 "The Kindness Of Ravens" is a collection of short stories by Philip F. Webb, author of the children's book "Lily Of Atlantis". It is perfect for the commute to work, breaks, and just *dipping into" for a quick read. Each story is crafted with ease of language as well as delivering an emotional, shocking, humourous or chilling "punchline". Available at Amazon The Kindness of Ravens is a pocket-sized collection of bite-size stories great for dipping in and out of. Once you get started, most readers will likely be able to get through it in an hour or so with none of the stories being more than 10 or 11 pages long. This isn’t a criticism as sometimes you just want a literary “snack” and Ravens should leave you feeling satisfied. As the blurb on the back says, the collection explores the adage “be careful what you wish for” and nowhere is this more evident that the titular story that explores the kindness of ravens, although it may not quite be what you expect. It certainly wasn’t what the old woman in the story expected. Alongside this you get a collection of creepy, funny, odd, and cautionary tales. Eleven in total, including one poem. You can read about legendary knitting needles, the protector of forests on a recruitment mission, surprise deaths, the dangers and benefits of AI, vampires, fairies, zombies and mysterious killers. There really is something for everyone. There was only one tale that, for me, didn’t quite feel like it belonged with the others, but that didn’t do anything to detract from the read overall and I had a good time with The Kindness of Ravens. Check it out on Amazon, it’s cheap or even free with Kindle Unlimited. I look forward to more from Philip and, while Lily of Atlantis is a very different prospect from Ravens, it is worth checking out if you have young kids, or just if the big kid inside you fancies something different to read. Just don’t get these two mixed up at bedtime when reading to the little ones! While writing this quick review of Ravens, I took the liberty of firing off some question to Philip to find out a little more about his process, influences and inspiration, the highlights of which you can read below. INTERVIEW My first experience of your work was Lily of Atlantis, a kind of self-help book for kids involving wizards, spells, fun monsters and positive messages for the readers. The Kindness of Ravens is a very different offering, although shot through with the same subtle humour. Which is your first love, writing for kids or something more horrific? I enjoy both equally. The only real difference is how graphic in the descriptions you can be, and certain subjects are either “off limits” or can only be hinted at with children’s books. Although, personally, I do kind of enjoy the “what book/film gave you childhood trauma?” trope… The challenge with the darker, “grown up” stories is adults aren’t as smart as kids, so you have to spoon-feed them 😉 Or, being serious, it’s also knowing when to stop and working out when an implication will have a stronger impact. So, what do you see as one of the biggest challenges for writing for children? With children’s books the challenge, for me, is giving them food for thought (while avoiding telling them what to think), giving teachable moments all while making it entertaining and engaging. Children tend to switch-off when they are being preached at. As you said, kids aren’t as stupid as some people might like to think. How did you approach that with Lily? With Lily I wanted to make a comment about how we view immigration (positive as well as negative) – which is where the whole story line with Byron, the minotaur, comes from. Along with that I deliberately gave each monster a layer of “the other”, as in “not the average/”normal”. Veronica the gorgon can be a stand-in for trans people – she is a she but made (carved from stone), so there’s no biological “reason” for her being a her except “she looks female”, yet we fully accept her as female and a woman. So coming back to Ravens, did you have a collection of shorts written before you decided to start on the book, or did you decide you wanted to build a collection first? Half and half, I had 5 stories I knew I wanted “out there” 2 stories that needed a lot of work and the other 4 I started from scratch. Was the eponymous tale already written, or did that come later? The Kindness of Ravens itself was already written and good to go, despite the obvious “be careful what you wish for” theme it (I hope) has a lot of humour and is ultimately a hopeful story, despite all of humanity being wiped out… Genesis 7:12 was written from scratch as a counterbalance to Ravens. It’s full-on nihilism, bleak, and hopelessness. The thing I enjoyed with both was the mood setting with descriptions and little details. Ravens focuses on sunrise and the promise of a new day, with Genesis it is the details of the house (worn, tatty wallpaper, threadbare carpets, grime and dust, the splatter of blood on his face being the only colour…) There is a wide variety of stories in Raven. Thinking about inspiration and influecnes did you have any particular writers you couldn’t get enough off when you were growing up, or are there any contemporary writers who you look forward to getting your hands on their next works? Growing up I was an avid reader of Asimov, Arthur C Clarke, H G Wells (after hearing Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds album) and John Wyndham (after the original BBC adaptation of The Day of the Triffids). The one thing they all have in common is the ability to explain very complex ideas in a simple, easy to grasp, way. That’s something I strive for. For the more contemporary writers, Margret Atwood who, again, takes very complex ideas and situations and explains them in an easy to digest way. She also doesn’t pull any punches with the darker aspects of her fictional worlds. Also, going back to an earlier point, Margret Atwood doesn’t “preach” with her fiction, she tells a story that pulls you in and you make your own moral judgements. She’s also very good at smudging the border between “good guy” and “bad guy” characters – even in A Handmaid’s Tale the society and its trappings are the pure evil, but you’d be hard put not to find likeable qualities in the antagonists. Even OfFred is at times weak, an unreliable narrator and 100% not a heroic figure. (Sorry, off at a tangent there, I really like Margret Atwood’s style and how she gets her intended message across… something I try to emulate.) A special mention goes to Steven Donaldson, especially for the Gap Series of books. Epic in scope but intimate in execution. He writes characters first and then sets up some very plausible “lesser of two evils” choices. Manages to turn a character you start off hating into the guy you end up rooting for (he even gets a “punch the air with a whoop” line at the end). Add to that a Mexican stand-off between battle ships in space, inter cut with political manoeuvring in a conference – and within a page the political stuff has you on the edge of your seat… And with that in mind – you are stuck on a desert island and can only take 3 books, which ones are you prepared to read over and over for months and months while you await rescue? The Gap Series (in one volume – probably a cheat but…), for the reasons above. The Testaments by Margret Atwood – continues the Handmaid’s Tale story, but with a lot more meat on the bone and she brilliantly explains a really nasty character from the first book who you end up absolutely loving – with a fantastic “lesser of two evils” choice she had to face when Gilead took over. The Count of Monti Christo by Alexander Dumas. A fascinating study of revenge and how it affects the person seeking it. As well as brilliant use of using your enemies’ strengths and psychology against them. There isn’t one adaptation (film or TV) that has fully embraced the books’ themes and story. In fact, the best adaptation is The Punisher movie starring Eric Banner and John Travolta… Bubbling under would be any three Disc World books by Terry Pratchett (Night Watch would have to be one of them, as would Snuff… and Soul Music.) That might be more than 3 books, but we’ll let you off, just this once. So, every interviewer gets to ask at least one clichéd question, so where do you get your ideas from? How do your ideas form? There’s a website I subscribe to… Everything around me, books I’ve read, films, conversations about random subjects all trigger ideas. As to how and why that seed of an idea grows into a story, book, or script (or how I know it should be a short story, book, or script), I have no idea. I do believe it is a learnt/taught skill, like everything else in writing or any creative skill. It certainly feels like a continually evolving process. Your website also highlights your interest in photography. Do you find that influences your writing or gives you ideas for stories? I’m a single shot/exposure photographer – meaning I like to get 90+% of the photograph done “in camera” with minimal editing, using a very basic editing program, like Picasa (the longest I’ve spent editing a photo is about 30 minutes.) So that means most of my time photographing something is spent in prep work (to the point now where I don’t even have to think about it – that’s practice.) From that I learnt “know what you want” before diving in – that prep, which can be anything from 10 seconds to 20 minutes, before even putting the camera to my eye saves hours later in editing. Generally, the answer is “no” for inspiration, although it has helped with descriptions and settings after the idea has come. Very specifically it did trigger the core idea for Ravens. The photo I’ve used for the cover and “Raven on a Post” inspired the idea of ravens having a language and, despite their rep/image, being kind. The cover photo, although I singled out one bird, was three ravens “playing” – one would land on a pylon and be “dive bombed” by the other two, then chase the other two after a few minutes and then one of the other ravens would land on the pylon and repeat the whole game. Raven on a Post – I swear that bird held that pose just long enough for me to take the photo before hopping off the post. I rewarded it with a big chunk of meat (I had a few because I’d gone out specifically to photograph ravens and crows – bribery helps)… It tore the chunk in half, ate one piece and took the other to a raven that was nearby. I can appreciate that preparation allegory in relation to writing and how, for me, preparation is key. I can’t write by the seat of my pants; I find it much easier to know where I am going before I set off. Are there any other photography processes that have influenced and affected the way you approach writing? Photography has taught me discipline when it comes to writing. People often talk about “having an eye for photography” (seeing a scene etc and knowing how to frame it in camera for “that perfect shot”), it’s the one aspect of photography that you either have or don’t, you can be taught to improve it, but it must be there to start with. That improvement is a slow, frustrating process. That taught me nothing comes easy; do you really want this? If the answer is “yes”, brace yourself, buckle up and put the time and effort in. Learning how a camera (digital or film) works and why, the limitations and strengths of different types of cameras (from the one on your phone all the way up to a DSLR) and what lens to use for what shot and style. (That’s AFTER learning about aperture, ISO, shutter speed…) Because of that I learnt that you need to learn the “how and why” of anything before you can get worthwhile results. It also taught me to “follow the rules religiously” before you experiment with bending/breaking them for effect. Mostly what photography has taught me, that really transposes over to everything (not just writing) is; it takes time, practice, mistakes, more learning, more time, more practice, better quality mistakes, keep repeating, keep learning – and sometimes a mistake leads to an idea. Still thinking about process, do you have a particular method you follow for each piece of work once you start to develop that idea? Write down the core idea. (For Ravens it was “Ravens have a language and are God.” “Ravens are kind.” “Be careful what you wish for.”) Ignore it for a while – if it’s a good idea it’ll pester you until you go back to it. Under the core idea flesh it out a bit. (For Ravens that was “nice old lady feeds the local Ravens and learns their language”, “the ravens have to grant her a wish because she learnt their language”, “how can I subvert a wish for “people to be nicer to each other”?) Fill in details about the characters’ lives, personality, names etc. Write a timeline for the story – ignore it, go back to it, and revise the timeline and fill in more details. Start writing. Leave it be again. Edit so it looks like you actually had a plan… This stage is where I find the general tone and themes start to properly assert themselves. Don’t be afraid of adding details, events etc that aren’t in the plan. (In Ravens the whole lesbian sub-plot was a very late addition, which adds depth to the story and character and explains why she wished people would be kinder to each other.) Get it to a point where it won’t be embarrassing to let other people read it and get some feedback. And more editing… Remind yourself it will never be perfect, trying to make it perfect will ruin it. I don’t do the detailed “I know every scene before I’ve even written it” kind of plan, but I don’t do the “wing it” style either – that’s across the board from short stories, books, scripts etc. Is there any particular software you use for writing. This is something that comes up regularly in online discussions. Do you use anything fancy, or are you a WORD guy? For prose I’m a “WORD guy” – only because everyone accepts subs in WORD. I’ve tried others but constantly find formatting errors when saving/converting to a Word doc. I do like Google docs – similar enough to Word that you can use it instinctively, easier use and it looks cleaner on screen. But do find formatting issues when saving as a Word file. Okay, so that may be a few more clichés than I thought, but one final one; what is the one piece of advice you would give a new writer based on your experiences to date? It’s a marathon, not a sprint. The element of “luck” (if you make it) was produced by you putting yourself in the position to take advantage of an opportunity that, if you haven’t put the time, effort, and experience in, you wouldn’t be able to follow up on. (BONUS ADVICE: If anyone says, “it’s a great opportunity for you to get exposure and experience”, that’s the carrot for the bloody big stick of exploiting you. Learn the difference between exploiting - you’re the only one not getting paid – and collaboration – either no-one’s getting paid or everyone’s getting paid.) Sound advice, there are a lot of potential for getting exploited out there! So, what’s next for Philip? I believe there is another instalment from Atlantis on its way, but are you working on anything else, a novel perhaps, or more shorts? There’s a new Lily of Atlantis book on the horizon, Lily and friends fight an evil dragon. I am in the final stages of a religious fantasy “Joshua’s Psalm”, based on the Biblical myth of the Nephilim – which being an atheist surprised me, but it’s an interesting idea. I’m slowly building another collection of short stories (don’t hold your breath). I’m working on getting some short (1 – 5 pages) scripts written. Mainly horror and sci-fi. I have 5 already, trying to work out how to get producers, directors etc interested… quick pitch; 1. A man in a house, the universe has been swallowed into “nothing”, leaving him alone to face the inevitable. 2. A malignant shadow follows people into their hotel rooms and kills them, how do you escape your own shadow? 3. A young woman is running from a group who want to take her organs {she’s still using them}, is there anyone left she can trust. 4. Aliens have invaded, leaving the survivors to scrape by on dangerous scavenger hunts. Death or worse only a heartbeat away. 5. A woman investigates a sound from her basement, is everything as it first appears? Have a couple of spec scripts on the go. My favourite being Vampire: A Fairy Tale (a fairy tale about a vampire, I put a clue in the title… you’ve probably worked out most of the plot TBH.) Also, The Infected – loosely based on Genesis 7:12 which I’m looking at writing as a TV/streaming series (I need to get those shorts done first…) So, keeping yourself busy! Philip, thank you for your time and for sharing your thoughts about your books and your influences and process. Thank you. Ravens and Lily are both available to buy from Amazon. Check them out! The Kindness Of Ravens: And Other Tales A collection of short stories, perfect for the commute to work, breaks, and just *dipping into" for a quick read. "The stories were engaging and interesting --- Would recomend to people who especially like sci-fi, fantasy and horror/supernatural." from a 5 star Amazon review. "Great short stories, love The Kindness of Ravens especially, but tbh, there isn't a bad story in it. Expect the unexpected." from a 5 star Goodreads review. "You would be hard-pressed not to find something you enjoy in these pages." from an Amazon review. "A brilliant book of short stories. Highly recommended." from a readers Facebook review. The stories are a great introduction to Philip F. Webb's writing and cover many genres, including fantasy, sci-fi, supernatural, and a little horror, humour and even a smattering of romance. Philip F. Webb, Introducing Philip F. Webb, your new favourite author of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and children’s fiction. Born in 1967 (still alive last time I checked) in Surrey, UK. Moved to Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK by the time he was 30. Has had far too many retail and hospitality jobs; now enjoys working nights, stacking shelves for a wholesalers, and writing prose and spec scripts. Would love to hear from you on Goodreads Find out more about Philip on his website and on his Amazon author page. Follow on Facebook for news, give-a-ways (UK only for time being), etc Praise for "LILY OF ATLANTIS" 'This book will appeal to parents who want to raise confident, emotionally resilient children, and to kids of all ages who know that real magic doesn't come from a wand.' - Fiona Leitch, author of the bestselling Nosey Parker series. "A magical book of friendship and adventure, and how children can overcome obstacles by harnessing the power they hold inside themselves." – Emma Pullar, author (Paper Dolls) 'A delightful book that involves children in fostering resilience in difficult times' - Lucy V Hay, author (The Other Twin & Do No Harm) It's a fun read and Philip has done a great job of tackling some difficult subjects for younger readers, while still making the stories fun and re-readable.” - Mark Walker, author (published in various anthologies inc. Terror Bites & Twisted vol 2) check out today's other horror article below  the ehart and soul of horror promotion websitesComments are closed.
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