An Interview with Mark Howard: Author of Godfrey’s Crusade

Mark Howard is a newly published fantasy author. He studied medieval and ancient history at the graduate level, and his short story, “The Joust,” won an honorable mention at the Writers of the Future Contest.

Tell us about your book.

Godfrey’s Crusade is the fantasy novel I always wanted to read. I wanted to get certain things right about medieval battle tactics, the lord-vassal relationship, feudalism, and crusading that most other fantasy writers I’ve read didn’t seem overly concerned about. Many aspiring fantasy writers I’ve talked with appear content to dress up twenty-first-century issues in chrome breastplates and wizard robes, but I wanted to bring a bit of the twelfth century to the twenty-first in my writing.

Why did you want to write a book?

I’ve been writing for as long as I’ve known how to, particularly in the science fiction and fantasy genres. In first grade, my class was given the assignment of writing a one page fictional story. It was the only homework assignment I remember being given in elementary school that I really got excited over. I came back to class the next day with a five page manuscript. It was a sequel to the movie, “The Last Starfighter,” that I had cleverly titled “The Last Starfighter Two.” I don’t remember much of what I actually wrote (I’m sure it wasn’t really that good) or what happened to my hand-written manuscript, but I remember my teacher saying I would be a writer someday. In the years since, I never lost that passion for telling stories, my creativity substantially increased, and the discipline necessary for serious writing eventually caught up.

Tell us about the genre you wrote in, and why you chose to write this sort of book.

Fantasy has always been my favorite genre both to read and write. Noble quests, epic battles, mystery, terrifying monsters, true love; I think there’s something for everyone in fantasy.

Who are your biggest writing inspirations and why?

I know I’m far from the first to say this, but Tolkien served as one of my greatest influences while writing. I became acquainted with Tolkien very early on in life, and I’ve always appreciated the depth he gave his world and characters. I wanted to make sure that my characters were likewise multilayered and that my world had some depth to it.

What are your plans now your book is published?

Right now, the goal is to write more books. I’ve already begun writing the sequel, Godfrey Under Siege, and I’ll probably keep writing books until I’m physically unable to.

What did you learn on your journey as an author?

I think most writers understand that our craft is a process with multiple drafts, beta-readers, editors, and so on. With each edit and revision, we hope the quality improves, and most of the time it does. But there is a point when an author has to call the novel done because perfection will always be just one more draft away.

What is more important to a story: character or plot?

I think most of us get caught up in stories because they have interesting characters, but if those characters were not doing interesting things or otherwise caught up in interesting events our characters would most likely be a lot less interesting.

What inspired the setting for your book?

I knew I wanted the setting of my book to be in a secondary world so that I wasn’t beholden to real-life constraints like geography and history, but I also wanted to be able to draw deeply from my studies in those fields to help the setting feel more authentic. I wanted a world that felt familiar and that we could almost place on a map in a certain point in time.

What inspired the creation of your main character?

I wanted my protagonist to be a hero. Some authors in our more cynical age may scoff at the very notion of heroes, but I wanted Godfrey to be a young man who tries to do the right thing under most circumstances. He still has flaws. He makes mistakes. He can be wounded. But he has ideals that he tries to live up to.

What’s next for you as an author?

Writing the next installment in the series. It’s still in the early drafting stages, but there are a few ideas I’m pretty certain about at this point. First, the crusaders are going to be forced on the defensive. They’ve been making lots of progress across the Nordslands so far, but I wanted to explore what it might look like for that momentum to stall out a bit. Second, now that we’ve established ideas like knighthood and crusading in this series, I want to explore what it means to be a magic-user a little more fully through Madeline’s character. And third, Godfrey’s struggle will be much more difficult both on and off the battlefield, so expect heightened tensions, relationships to be tested, and significant losses.