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| Jaqueliine Kyle, Author and Dickens Fan EBENEZER SCROOGE: GHOST HUNTER |
Jaqueline Kyle
appreciates Charles Dickens so much that she expanded his classic tale into
EBENEZER SCROOGE: GHOST HUNTER. She delved into 1840s London language to extend
the story consistently with the original A Christmas Carol. She adds supernatural elements, but finds it more “hilarious” than
scary.
Kyle’s personal
life reads like a true action hero – she stood on top of a nuclear reactor,
flew a plane solo on her 16th birthday, ran a marathon, and always
bungee-jumps first. She is currently working on a “database of knowledge” for
writers and marketers of writers called Wordingly.com.
Don’t miss the
opportunity to enter the giveaway at the end of the interview. And she has provided an excerpt for us to enjoy.
Q: So how did
the idea occur to you to embellish Mr. Dickens’ Scrooge in EBENEZER SCROOGE: GHOST HUNTER? Did you tire of the annual
surfacing of the story during the
holidays and want to improve on it? Are you a fan of Dickens?
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| Charles Dickens, Author A Christmas Carol |
Jaqueline Kyle: I love
Dickens. I read most of his work outside of a school setting, just for the
enjoyment of it. I came up with the idea for EBENEZER SCROOGE: GHOST HUNTER while
I was at a Dickens Fair. I saw a woman get startled by the Ghost of Christmas
Yet to Come and scream her head off. I thought, “This is still relevant.”
Q: In what
genre would you place EBENEZER SCROOGE: GHOST HUNTER? Why?
Jaqueline Kyle: This is a
fantastic question because it is a book that defies traditional boundaries.
Technically the genre is Mashup or Parody but not every retailer has those
categories. It draws heavily from A Christmas
Carol, but it’s not a Classic. I added supernatural elements, but it isn’t
set in space or some mythical land. There are horrific moments, but I find the
book more hilarious than scary. It’s been a real battle trying to find the
right category to shelve this book under.
Q: Given that
your character Scrooge has already been developed, how did you engage your
readers to want to get to know him again in your story? How do you develop a
character that has already been created and is well known? Is it easier or more
difficult than to develop a character from scratch?
Jaqueline Kyle: Scrooge is incredibly well known, so I
kept his personality the same and changed his motivations. That was something
that I knew I wanted to do upfront and was fairly easy to accomplish. There are
many reasons why someone would be so heartless and removed from the world. In
my version, Scrooge has lost his partner Marley in a ghost hunting expedition.
He’s withdrawn because he’s lost his only friend and resents the world for
being indifferent to the loss.
Q: Did you need
to do research for the time period to assure your back story is consistent?
Could you draw on the original story to provide the setting and backstory?
Jaqueline Kyle: EBENEZER SCROOGE: GHOST HUNTER draws strongly on A
Christmas Carol. It is supposed to sound like Dickens from start to finish.
I did have to do a lot of reading and research to ensure I knew what was going
on in the language and scenes to keep the new elements consistent in tone. It
worked amazingly well. The feedback I’ve received is that it is difficult to
spot where Dickens stops and Scrooge the Ghost Hunter takes over.
Q: Do you use humor to tell your story?
Suspense? Horror?
Jaqueline Kyle: The language of 1840’s London is so
formal, that it is humorous to introduce these supernatural elements. It is
such a straight-faced joke that I still giggle reading it. As the story
progresses, the novelty of that wears off, so there’s a bit of suspense, a bit
of horror. Scrooge has to hit his bottom before he can be redeemed.
Q: Does the concept of hero versus villain
apply to EBENEZER SCROOGE: GHOST HUNTER? Is Scrooge a hero or a villain?
Jaqueline Kyle: Another fantastic question! Scrooge
believes he is a martyr and a hero. I don’t want to spoil too much, but he does
have to face the possibility that he might be the villain. Ultimately EBENEZER
SCROOGE: GHOST HUNTER has the same foundation as A Christmas Carol – it is a tale of redemption. So Scrooge is maybe
not a traditional villain, but he needs to go on a journey of self-discovery so
that he can become the hero.
Q: Did you
write EBENEZER SCROOGE: GHOST HUNTER strictly to entertain your readers? Or did
you want to deliver a message? Or just have fun?!
Jaqueline Kyle: I originally drafted EBENEZER SCROOGE:
GHOST HUNTER for the challenge and entertainment of it. I was going through a
personal rough period and the distraction was marvelous. The first draft sat in
a dusty file on my computer for two years before I pulled it back out and
decided there was something there for readers, too.
Q: How
important is credibility or believability to your story? If not, what enables
the reader to put aside a sense of reality? What will pull us into the story
and make us care what happens?
Jaqueline Kyle: I think readers start this book trying
to spot where A Christmas Carol ends
and the new story begins. What pulls the reader in is the new mystery of how
Marley died, why Scrooge despises Bob Cratchit (one of the most likeable
characters of all time), and the life and death stakes when you are a ghost
hunter about to be visited by three ghosts.
Q: What’s next?
Jaqueline Kyle: I spent the last few months creating a
database of knowledge for aspiring writers, self-publishers, and book
marketers. It’s called Wordingly.com. I expect that a lot of my time in the
next few months will be used there as well, to add more wisdom to collection.
Q: Tell us something
about Jaqueline Kyle. You seem to be a thrill-seeker! What do you like to do
these days when you’re not writing?
Jaqueline Kyle: I tend to put a stamp in my passport to
countries I’ve never been to before. While I’m there I eat food I would never
other wise consider, gleefully throw money away in tourist traps, and engage in
some death defying antic to scare my mother with in the retelling.
About
Jacqueline Kyle
Jaqueline
Kyle once stood on top of an active nuclear reactor. It glowed. She dove the
Great Barrier Reef and the fish swarmed to check HER out. On her 16th birthday
she flew a plane solo – just to enjoy the view. She once ran a marathon -
because it was faster than walking. When she bungee jumps, she always goes
first, so her friends can jump off the bridge after her. Jaqueline Kyle is not
the most interesting man in the world – because she’s a woman.
About Charles Dickens!
About Charles Dickens!
Charles
Dickens lived from 1812 to 1870 and originally wrote A Christmas Carol as
a political pamphlet to bring attention to the plight of childhood ignorance
and the cycle of poverty. Also, Dickens loved coffee so much that they still
put his picture on coffee mugs. True Fact.
EBENEZER SCROOGE: GHOST HUNTER expands the original text of Charles Dickens’ classic
with all-new scenes of malicious ghosts, soul-devouring wraiths, deadly
doppelgangers and other terrors from the netherworld. Our story opens seven
years after Marley’s violent death. Ebenezer Scrooge has given up ghost hunting
and embraced an inevitable slow death by alcohol poisoning. When the spectre of
his deceased partner appears to him on Christmas Eve, Scrooge learns that he
must face three Ghosts – one who will try to help him, one who will try to harm
him and one that cannot be killed.
In
a story that spans a lifetime of torment, Scrooge must face the demons of his
past and his failures in the present in order to prevent the horror that is his
future. The stakes for Scrooge’s soul have never been higher than in this
wicked retelling of the classic, A Christmas Carol.
Excerpt
The key, being primarily iron and
ornamented with scrolled silver, fit the lock of the store room around back of
the counting house. It was to here that Scrooge retired, shoving the key into
the equally ornamented lock and turning it home. He did not light a lamp
immediately but stood much like a ghoul himself in the gloom of the store room.
There in the shadows lay the real
tools of Scrooge and Marley’s trade. Iron implements inlaid with silver runes,
lanterns attached to mirrors designed to cast the brightest possible light,
black powders that could ignite in an instant, herbs and salts to smudge and
disperse the spirits. And darker still, vials of blood to draw the energies in
and trap the worst of the ghouls that walked the earth.
“With a sigh of a man who had done
the same for years gone by, Scrooge moved a few ancient logs from a dusty
woodpile and onto the small hearth. He threw a handful of black powder on the
pyre and struck it alight with a practiced swipe at the flint stone. The flames
lit the room with a bright, hot heat and then died down to a small flicker as
the mummified logs struggled to catch. Scrooge knew he could have easily struck
the logs alight without the powder, but the resulting smell of burning sulfur
suited his melancholy mood.
Pulling a small flask from his deep
pockets, Scrooge set about his task. As he had done every year on the
anniversary of Marley’s death, Scrooge inspected the store room. With a
practiced hand, he examined the protection wards on the doors and windows,
feeling for weaknesses and looking for signs of molestation. Satisfied that the
room was undisturbed, he drew up a hard stool, much like it’s twin in the
counting house, and taking another long swig from his flask, proceeded to pull
every weapon, tool and instrument of his defunct craft to his lap where he
inspected, polished and cared for each one in turn. Not for the first time,
Scrooge wondered about his old trade, ghoul hunting, and how the counting house
had started as a front for this passion. With the passage of time and one death
too many, the two professions had switched roles with the counting house taking
prominence and ghoul hunting being regulated to a hobby mostly forgotten.
Scrooge hadn’t taken a case since Marley’s demise.
Once Scrooge had satisfied himself
as to the quality of the tools of his former trade, with the flames guttering
in the hearth, he pulled out an old fob watch of his former partner. “For you,
you sorry bastard,” Scrooge toasted before tilting back his flask and finding
nothing but air, as he had drank the contents during the “dischargement of his
annual duties. He shrugged and stood, having to check his balance against the
dusty doorjamb and leaving the final flickers of fire to burn themselves out,
locked up the store room and stumbled out into the cold and foggy night.
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