Interview with Kai Delmas about Drabbles and Darkness Rises, Hope Remains
Today I’m talking with fiction writer Kai Delmas, who has an inspiring collection of fantasy drabbles called Darkness Rises, Hope Remains being released on January 19. In case you’re wondering, a drabble is a very short story, one that’s just 100 words long. Each small story in Kai’s collection feels refreshing and intriguing, as each is a little seed containing its own world.
It’s available for preorders at: https://books2read.com/u/mv6w8J
Tell us about your love for drabbles! How did you master this form?
I somehow stumbled into it actually. In 2021 I mainly wrote 250-word micros for Apex’s microfiction contests. Every month I finished a new micro and I was getting great feedback from the editor. I was still unpublished at the time and every personal gave me a boost to keep going. One day I got a rejection and saw that Martian Magazine was still open to submissions for a couple of hours. I cut 150 words to get the story down to exactly 100 in a few hours and that’s how I made my first sale.
After that Shacklebound and Black Hare Press had many open calls for drabbles and I kept writing them and sending them in, many being accepted. I think writing micros helped me figure out how to write short stories with few words and drabbles was just the next step.
Who are some of your favorite fantasy writers?
I really got into fantasy as a teenager and was reading a ton of George R.R. Martin and Brandon Sanderson. They’re both a big inspiration for my style, but more so when it comes to longer fiction. My drabbles were more influenced by other drabble writers like Liam Hogan, Marc A. Criley and Warren Benedetto. They’re more sci-fi and horror drabblers though, the fantasy drabbles I mostly figured out on my own.
Drabbles are complicated! In this collection, each of your drabbles contains a strong image, stakes, a sense of a broader world, and some kind of twist. Which of these elements tends to come first for you in the writing process?
I actually have three elements that I focus on when writing drabbles. Theme, event and emotion. I often start with a theme that can be very vague: Dragons, for example. And then I choose an emotion, something I want the characters and/or the readers to feel. Love, fear, grief, pain, wonder. And then I come up with an event, whatever it is that takes place in the story.
As a reader, what really hooks you in a fantasy story? What makes you stop reading?
I always look for something that will make me care. I want to figure out what drives a character as quickly as possible so that I know what it is they are fighting for or against or what it is they running toward or away from.
A story often won’t grab me if it’s filled with too much description of a place before we even know what the story is about, before we’ve met a character and have learned what is at stake.
Can you tell us a bit about being multilingual and how this affects your fiction writing?
I think the biggest issue is trying to figure out the right words I want to use. I often know the perfect word for a certain scene but it’s in German and I can’t think of the exact equivalent in English. Sometimes there isn’t one, which can be quite annoying. However, I prefer the English language over the German language, especially when it comes to writing. For me, it’s easier to write in English and I feel more free in how I can express myself.
You are very active in the publishing world, editing others’ work and reading for magazines like Apex. What have you learned about writing/submitting from being on the other side of things?
Reading for magazines and critiquing other writers’ work has helped me figure out what works and what doesn’t. Being a first reader is one of the best things you can do to improve as a writer. You read a ton and you learn what kind of things aren’t going to make it at the editor’s desk. After a while you’ll be able to use what you’ve learned to make fewer mistakes in your own writing and can even find ways to make your work stand out more.
Seeing the vast amount of stories that are read and rejected behind the scenes can be pretty eye-opening. The chances are pretty slim out there. But if you persevere and improve, one of your stories can make it to the top. And when it finally does, the feeling is amazing.
There’s something especially pleasurable about reading one drabble after another, being shuttled from one world right to the next. Nevertheless, could you share one of the drabbles in the collection here? And could you tell us what you like about this one?
All That Matters
A figure walks up the dusty road.
Fagan’s old heart stutters in his chest, hoping that there’ll be no trouble. He’s got nothing to give and his lame leg won’t let him escape. So he stands there awaiting his fate.
Never in his life would he have imagined the return of someone he thought lost for good.
His son falls into his arms, tears staining his face.
“I failed. We tried to stop them. We stood no chance. I’m all that’s left.”
Dark smoke rises in the distance but Fagan doesn’t care.
His boy’s back and that’s all that matters.
Emotion plays a big part in my writing and I like to focus on the importance of family on occasion. In this piece I wanted to hint at a big evil in the world and the evil forces have won the final battle. The heroes that we always root for have lost but one of them survived and came back to his family. For the father who had to let his son go into the unknown, into certain death, nothing else matters once he sees his son again. The world can end but at least they are together.
Thanks, Kai! If you have any questions for Kai, ask them in the comments below!