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What is The Vallen?
Funny you should ask that, my main character—Essa Finch—asks the very same thing...
So...where to begin talking about THE VALLEN...hmmm...hmmm...
Why not start at the beginning? With the initial inspirations. The brainstorming. The tiddly bits of details and research that accumulated into a mountain of scrap notes and drawings and outlines.
Yes, let's start...
My idea for THE VALLEN originally began in 2016, with the United States presidential campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. I started thinking about walls and what walls do and what they're for and why they exist and why people think they're a good idea or a bad idea. Super Bowl 2017 featured a lot of politically-tinged commercials talking about walls...
Then I thought of a young person, male or female, walking this wall. Walking and walking and walking, desperate for a way out. A way across. To a better life? As just an escape?
One idea led to another and before I knew it, I was imagining whole societies separated and sculpted by this wall of walls. Cultures that are what they are because of a separation barrier—both physical and non-physical.
Lo and behold, it wasn't long until I had a brainstorming storm-of-the-century, such as the following:
I was researching how labels and names and categorizations in society (being from one side of a wall versus another, for instance) can determine our lot in life, what jobs we're able to pursue, where we can live, where we can go.
I often sketch out ideas on paper and then refer back to them later. In the above pic, you'll find brands—the kind that scar. Much like how slaves in pre-emancipation America were branded with symbols and initials of ownership. I played with the idea of—not ownership but rather—legal categorization. Where people are shunted into labels of immigrant and work camp and invalid (as in an economic invalid, say, someone who is disabled and unable to work, or be of "benefit to society").
In this pic, you'll also find a key piece to Essa's journey: a papyrus symbol. In my manuscript version of THE VALLEN (edit 3 complete, just needing a proofread before I start shooting off query emails to agents), this papyrus symbol is etched into the underside of the cap of a gold watch—the kind that are heirloomed generation to generation, gold chain and all.
What could a papyrus over a clockface mean? Knowledge, time—accumulation of facts? Wisdom? Over a denominator of ticking, forward-motion...
Like Essa's steps along the wall—time stretching before her, time stretching behind...
Thanks for sharing! :D