Recommendation Tuesday: ‘Peter: A Tale From Neverland’

Last post, I said that I wasn’t going to go into how I came to pick The Neverland back up and start working on it again, and in truth, it’s partly because I don’t remember exactly what gave me that final nudge to open up the Notes file on my iPod and start writing. I think it was a combination of different things, one of which was discovering this book.

How I came across it is one of those weird series of coincidences that is actually really common on the internet, but sounds odd whenever you try to explain it to anyone. I was at work, and one of my colleagues tweeted something with the hashtag #PeterPan. Huge fan though I am, I had never thought to check out anything related to Peter Pan on Twitter, so I clicked on the hashtag and came across this very cute account: @Peter_Pan_ 

As you can see, the most recent activity is a retweet from Jonathan Wenzel about his Peter Pan novel. At the time of tweeting it was only available for preorder, but now you can buy it directly from the US Amazon. Curious, I clicked on Wenzel’s website and started reading about his novel, which is a telling of the origin story of Peter Pan.

I’ve read one other fan-created version of Peter Pan’s origin story, which is Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. It’s a fun tale, but it didn’t read as a convincing canon version of how Peter Pan came into being. At least, I wasn’t completely convinced by it, and it appears Jonathan Wenzel felt the same way; in a Q&A video about his novel, Wenzel said,

“I read a Peter Pan origin story in high school, and I liked it – I liked it a lot – but I finished it, closed the book, put it down, and went, ‘That’s not how it happened.’”

Jon Wenzel shares some questions and answers about his book, Peter: A Tale From Neverland

So I knew I was dealing with a likeminded soul here. (I know it’s not explicitly stated that he was referring to Peter and the Starcatchers, but it was a pretty good bet, and I confirmed via a comment on the video which Wenzel replied to that he was indeed talking about that novel). After watching the rest of the video and reading through the book’s reviews on Amazon, I decided to buy myself a copy. (I was originally going to ask for it for Christmas, but screw waiting).

I read it on and off throughout December and finished it last night; it’s not the type of book that compels you to devour it as quickly as humanly possible, but it was a very good read. It took me a couple of chapters to get used to the author’s style, and as with all self-published novels, there are some spelling errors and missing words scattered about. But those are really my biggest criticisms.

With Peter: A Tale From Neverland Wenzel creates a complex and fully-realised Neverland complete with detailed depictions of the creatures who live there and their unique cultures. The novel’s historical (and geographical) setting is ambiguous, but that doesn’t detract from the story being told. And while you know from the start that Peter has to survive the novel, Wenzel finds other ways to raise the stakes and create a sense of risk. There are some clever little details sown through the story which are important to the novel’s endgame, and while I could tell that they were significant, I didn’t manage to guess just how they would be brought back into play.

I do find Peter: A Tale From Neverland to be a more convincing origin story for Peter Pan than Peter and the Starcatchers, and I think a lot of that is because Wenzel understands that not everything needs an explanation. The island that is Neverland and its inhabitants just exist, and there isn’t any need to explain how or why. Peter and the Starcatchers attempted to systematically tick off every aspect of the Peter Pan world and explain how it came into being, but the more you try to rationalise things, the more attention you draw to how unnatural they are, and the less convincing they become.

With that said, though, I don’t accept A Tale From Neverland as Peter Pan’s origin story. Part of the problem is that Peter Pan does have an origin story, and as unlikely as it may sound (in Peter and Wendy, Peter tells Wendy that he “ran away the day he was born” and “lived a long long time among the fairies” in Kensington Gardens), it fits with the way Peter is written and the world that Barrie created. Peter Pan in the original canon is a slightly surreal figure, not quite human, and to give him a human origin – even if fantastical things happen to him along the way – defeats the object of who he is.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the heck out of a story which imagines a human origin for him, and Jon Wenzel’s creation is a very enjoyable one. I gave it a 9/10 in my “book of books” (a notebook in which I record each book I’ve finished, the date, author and what I thought of it, including marks out of ten) and I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for something new to read, particularly if you like fantasy, history or are a fan of Peter Pan. (Click the image at the top of this post to go to the book’s page on Amazon).

Also, Wenzel has confirmed that there will be follow-ups to A Tale From Neverland, and I am very excited to read those whenever they are published!

On Writing Fluff

Wow, it’s been a while. I know, I’ve really dropped the ball on the regular updates to this blog so far – in fact, on having updates at all – and my own tendency to constantly switch my focus between different projects has thrown a spanner into the works, as I knew it would before too long. But I also have another theory as to why I’ve been reluctant to update this blog: I’ve been setting the bar for myself too high. Lately, at least, I’ve been trying to make each post absolutely meaningful and worthwhile on all levels – either saying something insightful about writing; containing a lot of info about, or a new instalment of, the story; or doing a kind of review-slash-informational-piece about someone else’s work for Recommendation Tuesday. And I figured it was better to update the blog less frequently with more meaningful posts than to scrape the bottom of the barrel for interesting content.

To Serialise Or Not To Serialise?

Or, ‘On Making Rough Drafts Public’.

Originally I was going to have this Friday’s post be about The Evolution of Setting, but I couldn’t remember half the points I wanted to cover, and I decided that I should probably save most of these backward-looking posts for when I’ve actually, y’know, finished a first draft or something similarly outlandish. So instead I’m going to talk about an important consideration for any writer who wants to build up a following online: namely, how polished does my writing have to be before I post it on the Internet?

Chapter One | The Darling House | 11:47 PM

Author's Notes: I tried SO hard to get this post up on time. I really did. I sat for hours yesterday with a blank document open and couldn't think of the right words to start off. I stayed up until 1 in the morning trying to write something that didn't sound godawful. I managed a couple of paragraphs before giving up. Then today, I went to visit a friend who lives in another county. On the train journey there I opened up the Notes on my iPod and immediately knew how the next bit should go. On the way back not only did I finish the post but I started planning out character arcs and suddenly a whole load of ideas came together. I won't spend forever talking about them here, but I am super stoked. Clearly what I need to do is just write every word of my novel whilst riding around on English trains x3
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That night, Wendy lay awake for an hour after her parents had gone to bed, until she was sure that they must be asleep. She crept out into the corridor and strained her ears for the murmur of her parents’ voices, but all she could hear were the sounds of deep breathing and John’s light snores coming from the bedroom he and Michael shared. Perfect. 

Chapter One | The Darling House | 11:15 AM

WELCOME TO PIRATES V2.2! WOULD YOU LIKE INSTRUCTIONS?

YES

THE YEAR IS 1665. YOU ARE A SWASHBUCKLING, SEAFARING LASS ABOARD THE HMS COMMODORE, A LAW-ABIDING MERCHANT VESSEL WHICH SAILS THE TRADE ROUTES OF THE CARIBBEAN. THESE TRADE ROUTES ARE OFTEN BESET BY PIRATE SHIPS: VESSELS FULL OF VILLAINOUS ROGUES WHO WILL STOP AT NOTHING TO GET THEIR HANDS ON YOUR CARGO. I WILL BE YOUR EYES AND HANDS. DIRECT ME WITH COMMANDS OF 1 OR 2 WORDS.

(IF STUCK TYPE HELP FOR SOME HINTS)

A FELLOW SHIP IS SIGHTED OFF THE PORT BOW. IT IS FLYING THE UNION JACK, BUT SOMETHING SEEMS SUSPICIOUS. SHOULD YOU WAIT, OR INVESTIGATE THE SHIP?

WAIT

Wendy laughed, looking over her brother’s shoulder. “You’re not meant to do that! It’s right there in the text. You always play things so safe.”

“I wanted to see what you’d coded for the ‘wait’ option,” John reasoned mildly.

Excerpt 2 | Durham University Computer Lab | 10:09 PM

Author’s Notes: This is the same excerpt of the story that was on my NaNo profile, but there’s extra context at the beginning and end so that there’s new stuff to read even for those of you who’ve already read it. I chose it for my profile excerpt because I think it’s a good representative of the story content, plot and style. There’s a mixture of narrative and online chat (and I admit, I’m not sure how accurate my descriptions of BBS chat are, but I based them on the information I have available), a bit of late 80s technology, some familiar names from the Peter Pan canon, an interesting revelation or two and hints towards the larger plot. I wanted to give people a flavour of how the characters will be depicted in this universe, and give them a sense of the setting. By and large, I used the same criteria when I picked the first excerpt to post in this blog.

On with the show!

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The building was dark, but not deserted at this time of night. There were a couple of guys sitting at terminals who looked up and nodded as Wendy came in, then went back to what they’d been doing. Wendy sat down and dialled in the number for the CompuChat BBS, which by now she knew off by heart. It felt like forever since she’d last accessed the board at home.

By now, Wendy’s reply to the secretive user ‘Tiger Lily’ had disappeared off the board, and in the week or so since she’d made the post, nothing had come of it. Wendy was relieved and disappointed in equal measure. Her search for ‘The Neverland’ had already hit a dead end and she wasn’t sure where to go from here.

At almost the exact second she thought this, her screen split in two and a chat opened up on the right-hand half of the screen, headed by the words,

TIGER LILY WANTS TO CHAT

The Evolution of Characters: Peter Pan

When writing an alternate-universe fanfiction, I tend to make sure that the characterisation is as consistent with the original book/series/film as can be, and the same goes for crossovers. If you’re going to change the setting, the time period and the what have you, then all that’s left for the readers to recognise are the characters; without those it wouldn’t even feel like a fanfic, just your own work with some familiar names and faces slapped on. Plus, aren’t the characters what we love the most about any given fandom? I know I do.

With that said, this has to be the AU fanfic where I’ve changed the most about the characters. Some of it is necessary to the setting – this is (almost) the real world, so Peter can’t fly and he does grow up, extremely reluctantly and resentfully. Other stuff, I’ve changed just because it seemed like a cool idea at the time. I’m actually enjoying seeing how much of my own spin I can put on the characters while still keeping them recognisably faithful to Barrie’s original.

Excerpt 1 | Peter's Room | 04:34 AM

Author's Notes: So here we have an excerpt from Peter's point of view. I wrote this as an exercise in character development and titled it "Random Scene From Peter's POV" in my Word document, but I think I know whereabouts in the plot it will come. That's a secret, though ;3 I decided it would work best as the first story excerpt for this blog, because it pretty much stands on its own. There's some context that you can probably infer, but not so much info as to give everything away. Enjoy!

(The setting is in the late '80s, for those of you who got interested in this story back when it had a more modern setting - I decided to push the setting back a bit because late '80s Internet was SUPER COOL).

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It was always dark when he woke up these days. Peter supposed that in the time zone of some country he might be keeping normal hours, but he had yet to figure out what it was. When he peeled himself from the pillow after two, three, four hours of sleep he always felt groggy, but then he never really rested. The clicks and beeps of his modem wove themselves into his dreams, creating bright patterns. He watched the patterns spin themselves into being around him, admiring the interplay of colours. If the pattern ever broke, he would wake up immediately, stumbling towards the computer to fix whatever bug had presented itself. He couldn’t sleep at all when there was a break in the pattern.