The Making Of Silenda by Kelsie Stoker

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On The Table Read Magazine, “the best book magazine in the UK“, ahead of the publication in April, author Kelsie Stoker shares the creative work that went into her new book, Silenda.

Written by Kelsie Stoker

https://amzn.to/3T8st8w

I believe that everyone has a moment in their life when they realise that they’re mortal. When I was fourteen, a lesion was found on the stem of my brain, that soon presented as a tumour. I went to bed that night, and for the first time in my life, I feared death.

I suppose I became a sort of nihilist after this, before I even realised what that meant. Life was vibrant, until it was a dark blue haze. Overnight. I stopped living in the present and started living in a fantasy realm, depending solely on any means of escapism, thinking that anything sad or cruel could completely eradicate the world of meaning. I’d disappear into fictional lands that smelled like the corpses of trees and anything that woke me from those paper confinements, made me bitter.

Silenda

In September 2016, the same year Silenda was born, I wrote in my diary; How long do you have to flounder before the sea decides your fate?’  As Horatio states in Chapter 3 of Silenda, I was born with paper-thin skin. In my childhood, I seemed to feel my emotions to extremes. Happiness was a bright euphoria and sadness felt like shrivelling up to the size of a raisin. The sun felt like a cancerous mass, swelling in the sky. I was an inverted flower, cowering under the ferocity of feeling anything.

As I learned this about myself, I realised that I was engaging in black-and-white thinking; a be-all or end-all complex. Everything seemed to be all good, or all bad. Exciting or hopeless.

And from then, my pursuit of the in-between, or the ‘grey area’ of life, began.

Characters

Horatio Young came to me on a day I can’t remember. In the works for short of ten very formative years of my life, I can’t remember a time when he was not around. With his shaggy black hair, inert disposition and his statement lighting branch tattoo, he seemed able to harbour so much of my existential angst, by just existing in my imagination. He took some of the weight of my fear so I didn’t have to.

Inspired by Shakespeare’s Horatio, from Hamlet, my protagonist is thrust into the middle of a life-or-death action story but does very little to contribute to it. Horatio is a walking inner-monologue; watching and worrying but very rarely doing anything. He represents the fact, that no matter how good or self-aware we are, some of us just aren’t cut out to be heroes. He represents the part of me that was frigid with fear, more comfortable dwelling on my words than pursuing change.

I had to confront Horatio; he had to learn this lesson so I could; to learn to stop being static, to change my perspective and live as completely as I could manage.

Carson Whitmoore is Silenda’s firecracker. Presented with far less opportunity than Horatio, and even less self-awareness, Carson is a catalyst that inspires action. She channels the anger that I felt in my teenage years, trying to find the answers to things that perhaps do not have any. She represents the ‘feminine rage’ that had grown within me, angry in the ways the world has violated her and refusing to succumb to the adversities that she is challenged with.

Creative Writing Process

Writing Silenda was a process of learning valuable lessons. I have always been passionate about expanding my empathy and extending my tolerance. But there was one thing I couldn’t get a handle on; and that was God. With every dark thought, I couldn’t help from thinking; ‘if God really exists, why would he do this to me?’ With every tragic news story, I thought, ‘If this is God’s plan, what kind of creature is he?’

Writing Silenda accommodated my growth; open-minded, optimistic, complex, and sometimes uncomfortable, I wrote characters who understood the importance of faith, so that I could understand it myself. Despite not being a religious person, I was awakened to the importance of cultural faith; that faith can be a gift, a shield from fear, a safe-space, and a community. Ultimately, I learned that admitting our ignorance is more important that rejecting the things we don’t understand.

The Story Of Silenda

Taking place partly in a neon cyber-city named The Urb, and partly in a cobbled, Edinburgh-inspired village with grey skies and vast lochs called West Town, Silenda tells a tale that welcomes both settings equally. Full of vibrant colour, but consistently rendered with an ever-present grey, Silenda is a fluid tale of life, love, friendship and fear. Embracing the truth, and never sugar-coating it, the novel delivers an optimistic outlook on human mortality. As Horatio takes little action, and allows the world to happen to him, he realises that hurt, sadness and loss can be a beautiful thing, because it ties him to everyone who came before him and everyone that will come after.

As well as dealing with the complex aspects of faith and the human condition, Silenda tackles issues of sexuality and feminism. Because the first draft of the novel was written throughout my teenage years, the exploration of these issues was actually written as I first encountered the extent of them. Edited and completed in my very early twenties, Silenda offers an incredibly raw and yet retrospective analysis of sexuality and sexual relationships.

The Message Of Silenda

Silenda is a love letter not only to young adult readers, but to all people who have ever felt oppressed, limited or hopeless by the binaries and labels that our society thrusts upon us. I hope my novel can provide reassurance to anyone that needs it, that it’s okay not to know some things. It’s okay to not know what we believe or who we are, the most that should be asked of anyone is to be honest, kind, and to admit our ignorance in place of intolerance.

Find more from Kelsie Stoker now:

www.palavro.org

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3T8st8w

Silenda is available in all good in-store and online booksellers.

https://arkbound.com/product/silenda-by-kelsie-stoker/

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