And the Meek Shall Walk

The Making of a Mermaid

The origins of And the Meek Shall Walk

Now, what did I want to talk about? Oh yes. Mermaids. Not just mermaids but decapitation, revenge, murder, sea creatures and witches! And all because of a certain 12 year old girl...

I had just finished writing Suffer the Little Children for the film Sinister II. My family and I were in the , a national park here in England. We were staying at the cottage of a friend of mine and my wife and I would visit the pub around the corner. Well, more than a little 'around the corner', perhaps but close enough. It was a ten minute walk on public footpaths through a couple of fields or a smidgeon short of twenty via the road. The place is fairly secluded with not many houses, being a small village. The road, if you were to take that route, is lined with trees and sheep filled fields. As we walked, bats would swoop from tree to tree and dance in the sparse street lighting for us. Very cool.

Anywho. While at the pub, my wife would read and I'd take the chance to write, finishing the Sinister story. Once I'd completed it, I wanted something else to work on. We were enjoying chilling each evening and didn't want to stop that. I happened to mention this to my twelve year old daughter (who was 13 last month). She's a huge Tim Burton fan and likes gothy darker stories as well as being a real princess and growing up loving Disney.

So she had an idea.

"Daddy (she still calls me 'Daddy', which I like - I'm sure it won't last). How about doing a story about the 'Little Mermaid'?"

Well, I was unsure. I write horror or psychological stuff generally. I've done some Dr. Seuss style poetry but overall, it's definitely darker work. But my daughter knew this. She went on...

"Instead of magically getting new legs, she cuts them off and sews on new ones!"

And there she had me.

I'd give it a go, I said. I had already worked on Rose, a sort of 'Hansel and Gretel meets the Big Bad Wolf' story and written Little Dead Riding Hood. I was a fan of fairy tales and, naturally, Disney. I expected the story to be roughly the same as Suffer and Mr. Composure - around 15,000 words but, as I began to write it and the tale (no pun intended) started to take shape, I realised it was going to be a wee bit longer. The characters changed as I went, their priorities and agendas altering as time went by.

When I first met Aren, the mermaid (yes the names are based on the Disney story), I didn't really like her. She wasn't a nice person - deliberately - and she simply wanted revenge. She would do anything, including murder and the harvesting of body parts, to enact that revenge. Ursen, the sea witch, probably changed more dramatically. I fully intended her to be just as she started out in the story. She, clearly, had other ideas.

As such, the more I wrote, the more I began to love them. It was meant to be a bit of fun for my daughter. If I hadn't started to write this I was going to continue with Mortal Sin (Sin's sequel). And the Meek Shall Walk turned into a story I was enjoying! I wanted to know what was going to happen. I wanted to be surprised by what would happen - and I was!

Moreover, I was surprised by how much I didn't want it to end. I was looking forward to writing each chapter and, when it would end on a cliffhanger, I was eager to carry on and find out what was going to happen.

I do admit to being stuck and a little scared at one point. I'd alternated, pretty much, between Aren and Rick's story. That was fine, but then I had to bring them together. I had to get them both out of and off the ocean and together. I researched the original Hans Christian Anderson classic and hadn't realised how savage it was - a description I'm quite proud And the Meek Shall Walk has been given (along with 'beautiful', which is a nice mix!). I knew my version would be dark, but I now had a bedrock of badness to build upon - I wasn't expecting that alliteration so my apologies.

So, I finished the story. It was a sad moment. My daughter had asked me to create something 'just because' and I had crafted something I was proud of. The amazing comments have made me feel so good about the story and the characters. And my daughter loves it.

There's been a lot of readers who have asked me write more. At first, I wasn't going to. The story ended where it was meant to.

But there's a surprise. Everyone likes surprises. So Chapter 35 is an epilogue to the epilogue. Who knows if there'll be more but, for now, you have the last chapter to keep you going...