In this episode, we’ve invited Ringwood author R.M. Brown to discuss the release of her debut novel, Song of the Stag, a book inspired by a simple idea: What if there was a fantasy about Scottish independence? We talk about her writing journey, favorite characters and scenes, worldbuilding and magic, and more!
A proud Dundonian, Rebecca is an English and Creative Writing alumna and co-founder of the charity Folklore Scotland. Armed with an obscene number of folklore books, she and her husband strive to preserve the tales of the past for a new generation by digitising stories, recording podcasts, and, of course, hunting for fairies.
Order Song of the Stag here! If you get your order now, you will receive a signed first edition copy of the book one week before the official launch.
Song of the Stag will launch on June 27th at 7pm at The Tinsmith in Dundee. The event is free and all are welcome.
Check out Folklore Scotland to see more of Rebecca's work.
In this episode, we’ve invited Ringwood author R.M. Brown to discuss the release of her debut novel, Song of the Stag, a book inspired by a simple idea: What if there was a fantasy about Scottish independence? We talk about her writing journey, favorite characters and scenes, worldbuilding and magic, and more!
A proud Dundonian, Rebecca is an English and Creative Writing alumna and co-founder of the charity Folklore Scotland. Armed with an obscene number of folklore books, she and her husband strive to preserve the tales of the past for a new generation by digitising stories, recording podcasts, and, of course, hunting for fairies.
Order Song of the Stag here! If you get your order now, you will receive a signed first edition copy of the book one week before the official launch.
Song of the Stag will launch on June 27th at 7pm at The Tinsmith in Dundee. The event is free and all are welcome.
Check out Folklore Scotland to see more of Rebecca's work.
Júlia: Welcome to the Ringwood Publishing Podcast. I'm your host, Júlia.
Annemarie: And I'm your host, Annemarie. And each week, we are joined by a series of authors, colleagues, and guests to talk about all things books and publishing.
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Júlia: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Season 3, Episode 5 of the Ringwood Publishing Podcast. My name is Júlia Pujals Antolin, and I’m one of the co-hosts for this season, along with fellow intern, Annemarie Whitehurst.
Annemarie: Hello.
Júlia: In this episode, we've invited Ringwood author, R.M. Brown, to discuss the release of her debut novel, Song of the Stag, a book inspired by a simple idea: what if there was a fantasy about Scottish independence?
Annemarie, can you tell us a little bit about what the book is about?
Annemarie: Sure.
Cait is from Storran’s borders: idyllic, traditional, and completely opposed to separatism. When her childhood sweetheart, Kenzie, is called up to the ranks of the Queen’s Watch to hunt down Storrian Separatists, Cait moves to the capital with him.
In the city of Thorterknock, she quickly realises that her charming countryside life is not the reality for every citizen of Storran. Struggle abounds on the cobbled streets, as does the battle for Storran’s liberation from the Five Realms.
Drawn to the enigmatic Separatist firebrand, the Fox of Thorterknock, and her tales of a secret heir to Storran’s long-empty throne, Cait finds herself swept into a struggle for freedom.
With Kenzie and the Queen’s Watch on one side, and the Fox and the Separatists on the other, Cait will learn what it truly means to be a patriot. And amidst this struggle to secure a better future, she will come to know the power of her own autonomy.
Song of the Stag may be a fantasy, but above all it is a love letter to Scotland’s historic and folkloric legacy. From ancient kings and black-hearted patriots to bonnie princes and Jacobite songs, this book is a celebration of a complex, beautiful, and all too often, tragic, land.
Júlia: A proud Dundonian, Rebecca is an English and Creative Writing alumna and co-founder of the charity Folklore Scotland. Armed with folklore books, she and her husband strive to preserve the tales of the past for a new generation by digitising stories, recording podcasts, and of course, hunting for fairies.
Annemarie: Well, thank you, Rebecca, for being on the podcast with us.
Rebecca: I'm so excited to be here. I can't wait.
Annemarie: Wonderful. Julia, do you want to start us off with the questions?
Júlia: Yeah, sure. So, Rebecca, can you tell us a little bit more about your writing journey and how you came to Ringwood to publish your debut novel?
Rebecca: Yeah. So, I've always really loved writing from when I was little. In primary school, I used to do these little folded paper books where I would like to little pictures and things. And then in high school, there was a few very questionable attempts at the beginnings of novels with some very bad characters and bad writing.
And then I started to take things a little bit more seriously in 2020 when lockdown started. And that was when I started Song of the Stag. And it had been something that I'd started working on in 2016 and then just put to bed for a little while. And this was when I was determined that this is, this was going to be the one I was going to get finished. I was going to get it published. And Ringwood was one of the first places that I kind of pegged as a potential publisher that I really liked because I just really loved the ethos of the company, and, you know, the opportunities it gives people to get into the world of publishing. And I just felt like my book would be in good hands there, especially with the focus on Scottish fiction. And it has been.
Annemarie: Yeah, Song of the Stag is definitely a perfect fit for Ringwood, absolutely. So, I guess jumping into Song of the Stag, there's a couple, like, major aspects of it that we wanted to cover today. And the first one I'd like to talk about is the political conflict that is very, it’s a very big driving force in fantasy in general, seen in things like George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones or even in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. And fantasy often uses political issues to deepen the world building and the characters, but Song of the Stag, I felt you've done the inverse, and that you've used your world building and characters to explore a political issue – which is that of Scottish independence. Would you be able to talk a bit about how you chose this topic and then the goal you'd hope to achieve through writing this story?
Rebecca: Yeah, it all kind of started in 2014. So, I was a yes voter. My family, for the most part, were no voters, and I used to kick off at the dinner table. I was very, very passionate about this subject, and because I was such a young voter – it was my first time being able to vote – people weren't always keen to listen to me, because, you know, adults know best. And I knew that if my family wouldn't listen to my political points, then I knew that they would read a book that I wrote because they've always supported my writing. And I was like, “Well, fine, then I'm gonna write a fantasy novel about Scottish independence and put all my little thoughts and ideas and beliefs in there, and I'll convert them.”
And it also kind of coincided, one day, I was kind of walking along, and I was thinking it'd be really good to have a fantasy book about Scottish independence, because fantasy is such a great way to explore issues once they're lifted out of the real world and away from real world complications and biases and things. So, it really started out as very much a piece of propaganda to convert my family. It's still very much biased to one side, but the more I wrote it and the more I kind of got to know the characters, I wanted to explore more of the nuances, and I wanted to make sure that while it's something that I'm really passionate about, it's also quite a divisive issue, and other people feel passionate about the other side. So, I didn't want to be reductive about anyone's doubts or fears while still kind of, you know, doing justice to the reason I was writing it, which is a kind of fundamental belief in freedom.
Annemarie: That’s really great. You had mentioned to Julia's question that you started writing in 2016 and then picked it back up in 2020. How much of it had you written when you had initially started it and then, versus when you decided to take it more seriously in 2020? And did the, did your focus or emphasis change at all during those two points?
Rebecca: Yeah, totally. In 2016, the main, Cait and Aggie were both this same character, but in a different story, in like the same world, many, many years prior, and were kind of acting as backing, like dancers, I guess, to the main plot that was happening in that book. And then I just remember being like, “Actually, these guys are pretty cool. I want to, you know, explore them by themselves.” And then they kind of shifted over into the Song of the Stag world. And that's when it started kind of becoming its own thing. This was in 2016, after I'd done that, and then that was when I had, kind of, had the scene of Song of the Stag there, laid it to bed and came back to it fresh.
Júlia: Yeah, I think the characters in Song of the Stag are, like, particularly vibrant. I think that you have, like, a great sense of description and a cast of diverse characters. You've got like from your main character, as you said, Cait, described as having “sensitive eyes”, “cloud like hair and pale complexion”, and then to other characters. So how did you go about character creation, from the more superficial aspects to their intricate backgrounds?
Rebecca: A lot of it is Pinterest, daydreaming, and Spotify.
Júlia: Yeah, that makes sense.
Rebecca: For many, many, many hours, but I tend to start with the core personality trait. So, Cait always kind of came into my mind as imaginative and curious, whereas Calan was more serious, and then build around that and build the features around that. And then I also value representation a lot. So, I'm always asking myself when I'm creating a character: “Is there somewhere that I can make things more diverse here, and how will it enrich the story, and, you know, add depth to the themes? And how can I also make those descriptions more evocative so that they, you know, stick with people?” It's just, I always try to try and find ways to describe things that stick in people's minds, because that's always the way I imagine characters better when I've got, like, a really clear description.
Annemarie: That's great. I'd love to talk about the magic in Song of the Stag. You have the Talasaires, a group of people who study the art of storytelling and have a special, magical connection with nature, called the “Cy”. Both characters, Tavis and Jamie, are Talasaires, and – spoilers for listeners – they end up breaking their connection with the Cy by commanding it at several points to save their friends and help the separatist cause. This results in, like, devastating effects for both of them.
Rebecca, could you talk about how this exploration of the relationship between humans and nature, and how the Talasaire people and their connection to the Cy, the natural force, might reflect the relationship people, and particularly Scottish people, have with the natural world?
Rebecca: Yeah. So, years ago, I was a member of OBOD, which is the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, and I really loved how their courses focused on storytelling, and how it kind of fed into nature and the, and the movement of seasons and things. And to me, I've always thought that stories are cycles in themselves, because the characters, you know, people, represent the hero's journey as a circle. So, it's always been a cycle to me. And again, so is life, and so is the seasons. So, I really wanted to explore this crossover with stories and nature and how that might kind of translate into a magic system.
And I also wanted to play with the limitations, because they say that every magic system needs a limitation so that you can’t just wield it all over the place. So, I kind of wanted to explore what would happen if the limitation itself was using the magic, and how that would affect its use, and what it would mean for the characters when they do it. And that kind of disconnect that they feel when they use it in a way that they're kind of not allowed to was supposed to kind of reflect the disconnect that humanity feels when destroying nature. They're kind of a nature utopia, and then when that's ripped away from them, it's like everything feels like it's been lost. And it's supposed to kind of highlight the importance that nature plays in our lives.
And that kind of interlinks with Scottish folklore, in a way, because I think a lot of our folklore in Scotland obviously comes from nature and lochs and mountains and, you know, stones. It's all from the natural world, and that's just due to having in the past living, you know, living so close to them, and living amongst nature. So, using stories to, you know, give the reason why that rock is there, or why that loch over there is dangerous, that was kind of where it all tied together. For me, it was the kind of the stories and the nature and the folklore all kind of came together in this nice little bundle that I thought would make a fun magic system.
Annemarie: Absolutely. Did you have any particular Scottish folklore, because you do work digitizing them, correct?
Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah.
Annemarie: Are there any in particular that you're very fond– you could just be very fond of, it doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, inspiration for Song of the Stag. But is there any, yeah, that you're, you're particularly like, or if you had any inspiration when writing?
Rebecca: I think, not to do with Song of the Stag, but one of my favorites is the Dundee Dragon, partially because it's based near Dundee, and we don't have a whole lot of near Dundee, and it has a dragon in it as well.
Annemarie: Nice.
Rebecca: It's just about, you know, it's typical tragic Scottish folklore. Um, a farmer has a bunch of daughters, and one by one, they all get stolen off by the dragon, and then this knight that wanted to marry one of the daughters goes off and slays the dragon, and then the town cheer for him. Tragic with a, kind of, not happy ending for the dragon, but a happy ending for the village, I guess.
Annemarie: Do the daughters get saved?
Rebecca: No, he actually, when he goes to find out what happened to the daughters, he finds their corpses. It's quite dark.
Annemarie: Oh, no.
Júlia: I mean, that sort of sounds like a darker version the St. George’s tale, to be fair.
Rebecca: Yeah.
Júlia: But, a lot darker. Scotland just taking it all over the place, I guess.
Rebecca: Yeah. For Song of the Stag, I kind of just picked vibes, I guess, from folklore, because I– while it is distinctly Scotland, I also kind of wanted to give it its own folkloric personality, so I picked on things like kelpies and selkies and like recognizable creatures from folklore, and kind of put them into tales that have kind of, you know, folklore sounding names, kind of their own tales, so they'd be recognizable, but distinctly different.
Annemarie: I think you did a really good job with that, and with all of the, the fantastical texts that you had written, the Songs of Storran and the Ballad. It's an important part of the plot, right, with the with returning the crown and the true King of Storran, but it gives just this additional layer of depth, very akin to like Tolkien. You read it once, you're like, oh, there's this neat, like, text, these old, like, these old songs and stuff that are part of the world. And you keep reading and, and you just reveal even more and more as the time goes on. And I was curious if that's how you wrote it, that as you were writing the story, you just added bits and pieces? Or if you had really sat down and thought of the whole all of those myths, those folkloric myths in the story, like all at once?
Rebecca: I kind of made up, I kind of came up with their names as I went. The one about the white doo, that one, I kind of made up a plot for as I was writing. But the other ones, I kind of slotted the name in for and then went away and came up with a little story. Some of them I've written out in full, and some of them are just names, but it's something that I really like doing on the side when I just need a little bit of a break. I love just sitting down and be like, “Oh, which fake folk story will I, will I write now?”
Annemarie: That's awesome. Next question, kind of moving on back to talking about your characters. I really loved your main character, Cait. I really liked her journey of self-discovery, self-confidence. She's very much struggling the entire story to consolidate her, like, idyllic life in her hometown and witnessing all of these struggles that other people in store in are going through.
And one aspect of her character that really hooked me, that was super complex, and as, like, readers progressively see, abusive, is her relationship with her boyfriend, Kenzie. They kind of have an on-and-off, toxic attachment. And you have a really good progression of stakes for the separatist movement, but there's also a progression of stakes with Cait, because she keeps putting herself at risk by returning to Kenzie, who, for people who haven't read the book yet, he's a guard in the Queen's Watch, so he opposes the Separatists and fights them, trying to stifle their movement. So, she's trying to infiltrate the Queen's Watch organization to help the Separatists.
And then, that relationship with her boyfriend is contradicted by her growing relationship with the separatist member, Aggie, the Fox of Thorterknock. Did you initially plan for that love triangle, and did you find any aspects of Cait's character growth or her relationship with Kenzie or Aggie particularly challenging to write?
Rebecca: The love triangle kind of evolved organically, in a way. I always knew that the Kenzie-Cait dynamic would be toxic, because I wanted it to kind of reflect the idea of England and Scotland and a kind of toxic dynamic between countries. And I knew that Aggie and Cait were, that Aggie was going to be the love interest. And it was while I was writing it that the real triangle aspect really kind of started to flesh itself out. It was while I was writing it I was realizing that she really made a good foil for Kenzie, and Kenzie was a great foil for Aggie. And to me, it felt like, you know those moments when you're writing something and you're having a block, and then all of a sudden it just comes to you. And I was like, “Oh my God, they're two sides of the same coin!” So that's how I've always seen them. And they're both unhealthy in their own ways, and it's just whether or not, you know, you can be redeemed from that.
And as for Cait, I found it quite challenging to get the balance right between her struggle to break out of the toxic patterns, while not have it be too repetitive, because obviously getting out of a toxic relationship or getting over something like that, or over trauma, it's not linear. It doesn't come easy. It comes in waves and gradual progression, and that's also quite hard to do in one book, without it seeming repetitive, because it's obviously not. You start to get frustrated when she runs back to him again after, you know, she's endured so much by him. And so striking that balance was quite tricky. But with Annika's help, I think we we've really hit that now. I hope.
Annemarie: No, I definitely, I definitely think so.
Júlia: Yeah, it's really interesting because I was also, I was editing an upcoming book that Ringwood’s also publishing soon. And one of the things that we talked about and discussed so much was the toxic relationship, and how this cycle of just, like, this, like cyclical movement that the two characters go through may seem very repetitive for the reader, but it's so necessary for the story. So, I guess you just sort of have to ask the reader for some like, understanding, like, I need to put you through this repetitive motion because it's important for the character. I think that they’ll understand.
Rebecca: Yeah. Like, the payoff is so great once you get there, like for the character. And it does, it does worry me, because I think a lot, I think these days, especially with things like TikTok and like lower attention spans, I do worry that people won’t instantly, I'm not saying she's not likable, but you know, a character that instantly makes good decisions and she doesn't, for the vast majority of the book. So, it is always the worry that people aren't going to be patient with your character, and, you know, wait to see how they get out of it, or, you know, how they evolve themselves. So, I hope that people do stick with her.
Annemarie: It's hard because you don't– you want to drop the reader into the middle of events. You don't want to be prolonging them with like, long, boring backstories. But in Song of the Stag you did a great job of, there'll be points of flashback, reminiscing on like her childhood with him, and, they’re childhood friends, so understanding that they have this huge, long history that wasn't, at least from my reading, it didn't start off toxic. It started off as a genuine friendship. And then as she left her hometown and started to realize that the world is not what she thinks it is, that's when the conflicting perspectives hit, and then the toxic patterns start, because she's changing and he's staying the same, and he wants her to stay the same, you know?
Rebecca: Yeah, it was really important when I was writing it, for me, that her growing feelings for Aggie and the toxicity that develops between her and Kenzie doesn't devalue what they had before. I wanted it to be quite clear that at one point it was a happy relationship that she wanted to be in, especially like for a bisexual character, I didn't want it for, you know, as a bisexual person myself, who is married to a man, I didn't want her previous relationship with a man to be devalued by her relationship towards a woman, if you know what I mean. It was the toxicity that ruined it, it wasn't anything to do with gender.
Júlia: Yeah, it's definitely a tricky, a tricky subject, but it makes sense how it ends up. As a final question, and talking about all the characters that you have, who is your favorite one and why?
Rebecca: Such a hard one. I'm gonna have to go Aggie, because I just find her so much fun to write, because she's just so like chaotic and needlessly, needlessly dramatic, and I really love coming up with her little schemes and having the other characters interact with her. And whenever something's going too well, it's always fun to think, “What could Aggie possibly do that could throw this off course and annoy everyone?”
Júlia: It keeps the tension up I guess.
Annemarie: Yup, yeah that definitely sums up her character.
Rebecca: Yeah, I do find her fun as well, though, because she, she does have a sensitive side, and it's fun to kind of strip back that armor that she puts up and the bravado that she puts on to see what's going on behind there and explore that.
Annemarie: I loved the scenes that you had written where she's, she sees the Fox version of herself. I really enjoyed those. I thought those were really great. So yes, I'm trying, I'm trying not to give away too much to people who haven't read it, but you should read it. Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
Rebecca: Can I ask a bonus question, if it's not too cheeky: what's your guy's favorite character?
Júlia: I haven't actually read it yet because I pre-ordered it as a book for as a present for friend who read Fourth Wing recently, I don't know if you're acquainted with it. But she was very mad at the fact that the author just took a lot of inspiration, and Scottish names word for word, letter for letter, and just did not take the time to learn their pronunciation. So, I thought maybe a fantasy written by a Scottish author about Scotland will be a lot better for her, and so I'm waiting for it to come so we can buddy read it at the same time.
Rebecca: Amazing. Thank you.
Júlia: Yeah, I'm excited.
Annemarie: I think my favorite, just because I really wanted to see more of him, was probably Tavis. I loved the little whittling spoons detail. Yeah, it just, I thought his character was really endearing, and he was kind of the, not moral center, because I think Calan is the moral center. I think he was just the, like the rock that held everyone together. You know, he kind of, he was, he was the, just like the teddy bear of the group.
Rebecca: He's like, the, he's not a comic relief, but he's like, a mental health relief.
Annemarie: Yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah. I really liked his character.
I if I, if, when I, when we were discussing what questions to ask and the question about who your favorite character, I was like, “Oh, like, if I were to be asked this on the spot, I'd probably say Aggie”. But we do, it's just we do get a lot of face time with Aggie, and she is so, she's a little firecracker, so you can't help but enjoy the scenes that she's in, and enjoy her, her little quippy remarks and her going off and doing crazy stuff just because she's bored or she has a cool idea. So yeah, it's a hard question.
I'm curious if there were any scenes that either you had in your mind that you were super looking forward to writing and really enjoyed writing, or any scenes that were really difficult for you to write?
Rebecca: One that I was looking forward to writing the whole way through, and I don't know how much I can say about it, because it is right at the end, was the kind of climactic scene. It takes place in a parliament building. There's like a standoff with guns, the love triangle members are all there. Someone gets shot. Can't say much more, but I really, I was really looking forward to writing that scene just for the, it's one of the scenes that always fit really well in my head with the music I was listening to. And just imagine it over and over and over, and I was like, “Oh, it's so dramatic. It's so like, cinematic. I need to, I can't, I can't wait to write this down.” So I was really looking forward to that one.
The ones I think I find most tricky to write are, there's a couple of plotting scenes where we have, you know, characters around a table talking about their next steps. And I always find those ones a little tricky to write because in my head I'm like, I'm like, logically, I know that the reader needs to know what's about to happen. In some cases, they don't, but in the cases that I've done it, I felt that it was important to do it and to get the characters talking about it. But in my head, I'm like, “Let's just skip over the plan and get going.” But I think that there is a lot of scope for good character interactions in those scenes, you know, because characters aren't ever going to agree about the plan. And I want to kind of show the tension in the room and things, but I was kind of just chomping at the bit to get going with the action.
Annemarie: Yeah, fair enough. Do you have any advice for aspiring fantasy authors?
Rebecca: I think, just keep writing. I know that that's so overdone, but I do think, you know, if you're writing a first draft, it's not going to be good, and I just need to accept that– I call it the “trash draft”. It's not readable in the slightest. And you just need to get through that. And I think once you get through that first draft, where nothing makes sense, and there's a lot of your own personal notes that say this is rubbish, we'll delete later, once you get through that, you can then take out the bits that you think really worked and make something around that, and that even just finishing one manuscript gives you the confidence to keep going.
And I'd also say that there is always going to be a readership for, there's always gonna be someone who enjoys your work. It doesn't matter how many people I've, you know, learned that about Song of the Stag. But I always thought that, you know, these were just my little characters in my head that only I really cared about. But I've been so overwhelmed by, like, just talking to people in Ringwood about these characters and about the story and learning that they enjoyed it too. Um, so, you know, persevere, because there will be someone out there who enjoys your book.
Annemarie: Amazing. Cool. Thank you so much. This was really great.
Rebecca: Thank you so much for having me.
Júlia: Yeah, thank you for joining us.
Annemarie: Pre-order Song of the Stag for £9.99 now to receive a signed first edition copy of the book one week before the official launch. The book is set to be launched on June 27th at 7pm at the Tinsmith in Dundee. This event is free, and everyone is welcome.
Júlia: Thanks for listening.
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