on rewriting the opening to another novel, I ended up writing a 6,000-word fanfic based on the 1989 movie version of Shakespeare’s Henry V. After I wrote that, I started in on another…that had me changing history left, right, and center. It occurred to me that if I stopped, sat back, world-built the Hundred Years war period differently, and added some magic, and set it on another planet, I could have an original piece of fantasy fiction. Because playing with my own characters has always been more fun. And hey! I can change history if I’m making it up.
So I did. There’s an aging and infirmed king, a princess who plots against her brother, the prince and heir. A duke who sees a path to the throne. A young foreign king whose own country still reverberates from the civil war his father and he fought, who seeks to reclaim lands given to his line previously, but also wants what is best for all his people (or the people he thinks are his…), and a royal herald stuck in the middle while two kingdoms fight, his king slowly deteriorates, and his kings heirs plot against each other.
Plus magical names, blood magic, and telepathic links to books.
What genre does your book fall under?
Epic fantasy, most likely.
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
*Cough* I still picture Kenneth Branagh as my Henry stand-in (That would be the Red King from the snippets) and 
Christopher Ravenscroft as my Montjoy stand in (Denis de Mont from the snippets. And yes, the name is an homage to the French battle cry, Montjoie! Saint Denis! as well as the character of Montjoy.) Not as the gentlemen are now, but how they were at the time of the Henry V movie.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Revenan royal herald Denis de Mont is caught between his loyalty to King and country and the charisma of the invading Angth king who will either destroy all that Denis loves…or save it, at the price of freedom.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
With this one, I’ll fight hard to get an agent for it. But that’s a ways off.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I’ll let you know when I finish it. I’d like to get most of it written this year, but it’s an expansive project and there are other books I’m also writing, so I suspect this will be a 1-2 year project.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I’m aiming at a kind of Guy Gavriel Kay feel, though really, I can’t escape my own style, so I’m bound to miss. If I can tap into a quarter of what makes Kay’s writing so awesome, I’ll be the happiest gal on the planet.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Too many rewatches of the KB Henry V movie. That and watching the woman fighters in the SCA.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
The Catherine-analogous character will be more along the lines of Joan of Arc, I think. That is, she’s going to have brass balls and know how to use them. And a sword.
Ann Laurel Kopchik 