April 10, 2025 • 39 mins
In this episode, I'm joined by fantasy author and ER doctor, HB Reneau.
HB talks all about injuries we commonly see in fantasy worlds--usually inflicted by swords and magic, and explains how we can best portray things like wounds and infections.
We also talk about the impact of injuries and trauma and mental health too.
HB also tells us all about her new book, The Revenant, and how she's used Kickstarter to fund a pretty awesome project. You can find out more here - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/theremnant/the-remnant-ya-fantasy-adventure-collectors-edition
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
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(00:23):
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Thank you very much for listening.
Enjoy the show. Welcome to another episode of
(00:44):
the Fantasy Writers Tool Shed. I'm your host Richie Billing.
And today I'm delighted to be joined by author HB Renault.
Welcome to the show. How are you doing?
Thanks so much, I'm so excited to be here.
Thank you very much for joining me.
I know you're a very busy personbecause as well as being a
writer, you're also an emergencyphysician and a military officer
(01:06):
as well. Is that right?
That is correct, yes. I am quite busy all of the time
so. Where did you find that I was a
wrist? In between so I work in the ER
so it's it's very shift based, which is nice and so we kind of
like group our shifts specifically and then I normally
have a couple days off to do some writing and it kind of
(01:28):
works as sort of a decompressionfor me because it it's quite
stressful as as you can imagine.And so I love writing and and
getting to explore worlds that way.
I. Suppose just having that quiet
time after such a hectic environment and the the like the
length of shifts as well. You're in there for a long long
time, aren't you? So.
(01:49):
Yeah, it depends on the hospital, but it ranges from 8
to 12 hours is the typical. Yeah, I mean, I'm only doing 8
hours in an office sometimes in the 12 hours in an emergency
room is insane. It's definitely it's, it's a
Sprint for sure. Yeah, so I'll verify.
It's really good. What about your background in
(02:09):
the military? So I actually joined the, I grew
up in the Air Force, so moved around every couple years
growing up. So I was, I was familiar with
the lifestyle, but my family, they're all Air Force pilots.
So my eyes are terrible and I get a plane sick.
So that was never going to be a good career path for me.
So I knew I wanted to go into medicine.
(02:29):
And here in the States, there's a program where the the military
will basically pay for your medical school for you in in
exchange for serving afterwards.Yeah, there you go.
Nice work. And so how did you get into
writing? Where does it all begin for you?
Yeah, I mean, I think probably like most writers you probably
talk to, I loved writing as a child.
I was very loved books and the Harry Potter series and Tamara
(02:52):
Pierce and all of the the fantasy authors that I just
loved was obsessed with Lord of the Rings for a period of time.
So it was always kind of writingstories as a child and kind of,
you know, you get older into secondary school and have to
kind of focus on, you know, what, what you're going to do in
the world and kind of who you'regoing to be.
And I got really into science and medicine and so kind of had
(03:15):
to put it on the back burner fora little while.
And it was actually COVID when Ireally kind of picked it back up
again. COVID hit right when I was in
the middle of medical school. And it was a really stressful
time and really challenging for healthcare workers everywhere.
And I really found, you know, I wasn't able to see people
outside of work. And when I was at work, it was a
(03:37):
stressful place to be. And so coming home, I dived into
fantasy again. And that's when I started
writing again and really startedexploring stories.
And it was really kind of a a reprieve in a really tough time
for me. It's it's great that you, you
found that. Was it like, did you, did you
start by reading fantasy books and then decide to just write or
(04:00):
did you just dive straight into the writing?
I definitely read a lot of fantasy books growing up and had
continued to kind of read when Iwas in school.
I did a lot of audio books just because that was what I had time
for and it would kind of put my brain in a different gear from
all the non fiction I was constantly reading all day.
So I listened to a lot of fantasy audio books and really
(04:24):
fell in love again with with thegenre and so definitely got into
that first. But when COVID hit, it was kind
of like, oh, well, this is my chance.
I'd kind of always had in the back of my mind that I'd like to
write at some point. And so I finally had a little
bit of time when everything was shut down and I wasn't at work
to actually start writing. Did you just dive straight into
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a novel or did you like start writing short of fiction?
Or how does it all begin? For me, I think I needed sort of
the, the goal of a longer project was kind of important
for me as kind of a distraction.And so short fiction, I, you
know, I started with scenes. I had scenes in my head that I
wanted to write and so I would write those.
(05:06):
But they were all, I quickly realized that they were all
building towards a much longer story, a much longer series.
And so yeah, for me, I just kindof dove straight into the To the
deep ends on a full, full lengthnovel.
Nice, so is this the the remnants?
Is was an earlier version of theyour new.
Book, no. So this is actually a book
(05:28):
called Chaos Looming, which I published back in 2020 actually.
And so that was the first book Iever wrote, which was the first
in the Legion of New Most series.
It was a very fun, fun dive. And I'm still I have one book
left in the series to finally finish it out.
But it's with an entropy based magic system and lots of fun,
(05:48):
very kind of sword and sorcery style, although it has a little
bit of cross worlds fantasy twist to it.
So that was that was the first book that I wrote back in COVID
times. Oh, nice, so you've got a new
book coming out as well, and this one's called The Remnants.
Yes, yeah. So the Remnant is in the same
universe as Chaos Looming and the rest of the Legion of New
(06:09):
most series, but in a completelynew setting, which was a lot of
fun to really explore a new setting and kind of come up with
what the culture looked like. And I got to do a lot of fun
world building with it. So yeah.
What do you do? You like expanding the world
that you've already created by doing these different stories?
Is that something that you like to do?
(06:31):
Yes, yeah. I have a really bad habit of all
of the minor side characters that show up all need a back
story. And, you know, most writers can
just, you know, write a few notes on what that back story
is, but I have a really bad habit of spinning those notes
into another full length story. So I have kind of my main series
and then I have a lot of shorternovellas.
(06:53):
And The Remnant is a full lengthnovel, but it's actually the
younger sister of one of the main characters in Chaos Looming
who's the primary character. That's really cool.
I like the way you do that. I mean, I'm a big fan of that
approach as well. Just try and populate the world
or the universe and with all these different stories and like
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you say, it gives you a freedom to like keep it all linked, but
move on to different parts of the world or different time
points in time. It's it's quite liberating to do
that. And also I think it's really
efficient because you don't haveto keep creating new fantasy
worlds all the time. Yeah, no, it's a lot of fun from
from a writer's perspective. I really enjoy it.
(07:36):
It's a little bit challenging I think for readers sometimes to
figure out, OK, what, what storyshould I read next?
Like where does this take place?When does this take place?
So I have my website, I have like full blown like
infographics and things explaining when all these books
take place relative to each other.
So, but that adds to the lore too.
That's a really good idea. So tell us about the new book.
(07:59):
Yeah. So the new book, I would
classify it as YA mostly just because of the age of the main
character. And so the main character's name
is Basha, and she lives in this very unique fantasy setting,
which is kind of an island, archipelago of city states that
are primarily defined by the fact that they are constantly
having to build upwards to escape rising tides.
(08:22):
And so the water levels continueto rise and they're running out
of space kind of in these islands.
And so they just kind of continue raising the sea levels
and boarding up each layer of the city beneath.
And it creates this massive labyrinth of layers of cities,
city beneath the primary city. And so it creates this very kind
of vertical tiered structure, which has been a lot of fun to
(08:44):
play with. And the ideas of underworlds and
the world above versus the worldbelow and things that people
choose to bury. And it's played a lot with the
magic system in this world and kind of the political intrigue
because this is a minor spoiler for Chaos Looming.
But again, it's kind of a side point.
But Basha's older sister ends updying in the main series.
(09:07):
And this book starts when she's just discovered the news of
that. And it kind of sets her on this
journey where she was always thesecond daughter and was never
supposed to have much come of her life.
And she's now raised and elevated to the position of
Signet, which is kind of the heir apparent to the clan system
that rules the city state she lives in.
And so it's her kind of coming to terms both with her grief as
(09:30):
well as this new role that she'sbeen forced upon, while at the
same time uncovering the secretsof what exactly happened to her.
And a lot of those secrets are kind of buried in this undercity
that she alone kind of has a unique magic system and is able
to explore in a way that other people aren't.
That sounds fantastic to be honest.
(09:51):
It's like so interesting the wayyou've created the setting and
drawn upon a few real world issues as well with levels,
which is really good to see and and how it's impacted and shaped
humanity on in that sort of environment Sounds fantastic.
So tell us what the magic system?
(10:12):
Yeah. So it's an extension of the main
magic system in the primary series, which is called
numinancy. And it's actually an entropy
based magic system. So entropy is kind of a physics
term. This is where you hear all my my
science nerdiness kind of come out.
But entropy is this idea that everything in the universe is
trending towards greater and greater disorder.
(10:33):
And so the magic system is a harnessing of that power in
various forms. And so Basha's specific type of
numinancy, what she calls map minding, and it's basically
where within her head she's ableto create maps and basically
kind of see levels below and around her and kind of get a
(10:54):
sense for topographic landscapesin a way that other people
aren't. It's kind of a very different
kind of spin, I think on the waya lot of people use magic
because hers is very much, it's a very internal magic system,
but it allows for her to explorethis kind of underworld setting
that most people in her world don't dare explore because she
has this ability. That's really cool.
(11:16):
It's I've never heard of before.And like I say, it's unique
because it's it's an internal thing.
And is that unique to her? Are there other people who have
that ability? So there's a little bit of
inheritance involved, and it's something that I don't go too
deep into in the book, but her aunt has somewhat similar
abilities, but none manifest in quite the same way as hers.
(11:37):
Nice. So if people have unique
abilities like this, are they more sort after by like certain
groups or certain individuals because they can do these cool
things? Yeah.
So that actually plays a pretty important role within the clan
system. And so these magic abilities
tend to show up in the remnants.And so kind of within the
(11:58):
political structure, you have the signet, which is the first
born within the clan, the head clan families that take over and
kind of have this leadership role.
And the second born is always termed the remnant and the
remnants kind of plays this support role within the broader
political system. And it's kind of, it's kind of a
balancing mechanism actually, that the remnants of these clans
(12:18):
tend to have abilities of some kind that lay into the magic
system itself. So they're highly prized, but
it's kind of this double edged sword of they will never be the
ones that truly hold political power.
They're always kind of the ones in behind the scenes and
supporting the signets and supporting their clans.
And that that whole system that has been in place for
(12:39):
generations is really inverted when Bosh's sister dies and
suddenly she's the signet, but also has these strange abilities
that nobody fully understands. Very nice, like it.
So when does it come out? So I'm actually doing a
Kickstarter for it. And so the first access, the
(12:59):
Kickstarter goes live April first.
No, not an April Fool's joke. So it goes live April 1st and
the Kickstarter will go for a few weeks.
And so everyone will have accessto the e-book if they back the
Kickstarter by end of April. And then I'm also going to be
doing hardcover collector's editions that will be signed and
(13:20):
with all the fun sprayed edges and foiled, foiled covers, those
will be being sent out in May, June of this year.
So April is is the time if if people want to back the
Kickstarter and get access either to just the e-book
version or if they want these cool collectors editions, that's
going to be when they can get it.
Very nice, that sounds amazing. Hopefully all goes well.
(13:42):
Hopefully this is my first time running a Kickstarter, so it's
been a learning process, but everyone's been really
enthusiastic and so just really grateful to my readers and
everyone who's excited about thebook.
So what was it? Have you found the experience
and Kickstarter was a quite difficult setup or is it being
quite smooth sailing so far? The initial setup on the website
(14:04):
is pretty straightforward. It does require pretty much all
the successful Kickstarters require you to make a video,
which might be a little bit of aforeign concept for some authors
that do more either through audio means or just don't like
showing their faces in general. A big part of Kickstarter is, is
kind of getting that personal connection with backers.
And so they do pretty strongly recommend doing the video.
(14:26):
So that's probably the biggest kind of initial hurdle to get
over. And then of course, anytime
you're doing special editions, it means contracting with
printers and finding, getting doing all the design elements.
And so not all of your standard cover designers are comfortable
with doing foil designs or sprayed edge designs.
And so there's always a little bit of a learning curve for
(14:48):
those, but the actual initial setup part is pretty
straightforward. That's good.
I've never don't think I've everasked anyone like how they went
about getting them sort of special editions set up because
they are becoming so popular, aren't they?
And chance of someone from publishing and they were saying
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that's the biggest change that they've noticed and there's a
big demand for these really, really are stunning.
Some of them, especially the sprayed edges and even some of
the hand painted edgy ones. I mean, it's amazing.
So how how did you go about getting all that set up?
Yeah. So I had already been working
with a company called Bookvault,which is actually based out of
(15:31):
the UK primarily, but they do have AUS printing sites.
And so I've been working with them to do a lot of the direct
sales on my website. So I already kind of had a bit
of a relationship, had an account set up with them and
they have been great and in working with and kind of all
their online FAQs and things have been really helpful in
terms of how constructing kind of the Photoshop files and
(15:55):
things for that. And so they're the ones that I
went with. Nice.
And is it do they just take a cut for the printing or how does
it work in terms of like doing those direct sales?
Yeah. So the direct sales they it's,
it's very similar to if you do like paperback sales with Amazon
or anything, it's, it's still kind of a print on demand type
(16:15):
service. So you're not buying a big print
run, at least I'm not. I'm sure there's more successful
authors who can kind of do kind of the big print run things.
But for most smaller Indies it'skind of just a print on demand
system. And so you set up your book
files with them and you coordinate kind of the printing
through, I use Shopify for my website, and you basically
(16:36):
designate whether or not you want them to print from the US
versus the UK depending on the location that someone's ordering
from. That sounds very easy.
It's a great reason it's. Pretty straightforward.
The price is pretty good as wellcompared to Amazon for example.
Yeah, I thought they were prettycomparable to Amazon.
I think Amazon's slightly cheaper, but in terms of the
(16:57):
actual printing, but then they take more of a cut later on.
So it still ended up being cheaper for me to sell books
direct through Book Vault. The main downside to it is that
that you do have to pay for shipping, right?
And so most people just have thecustomer pay for shipping.
And so that's that's the biggesthurdle is I typically will price
lower on my website in order to compensate for the fact that
(17:19):
people are having to pay for shipping.
But even with pricing lower, I'mstill able to make the same
amount of money, if that makes sense, just because the printing
costs less than through Amazon. Awesome.
That's great advice. So anyone who wants to try that,
there you go. You know what to do.
Something I was really keen to ask you about was your expertise
(17:40):
and experience as a doctor like that.
Long ago I was at a panel, A fantasy con, and I was part of
this panel. I used to be a lawyer, and this
panel was all about representinginjuries, depicting them, and
making the sort of impact that these injuries can have as
(18:04):
realistic and compelling as possible.
And I suppose that's why I was on the panel as a lawyer,
because I used to do like, serious injuries at work and
stuff. So I was very much part of the
aftermath of like seeing people trying to rebuild their lives
after they've had an injury. But there was a doctor on the
panel and she was absolutely brilliant to explain and like
(18:26):
the how you can accurately portray an injury in a story,
the immediate impact and like treating the wounds and stuff
like that. So what can you tell us about
this? And like, what's your view of it
in fantasy as a whole? Do you think it's quite
accurately done? Is it quite poorly done or is a
bit of a mixed bag? Yeah, I think it's a bit of a
mixed bag. I think fantasy writers suffer
(18:49):
from kind of the Hollywood syndrome of they write injuries
the way they see them in movies,understandably, because most
people don't see real life serious injuries very often.
And the thing with Hollywood is that they tend to lean into
those injuries which have a veryvisual element to them, right.
So it's the blood and the guts and the spraying of blood and
(19:11):
things that Hollywood really kind of leans into.
And so I, I do find that I feel like it gets a little repetitive
in writing in terms of people really focus on, you know,
battle scenes where just gettingsliced and diced is the most
significant thing that happens. And it's just who can avoid
getting sliced the most. And I really would encourage
authors to kind of expand and kind of broaden their concepts
(19:34):
for what serious injuries can look like.
You know, we kind of within the trauma, the trauma world and
trauma medicine, we talk about the ABC's in terms of like
airway breathing, circulation. And it seems like when people
are kind of writing injuries, they really kind of skip over
those first two and jump straight to the circulation or
the bleeding issue. And of course, those are
important. And blood loss is a huge problem
(19:56):
in trauma and a huge killer of people.
But at the same time, there's a lot that you can do in other
forms of injuries that you we, we are uniquely positioned as
writers to portray the extent ofthose injuries because we're not
limited by the visual medium of Hollywood.
Nice. Are you explained?
So tell us more about like what kind of injuries you've you've
(20:20):
seen done quite badly or what kind of pitfalls Price is going
to avoid? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know,
the miraculous recoveries are always the the pet peeves, right
of that. You know, someone had a serious
injury, they were just like stabbed in the gut and like 3
days later they're like back, right back at it.
And it's like doing their doing their warrior thing and or they
(20:41):
have a horrible fracture. And, you know, in reality, this
fracture would take weeks to months to heal.
And like a few days later, they're totally fine.
And, you know, I think in fantasy, we definitely have the
advantage of, you know, magical healing.
And you can definitely incorporate that type of thing
in your story. But I would just really
encourage authors to be careful,right?
(21:02):
And set those types of things upearly on in terms of what are
the limits to the magical healing capabilities that this
world has? What are the costs to those
healing things and kind of really establishing that early
so that when it's time for your character to have a major
injury, it doesn't, it doesn't cheapen it when you know they're
totally fine two days later. It's a real tension killer,
(21:22):
isn't? It it is, yes.
Yeah, yeah, Other things are like blood loss.
I feel like people really kind of underestimate the effect on
fighting capability that that would have.
You know, within the military, typically if you donate even
just a unit of blood, like you're out of Commission for
like 72 hours minimum, right? Obviously that gets waived in
(21:44):
like a serious combat situation where that's not an option, but
like just donating a unit of blood.
So like 500 milliliters or so really kind of decreases.
It increases is fatigue like it decreases your healing
capabilities later on. It has a lot of impacts.
It affects how you think and process things.
It can cause people to pass out and have hypotensive episodes.
(22:07):
And so I think we kind of skip over a lot that, you know, the
hero just keeps getting keeps getting hit or slashed and they
just keep going on. And I think a better way to kind
of show that would be that each,each even minor injury carries a
greater cost over time and it compounds on itself.
Yeah, that's a really good way to look at it.
So say like, I mean typical fantasy battle, you've got your
(22:31):
hero fighting with swords or Spears or whatever.
Take take. Usually they just take an insane
amount of like you say, slashes and cuts to the arms.
Like I mean, how how realistically like how many like
injuries like that could someonewithstand before?
Like you say, it will get too much.
(22:54):
Yeah, I mean, so it depends a lot, right.
So obviously like slashes and things to the arms are not going
to be as impactful as anything to the torso.
What we call like the box is like the chest and abdomen area.
So you could take a lot of like superficial injuries to your
extremities and be fine. You know, luckily evolutionarily
(23:14):
like all of our like major, the major blood vessels tend to be
located like what we call like medially, so closer to your
torso. So the inner parts of your legs,
the inner parts of your arms. And so that's why you can see
people getting like the outsidesof their arms and legs just
totally banged up and they keep going.
But you know, single bad cut to the inside of the leg and they
(23:35):
can die from that, right? And so I think taking into
account location is really important and kind of where on
the body is this person being hit is really important.
And also trying to go beyond kind of penetrating injury.
I feel like, you know, we all love like the sword and sorcery,
like sword injuries are kind of the classic like like slashing
type injuries, but there's so many other great like blunt
(23:57):
trauma is a huge killer, right? And it's something that you can
play a lot with the tension of the writing because you can have
blunt trauma to the abdomen and be totally fine externally and
you look completely fine. Meanwhile, you have severe
internal bleeding that's just kind of slowly killing you over
time. And I think there's a lot of
great dramatic tension that people can use if they start
(24:20):
using blunt trauma, burns, head trauma, like airway issues,
right? So people like gurgling on blood
and vomit and those types of things can cause a lot of other
injuries and things to have to to deal with that kind of add a
little bit more variety to the standard issue stuff.
That's really good points. And you're dead right about
blood trauma. I mean, if you look back at like
(24:41):
medieval history and like most fantasy does take inspiration
from that medieval setting like it was you were dealing with
like walking like tanks, weren'tyou in the former nights?
And one of the main ways to killthem was just lodging them to
death with a big heavy Mace or something or a warhammer or
(25:02):
something and then get them on the floor and then try and stab
them through gaps in the in their armor.
But it's it's really good point that you make because there are
all these different varieties and what you've said there about
like someone suffering like a blunt force trauma wounds.
Like you could prolong that overdays, I suppose.
(25:26):
Like I see you see it quite commonly, don't you?
When someone takes like a stab wound to the gust, they don't
die straight away, but then overthe course of a few days, they
know it's going one way. It's quite a common one that in
fantasy. Isn't that the gut wound?
Yep, and infection risk and all of those things because these
gross battlefields that people are getting stabbed on.
(25:48):
Yeah, and it it must have been truly horrendous to be on a
medieval battlefield. Yeah, I can't imagine.
It's, it's insane, like to even begin to describe the types of
injuries that those weapons would inflict on people.
Like, I mean, you imagine you'veseen an awful lot, but what do
(26:11):
you think it would have been like as like a doctor back then?
Oh gosh. Well, I mean, they really didn't
have much of A medical system ingeneral.
Like the concept of battlefield medicine is actually pretty
recent kind of Civil War era andNapoleonic wars in Europe.
That's kind of when we first start seeing concepts of
(26:32):
ambulances and this idea that weshould.
So triage is like the French concept from the Napoleonic
Wars, which were developed. And that's kind of when we first
really start seeing this idea that we could even try to save
people on the battlefield and bring them back.
You look much farther historically to that.
And people were essentially leftthere and it was up to their
(26:54):
families who were either like camp followers and following
along with the armies to go and retrieve them.
So there really wasn't even any sort of organized way of
actually caring for soldiers once they've been injured in
these settings. So I can imagine it would be
absolutely horrific because it'sjust people slowly dying on a
battlefield and not able to be evacuated.
(27:16):
Yeah. And then like you mentioned
before, infections and stuff. So treating the wounds like,
like being unable to treat the wounds and not having the
knowledge. So what would that have been
like and how do you think peoplecan depict that challenge in
fantasy? Yeah, I think infection's a real
challenge and I think most fantasy writers kind of try to
(27:39):
get around that issue by creating some sort of like
healing magic system, some sort of like herbal type treatments
or things to try to to try to indicate that the that the
infection risk has been minimized.
But the reality we know is that even, you know, even today, some
of our most high-powered antibiotics really struggle
against battlefield type injuries.
(28:00):
We in the civilian medicine, we try really hard to do what we
call like antibiotic stewardshipand kind of just do the bare
minimum that is absolutely necessary because of the high
rates of antibiotic resistance. But in the military, we really
kind of hit people real, real hard upfront with all of the big
gun antibiotics just because we know, I mean, you can look to
the First World War is kind of the classic of when like gas
(28:23):
gangrene was just an absolutely horrific killer of soldiers.
And you get these horrible like foul smelling wounds with these
blistering pus fills lesions that really kind of just take
like an otherwise very mild superficial, like cut to a leg
or an arm and just turn it into just this horrible mess.
Again, not to get too graphic onyour podcast, but it would, it
(28:47):
would be very disgusting. And you can imagine.
Yeah, I, I think playing a lot with smells in particular would
be a really powerful way to kindof show this and kind of the
image of these kind of mangled wounds with horrible smells and
pus and all those things kind ofdraining from them to really
kind of show the effect. Or what kind of smells then, if
you've smelled these kind of wounds before?
(29:08):
Describe them. I don't even how would I even
describe them? It's like, if you can imagine
like the the kind of the almost like singed nose hair type smell
where it's like it makes you want to gag when you inhale it.
And so we will like even like ina hospital setting will a lot of
(29:31):
times put hand sanitizer like inside of our face masks just
because otherwise you would justwant to vomit when you smell
some of these wounds. We get a lot of like diabetic
foot ulcers and things where it's just people have like toes
falling off and all of these really horrific ones.
And, and they, yeah, it's, it's this combination of this kind of
(29:51):
nose curdling smell kind of withthis like slow seepage of
drainage that really kind of turns your stomach.
I honestly don't know how you dothat job.
It depends on the day. Sometimes I wonder too.
What you say, it's good to say you all for your stories.
One thing I was going to ask youabout was the depiction of
(30:13):
mental trauma. And I mean, we just described
some really horrific things there, like the mental
consequences of that isn't always accounted for and fantasy
stories I've found. I mean, what do you think about
that side of things? Yeah, I think it's a really
(30:36):
important point. And you know, we put our
characters through a lot of horrific things that if they
were real, they would not be OK mentally afterwards.
I think it's really important for authors to be able to kind
of show that reality to you. I think it adds some realism and
some lifelike nature to what it is like to experience just even
(30:58):
just secondhand exposure to someof these things in terms of like
how you would. Are you kind of asking how you
would depict that? Yeah.
And like in a sort of natural and sort of compelling way,
it's, it's always a bit tricky Ithink.
And yeah, I think because it is is potentially tricky, I think
(31:21):
some people just skip it. Yeah, Yeah.
I think showing the multifacetednature of it is really
important. And so it kind of there's a lot
when you talk about PTSD or other kind of acute stress
reactions, there's kind of a differentiation between the
stuff that people are experiencing consciously and
what they're experiencing subconsciously.
(31:42):
And I think that is a really keydistinction that people can
make. And so for a lot of people,
their bodies are having reactions that they cognitively
may not be fully understanding what's happening, right?
So a particular sound or a smellor an image or something will
trigger something in their body where their heart starts racing,
(32:02):
they are breathing really quickly, they feel the need to
escape kind of like that desire to get out kind of thing and
they don't fully understand why.What's causing that.
And for a lot of people, we call, you know, we people use
the term triggers and triggeringtype stuff, but that is kind of
at its core, it's your body reacting to something that your
mind may or may not fully comprehend why you're having
(32:25):
this reaction to it. So I think that's one element
that people can kind of show is that, you know, even like the
most stoic characters and, and sometimes more so with your more
stoic characters who don't take time to process the trauma that
they've experienced. A lot of that, I think leaning
into some of the more physical reactions that their bodies are
(32:46):
having can be an important way of kind of bridging that gap
when the character for reasons of kind of their own character
development isn't in a place mentally to really deal with
that situation, You can kind of depict it within their bodies.
And then from on the more cognitive side, I think it's
also important to show coping mechanisms, both good and bad,
right? People have a lot of different
(33:07):
coping mechanisms they use to try to calm their bodies down,
right? And that's where you get into,
you know, substance use, alcoholconsumption, all of those
things. But at the same time, we also
know from like PTSD research that having strong social
support networks are a key mitigating factor in kind of
long term impacts of these conditions.
(33:28):
And so people can people can take a lot mentally when they
have a support system in place to process it with, especially
if that support system themselves has some experience
with what that person is experiencing.
That's really, really interesting and really, really
helpful to to have that understanding.
So thanks very much for that. Have you ever tried to or
(33:50):
included anything like this in your own stories?
Yeah, so they actually the remnant is really on on one
level it's it's a fun fantasy world building mystery type
adventure, and on the other level it really is kind of an
exploration of grief. So less on the PTSD side, but
more kind of how does someone cope with feelings of guilt and
(34:13):
shame around the death of a loved one and and kind of how do
they deal with that long term? And so Basha has a number of
things that kind of trigger these sort of physical reactions
in the same way that a comma response might be, but they are
linked to kind of memories of her sister.
And I got to play a lot in this book with incorporating
flashbacks and kind of how kind of a second, a second timeline
(34:37):
narrative through flashbacks cankind of add to the overall
character development of the story, which was really fun to
play with. Yeah, it's a very clever way of
doing it. Nice.
Like the sound there. I've got one more question for
you and given your experience and have been in the military
and how have you found that whenit comes to writing action
(34:59):
scenes in your stories? Yeah, Well, first, first I
should say that, you know, I've definitely had the combat arms
training and tactical field movement, but you know, if the
doctors on the front lines, thenthings have gone terribly wrong.
So, yeah, yeah. So take take what I'm saying
with a grain of salt. A lot of what I focus on is
(35:20):
more, I've had a lot of trainingin kind of broader kind of
military strategy themes. And so advice I would give to
authors is along the lines of establishing kind of concepts of
fog of war and friction. And there's this great kind of
military thinker, Carl von Klauswitz.
I don't if you're familiar with him, olds like Prussian military
(35:42):
strategist guy who wrote a lot of books about this stuff, but
he talks a lot about how kind offriction is sort of this
difference between war in theoryand war in practice.
And he talks he's he's the one that really current coined the
term fog of war. And so one thing I really try to
do with my like battle and action scenes is really try to
differentiate establishing upfront kind of what the goals
(36:05):
of the battle are, right? Like what is the character
trying to get out of it? But then having all of that very
quickly fall apart, right? Because the reality of battle on
the ground, right is that you often have very little sense of
where you are relative to where everybody else is.
The topography and the terrain play a huge impact.
Weather plays a really importantaspect kind of in the the battle
(36:28):
itself. And so a lot of how I write, I
write a very kind of close thirdperson POV typically is kind of
my preferred writing style. And so I focus a lot on what the
character can see and hear and feel and kind of use that to
kind of amplify the sense of thechaotic situation of kind of the
initial goals quickly falling apart.
(36:50):
That's really cool. They can say.
It's great to have that close intimate sort of perspective.
People have always like popped up on our writing group and just
asking like, how can you show was a way like what else is
going on on the battles, the battlefield as well?
(37:13):
And I just simple thing is just using different perspectives,
isn't it, that are based in in different parts and and make you
say, given their chaosic nature and like the sort of the
descendants of the fog of war, and there's that many people
involved in some battles, like thousands and thousands.
Like different things could be going on in completely different
(37:33):
parts. Like one, one line could be
clap, one part of the line couldbe collapsing, the other one
could be pushing forwards. And it's amazing like because
you say sometimes you're so zoned in on on that one
perspective. They might have done amazingly
well and one defeated their partof the enemy, but then you turn
(37:54):
around after like defeating themall and the rest of the army is
just in ruin. Yeah.
So thank you very much for for chatting with me.
It's been so interesting and insightful and I've learned so
much just from you talking aboutthe way you approach your
stories and your experiences doing your incredible job.
(38:17):
And it's obviously serving in the armed forces as well.
So thank you very much. Absolutely no.
Thank you for having me. It was it was great to chat with
you. No problem, that's I wish you
the very best of luck with the Kickstarter.
If anyone wants to learn more, where's the best place to go?
Probably my website, so www.hbrenault and that's Ren
(38:40):
eau.com and they'll have links to the Kickstarter and all of my
other works too. Awesome.
You'll find links in the description as well.
And yeah, thank you very much again.
It's been an absolute pleasure. I wish you the very best of luck
with the book and hopefully comeback soon and tell us more about
what's been going on in the world of writing of.
(39:04):
Course. Thanks so much.
And thank you everyone for listening.
Thank you for listening to the Fantasy Writers Tool Shed.
If you'd like to join our writing community on Discord and
get access to fancy writing classes and books on Patreon,
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And if you don't want to miss any future episodes, be sure to
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(00:23):
social media or with anyone who you think may be interested.
Thank you very much for listening.
Enjoy the show. Welcome to another episode of
(00:44):
the Fantasy Writers Tool Shed. I'm your host Richie Billing.
And today I'm delighted to be joined by author HB Renault.
Welcome to the show. How are you doing?
Thanks so much, I'm so excited to be here.
Thank you very much for joining me.
I know you're a very busy personbecause as well as being a
writer, you're also an emergencyphysician and a military officer
(01:06):
as well. Is that right?
That is correct, yes. I am quite busy all of the time
so. Where did you find that I was a
wrist? In between so I work in the ER
so it's it's very shift based, which is nice and so we kind of
like group our shifts specifically and then I normally
have a couple days off to do some writing and it kind of
(01:28):
works as sort of a decompressionfor me because it it's quite
stressful as as you can imagine.And so I love writing and and
getting to explore worlds that way.
I. Suppose just having that quiet
time after such a hectic environment and the the like the
length of shifts as well. You're in there for a long long
time, aren't you? So.
(01:49):
Yeah, it depends on the hospital, but it ranges from 8
to 12 hours is the typical. Yeah, I mean, I'm only doing 8
hours in an office sometimes in the 12 hours in an emergency
room is insane. It's definitely it's, it's a
Sprint for sure. Yeah, so I'll verify.
It's really good. What about your background in
(02:09):
the military? So I actually joined the, I grew
up in the Air Force, so moved around every couple years
growing up. So I was, I was familiar with
the lifestyle, but my family, they're all Air Force pilots.
So my eyes are terrible and I get a plane sick.
So that was never going to be a good career path for me.
So I knew I wanted to go into medicine.
(02:29):
And here in the States, there's a program where the the military
will basically pay for your medical school for you in in
exchange for serving afterwards.Yeah, there you go.
Nice work. And so how did you get into
writing? Where does it all begin for you?
Yeah, I mean, I think probably like most writers you probably
talk to, I loved writing as a child.
I was very loved books and the Harry Potter series and Tamara
(02:52):
Pierce and all of the the fantasy authors that I just
loved was obsessed with Lord of the Rings for a period of time.
So it was always kind of writingstories as a child and kind of,
you know, you get older into secondary school and have to
kind of focus on, you know, what, what you're going to do in
the world and kind of who you'regoing to be.
And I got really into science and medicine and so kind of had
(03:15):
to put it on the back burner fora little while.
And it was actually COVID when Ireally kind of picked it back up
again. COVID hit right when I was in
the middle of medical school. And it was a really stressful
time and really challenging for healthcare workers everywhere.
And I really found, you know, I wasn't able to see people
outside of work. And when I was at work, it was a
(03:37):
stressful place to be. And so coming home, I dived into
fantasy again. And that's when I started
writing again and really startedexploring stories.
And it was really kind of a a reprieve in a really tough time
for me. It's it's great that you, you
found that. Was it like, did you, did you
start by reading fantasy books and then decide to just write or
(04:00):
did you just dive straight into the writing?
I definitely read a lot of fantasy books growing up and had
continued to kind of read when Iwas in school.
I did a lot of audio books just because that was what I had time
for and it would kind of put my brain in a different gear from
all the non fiction I was constantly reading all day.
So I listened to a lot of fantasy audio books and really
(04:24):
fell in love again with with thegenre and so definitely got into
that first. But when COVID hit, it was kind
of like, oh, well, this is my chance.
I'd kind of always had in the back of my mind that I'd like to
write at some point. And so I finally had a little
bit of time when everything was shut down and I wasn't at work
to actually start writing. Did you just dive straight into
(04:45):
a novel or did you like start writing short of fiction?
Or how does it all begin? For me, I think I needed sort of
the, the goal of a longer project was kind of important
for me as kind of a distraction.And so short fiction, I, you
know, I started with scenes. I had scenes in my head that I
wanted to write and so I would write those.
(05:06):
But they were all, I quickly realized that they were all
building towards a much longer story, a much longer series.
And so yeah, for me, I just kindof dove straight into the To the
deep ends on a full, full lengthnovel.
Nice, so is this the the remnants?
Is was an earlier version of theyour new.
Book, no. So this is actually a book
(05:28):
called Chaos Looming, which I published back in 2020 actually.
And so that was the first book Iever wrote, which was the first
in the Legion of New Most series.
It was a very fun, fun dive. And I'm still I have one book
left in the series to finally finish it out.
But it's with an entropy based magic system and lots of fun,
(05:48):
very kind of sword and sorcery style, although it has a little
bit of cross worlds fantasy twist to it.
So that was that was the first book that I wrote back in COVID
times. Oh, nice, so you've got a new
book coming out as well, and this one's called The Remnants.
Yes, yeah. So the Remnant is in the same
universe as Chaos Looming and the rest of the Legion of New
(06:09):
most series, but in a completelynew setting, which was a lot of
fun to really explore a new setting and kind of come up with
what the culture looked like. And I got to do a lot of fun
world building with it. So yeah.
What do you do? You like expanding the world
that you've already created by doing these different stories?
Is that something that you like to do?
(06:31):
Yes, yeah. I have a really bad habit of all
of the minor side characters that show up all need a back
story. And, you know, most writers can
just, you know, write a few notes on what that back story
is, but I have a really bad habit of spinning those notes
into another full length story. So I have kind of my main series
and then I have a lot of shorternovellas.
(06:53):
And The Remnant is a full lengthnovel, but it's actually the
younger sister of one of the main characters in Chaos Looming
who's the primary character. That's really cool.
I like the way you do that. I mean, I'm a big fan of that
approach as well. Just try and populate the world
or the universe and with all these different stories and like
(07:14):
you say, it gives you a freedom to like keep it all linked, but
move on to different parts of the world or different time
points in time. It's it's quite liberating to do
that. And also I think it's really
efficient because you don't haveto keep creating new fantasy
worlds all the time. Yeah, no, it's a lot of fun from
from a writer's perspective. I really enjoy it.
(07:36):
It's a little bit challenging I think for readers sometimes to
figure out, OK, what, what storyshould I read next?
Like where does this take place?When does this take place?
So I have my website, I have like full blown like
infographics and things explaining when all these books
take place relative to each other.
So, but that adds to the lore too.
That's a really good idea. So tell us about the new book.
(07:59):
Yeah. So the new book, I would
classify it as YA mostly just because of the age of the main
character. And so the main character's name
is Basha, and she lives in this very unique fantasy setting,
which is kind of an island, archipelago of city states that
are primarily defined by the fact that they are constantly
having to build upwards to escape rising tides.
(08:22):
And so the water levels continueto rise and they're running out
of space kind of in these islands.
And so they just kind of continue raising the sea levels
and boarding up each layer of the city beneath.
And it creates this massive labyrinth of layers of cities,
city beneath the primary city. And so it creates this very kind
of vertical tiered structure, which has been a lot of fun to
(08:44):
play with. And the ideas of underworlds and
the world above versus the worldbelow and things that people
choose to bury. And it's played a lot with the
magic system in this world and kind of the political intrigue
because this is a minor spoiler for Chaos Looming.
But again, it's kind of a side point.
But Basha's older sister ends updying in the main series.
(09:07):
And this book starts when she's just discovered the news of
that. And it kind of sets her on this
journey where she was always thesecond daughter and was never
supposed to have much come of her life.
And she's now raised and elevated to the position of
Signet, which is kind of the heir apparent to the clan system
that rules the city state she lives in.
And so it's her kind of coming to terms both with her grief as
(09:30):
well as this new role that she'sbeen forced upon, while at the
same time uncovering the secretsof what exactly happened to her.
And a lot of those secrets are kind of buried in this undercity
that she alone kind of has a unique magic system and is able
to explore in a way that other people aren't.
That sounds fantastic to be honest.
(09:51):
It's like so interesting the wayyou've created the setting and
drawn upon a few real world issues as well with levels,
which is really good to see and and how it's impacted and shaped
humanity on in that sort of environment Sounds fantastic.
So tell us what the magic system?
(10:12):
Yeah. So it's an extension of the main
magic system in the primary series, which is called
numinancy. And it's actually an entropy
based magic system. So entropy is kind of a physics
term. This is where you hear all my my
science nerdiness kind of come out.
But entropy is this idea that everything in the universe is
trending towards greater and greater disorder.
(10:33):
And so the magic system is a harnessing of that power in
various forms. And so Basha's specific type of
numinancy, what she calls map minding, and it's basically
where within her head she's ableto create maps and basically
kind of see levels below and around her and kind of get a
(10:54):
sense for topographic landscapesin a way that other people
aren't. It's kind of a very different
kind of spin, I think on the waya lot of people use magic
because hers is very much, it's a very internal magic system,
but it allows for her to explorethis kind of underworld setting
that most people in her world don't dare explore because she
has this ability. That's really cool.
(11:16):
It's I've never heard of before.And like I say, it's unique
because it's it's an internal thing.
And is that unique to her? Are there other people who have
that ability? So there's a little bit of
inheritance involved, and it's something that I don't go too
deep into in the book, but her aunt has somewhat similar
abilities, but none manifest in quite the same way as hers.
(11:37):
Nice. So if people have unique
abilities like this, are they more sort after by like certain
groups or certain individuals because they can do these cool
things? Yeah.
So that actually plays a pretty important role within the clan
system. And so these magic abilities
tend to show up in the remnants.And so kind of within the
(11:58):
political structure, you have the signet, which is the first
born within the clan, the head clan families that take over and
kind of have this leadership role.
And the second born is always termed the remnant and the
remnants kind of plays this support role within the broader
political system. And it's kind of, it's kind of a
balancing mechanism actually, that the remnants of these clans
(12:18):
tend to have abilities of some kind that lay into the magic
system itself. So they're highly prized, but
it's kind of this double edged sword of they will never be the
ones that truly hold political power.
They're always kind of the ones in behind the scenes and
supporting the signets and supporting their clans.
And that that whole system that has been in place for
(12:39):
generations is really inverted when Bosh's sister dies and
suddenly she's the signet, but also has these strange abilities
that nobody fully understands. Very nice, like it.
So when does it come out? So I'm actually doing a
Kickstarter for it. And so the first access, the
(12:59):
Kickstarter goes live April first.
No, not an April Fool's joke. So it goes live April 1st and
the Kickstarter will go for a few weeks.
And so everyone will have accessto the e-book if they back the
Kickstarter by end of April. And then I'm also going to be
doing hardcover collector's editions that will be signed and
(13:20):
with all the fun sprayed edges and foiled, foiled covers, those
will be being sent out in May, June of this year.
So April is is the time if if people want to back the
Kickstarter and get access either to just the e-book
version or if they want these cool collectors editions, that's
going to be when they can get it.
Very nice, that sounds amazing. Hopefully all goes well.
(13:42):
Hopefully this is my first time running a Kickstarter, so it's
been a learning process, but everyone's been really
enthusiastic and so just really grateful to my readers and
everyone who's excited about thebook.
So what was it? Have you found the experience
and Kickstarter was a quite difficult setup or is it being
quite smooth sailing so far? The initial setup on the website
(14:04):
is pretty straightforward. It does require pretty much all
the successful Kickstarters require you to make a video,
which might be a little bit of aforeign concept for some authors
that do more either through audio means or just don't like
showing their faces in general. A big part of Kickstarter is, is
kind of getting that personal connection with backers.
And so they do pretty strongly recommend doing the video.
(14:26):
So that's probably the biggest kind of initial hurdle to get
over. And then of course, anytime
you're doing special editions, it means contracting with
printers and finding, getting doing all the design elements.
And so not all of your standard cover designers are comfortable
with doing foil designs or sprayed edge designs.
And so there's always a little bit of a learning curve for
(14:48):
those, but the actual initial setup part is pretty
straightforward. That's good.
I've never don't think I've everasked anyone like how they went
about getting them sort of special editions set up because
they are becoming so popular, aren't they?
And chance of someone from publishing and they were saying
(15:09):
that's the biggest change that they've noticed and there's a
big demand for these really, really are stunning.
Some of them, especially the sprayed edges and even some of
the hand painted edgy ones. I mean, it's amazing.
So how how did you go about getting all that set up?
Yeah. So I had already been working
with a company called Bookvault,which is actually based out of
(15:31):
the UK primarily, but they do have AUS printing sites.
And so I've been working with them to do a lot of the direct
sales on my website. So I already kind of had a bit
of a relationship, had an account set up with them and
they have been great and in working with and kind of all
their online FAQs and things have been really helpful in
terms of how constructing kind of the Photoshop files and
(15:55):
things for that. And so they're the ones that I
went with. Nice.
And is it do they just take a cut for the printing or how does
it work in terms of like doing those direct sales?
Yeah. So the direct sales they it's,
it's very similar to if you do like paperback sales with Amazon
or anything, it's, it's still kind of a print on demand type
(16:15):
service. So you're not buying a big print
run, at least I'm not. I'm sure there's more successful
authors who can kind of do kind of the big print run things.
But for most smaller Indies it'skind of just a print on demand
system. And so you set up your book
files with them and you coordinate kind of the printing
through, I use Shopify for my website, and you basically
(16:36):
designate whether or not you want them to print from the US
versus the UK depending on the location that someone's ordering
from. That sounds very easy.
It's a great reason it's. Pretty straightforward.
The price is pretty good as wellcompared to Amazon for example.
Yeah, I thought they were prettycomparable to Amazon.
I think Amazon's slightly cheaper, but in terms of the
(16:57):
actual printing, but then they take more of a cut later on.
So it still ended up being cheaper for me to sell books
direct through Book Vault. The main downside to it is that
that you do have to pay for shipping, right?
And so most people just have thecustomer pay for shipping.
And so that's that's the biggesthurdle is I typically will price
lower on my website in order to compensate for the fact that
(17:19):
people are having to pay for shipping.
But even with pricing lower, I'mstill able to make the same
amount of money, if that makes sense, just because the printing
costs less than through Amazon. Awesome.
That's great advice. So anyone who wants to try that,
there you go. You know what to do.
Something I was really keen to ask you about was your expertise
(17:40):
and experience as a doctor like that.
Long ago I was at a panel, A fantasy con, and I was part of
this panel. I used to be a lawyer, and this
panel was all about representinginjuries, depicting them, and
making the sort of impact that these injuries can have as
(18:04):
realistic and compelling as possible.
And I suppose that's why I was on the panel as a lawyer,
because I used to do like, serious injuries at work and
stuff. So I was very much part of the
aftermath of like seeing people trying to rebuild their lives
after they've had an injury. But there was a doctor on the
panel and she was absolutely brilliant to explain and like
(18:26):
the how you can accurately portray an injury in a story,
the immediate impact and like treating the wounds and stuff
like that. So what can you tell us about
this? And like, what's your view of it
in fantasy as a whole? Do you think it's quite
accurately done? Is it quite poorly done or is a
bit of a mixed bag? Yeah, I think it's a bit of a
mixed bag. I think fantasy writers suffer
(18:49):
from kind of the Hollywood syndrome of they write injuries
the way they see them in movies,understandably, because most
people don't see real life serious injuries very often.
And the thing with Hollywood is that they tend to lean into
those injuries which have a veryvisual element to them, right.
So it's the blood and the guts and the spraying of blood and
(19:11):
things that Hollywood really kind of leans into.
And so I, I do find that I feel like it gets a little repetitive
in writing in terms of people really focus on, you know,
battle scenes where just gettingsliced and diced is the most
significant thing that happens. And it's just who can avoid
getting sliced the most. And I really would encourage
authors to kind of expand and kind of broaden their concepts
(19:34):
for what serious injuries can look like.
You know, we kind of within the trauma, the trauma world and
trauma medicine, we talk about the ABC's in terms of like
airway breathing, circulation. And it seems like when people
are kind of writing injuries, they really kind of skip over
those first two and jump straight to the circulation or
the bleeding issue. And of course, those are
important. And blood loss is a huge problem
(19:56):
in trauma and a huge killer of people.
But at the same time, there's a lot that you can do in other
forms of injuries that you we, we are uniquely positioned as
writers to portray the extent ofthose injuries because we're not
limited by the visual medium of Hollywood.
Nice. Are you explained?
So tell us more about like what kind of injuries you've you've
(20:20):
seen done quite badly or what kind of pitfalls Price is going
to avoid? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know,
the miraculous recoveries are always the the pet peeves, right
of that. You know, someone had a serious
injury, they were just like stabbed in the gut and like 3
days later they're like back, right back at it.
And it's like doing their doing their warrior thing and or they
(20:41):
have a horrible fracture. And, you know, in reality, this
fracture would take weeks to months to heal.
And like a few days later, they're totally fine.
And, you know, I think in fantasy, we definitely have the
advantage of, you know, magical healing.
And you can definitely incorporate that type of thing
in your story. But I would just really
encourage authors to be careful,right?
(21:02):
And set those types of things upearly on in terms of what are
the limits to the magical healing capabilities that this
world has? What are the costs to those
healing things and kind of really establishing that early
so that when it's time for your character to have a major
injury, it doesn't, it doesn't cheapen it when you know they're
totally fine two days later. It's a real tension killer,
(21:22):
isn't? It it is, yes.
Yeah, yeah, Other things are like blood loss.
I feel like people really kind of underestimate the effect on
fighting capability that that would have.
You know, within the military, typically if you donate even
just a unit of blood, like you're out of Commission for
like 72 hours minimum, right? Obviously that gets waived in
(21:44):
like a serious combat situation where that's not an option, but
like just donating a unit of blood.
So like 500 milliliters or so really kind of decreases.
It increases is fatigue like it decreases your healing
capabilities later on. It has a lot of impacts.
It affects how you think and process things.
It can cause people to pass out and have hypotensive episodes.
(22:07):
And so I think we kind of skip over a lot that, you know, the
hero just keeps getting keeps getting hit or slashed and they
just keep going on. And I think a better way to kind
of show that would be that each,each even minor injury carries a
greater cost over time and it compounds on itself.
Yeah, that's a really good way to look at it.
So say like, I mean typical fantasy battle, you've got your
(22:31):
hero fighting with swords or Spears or whatever.
Take take. Usually they just take an insane
amount of like you say, slashes and cuts to the arms.
Like I mean, how how realistically like how many like
injuries like that could someonewithstand before?
Like you say, it will get too much.
(22:54):
Yeah, I mean, so it depends a lot, right.
So obviously like slashes and things to the arms are not going
to be as impactful as anything to the torso.
What we call like the box is like the chest and abdomen area.
So you could take a lot of like superficial injuries to your
extremities and be fine. You know, luckily evolutionarily
(23:14):
like all of our like major, the major blood vessels tend to be
located like what we call like medially, so closer to your
torso. So the inner parts of your legs,
the inner parts of your arms. And so that's why you can see
people getting like the outsidesof their arms and legs just
totally banged up and they keep going.
But you know, single bad cut to the inside of the leg and they
(23:35):
can die from that, right? And so I think taking into
account location is really important and kind of where on
the body is this person being hit is really important.
And also trying to go beyond kind of penetrating injury.
I feel like, you know, we all love like the sword and sorcery,
like sword injuries are kind of the classic like like slashing
type injuries, but there's so many other great like blunt
(23:57):
trauma is a huge killer, right? And it's something that you can
play a lot with the tension of the writing because you can have
blunt trauma to the abdomen and be totally fine externally and
you look completely fine. Meanwhile, you have severe
internal bleeding that's just kind of slowly killing you over
time. And I think there's a lot of
great dramatic tension that people can use if they start
(24:20):
using blunt trauma, burns, head trauma, like airway issues,
right? So people like gurgling on blood
and vomit and those types of things can cause a lot of other
injuries and things to have to to deal with that kind of add a
little bit more variety to the standard issue stuff.
That's really good points. And you're dead right about
blood trauma. I mean, if you look back at like
(24:41):
medieval history and like most fantasy does take inspiration
from that medieval setting like it was you were dealing with
like walking like tanks, weren'tyou in the former nights?
And one of the main ways to killthem was just lodging them to
death with a big heavy Mace or something or a warhammer or
(25:02):
something and then get them on the floor and then try and stab
them through gaps in the in their armor.
But it's it's really good point that you make because there are
all these different varieties and what you've said there about
like someone suffering like a blunt force trauma wounds.
Like you could prolong that overdays, I suppose.
(25:26):
Like I see you see it quite commonly, don't you?
When someone takes like a stab wound to the gust, they don't
die straight away, but then overthe course of a few days, they
know it's going one way. It's quite a common one that in
fantasy. Isn't that the gut wound?
Yep, and infection risk and all of those things because these
gross battlefields that people are getting stabbed on.
(25:48):
Yeah, and it it must have been truly horrendous to be on a
medieval battlefield. Yeah, I can't imagine.
It's, it's insane, like to even begin to describe the types of
injuries that those weapons would inflict on people.
Like, I mean, you imagine you'veseen an awful lot, but what do
(26:11):
you think it would have been like as like a doctor back then?
Oh gosh. Well, I mean, they really didn't
have much of A medical system ingeneral.
Like the concept of battlefield medicine is actually pretty
recent kind of Civil War era andNapoleonic wars in Europe.
That's kind of when we first start seeing concepts of
(26:32):
ambulances and this idea that weshould.
So triage is like the French concept from the Napoleonic
Wars, which were developed. And that's kind of when we first
really start seeing this idea that we could even try to save
people on the battlefield and bring them back.
You look much farther historically to that.
And people were essentially leftthere and it was up to their
(26:54):
families who were either like camp followers and following
along with the armies to go and retrieve them.
So there really wasn't even any sort of organized way of
actually caring for soldiers once they've been injured in
these settings. So I can imagine it would be
absolutely horrific because it'sjust people slowly dying on a
battlefield and not able to be evacuated.
(27:16):
Yeah. And then like you mentioned
before, infections and stuff. So treating the wounds like,
like being unable to treat the wounds and not having the
knowledge. So what would that have been
like and how do you think peoplecan depict that challenge in
fantasy? Yeah, I think infection's a real
challenge and I think most fantasy writers kind of try to
(27:39):
get around that issue by creating some sort of like
healing magic system, some sort of like herbal type treatments
or things to try to to try to indicate that the that the
infection risk has been minimized.
But the reality we know is that even, you know, even today, some
of our most high-powered antibiotics really struggle
against battlefield type injuries.
(28:00):
We in the civilian medicine, we try really hard to do what we
call like antibiotic stewardshipand kind of just do the bare
minimum that is absolutely necessary because of the high
rates of antibiotic resistance. But in the military, we really
kind of hit people real, real hard upfront with all of the big
gun antibiotics just because we know, I mean, you can look to
the First World War is kind of the classic of when like gas
(28:23):
gangrene was just an absolutely horrific killer of soldiers.
And you get these horrible like foul smelling wounds with these
blistering pus fills lesions that really kind of just take
like an otherwise very mild superficial, like cut to a leg
or an arm and just turn it into just this horrible mess.
Again, not to get too graphic onyour podcast, but it would, it
(28:47):
would be very disgusting. And you can imagine.
Yeah, I, I think playing a lot with smells in particular would
be a really powerful way to kindof show this and kind of the
image of these kind of mangled wounds with horrible smells and
pus and all those things kind ofdraining from them to really
kind of show the effect. Or what kind of smells then, if
you've smelled these kind of wounds before?
(29:08):
Describe them. I don't even how would I even
describe them? It's like, if you can imagine
like the the kind of the almost like singed nose hair type smell
where it's like it makes you want to gag when you inhale it.
And so we will like even like ina hospital setting will a lot of
(29:31):
times put hand sanitizer like inside of our face masks just
because otherwise you would justwant to vomit when you smell
some of these wounds. We get a lot of like diabetic
foot ulcers and things where it's just people have like toes
falling off and all of these really horrific ones.
And, and they, yeah, it's, it's this combination of this kind of
(29:51):
nose curdling smell kind of withthis like slow seepage of
drainage that really kind of turns your stomach.
I honestly don't know how you dothat job.
It depends on the day. Sometimes I wonder too.
What you say, it's good to say you all for your stories.
One thing I was going to ask youabout was the depiction of
(30:13):
mental trauma. And I mean, we just described
some really horrific things there, like the mental
consequences of that isn't always accounted for and fantasy
stories I've found. I mean, what do you think about
that side of things? Yeah, I think it's a really
(30:36):
important point. And you know, we put our
characters through a lot of horrific things that if they
were real, they would not be OK mentally afterwards.
I think it's really important for authors to be able to kind
of show that reality to you. I think it adds some realism and
some lifelike nature to what it is like to experience just even
(30:58):
just secondhand exposure to someof these things in terms of like
how you would. Are you kind of asking how you
would depict that? Yeah.
And like in a sort of natural and sort of compelling way,
it's, it's always a bit tricky Ithink.
And yeah, I think because it is is potentially tricky, I think
(31:21):
some people just skip it. Yeah, Yeah.
I think showing the multifacetednature of it is really
important. And so it kind of there's a lot
when you talk about PTSD or other kind of acute stress
reactions, there's kind of a differentiation between the
stuff that people are experiencing consciously and
what they're experiencing subconsciously.
(31:42):
And I think that is a really keydistinction that people can
make. And so for a lot of people,
their bodies are having reactions that they cognitively
may not be fully understanding what's happening, right?
So a particular sound or a smellor an image or something will
trigger something in their body where their heart starts racing,
(32:02):
they are breathing really quickly, they feel the need to
escape kind of like that desire to get out kind of thing and
they don't fully understand why.What's causing that.
And for a lot of people, we call, you know, we people use
the term triggers and triggeringtype stuff, but that is kind of
at its core, it's your body reacting to something that your
mind may or may not fully comprehend why you're having
(32:25):
this reaction to it. So I think that's one element
that people can kind of show is that, you know, even like the
most stoic characters and, and sometimes more so with your more
stoic characters who don't take time to process the trauma that
they've experienced. A lot of that, I think leaning
into some of the more physical reactions that their bodies are
(32:46):
having can be an important way of kind of bridging that gap
when the character for reasons of kind of their own character
development isn't in a place mentally to really deal with
that situation, You can kind of depict it within their bodies.
And then from on the more cognitive side, I think it's
also important to show coping mechanisms, both good and bad,
right? People have a lot of different
(33:07):
coping mechanisms they use to try to calm their bodies down,
right? And that's where you get into,
you know, substance use, alcoholconsumption, all of those
things. But at the same time, we also
know from like PTSD research that having strong social
support networks are a key mitigating factor in kind of
long term impacts of these conditions.
(33:28):
And so people can people can take a lot mentally when they
have a support system in place to process it with, especially
if that support system themselves has some experience
with what that person is experiencing.
That's really, really interesting and really, really
helpful to to have that understanding.
So thanks very much for that. Have you ever tried to or
(33:50):
included anything like this in your own stories?
Yeah, so they actually the remnant is really on on one
level it's it's a fun fantasy world building mystery type
adventure, and on the other level it really is kind of an
exploration of grief. So less on the PTSD side, but
more kind of how does someone cope with feelings of guilt and
(34:13):
shame around the death of a loved one and and kind of how do
they deal with that long term? And so Basha has a number of
things that kind of trigger these sort of physical reactions
in the same way that a comma response might be, but they are
linked to kind of memories of her sister.
And I got to play a lot in this book with incorporating
flashbacks and kind of how kind of a second, a second timeline
(34:37):
narrative through flashbacks cankind of add to the overall
character development of the story, which was really fun to
play with. Yeah, it's a very clever way of
doing it. Nice.
Like the sound there. I've got one more question for
you and given your experience and have been in the military
and how have you found that whenit comes to writing action
(34:59):
scenes in your stories? Yeah, Well, first, first I
should say that, you know, I've definitely had the combat arms
training and tactical field movement, but you know, if the
doctors on the front lines, thenthings have gone terribly wrong.
So, yeah, yeah. So take take what I'm saying
with a grain of salt. A lot of what I focus on is
(35:20):
more, I've had a lot of trainingin kind of broader kind of
military strategy themes. And so advice I would give to
authors is along the lines of establishing kind of concepts of
fog of war and friction. And there's this great kind of
military thinker, Carl von Klauswitz.
I don't if you're familiar with him, olds like Prussian military
(35:42):
strategist guy who wrote a lot of books about this stuff, but
he talks a lot about how kind offriction is sort of this
difference between war in theoryand war in practice.
And he talks he's he's the one that really current coined the
term fog of war. And so one thing I really try to
do with my like battle and action scenes is really try to
differentiate establishing upfront kind of what the goals
(36:05):
of the battle are, right? Like what is the character
trying to get out of it? But then having all of that very
quickly fall apart, right? Because the reality of battle on
the ground, right is that you often have very little sense of
where you are relative to where everybody else is.
The topography and the terrain play a huge impact.
Weather plays a really importantaspect kind of in the the battle
(36:28):
itself. And so a lot of how I write, I
write a very kind of close thirdperson POV typically is kind of
my preferred writing style. And so I focus a lot on what the
character can see and hear and feel and kind of use that to
kind of amplify the sense of thechaotic situation of kind of the
initial goals quickly falling apart.
(36:50):
That's really cool. They can say.
It's great to have that close intimate sort of perspective.
People have always like popped up on our writing group and just
asking like, how can you show was a way like what else is
going on on the battles, the battlefield as well?
(37:13):
And I just simple thing is just using different perspectives,
isn't it, that are based in in different parts and and make you
say, given their chaosic nature and like the sort of the
descendants of the fog of war, and there's that many people
involved in some battles, like thousands and thousands.
Like different things could be going on in completely different
(37:33):
parts. Like one, one line could be
clap, one part of the line couldbe collapsing, the other one
could be pushing forwards. And it's amazing like because
you say sometimes you're so zoned in on on that one
perspective. They might have done amazingly
well and one defeated their partof the enemy, but then you turn
(37:54):
around after like defeating themall and the rest of the army is
just in ruin. Yeah.
So thank you very much for for chatting with me.
It's been so interesting and insightful and I've learned so
much just from you talking aboutthe way you approach your
stories and your experiences doing your incredible job.
(38:17):
And it's obviously serving in the armed forces as well.
So thank you very much. Absolutely no.
Thank you for having me. It was it was great to chat with
you. No problem, that's I wish you
the very best of luck with the Kickstarter.
If anyone wants to learn more, where's the best place to go?
Probably my website, so www.hbrenault and that's Ren
(38:40):
eau.com and they'll have links to the Kickstarter and all of my
other works too. Awesome.
You'll find links in the description as well.
And yeah, thank you very much again.
It's been an absolute pleasure. I wish you the very best of luck
with the book and hopefully comeback soon and tell us more about
what's been going on in the world of writing of.
(39:04):
Course. Thanks so much.
And thank you everyone for listening.
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