Jonathan Hill and Kath Middleton form a Drabble Army
Drabbles are spreading through the indie world like a disease - a good sort of disease but one as contagious as the plague. A drabble, for those of you who don't know, is a story written in exactly 100 words. This format has been increasing in popularity over the last fourteen months, with eighty-five indie authors becoming drabblists for Indie Book Bargains alone.
Jonathan Hill was always going to catch drabblitis. He's an established short story writer who's extremely active in indie publishing communities. Kath Middleton, however, has been a surprise to us all. Equally prominent in indie forums, Kath (known by the handle Ignite) is well know - but as a reader. Then suddenly, in June this year, Kath began publishing drabbles. So strong was her case of drabblitis, that she's now Indie Book Bargains' third more prolific drabblist, second only to Michael Brookes and Bryan Thomas.
Then came the earth shattering news that Jonathan and Kath planned to form a drabble-writing army. they have clubbed together to create a co-written book Beyond 100 Drabbles.
I've interviewed Jonathan about the new collection. I'm hoping to interview Kath at a later date.
Jonathan promoting his new book, co-written with Kath Middleton - Beyond 100 Drabbles
Many authors have written the odd drabble. What made you decide to go bigger and publish drabble collections?
I actually started off as one of those authors who wrote the occasional drabble. It was only several months later when I realised how brilliant drabbles are for satisfying both a writing and a reading fix that I started building up enough of them to fill a book. At one point I was writing 5 a day (no, I wasn't confusing drabbles with fruit and veg) and ideas were pouring out of me.
It's amazing how creative you can be with just 100 words. And that's exactly why I chose to write a book of them. I wanted to see if it was possible to publish many drabbles back to back but in such a way that they didn't become repetitive. Hence, amongst the many different types of drabble in 100 One Hundred Word Tales, some are autobiographical and some are linked to other drabbles in the book - it's up to the reader to make the connections and this should be a rewarding experience. The idea was to make the whole bigger than the sum of the book's parts. I hope I have achieved this and feedback so far suggests I have. I enjoyed the process of writing the book so much, I went on to write another and that's when Kath entered the equation!
Is this the first book you've co-written?
Yes, all my previous books were written solely by me, although Maureen stuck her oar in more than once while I was working on her books. It's actually quite refreshing having a co-author as it means you can share the highs and lows of writing a book. Anxieties and stresses are better shared! And if the book's a mega flop, I'll just say it was the other's fault! It's win-win!
What made you and Kath decide to co-write a book?
We each enjoyed the other's writing and at the time were (and to some extent still are) addicted to writing drabbles. I had been a fan of Kath's drabbles for some time before she came on board and everything just fell into place. Drabbles bounced back and forth between us many many times over the process, and having that instant feedback made the whole thing very enjoyable and rewarding. Incidentally, there's one drabble early on in the book - 'Meet Kath' - and that explains exactly how we came together. whether it's true or not, we'll leave that up to readers.
Kath is an excellent proofreader. As I understand it, she took many editing jobs before she became a writer. What's it like working with somebody so eagle-eyed?
Kath is widely known throughout the indie world and has provided unpaid editing help to many over the years. I've always been a perfectionist and it was a pleasure to work alongside someone who strives for the same level of attention to detail as I do. Because we have such a good working relationship, there is never any hesitation in either of us criticising something or saying something doesn't quite work. Yes, Kath, I did just start a sentence with 'because'. So sue me!
Have there been any differences of opinion or have you agreed on most things? How do you resolve differences of opinion?
We managed to get through the book with only a handful of street brawls and only one trip to A&E was made. Kath's knuckles are surprisingly hard!
We did actually agree on most things. I think Kath will agree with me when I say we are quite like-minded and this definitely helped everything run smoothly. We have a great working relationship and it was often very good fun. Of course, there was the odd time when we felt one another's writing didn't quite work. In those cases, we put the problem drabbles to one side. We actually wrote many more drabbles for the book than was necessary - but this enabled us to weed out any dodgy ones and build a collection that is high quality - well, we think it is anyway!
Are your stories linked to Kath's?
The book is made up of 120 drabbles. Some are written by me, others by Kath. We devised a very cunning means of differentiating Kath's drabbles from mine. We added a 'KM' after hers. Very technical, I know.
In addition to our own stand-alone drabbles, there are drabbles to which we both contributed. These so called 'challenge drabbles' involved us challenging each other to write a drabble under certain conditions. For example, Kath may have provided the last line and I was required to write a drabble around that. To make it interesting, the challenger completed the challenge themselves too, and our results can be found in the book side by side for comparison.
It's worth mentioning that, because we sent drabbles back and forth frequently, we probably planted seeds in each other's minds for other possible drabbles, so I'm certain there are subtle links throughout the book. After I completed the final read-through of the finished project, I was really pleased with it. I think the collection fuses together very well. There, a writer likes his own book, and on that unbiased opinion, go and seek it out. Beyond 100 Drabbles is available from all good rainforest-named bookshops.
Beyond 100 Drabbles, the cover.
'Beyond 100 Drabbles' is available to download now on Amazon Kindle:
You can find out more about Jonathan Hill and his books using the following links:
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