The Story Inspiration behind Gargoyles by Tamsin Mori
We are delighted to welcome Tamsin Mori to the blog sharing her inspiration behind her series, Gargoyles.
Story inspiration is everywhere, if you know how to look for it. Often, it’s right in front of you. When I was writing The Weather Weaver, I spent a lot of time sky-gazing. Every change in the weather would see me rushing outside to note down the smell of rain, the feel of wind, the mood of a frosty morning.
However, while sky-gazing in the city I noticed that there were often faces looking down – monstrous faces – gargoyles. It made me wonder who put them there, and why? I struggled to imagine anyone deciding to decorate their big fancy building with monsters.
Back at home, a little research revealed that traditionally, gargoyles are protectors – their purpose is to scare away evil. The next time I spotted a gargoyle, I looked at it differently. How amazing would it be to have one of these fearsome creatures on your side?
[Historical note: I did not have a wonderful time at school. There were a small number of larger boys who made my school life miserable. I spent a fair amount of time hiding in the library. I often dreamt of being able to face them with a monster at my side. Ideally, a very large toothy monster – the kind that even the worst bullies would think twice about messing with. I would have been content if it simply agreed to loom next to me, so that anyone thinking about starting something would take one look and walk away.]
The seed of an idea was planted. From that point forward, I spotted gargoyles wherever I went – on village churches, on tall city buildings, even in people’s gardens. They were everywhere.
Around this time, we moved house. The house we moved into was semi-derelict and needed a lot of repairs to make it liveable. It wasn’t a mansion, like Callen’s house in the books, but it was old and hiding many stories of its own. Several friends and family who came to visit were convinced that it was haunted. The lights often flickered unexpectedly. There were strange noises in the middle of the night. If you put something down, you might not find it in the same place the next day.
Honestly? It began to give me the creeps. But as with most troubles in life, I decided that it would probably be good material for a story. Many of the spooky moments in the Gargoyles books are lifted from real life: unexplained paw prints appearing in the dust, ancient handwritten letters discovered beneath the floorboards, a room with a bouncy floor that was rapidly declared ‘UNSAFE’ by the structural engineer.
Strangest of all were the stone animals. When we first arrived, there were three life-sized stone rabbits and two stone lions. The rabbits were being used as door stops and the lions were lying toppled in the garden. The longer we’ve lived here, the more of these animals have appeared: a squirrel, an owl, a fearsome hunting dog missing one ear. There are now nine stone rabbits and I don’t know where they’re coming from.
They didn’t look like the huge gargoyles I’d been researching, but I began to wonder if their purpose was the same – to protect us in our new home. Now, each time I discover a new one, I greet it and give it a name. We have a whole menagerie of them.
There are two Gargoyles books now – Guardians of the Source, and The Watcher – but there’s more story to tell. Right now, I’m busily editing book three, with a stone rabbit keeping watch on my desk…
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Federation.
