TAMING THE CAT AND LYNX: FIVE MINUTES WITH C.L. RAVEN

​C L Raven are identical twins and mistresses of the macabre. They're horror writers because 'bringers of nightmares' isn't a recognised job title. They write novels, short stories, comics and film scripts. Their work has been published in magazines and anthologies in the UK, USA and Australia. A story of theirs was published in The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper, which makes their fascination with him seem less creepy. They’ve worked on several indie horror films as crew and reluctant actors and have somehow ended up with lead roles in the forthcoming indie horror film School Hall Slaughter.

Could you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?

We’re 36, we’re from Cardiff and we’ve been published for 11 years. We love animals, travelling, poledancing, history – particularly the period from the Tudors to the Victorians,  and we have weird phobias such as holes, food and Bungle from Rainbow. We’re the first point of contact for people looking to rehome their pets, or when the army is depleted, we adopt some. Our mum has put a pet ban in place, but so far, two rabbits, 6 guinea pigs, 1 dog, 5 cats and 1 snake have joined the army since the ban. The army currently has 15 members. Our mum says we have enough, but we’ve never had pigs, goats or tortoises, and you can’t take over the world with an army of 15. Plus, we want to be crazy cat ladies, but 5 cats isn’t enough. We think the rule is that you need at least 3 cats per person. We need 4 more then we will have finally achieved something in our lives.

What do you like to do when you're not writing?

Most of our time is spent looking after our animal army. One of our guinea pigs currently requires syringe feeding every hour, so that takes up a lot of time. Other than that, we love polefitness, and are training to become instructors. What we lack in grace, we make up for in enthusiasm. People keep telling us to ‘get a proper job’ but working in an office would cause us to go postal, so we figured we’d get another job doing what we love. We also love exploring castles, graveyards and haunted places. We have a ghost hunting show on YouTube. We also host a horror radio show every Friday night. Once a week we do gymnastics and are a complete embarrassment to the sport.


Other than the  horror genre, what else has been a major influence on your writing?

Music. The lyrics by Jim Steinman, My Chemical Romance and Rise Against are a huge influence on our work. Also, art. Often, seeing a dark, creepy paintings or drawing makes our imaginations tingle.


The term horror, especially when applied to fiction always carries such heavy connotations.  What’s your feeling on the term “horror” and what do you think we can do to break past these assumptions?

One, get rid of the term ‘literary horror’. We find that term tends to get slapped on work that is slightly dark, but more often than not, isn’t really horror. It’s as though horror is a dirty word and they don’t want to be associated with us lowbrow genre types, so they add this label to give it more respectability. It’s like putting makeup on a corpse. It may look pretty, but it’s still a corpse. It’s like when horror films do really well, they’re said to ‘transcend the genre.’ Uh, no, they don’t. That’s just a term for people who can’t admit that they actually enjoyed a horror film. If you like it, own up to it. We need to break away from this notion that horror is the bastard child of literature. It has so many subgenres, yet people automatically think of gore. It’s so much more than that. It plays on your emotions far more than any other genre.

A lot of good horror movements have arisen as a direct result of the socio/political climate, considering the current state of the world where do you see horror going in the next few years?

To be honest, the world is in such a bad place at the moment, that nothing in horror will ever be as scary as what is happening. We once read a trend that when the Labour government is in power, vampires are popular but when the Tories are in power, zombies are popular. Perhaps there will be more dystopia horror as our planet dies around us, or more horror involving Nazis, seeing as those bastards seem to be back. We know things come back into fashion every few decades, but seriously, Nazis should stay dead and buried along with shellsuits and poodle perms. Plus, you’re not really going to get better Nazi horror than Dead Snow 1 & 2. Although technically, The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t horror, it’s bloody terrifying, especially what with what is happening in America, so we expect more fiction like that.

What are the books and films that helped to define you as an author?

Roald Dahl. When we were kids, we wrote stories about Tudor children attending executions and the condemned’s head would roll down the hill. That had to have been influenced by the Cinderella poem in Revolting Rhymes. We had twisted a sense of humour as kids, so he really appealed to us. Also, Dean Koontz had a huge influence on our early work. We were always more fans of his than Stephen King’s, because he often creates very beautiful sentences. Then he found God and that kills any relationship.

What new and upcoming authors do you think we should take notice of?

We love the Sam Spallucci books by A.S. Chambers. We’re not just saying that because we’re friends. We bought the first book from Austin at Scardiff a few years ago and we’d never heard of A.S Chambers. We loved it! Sam is a PI who investigates supernatural cases in Lancaster. A few years later we happened to be at the same con as Austin and got to know each other. Now we hunt him out at every con we go to and buy his books. He’s such a lovely guy as well, which makes it better.

How would you describe your writing style?

We seem to have two styles – dark and gothic, or horror comedy. There’s no in between. It kind of fits with our personalities. We love dark, gothic things and we also have a twisted sense of humour. We also tend to use sentences which are grammatically incorrect, such as one word sentences, but it fits with our style. Kind of like if Edgar Allen Poe, Roald Dahl and Terry Pratchett had far less talented daughters.

Are there any reviews of your work, positive or negative that have stayed with you?

When we were researching bodysnatchers for our novel, Empty Graves, we met a woman on Twitter who researches the resurrectionists, and has written a book about them which is published by Pen & Sword. She was so helpful, and when we published Empty Graves, she bought it. Our first reaction was ‘balls.’ Then we panicked and didn’t want to read any messages she sent us. (We are massive wusses when it comes to reading reviews.) But she loved it. She said we’d brought her bodysnatchers to life. She’d fallen out of love with researching them, but after reading our book, it fired up her interest again and now she’s back posting photos of the graveyards she’s been to. We don’t think we’ll ever have better praise than that. During a literary festival in East Budleigh, two people compared our work to Terry Pratchett. We nearly died of glory. And that was despite the fact we showed up at the festival completely drenched, covered in mud and smelling of farm animals after we got lost on a straight road trying to find Sir Walter Raleigh’s house. Don’t ask.

What aspects of writing to do you find the most difficult?

The endings. We suck at endings and often have to rewrite them. We’re not planners, and as we make it up as we go along, we often have no idea how to end the book or story.

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author?

Animal cruelty. We can’t bear to see it, or read about it, so we will never write it. We’ve been campaigning for animal rights since we were 8 years old and it’s a subject that makes us so angry. Also, rape. Seriously writers, if you want a badass female character, just create one. She doesn’t need to be raped in order to ‘become strong’ or to have a good reason for butchering a load of men. We feel like going on a killing spree every time we’re stuck behind a slow walker in the supermarket. In action films, a man will go on a killing spree if his family are killed. Or in the case of John Wick, his dog. But when it’s a woman, apparently, she’ll only go all stabby if she’s raped. Really? Have you actually met any women? We are all one ‘give us a smile’ away from beating mankind like a pinata. Unless you’re writing a crime novel, there’s no need for rape. Most women live with the fear of being raped every day of their lives. We don’t want to read about it in books or see it in films. Being raped should not be a female character’s sole arc. They don’t write about male rape so stop writing about female rape. Is it for their own titillation? In which case, put down the pen and go see a therapist. Or better yet, do the world a favour and kindly shuffle off your mortal coil.

How important are names to you in your books? Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds or the meaning?

Names are very important to us. We choose them purely on whether or not we like them. The characters’ names in Bleeding Empire were picked for which Horseman of the Apocalypse they represented. War was Mars, the Roman god of War, Death was twins Morgan and Aeron, who are the Celtic goddess and god of death, Famine was Demi, named after Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest, and Pestilence was Macies, a Greek personification of wasting and thinness. We’re constantly using baby name websites to pick a name. Although some of the names that are on there… *stares hard at parents* we are judging you. Your poor child has to go through school with that name.


Writing, is not a static process, how have you developed as a writer over the years? 

We like to think we’ve got better, but the consistent rejection emails tell us otherwise. We used to have an abundance of ideas and carry notebooks or Dictaphones around with us to make note of them. A lot of stories were unfinished because the desire to write the newest one was too strong. After over 20 years of writing, that’s gone now. Now we see a deadline and write for it. Maybe it’s because we’ve been doing it for so long or maybe 20 years of depression has had a part to play, who knows. It’s quieter in our heads now. Our invisible friends don’t visit any more. Our work has always been dark – we have stories we wrote when we were 9 that prove that.

What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?      
   
A cat. It doesn’t even have to be yours. Our current writing buddy is a ginger cat called Theo. His owner lives about a quarter of a mile away. We keep messaging her to pick him up, but he always returns after a day or two. We always have a feline writing companion. It used to be our big black cat, Warlock, then after he died, our youngest, Ripley, took over. Then a stray wandered into our garden last April and insisted on moving into our writing shed. We named her Mina. She has now taken up residence in our house, so Theo now lives in the writing shed.

Other than that, all you really need is a computer or a notepad. You don’t need anything fancy. When we were teenagers, we used to handwrite our novels whilst in bed.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received with regards to your writing?

Remove the passive voice and framing. Our work has improved so much since we were taught about those things.

Getting your work noticed is one of the hardest things for a writer to achieve, how have you tried to approach this subject?

So many ways. We’ve done readings at horror cons, libraries, on YouTube, we’ve made book trailers, done press releases, taken out a full page ad in Scream magazine that cost us £600 and didn’t gain one sale. We’ve done free downloads, been on other people’s blogs, we attend as many conventions or events as we can all over the UK. Sometimes, we’re away at conventions every weekend. And the only thing that works vaguely well, is selling our books at conventions. Everything else has been a massive failure and waste of time and money. We lose money at conventions, because we always have to travel so far (Cardiff has comic con and that’s it) but we sell books we wouldn’t have sold sat at home. And we’ve met loads of lovely people at conventions. Our aim is to get a book banned, because that would be great for sales, but nobody knows who we are, so they won’t ban our books.

To many writers, the characters they write become like children, who is your favourite child, and who is your least  favourite to write for and why?

To be honest, we don’t see our characters as our children. Yes, we love them, but we also have a nasty habit of killing them. And good parents don’t kill their children. We don’t have a least favourite. Some books were harder to write than others and at the time we hated them, but we grew to love them during editing. As for favourite… the stepmother from our Snow White story in Disenchanted was so much fun to write. So was Trey from Romance is Dead. Some of our favourites exist in novels that will never see the light of day. Unless our niece publishes them after our deaths. We’ll have to add a clause to our will that she won’t be allowed to embarrass us in that way.

What piece of your own work are you most proud of?

Possibly Autumn of Terror. It was published in the Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper. He’s our favourite serial killer so it was a huge honour to be in that book. And we got paid a decent amount for it, which makes a nice change. Yes, we know it sounds wrong to say you have a favourite serial killer, but ask anyone who is fascinated by them. We’re also quite proud of a short story we wrote called The Art of Dying, but unfortunately, every editor we’ve submitted it to disagrees with us.

And are there any that you would like to forget about?

Ha ha yes. Our first published story. We haven’t read it since it was published 11 years ago, but we’re certain it’s terrible. We pretend it doesn’t exist. Although it was our first acceptance, so we’re proud of it for that. We bought a new laptop plug with the royalties.

For those who haven’t read any of your books, which of your  books do you think best represents your work and why?

That’s a really hard one to answer because each of our books is so different. We guess Romance is Dead shows off our horror comedy the best. Soul Asylum is probably a good representative, or Silent Dawn.

Do you have a favorite line or passage from your work, and would you like to share it with us?

Oh god, this is going to require us to remember what we’ve actually written! Ok, this is from Soul Asylum: ‘the blood wanted to prick a conscience that couldn’t bleed. Poe could keep his telltale heart. I couldn’t hear it beating.’

Can you tell us about your last book, and can you tell us about what you are working on next?

Our last book was Empty Graves, set in 1828 during the time of the resurrectionists in Edinburgh. We spent a lot of time tracking down various parts of William Burke for ‘research’ and found a card case and notebook made from his skin and got a private viewing of his skeleton. It was a surreal moment to finally meet the man who made us fall in love with Edinburgh. He’s shorter than we thought we would be. Guess that’s why they say you should never meet your heroes.

We’re currently writing a novel, Gods and Monsters, about a possessed woman who performs exorcisms on people for the wrong reasons – her demon is looking for an ancient artefact and exorcising demons stops them from finding it.

We’ve just finished writing an epistolary novella, The Curse of Ravenhall, set in the 1800s surrounding a cursed castle. It got shortlisted to the final 50 of Crystal Lake’s open period, which wasn’t bad considering we finished writing it two days before the deadline and only had the chance to do one edit each. We’re in the process of editing a horror crime novel, The Dead Shall Rise, about a necromancer who raises the dead to interview them for the police.

If you could erase one horror cliché what would be your choice?

Only one? That’s not fair! Ok. The whole ‘man buys a new house miles away without his wife and kids ever seeing it and it turns out people were murdered there, and the kids always consist of a teenage daughter and really young son.’ Stop it. Would you ever agree to move to a house you’d never seen? No! Any man that bought a house without us seeing it would be turned into a fancy water feature. Dead or alive, it would depend on how mad we were. It really winds us up. You never see a woman buying a house without her husband’s approval. Maybe our angry, ranty feminist sides are a little sensitive about it, but….dear god, even typing about it is making us angry.

What was the last great book you read, and what was the last book that disappointed you?

We love the Dresden Files, so every time we read one of those books, it’s great. Frozen Charlotte by Alex Bell was really good. We were surprised by how much we enjoyed it. As for disappointment… Father of Lies by S.E. England didn’t quite live up to its premise. And we know this is going to upset a LOT of horror fans, but we’re often disappointed by Stephen King. There, we said it. His books are too padded and his characters often annoy the hell out of us. IT should have been half that length. There are other famous horror authors whose work has disappointed us, but we’ll probably upset most people with Stephen King, so we’ll keep quiet.

What's the one question you wish you would get asked but never do?  And what would be the answer?

“Would you like to become writers in residence at this beautiful haunted castle, where the only drawback is that you can still hear the condemend’s screams in the dungeons?”
“Hell yes!”

Empty Graves Kindle by C L Raven  

1828. The year the dead rose.Edinburgh’s medical schools hide a dark secret. There is only one way students can learn to save lives: by practising on the dead. However, the law only permits them fifteen murderers’ bodies a year from the hangman. With five schools, supply is in high demand and there aren’t enough murderers to meet it. But there are plenty of graveyards. In the city of the dead, the resurrection men are kings.How many graves held bodies? Or did nobody sleep in the city of the dead? Were the gravestones now empty masks, hiding the city’s shame?Lachlan Ketch comes from a long line of hangmen, who take pride in the role of Edinburgh’s executioner. Some people he’s hanged haunt his dreams, others torment his waking hours. They were always depicted as monsters in the songs. Lachlan had never hanged monsters, only men.But when you're alive, Hell seems so far away.One night, he hears voices in Greyfriars Kirkyard and finds resurrection men digging up a grave. He tries to flee but is captured by Rab, the leader of the Greyfriars Gang. In exchange for his life, they hand him a spade.But they’re not the only resurrectionists in Edinburgh and the other gangs aren’t keen on sharing the dead. When Lachlan discovers the malevolent method of how two of their rivals – Burke and Hare – are obtaining bodies, he must find a way to stop them. Or he’ll end up on the doctor’s table.“Doctors’ careers are built on Edinburgh’s empty graves.”

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