From Pen to Print: CL Hellisen on The Shape of Monsters

The Shape of Monsters is a different beast: already released on Audible, and up for best audio (fiction) work at this year’s British Fantasy Awards, it’s finally getting released in print via Tor in the UK. Its author, Cat Hellisen, shares its journey from “wet clay” to last-gasp agent query to Amazon deal then getting it into print.

The Book: From Pen to Print

What was the genesis of this book? Where did you get the idea from?

The Shape of Monsters started with an image: a young guy in his hideous monstrosity of a car, his whole life in ruins, deciding to make contact with his estranged sister. All I knew when I started was that he wasn’t magical, his sister was (though untrained and in hiding), and there was a monster that would deepen the rift between them.

How many drafts did you go through before you felt it was ready to query? How long did that take you?

SO SO SO MANY. My first drafts are just me chucking wet clay into a pile and finding a rudimentary shape, an exploratory draft, if you will. With each revision, I remove, add, reshape and refine Until I have A Book-Shaped Thing. I have records of sending it out to beta readers in early 2021, so it’s been knocking around for a while.

Did you work with beta and/or sensitivity readers? How did you find them? How did you incorporate their feedback?

I had a few betas, who were writer-friends I trusted to give me decent, helpful feedback, plus the insight of my agent, and later editors. Mostly if people are telling me something isn’t working, I try to find out where I’m going wrong and make that thing work. You cannot please every reader, but you can strengthen weaker parts. Unless a suggestion goes completely against what I’m trying to do, I’ll consider why it was made, and what I can do to fix the problem at the root of it.

What was your querying process like? How long did it take?

It was so long ago now, but I do remember it was very slow and depressing; I was getting ghosted on fulls and feeling very dejected. The last time I had gone agent hunting it was much easier, but the publishing world had shifted considerably since then—it’s much harder now.

I had actually given up and was considering other publishing routes, but a pal suggested trying their agent, Caro Clarke at Portobello Literary. When I looked, I thought they were very unlikely to be interested, but decided they would be my final punt. As it turns out, they were exactly the right agent for me.

Once it was in the hands of your publisher, what was the process to get it ready for release?

Editing The Shape of Monsters was a slightly different process to what I was used to with my earlier novels—in this case the acquiring editor at Audible was not who worked with me on the book, but an outside editor was brought on. She later left, and my replacement editor turned out to be the BFS’s own Shona Kinsella, who I had worked with before when Cast Long Shadows was published with Luna Press, so I knew I was in good hands. She stayed on as editor for the sequel, A Million Points of Light.

When the print rights sold to Tor UK, they didn’t have me do more narrative edits, but we did go through copy edits and proofreads.

When the wrong sibling summons a monster from the void, the balance between them shifts, and betrayal haunts every move. It’s also a love story (sort-of, if you squint) though I would hesitate to call it a romantic book. Unless your idea of romance is about unequal power, control, and a touch of light cannibalism.

(Is it cannibalism if one party isn’t technically human? I’ll put that on a shirt…)

Who’s the ideal reader for this one? What sort of things do they like to read about?

The ideal reader probably likes things lush, dark, queer and gothic. They like their characters broken, morally grey, desperate—and in their desperation and trauma, prone to making terrible decisions with far-reaching consequences.

Readers who like their magic a little bit weird, who want to fall in love with a genderfluid, immoral, dragonish Prince from the void, and have a soft spot for characters who are just a little bit feral.

Your Writing Process 

Are you a plotter or pantser or somewhere in between? How do you do your first draft?

Neither, really. I’m what I call an exploratory or discovery writer—my first draft probably looks like pantsing, but its really just one 90k outline 😉

I write my first draft with a clear scene in mind, the image that seeds everything, and then I explore the story and world as I write, and often make myself bullet-point lists of things that could happen. I put down every tangent I find interesting, because I never know which is going to be the path that makes it all work in the end.

I usually have a vague idea of how things end, just not exactly how I get there. But also the ending can change if a better one evolves from the story.

Process is just getting words down on the page, so you have something to edit; how you get there is not important, as long as it works for you.

How do you approach writing? Are you the type of writer who needs to treat it like a job? Is there a particular time of day you find best for you to write?

I write every weekday, and weekends I save for myself. My goal is to get 100 words a day. Some days that’s all I get, and that’s fine, other times it’s 2000 words.

Where do you work? Do you have a comfy, creative space at home or are you someone who has to grab the moment wherever it comes?

I used to write in my bedroom, which was the worst, but currently I have an office set up (not sure how long it will last) and I work at my computer.

What’s your writing soundtrack?

I usually just let my music play and it kinda fades into the background, but whenever a song gives me ‘book vibes’ I pop it into a soundtrack folder. The Monsters one has lots of Placebo, The Twilight Sad, K Flay, Tricky and Flower Face it seems (I just had a look; it’s definitely going for creepy, electronic and a bit obsessive.)

Do you have a writing ritual?

Not really. I like to have a coffee first though.

The Shape of Monsters is out in print on 24 September through Tor. It’s already available on Audible and is nominated for best audio fiction work at this year’s British Fantasy Awards.