In a new interview on Blazing Minds, I got a chance to ask horror/fantasy author Nick Stead a few questions about his latest book in the Hybrid werewolf series ‘Exiled’
You have just released your latest book ‘Exiled’ which is the 5th book in your werewolf book series aptly entitled the Hybrid series. Can you tell us a little bit about the book and what we can expect?
Well, there’s all the usual gory werewolf action my readers have come to expect from the series, but now we’re starting to learn a lot more about Hell and demons – specifically Jaken, who’s been interfering more and more as the series has gone on. There are a few dream visions that delve into the backstory of the Hybrid universe and introduce some cool new lore I’ll be building on in the sixth book. We even get a look at the first of the Slayers.
We get to meet a couple of new characters too, both with important parts to play. One of them has some pretty mysterious ties to Hell and the other is an ex-Slayer. I don’t want to give too much away but I think my fans will like them.
Being the latest entry in a series of books, can Exiled be read as a standalone story, or do you need to read the previous entries to follow the plot?
They all follow on, so I think you really need to read the other four first, to fully understand all the lore I’ve built into it and the story so far. I really enjoy taking existing mythology and then putting my own spin on it, so there are things in the Hybrid universe that don’t necessarily work the way you might expect them to.
Last year you revised some of the earlier stories in the series as you felt that your style of writing and editing had changed from when you wrote your debut novel Hybrid. With your latest novel do you feel your writing is still changing and taking you in a different direction with both the style and story?
Yeah, I think all writers continually evolve over the course of their careers. Even with all the hard work, I did on the re-releases of the first three books, I feel like there’s still a jump in quality with each one and in Exiled I think all the skills I’ve honed since the original Hybrid release really shine through. My style is a lot more polished now and where in my earlier work some parts read as tell more than show, I’ve definitely learnt how to better show the reader what’s happening in a more gripping and engaging way. As for the story, the first two are very much horror with some fantasy elements in them, but from Vengeance onwards, the series has taken a definite dark fantasy turn. I think that’s probably down to getting into LARP (Live Action Role-Play) and more recently D&D (Dungeons and Dragons).
I’ll be honest, when I was writing Exiled, I had a lot of doubts because Damned had been received so well, and I felt the pressure of keeping up that level of epic we’d reached in the fourth instalment. I don’t typically plan things out in advance but usually, I have some idea of what direction the story’s going in pretty early on in the process. With Exiled I had nothing – I was literally making it up as I went along. But somehow out of that we’ve got some awesome ideas I’d never really intended to bring into it and I feel like I have a lot to work with for the last few books in the series now. I’m really happy with how this one turned out and I hope my fans will love it too.
There are lots of variations regarding the mythology of werewolves, do you prefer the traditional interpretations of what a werewolf is, or do you think they should evolve and change?
It depends on what you mean by traditional! In traditional folk tales, becoming a werewolf was always through magic or pacts with the devil, which in some ways I prefer to the popular mythology we have now which really came about with the release of the original The Wolf Man (1941) movie. I’m not a fan of werewolves who only turn at full moon and having to worry about accidentally turning people through a bite would suck too!
That said, I did go with a lot of the traditional tropes in Hybrid, but I also put my own ideas in there and tried to make it my own. It is nice to see new takes on werewolves in other authors’ works and in movies, like in M.D. Lachlan’s Wolfsangel book series which is rooted in Norse mythology and the legends of the wolf god Fenrir. But the traditional folk tale style werewolves and the popular full moon, infectious bite/scratch werewolves can be fun too. The main thing for me is the look of the werewolf. If they’re the bipedal kind then I want to see the head turn into a proper wolf’s head on a humanoid body, with a tail. If they’re quadrupedal then I want a full wolf. Anything less and I’m going to be disappointed.
What are some of your inspirations when writing and how do you prepare for when you start writing a new story?
I get a lot of inspiration from my music. Sometimes, if my mind’s in just the right place and I hear the right line in one of the songs I love (mostly power metal these days), it can spark a new idea. I also get a lot of inspiration from TV and movies, not that I get much time for watching things! Other authors have inspired me in the past as well but I’m afraid I get virtually no time to read for pleasure these days as I’m always full on with my own stories, and more recently manuscripts for clients as I’ve started taking on work as a freelance editor.
I don’t do a lot in the way of preparation. For my short stories, most are written as competition pieces so there’s usually a theme to help spark an idea and the whole story generally comes pretty quick when we’re talking 500-3000 words. If the deadline’s coming up and I still don’t have an idea then I find walking is a great way of getting some thinking time in and pushing my imagination in the right direction, to find an idea that fits the theme.
For my novels, usually I have an idea and just get straight to work on it, and see where it takes me. Damned came really easily because there were a couple of things from Vengeance I needed to continue with and resolve, whereas Exiled was a lot more difficult because Damned left it pretty open for where the story could go next. And while it’s nice to have complete freedom to do what you want, sometimes that makes the first draft more difficult because there’s nothing to guide the creative process. It’s easier to work out where a continuing storyline is going than it is to come up with something completely new.
Exiled is being released by the independent publishers Twisted Fate Publishing which you are also involved in. Can we expect any other titles coming soon from Twisted Fate?
We’ve got another charity anthology in the works, this time titled ‘Light’. We’re hoping to release it around February 2022 and this one we did through open submissions so there’s different authors to those featured in ‘Darkness’. I think we have a really good range of speculative fiction – I hope my fans will give it a read!
I know you are huge fan of werewolves so can you give me a list of your top 10 werewolf films or stories, obviously excluding your own titles from the list?
My top werewolf story is still Graeme Reynolds’ High Moor trilogy, with the first one being my favourite. A friend bought it for me around the time I was submitting Hybrid to literary agents and reading it really inspired me to keep pushing to get Hybrid published. It’s got all the things I enjoy in a werewolf story – the build up to the main character turning, awesome transformations and awesome werewolf action, as in gory kills and tooth-and-claw fights. I love it!
I also love S.L. Mewse’s Primal Progeny series. That also has awesome transformations and gory action, and it has some really dark characters I enjoyed reading.
M.D. Lachlan’s series would probably come in my top werewolf stories as well. I loved the combination of werewolf and Norse mythology, and as a fantasy fan I really enjoyed the historical setting.
My favourite movie werewolves are still the ones in the 2004 Van Helsing movie with Hugh Jackman. They’re the best looking in terms of a really wolfish head on a humanoid body in my opinion, but I do wish they’d been given tails!
Probably my favourite werewolf movie in terms of being purely a werewolf story would be Dog Soldiers (2002). They used a good wolfish design and some cool transformation effects.
An American Werewolf in London (1981) has to make the list for still to this day having the best transformation scene, though I’m not a massive fan of the fully transformed werewolf when we see him clearly at the end. He doesn’t really look like a wolf to me and that came as a huge disappointment the first time I saw it.
I enjoy the first Howling (1981) as well. The look of those werewolves is awesome for 1981 and it’s an interesting take on werewolves to have them living in the colony.
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009) is my favourite of the Underworld franchise. I love the historic setting of this one and the whole story of how Lucian rose up against the vampires and led the lycans into battle.
This next one isn’t a book or movie, but I really enjoyed the worgen starting experience in World of Warcraft, back when I had the time for video games. It had it all – getting bitten and the bite slowly getting worse, turning, and losing control. I loved the cut scene of your character being behind bars while one of the humans asks if there’s any of you left in there – it just really spoke to the werewolf fan in me. I’m also dying to play Werewolf the Apocalypse – Earthblood, but I just don’t have the time for gaming anymore.
And for the last in my list, I’m going to go with Being Human (2008-2013), the original UK series. I really enjoyed the way they handled George and Nina’s characters, and I thought the special effects were well done for TV. If only we could have more werewolf series like that!
Q. Do you have any other projects which you are currently working on?
I’ve started Hybrid 6 but I’m not far with it yet, and I’ve got a completed manuscript awaiting an edit which is sort of a ghost story, but it’s also heavily inspired by some of my experiences as a professional author and there’s a lot more going on in it than just ghosts. My take on the Pendle witch trials is still awaiting publication as well. I was hoping for a 2021 release but it’s likely to be 2022 now.
Q. If someone was looking to get into getting published as an author what advice would you give them?
Don’t underestimate the power of editing. It’s really tough to get published through the traditional route of first finding an agent and then them finding you a big publisher, and if you’re going to stand any chance at all you need to have the best version of your story you possibly can. Ideally you want to test the story out on beta readers – not just friends and family but people who will give you honest feedback and help you identify any issues with things like plot, characters and structure. If you can afford to pay for an editor then it’s well worth the money, and once you have that best version of your story, do everything you can to polish it. Because the reality is, there’s so many of us out there writing and trying to get published now, if you can’t wow an agent/publisher with the opening paragraph then odds are they’re going to simply reject your submission. Even indie publishers get inundated with submissions so you need to do everything you can to make your book stand out.
You can find out more about Nick Stead on his website and following social media: Facebook – Twitter – Instagram
Exiled and other books in the Hybrid series are now available on Amazon here:
Published in various websites, Philip is a reviewer who is best known for his interviews and media coverage of independent projects including; films, books, theatre and live events. Always on the lookout for something different to cover!
