Victoria
asked
Colin Gigl:
Just wow—great job! I'm going to recommend The Ferryman Institute to all my fantasy friends. I loved how you managed to make a book about death so frank and funny. Also, your world-building is excellent, and I will definitely be reading the sequel if there is one. Thank you for a great read! For the question part: The premise of the book is refreshingly original. How did you come up with and develop the world?
Colin Gigl
Hey Victoria—
Thank you so much for the kind words. As someone new to the whole "author" thing, it really means a lot, and I appreciate you spreading the word! Hopefully there will be a sequel one day, as there's one more story I'd like to tell there (if the end didn't make that perfectly clear), but we shall see.
Great question: the world came in bits and pieces, to be honest. The weird truth about this story is that there’s a hidden (at least, I hope hidden) autobiographical core to it, and that’s sort of what the book is built around. Specifically, the question “What would you do if you wanted to kill yourself, but couldn’t?”, which is where Charlie came from — the irony of someone who helps the dead but can’t be dead himself. The title actually came next, which was lucky in the sense that it was evocative enough to play around with but still have sources to draw from.
I’ve always liked the idea of twisting established stories and myths a bit — a “familiar but new” thing, I guess — and so the world sprung up around the mythology of Charon, the Ferryman (Easter Egg: “Charles Ronald Dawson”, “Charles Ronald”, “Cha Ron”, “Charon”… Yeah, not very clever, I know, but I did it). That led to the idea of “psychopomps”, those who guide the souls of the dead to the afterlife, and from there it was just messing around with stories and characters I liked and trying to make them a bit more my own.
Sorry for the long answer, but hope that makes some semblance of sense. Thanks again for the fantastic question and hope our reader/writer paths cross again soon!
Thank you so much for the kind words. As someone new to the whole "author" thing, it really means a lot, and I appreciate you spreading the word! Hopefully there will be a sequel one day, as there's one more story I'd like to tell there (if the end didn't make that perfectly clear), but we shall see.
Great question: the world came in bits and pieces, to be honest. The weird truth about this story is that there’s a hidden (at least, I hope hidden) autobiographical core to it, and that’s sort of what the book is built around. Specifically, the question “What would you do if you wanted to kill yourself, but couldn’t?”, which is where Charlie came from — the irony of someone who helps the dead but can’t be dead himself. The title actually came next, which was lucky in the sense that it was evocative enough to play around with but still have sources to draw from.
I’ve always liked the idea of twisting established stories and myths a bit — a “familiar but new” thing, I guess — and so the world sprung up around the mythology of Charon, the Ferryman (Easter Egg: “Charles Ronald Dawson”, “Charles Ronald”, “Cha Ron”, “Charon”… Yeah, not very clever, I know, but I did it). That led to the idea of “psychopomps”, those who guide the souls of the dead to the afterlife, and from there it was just messing around with stories and characters I liked and trying to make them a bit more my own.
Sorry for the long answer, but hope that makes some semblance of sense. Thanks again for the fantastic question and hope our reader/writer paths cross again soon!
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Jun 13, 2017 10:04PM