Behind the scenes: A Dead Ship in the Deep Black

Take a peek into the author's mind, featuring ship plans, cats and AI

This is a bit of a peek behind the curtain in the writing of February’s book club book, A Dead ship in the Deep Black, from me … the author.

The kernel for this month’s book club book came from a single image in my brain — a cartoon-esque picture of the crew of a ship. Think in the style of the recent League of Legends series on Netflix (if you haven’t seen it, gorgeous animation, btw). At some point, I’d love to commission an artist to draw that picture — it’s still pretty clear in my head. It had three of the main crew members — Tink, Ish and Alek, though Alek had muscle you can only really get away with in a cartoon. Tink had her goggles. I can’t recall if Kandi, the captain or Grim were there, but Kandi’s hair would fit right in with the vibrant colours of a cartoon.

And I’d have to add Grim — that cat ended up being one of my favourite characters in the series. And he is a character, even though he’s just a regular cat.

Still, how an idea starts and where it ends up are very different. And Grim is just one of the story points that evolved while writing the first book.