How a Title Became a Series, by Marva Dasef

Today, Marva Dasef provides a guest post on her Witches of Galdorheim series. Marva weaves Nordic and Celtic myth together with the culture of the far north to create her stories, which pack action together with a convincing, feisty teen heroine. Here's how the series came to be.

How a Title Became a Series

Some time in 2008, I woke up with two words in my head: bad and spelling. I must have had some subconscious blip that produced the thought, but I’ve no idea what it might be.

As I sipped my first cup of coffee, I opened a text document and entered BAD SPELLING at the top. Then I stared at it and a few thoughts came to mind (okay, that might not have happened until my second cup of coffee). I wondered why my subconscious was talking about poor spelling since I’ve always been a very good speller. Obviously, it didn’t have anything to do with anything so mundane as a spelling bee at school, although I won’t discount the possibility. If you’ve ever experienced a “school” dream where you’re wandering around not knowing where your next class was being held, or where the heck they put your locker, or somewhat embarrassed to find you only have your underwear on, then you know the horrors of the “school” dream. Many people have them, nothing to be ashamed of.  

Despite the origin lost in the dreamworld, my next coherent thought was that “spelling” had to do with spellcasting. Okay, I write books for middle-grade kids and they love fantasy, so a witch or wizard must be involved. Why would a witch (and the main character turns out to be a teen witch) be really bad at spellcasting (or simply put, spelling)? And if she was a lousy speller, why would it bother her? Well, because she’s surrounded by other witches having no problems spelling at all. What’s worse is she has a little brother who’s a super speller, and cute besides. That’s enough to put a twist in a witch’s ego.

Katrina turned out to be the witch, and her annoying little brother became Rune. Note that Rune has a cool, wizardly name while Katrina is stuck with a name that sounded like a Russian doll. Blech! I did that on purpose because Kat (as she prefers) is disturbingly mundane for a witch.

Further coffee and thinking led me to believe that the witches of the world might like a place where they could let it all hang out, be witches without worry what the mundane neighbors might think. It occurred to me that witches were persecuted in the Middle Ages, and it only made sense for them to get the heck out of Dodge and go somewhere of their own. This somewhere is about as remote a place one could find, being a glacier-covered island in the middle of the Arctic. Galdorheim Island became my setting.

Eventually, I worked out why Kat is a lousy speller, and what she had to do to solve her problem. At first, she simply wants to run away from home to find her deceased father’s family, who happen to be a tribe of fisher/hunters in Siberia—the Samis (closely related to the Lapps of Norway or the Inuits of Alaska). Kat’s journey to find her father’s family puts her through a lot of danger and an interesting journey meeting all sorts of magical types along the way. Kat eventually solves her magic problem and gets Sami boyfriend as well.

I did the query thing for awhile, but threw up my hands in despair when one agent’s response at a writers’ conference is that Katrina was a bad choice for the MC’s name while the brother had a cool, warlocky name. Did. Not. Get. It. Along with a few requests for partials and fulls, but no bites, I figured that I was fighting a fruitless battle. After all, I’m a retired person, meaning I have a limited number of years to make good. I could croak tomorrow, and my great story would be DOA on my hard drive.

Long story short, I changed tactics and queried small publishers directly. Still nothing, so I decided I might as well write another book with the same characters. How’s that for completely illogical thinking? Nobody wanted the first book, so why would I think a second book would have a better chance? Because I had a title. From the mysterious aether of my subconscious, the words “midnight” and “oil” came to mind. Oooh, my favorite! Another pun.

Midnight Oil followed Kat’s and Rune’s adventures in a new book. Let me tell you there was a whole lot of interesting research that led me from the bare bones idea of Midnight Oil, to the ensuing dire circumstances which included the Loch Ness monster, a forest elemental spirit, and a magical ultralight.

Since things come in threes, I was now obligated to write a third book. Three is a mystical number which is the minimum required to make a series. I could write another book for a quadrology or not as I chose.

Now I was under the gun. I decided Kat needed to have a vacation and came up with the Witches’ Winter Abroad idea. This gave me the freedom to pick another area of the world (although not too far from the Arctic) and delve into a new mythology. Scotland became the site of Kat’s next adventure. Everybody and their Irish wolfhound does Irish Celtic myth, so I stopped short and led Kat into the Highlands for a slightly different Celtic flavor. Research revealed a lot of mythology that did not include the usual suspects. I went to the deep base of mythology. The old mythical pantheon had a lot of material that wasn’t already stomped all over by every author who wanted a character named Siobhan (which I still have no idea how to pronounce). I did find Cailleach, the winter foil to Bride, the goddess of Spring. Old Cailleach could very well have fallen on hard times and hidden herself away in the Otherworld (which just so happens to be on an alternate plane of existence from the Scottish Highlands).

When I shoved Kat into Cailleach’s Otherworld, I figured she had to be lost, otherwise, she’d just step out of the Otherworld and continue her trip abroad. From this simple base, I provided Kat with a few companions to meet along the way: Sianach, a giant meat-eating stag, Cusith, a giant (notice a theme here?) green dog with a braided tail (don’t blame me, blame the Scottish whiskey for this one), and Cait Sidhe, the giant (well, not too giant) black cat fairy. Where does Kat want to go? To see the Trow King, of course. Now, I’ve got Wizard of Oz written all over this story. Subtle, eh?

This book didn’t have a title at first like the others, but I soon came up with Scotch Broom, and you can read the book to find out why.

There they are, then. A series of books that all came from a title. All I had to do is add words.

Here are the books’ buy links and other info. Write a comment to this post to get in a draw to win a free ebook copy of any of the three books you want.

Bad Spelling - Book 1 of The Witches of Galdorheim Series

A klutzy witch, a shaman's curse, a quest to save her family. Can Kat find her magic in time?

MuseItUp Buy Link: http://tinyurl.com/DasefBadSpelling

Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005URFJ0Y

MIDNIGHT OIL Book 2 of the Witches of Galdorheim Series

Shipwrecked on a legendary island, how can a witch rescue her boyfriend if she can’t even phone home?

MuseItUp Buy Link: http://tinyurl.com/6wswbsf

Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006UTL54A

SCOTCH BROOM: Book 3 of The Witches of Galdorheim

A magical trip to Stonehenge lands a witch in the Otherworld where an ancient goddess is up to no good.

Buy Links Not Yet Available

Marva Dasef’s Information

Website: http://tinyurl.com/DasefAuthor

MuseItUp Author Page: http://tinyurl.com/MIU-MarvaDasef

Blog: http://mgddasef.blogspot.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/MarvaDasef

Book Trailers: http://www.youtube.com/user/MarvaDasef/videos