Debut author Alex Kingsley is here today to talk to us about crabs, monsters, being an outsider, and how all these things are inexorably connected. Follow along through their Big Idea for their new novel, Empress of Dust, and see what it really means to be a monster, or if being a monster is even possible.
ALEX KINGSLEY:
What does it mean to be monstrous?
Looking back on Empress of Dust, I think that’s The Big Idea. It’s not, however, the idea that I started with. I don’t generally write from a theme because if I start the process by going “this is the huge philosophical question I’m going to tackle” usually the final product basically feels like the characters are screaming “THIS IS THE BIG PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTION! WOW! PROFOUND!” and it ends up feeling disingenuous and, honestly, boring. I feel much better about the work I do when it starts at the micro level. I don’t necessarily know what the story is really going to be about yet, but I have a starting point that excites me.
When I have the seed of an idea but I don’t know where it’s going, I let it gestate until it comes to term, like I’m holding kindling until there’s a spark. This process works really well for me because usually there’s like five sparks at once and I’m holding so many fires that I’m burning my hands, so it only makes sense to wait until I know I’m ready to pursue an idea before I start working on it.
I knew I wanted to write about crabs for a long time. I have been fascinated by crabs ever since I read The Time Machine at age twelve. Sure the Eloi and the Morlocks were cool, but I cared way more about the giant crabs at the end. Like, hello? We spent the whole book focused on humanoids, and we’re just gonna brush past the giant crabs like it didn’t happen? I was first introduced to the concept of carcinisation (the evolutionary theory that nature desperately wants us all to become crabs) on Tumblr, because yes, I am still on Tumblr, and yes, it’s actually still pretty active. Mostly I found the idea of crabs as God’s perfect creature to be really funny, but I also thought it was something I wanted to explore in my writing one day.
One night I had a dream about giant crabs, and it was a sign that my subconscious was ready to churn out the story. I started writing the next day. Originally it was going to be a short story called “Harvard Bites the Bullet,” but the more I wrote, the more I wanted to spend time with these characters — and these crabs. I started asking questions that needed answers, so I started answering them…
Source: The Big Idea: Alex Kingsley
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