© Images provided by Haley and Daria
Meet Haley and Daria, two long-distance friends who created a fantastical world of mythological lores full of witches, vampires and demons.
Daria and Haley met on Instagram sometime in 2018, after connecting on a K-pop fandom page, their friendship grew through letters and countless Zoom calls. Whilst Haley lives in Minnesota, Daria is in London, but the two couldn’t be closer in spirit, so much so, that despite the different time-zones and opposite continents, their friendship blossomed into the form of a book; Heretics & Hearsay, their debut novel and the first of their trilogy, co-written by the pair over the period of over two years. Daria remembers the day, it was June 1st 2021. The two had just sat down on Zoom, they did their usual gossiping and one thing led to another and from there, a story sprouted. At the time, Daria was studying English literature and Haley was looking to pursue a creative major at university, both wanted to seek out careers in the writing world and so they made it their reality.
The two joke that they were ‘parenting’ this book together, from across the Atlantic, and so, between graduating university, their personal lives and many, many zoom calls back and forth, Heretics & Hearsay was born.
The story goes like this:
‘In ancient Sumeria, the Kingdom of Ead and the Maidens of Lilith maintain a fragile peace following the suspected death of the Hand of Lilith. Beka, secretly the prophesied Hand, lives quietly as a farmhand until her friend’s murder by Lillith’s curse reveals her identity. The ruthless King sends General Bausan and assassins Bea and Elio to find her. Prince Aalis, in love with Beka, reaches her first, but the King’s forces burn her village, forcing them to flee. Beka must choose between surrendering to the Kingdom or embracing her destiny with the Maidens. The climax sees Beka’s capture and the Maidens' demand for her return, leading to an impending war declared by the vengeful King.’
Haley recalls, "I would always tell [Daria] about my little writing things and I thought of this idea for a story with a cool girl who doesn't have any love interest. She's just cool and she has magic. And that’s when Daria came up with the idea to incorporate Lilith and then four or five hours later, we were still on Zoom talking about it. Now three years later, we have a finished manuscript."
Haley and Daria found a rhythm in their writing process that slowly but surely built up the story. One would write the bare bones of a character and the other would jump in and edit it and so on and so forth. "We do have certain characters that we favour writing", says Daria, "my character that I love to write [Clement, the princess], she only has two chapters in Heretics & Hearsay, but she's going to be an even bigger character in book two and three. She has major religious trauma and issues with her family. Her dad is this tyrant king, she has a really bad relationship with her brother… So, it was interesting to be in her head’.
Haley highlights, ‘writing was always an isolating hobby for me, but having someone to do it together with and create these characters was amazing. I think our biggest strength is our ability to have created six characters that are so very distinct, but then also have that one character that we understand and have an individual relationship with."
The pair found in each others’ strengths and creativity a well-oiled partnership that plays on their skills but also recognises the importance of space and boundaries. The two explain that they never write the manuscript together simultaneously, instead they leave each other space to take over the pages one at a time, before they go back over each others’ paragraphs to offer edits, notes and comments.
Daria is a professional editor now and Haley explains, "She is pretty cutthroat. She knows what looks good and what doesn't and it taught me a lot, it challenged me to be a better writer and I've gotten a lot better at writing being with her." Daria adds, "By working with Haley, I've definitely become more confident in my writing; unlike Haley, I've never really written stories. I had written stuff for myself before, small little things under pseudonyms, poems here and there and I know I'm a good writer, but I never really thought myself capable of writing a novel, much less a trilogy. So, working with Haley and having the reassurance of someone that I really trust and that I value as an incredible writer made me feel that I could do this."
I asked Haley and Daria to tell me their thoughts on the genre of their book, New Adult, and its typical tropes and themes, and how Heretics & Hearsay fits into all of it. The two discussed their desire to break away from the stereotypes of Young Adult and fantasy novels by dedicating particular attention to their characters’ dimensions and write them as real people in a fantasy setting, Daria says, "[In YA] a lot of books typically have one main character, and it's the sort of Y/N (‘your name’, refers to a character the reader can replace themselves with, usually used in fan fiction), ‘not like other girls’ type. And we've got six main characters and their POVs are all interchangeable and one is not more important than the other. That’s where [Heretics & Hearsay] diverts from the specific YA characterisation, it’s not like “I’m not like other girls”, it’s more like 'we’re all traumatised'".
Haley adds, "[the characters] all have their stereotypes but they go beyond the stereotypes. They’re all so much more than what we initially introduce them to be."
(See below for character representations by Daria)
Heretics & Hearsay places a particular emphasis on inclusive storytelling. Daria and Haley dedicated special attention and time towards writing diverse characters into their fantasy world, and this is what they had to say on the process: "So, we’re both white, surprise!’ says Daria, "and as a white reader, who consumes a lot intersectional media, growing up within the fantasy realm and seeing all these popular authors only make way for white characters and relying on terrible stereotypes of people of colour, we knew we wanted [Heretics & Hearsay] to be a safe and open space for everybody where everybody feels represented." She continues, "in the writing process, I consulted my POC friends and asked “do you feel like this is accurate?” And I feel like [their feedback] is invaluable."
On the topic of queerness, Haley and Daria emphasised the importance of writing characters that represent real life in the fantasy world, giving them a safe space to exist in normalcy. Being independent writers on this project, Daria and Haley benefitted from the much needed freedom in the publishing world, to write inclusively and boldly, moreover, their dedication to diversity and inclusivity proves that there is never a good excuse to not be inclusive as an author. Consulting POC or queer friends and actively reaching out to ask questions and seek opinions, especially with the power and accessibility social media offers, is an important and invaluable resource, as Daria put it, into writing a novel that paves the way for the better world we want to see.
"At its core, Heretics & Hearsay is about deconstructing colonialism and oppressive institutions. We want to take a stand against that", Daria adds.
Haley goes on to explain how through writing the book, she was able to grow with one of the characters that were experiencing similar feelings as she was. "I grew with the story and with that character in finding their queerness and that feeling felt really special for me and it made me realise how important these stories are. When I think of the predominantly white male cast of Lord of the Rings that I grew up with, it feels good to create something that offers a lot more for people who didn’t see their own representation [in fantasy] growing up."
Witnessing the making-of of Project Darley, as the writers have called it, is a wonderful testimony to the importance of supporting young creatives and push for more stories about 20-something year olds to be published by authors who share the turmoils and experience of the characters they are writing in the present. Retrospective can be an incredible tool, but there is something to say about harnessing the power of the present and preserving it as a time capsule.
"It feels very special that we’re doing this now", says Haley. "[Daria] will send me pictures of magpies, which is the alias of one of our characters, as we don’t get any in Minnesota. We’ll just see all these things and we feel like the universe brought us together and this [project] is such a “now” moment for us and we’re meant to do this together."
Our conversation turned to the topic of female trauma as stereotypical a motivation tool for female characters in fantasy books. One of the central characters of Heretics and Hearsay is Lillith and Daria explains "I’m a non-zionisnt jew and I’m not religious, but Lillith was always someone in our mythology that I was always aware of and a lot of authors who are jewish love to represent Lillith as a horrific woman villain, but when you look closely at her story, you’ll see that she is the victim. She was sent to hell because she refused to be subservient to Adam. I don’t like seeing her as the villain, she’s just a woman who was scorned and sent to hell."
"It was so important for us not to subject our characters, specifically our women, to unnecessary abuse. Our women go through trauma, but it was important for us not to commodify it and just throw in a random rape scene. One of our characters will be, unfortunately, subject to a toxic relationship in future books and it wasn’t a decision we made lightly. We decided to do it to mirror the story of Lilith and Adam, to help shed light on the parallels. But don’t worry. She’ll take matters into her own hands, if you catch our drift."
Daria adds, "I am so sick of writers having to capitalise off of [women’s] pain in order to make their story interesting. I don’t want to read that. We’re going to do the opposite’. Haley emphasises that their book presents women with realistic thoughts and concerns who are not dependent on love interests but who have their priorities set elsewhere in their fight for survival. "It’s so refreshing, and it happened so naturally for us to write them this way."
Speaking with these two dynamic writers was an absolute treat for a fellow writer and literature lover such as myself and hearing and sharing the story of Project Darley has served me as a reminder of the vast sea of undiscovered talent that exists in the creative industry. This reminder reinforced mine and INJECTION Mag’s commitment to sharing these incredible stories of creativity, friendship and craft.
As of the time of this interview, Haley and Daria are in talks with different publishers but the two are working hard to promote their project organically online via Instagram and Tiktok. We hope to see Heretics & Hearsay hit the shelves of our favourite independent bookshops soon, but in the meantime, we’re thrilled to share this story with you, our dear readers.
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