Introducing Hannah Cobb, Author of Mortis

Assassins.

An underground school.

A girl who can turn invisible.

A brilliant author who thought it all up.

Welcome, Hannah Cobb, author of Mortis! I don’t host many guest authors, but after reading an advanced copy of Mortis, I just couldn’t help but share it on my blog. You can read my review and add Mortis to your to-read list on Goodreads.

cover image Mortis for website

Without further ado, please give a loud round of applause for Hannah Cobb, our guest. Today she’ll share about how she got the idea for Mortis.

 

My first novel, Mortis, takes place in an underground school that trains orphaned children as assassins. Did I grow up in a maze of underground caverns, learning how to kill people? No. (Not that I would admit it here if I had.)
In choosing to write fantasy, I pretty much threw myself off the safe “write what you know” cliff-edge. So where did I get the idea for this novel? That’s a tricky question to answer.
As a writer, my ideas come from everywhere — my mind is a sort of always-simmering gumbo made of bits and pieces of things I’ve read and watched, phrases I’ve overheard people say, places I’ve been. I can remember exactly when the main characters of Mortis — Jane and Felix and Willy — first popped Athena-like into my head, though.
My college was on spring break and I was sitting in the back of my family’s twelve-passenger van on the way home from visiting my grandparents, trying not to be carsick or yell at my rowdy siblings, entirely unable to record this first glimpse of a story I really wanted to write. As soon as I got home I raced for pen and paper.
Character always comes first for me. I need to know what sort of a person my protagonist is, and how she will approach a problem, before I can try to write her through that problem. In Mortis, the problem turned out to be that my protagonist’s home is a school that trains assassins. Jane is getting ready to graduate when she stumbles across dark secrets about her school. She has to decide if she will keep quiet, and stay safe, or if she will betray her school and fight against its evil.
But writing isn’t just a bubbling stew of ideas; ideas have to be fleshed out with research. Fantasy worlds require thousands of details, from what kind of food the characters eat to what kind of government rules the world. Sometimes research means finding online forums where EMTs and firefighters answer writers’ questions about medical issues (like, for example, where you can stab a character without instantly killing her. Trust me, this is not something you want to test in the real world.) There are plenty of things even an avid author shouldn’t Google, especially if your story involves explosives; when you get to that point, you have to find a real live person to talk to. Sometimes a really fun day of research means going to a renaissance festival and begging a blacksmith to explain how medieval swords were made.
Many, many hours of plotting and crafting and staring blankly at a computer screen go into turning ideas into a story — but in the end, when the characters I created fight their battles in a world I imagined, all the idea-collecting and writing is worth it.

 

HannahCobb_5BW

Hannah Cobb lives in Maryland, where she maintains a cover identity as a librarian by day and moonlights as a writer. When she isn’t writing, Hannah enjoys designing elaborate period costumes and collecting swords. Mortis is her first novel. You can find Hannah at:

Her website – send her an e-mail and read more about her books!

On Facebook – like her page!

On Goodreads – add her book to your “to-read” list!

 

 

 

 

Have you ever had to research something that couldn’t be fully experienced or discovered on the internet?

 

What do you think of Mortis? 

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About Nadine Brandes

NADINE BRANDES once spent four days as a sea cook in the name of book research. She is the author of the award-winning ROMANOV, FAWKES, and the Out of Time Series. Her inner fangirl perks up at the mention of soul-talk, Quidditch, bookstagram, and Oreos. When she's not busy writing novels about bold living, she's adventuring through Middle Earth or taste-testing a new chai. She and her Auror husband are building a Tiny House on wheels with their Halfling children. Current mission: paint the world in shalom.
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8 Comments

  1. Absolutely! I was blessed to have a then-active FBI agent be one of the consultants for my novel. He gave me all the information I couldn’t find on the internet. (The story of my research is here: http://www.melissajtroutman.com/trust-and-deception/the-research/)

    • What an awesome story! Thank you for sharing that link, Melissa.

      • I loved the interview, too. (Sorry for being rude and not acknowledging it first. I had an immediate answer for the first question but then missed the second. :P) I love hearing how book ideas came to be. And Mortis sounds like a very intriguing book. Your review said it was clean, so now I’m doubly interested. Must go check it out . . .

        • LOL, you weren’t rude at all! 🙂 I’m glad you liked the interview and I hope you like the book, too! Yes, I appreciated, above all, that it was clean (which is tough to do with an assassin story!)

  2. How fun! I am not usually interested in “the reluctant assassin”, because I think it’s overdone in Christian fiction, but Mortis really has my attention. 😀

  3. I’m looking forward to adding Mortis to my pile of books-I-want-to-read! My 21-year-old daughter will also enjoy it. Thanks for a great interview!

  4. Just reread Mortis again… SUCH a good book. I was taken on the adventure all over again, and it still left me breathless. sigh… Wow.

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