Story-by-story: Poor Ned’s Head

The story that opens Intervals of Darkness is an example of magically frictionless fiction.

I saw a call for submissions on the theme of ‘water’ and then, only a little while later, visited the wreck of the Mary Rose in Portsmouth.

Being me, I was drawn to the cabinets filled with skulls found aboard the wreck. What must it feel like to be killed in action, lie in the mud for several hundred years, and then be put on display?

The facial reconstructions added another layer of weirdness. In curatorial terms, this is good interpretation. It helps civilians like me understand the past more clearly, in human terms. But all those disclaimers, and the careful choice of language… Those reconstructions are just informed guesswork, really. And they always look a bit… wrong. Talk about the uncanny valley.

My other half says that she likes being with me when an idea for a story strikes me. She recalls it happening very obviously on this museum visit – “Must find notebook… Must write down… Haunted skull… Eye to eye with… Must find notebook…”

Then I did something at which I’m worryingly good: quickly absorbed a bunch of writing about ships, sailing, and archaeology, and synthesised it into some plausible bullshit. It wouldn’t fool anyone who knows a lot about those subjects (I suspect Steve Toase might fling the book into a fire) but it’s enough to sell the story to most readers, I think.

Having successfully begged for an extended submission deadline I hammered out a first draft of the story in a couple of hours. And not much changed in the rewrite.

Maybe that impassioned drafting gave it a boost. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Verity Holloway, editor of Cloister Fox magazine, snapped it up – and she’s told me again since what a great story she believes it to be.

This was also the story that signalled a slight change of direction from Municipal Gothic. Not every story I write has to be set in those working class environments where I feel most at home.

It’s also the first time I’ve written a story intended to evoke Nigel Kneale. I was thinking about his particular niche – that intersection of technology and the spirit world, as in The Stone Tape – and wondered if and how a computer-generated model might become possessed.

The first review, from Rowan Lee, mentioned Nigel Kneale, though not in connection with this story, so that thread obviously runs throughout the collection.

Blooper reel

• In the original draft of the story I had my ship, Faerie, sailing from Falmouth to Portsmouth, but sinking in Mount’s Bay. Revising it for Intervals of Darkness I thought, hold on, that doesn’t make sense… So now, she was bound for Kinsale instead.
• The first draft of the story had the eyes as being in the ‘stern’ of the skull but it got fixed in the edit. Look, I told you I was blagging this.

Intervals of Darkness will be published on 7 September. You can pre-order the eBook now.