• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Dancing Priest

Author and Novelist Glynn Young

  • HOME
  • BLOG
  • BOOKS
    • Dancing Prophet
    • Dancing Priest
    • A Light Shining
    • Dancing King
    • Poetry at Work
  • ABOUT
  • CONTACT

fiction

A Predictive Manuscript

January 8, 2021 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

My wife has told me that the Dancing Priest novels can sometimes feel creepy because, well, I write the story, and some of things, or similar things, happen in real life. Not long ago, I wrote a post about something specific that happened after Dancing Prophet was published, but there are examples from all five of the books.

She has what I think is a good explanation for this. My reading ranges all over the social, cultural, and political landscapes. Everything I read is potentially research for the books, and I become aware of things happening, things potentially happening, and events that almost happen. When something real does occur, it can look as if I predicted it in a book.

I’ve discovered that this can even happen when I’m in the middle of a manuscript. 

I’m almost 30,000 words into a new novel. It’s something completely different than what I’ve written before. The setting is a lot closer to home than the Dancing Priest novels, and it’s generally along the lines of a coming-of-age story, told by a boy whose family goes through a convulsion that tears the family apart.

Life gets intense when I’m writing like this. I take walks, and I’m working through scenes. I’m in the shower, and I’m rewriting a conversation to add something it needs. I’m at the grocery store, wondering what one of the characters would be buying. I’m driving, and I go out of my way to get a close look at a house that might fit a setting in the story. Everything I read in the newspaper or online is potential grist.

On Wednesday, I opened the newspaper as I usually do when I drink my coffee. The newspaper has become easier to read over time; you can look at a headline or the first paragraph of a story and know almost instantly whether you’re reading news or an editorial disguised as news. (I skip a lot of what goes in the newspaper these days.)  On an inside page there was a local story involving a school and a lawsuit. A fairly lengthy story, I was surprised that it was written as straight news. I was even more surprised when I started reading the last third of the story. It read like it was lifted from my manuscript. 

I could not have predicted these real events described in the story. But I’ve been doing enough reading and research to know that what I was writing about was certainly possible. Things like it have been happening in other places. And now it had gone beyond possibility in my own community. 

In my story, a student is accused of a crime at school. The accusation goes public. The news media, social media, parents, and school officials all assume the child’s guilt. Conventions and laws about media not naming minors involved in crimes are mown down in the eagerness to get the story. Adults and officials who are supposed to care about due process and facts disregard both in their rush for public virtue. And a family is destroyed in the process. 

The heart of the story is about what it takes to bring healing, even when some things can’t be healed. 

It’s not the big sprawling story of the kind that characterize the Dancing Priest novels. It’s about one family in one community and how people and children can be damaged in the tug of war of politics and ideology.

They say life imitates art. It may be more a case of art mirrors life and art mirrors things that can be expected to happen. This is not an easy story to write. It’s also not an easy story to live. And some people are living it. 

Top photograph by Andreas Brunn, middle photograph by Waldemar Brandt, both via Unsplash. Used with permission.

“Dancing Prince” is Published Today

July 1, 2020 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

Dancing Prince, the fifth and final novel in my Dancing Priest series, is published today on Amazon.

A mother’s last words, a father’s final message, and a strange painting: Michael Kent-Hughes faces personal tragedy, one that leads to long-lasting damage to the relationship with his youngest child, Prince Thomas. As the young boy grows to adulthood and the estrangement from his father continues, he finds his own way in life. But in the boy’s hands and heart will lie the future of the kingdom. Dancing Prince is the moving conclusion of the Dancing Priest series.

The book includes a novella, Island, that is related to the main text but can be read as a standalone work.

Paperback

Kindle  

Dancing Prince – July 2020

June 11, 2020 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

A mother’s last words, a father’s final message, and a strange painting. Michael Kent-Hughes faces personal tragedy, one that leads to long-lasting damage to the relationship with his youngest child, Prince Thomas. As the young boy grows to adulthood and the estrangement with his father continues, he finds his own way in life. But in the boy’s hands and heart will lie the future of the kingdom. Dancing Prince is the moving conclusion of the Dancing Priest series. Coming July 2020.

“Dancing Prince” – the Fifth Novel in the “Dancing Priest” Series

February 11, 2020 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

The news is rather bittersweet.

The sweet news: The fifth novel in the Dancing Priest series is in editorial production. Tentatively entitled Dancing Prince, it’s the story of the youngest child of Michael and Sarah Kent-Hughes. The story covers almost two decades, from the time Thomas Kent-Hughes is four until he’s 23. It’s also the story of Tommy’s father, Michael, and the relationship the two have over the course of those two decades. 

This story was never planned. Early in 2019, it began as something entirely different. But this young boy nicknamed Tommy kept sticking his head in the narrative. He wasn’t being very helpful, because I was having a lot of trouble with the writing. At first, I fought the writing and the unwanted character; I told myself that Tommy could wait until later. As a sop, I gave him a small part. That was a mistake. Or perhaps it wasn’t.

Dancing Priest

I don’t recall a specific “Aha!” moment, but sometime in the early spring, I realized Tommy was the story. I went back and rewrote the draft. That’s when I realized that Tommy had been lurking there the entire time. The story clicked in my head, and more than that, my understanding of the entire series clicked at the same time.

And that’s the “bitter” part of the bittersweet news, for me at least. Dancing Prince is the last in the Dancing Priest series. It’s the right conclusion to the idea that started in 2002 on an airplane to San Francisco and was first published in December 2011. It’s coincidental, but the 18-year development of the Dancing Priest series almost exactly tracks the 18 years of Tommy’s life covered in this final series entry. 

I’ve lived with these characters for a long time. Michael Kent-Hughes first started as an image, an image of a Catholic priest dancing on a beach in Italy. In my head, he became an Episcopal priest for a short time, and then I moved him to Scotland and made him an Anglican theology student who was also an ardent cyclist. Sarah Kent-Hughes was originally imagined as a young woman in a tour group, who are sitting at dinner when they’re joined by a priest. Gradually she became an American exchange student at the University of Edinburgh, trailing in the wake of her twin brother David Hughes.

David has always been a relatively minor character. But I always inherently liked him, and I wanted to do more with him. He gets a much larger and more important part in Dancing Prince than he’s had in the earlier books. He comes into his own as a character.

Dancing Prince also has something of a pleasant problem. One of the characters writes a story. The story is about novella-length, and it’s too long to include in the main narrative. We’re trying to figure out what to do with it. It might become a bonus section at the end of the novel, or it might be a standalone. The subject is unrelated to the main narrative to the Dancing Priest novels. The writing of it plays a significant role in the development of two characters. I think I wrote it to get it out of my head.

Look for the new book in late spring.

What’s next after Dancing Prince? There’s a possibility of a collection of short stories and two novellas. I also have four standalone novels in various stages of development, ranging from a long outline to 40,000+ words. They’re unrelated to and completely different from the Dancing Priest series and each other.

I will say this: I’ll miss Michael and Sarah Kent-Hughes and their friends and families. You don’t live with characters for almost two decades without coming to learn a lot about them. And learning a lot about yourself.

Top photograph by Jenny Hill via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Interview with Wombwell Rainbow

August 15, 2019 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

I was interviewed by Wombwell Rainbow, a U.K.-based site that features interviews with local, regional, national, and international writers. The discussion ranged from reading and writing poetry to work ethics, writing, and favorite authors.

You can read the entire interview at Wombwell Rainbow.

Writing as Editing, Editing as Writing

August 6, 2019 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

A friend and fellow writer asked me if I edited my writing as I wrote or after I finished a draft. My answer was yes. I do both. I edit as I write, over and over again, and I edit once the draft is “finished,” if that’s possible. 

The question provoked a deeper thought. Is it possible for me to separate editing and writing?

The answer is no, and I suspect computers have something to do with it.

I was trained in journalism. At the time, classroom technology consisted of Royal manual typewriters. Electric machines were available, but my journalism school couldn’t afford them. I taught myself typing on a portable electric typewriter, but in-class assignments and tests were done on the manual Royals. I can still remember the sound of 20 journalism students pounding on typewriter keys. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at the ACFW blog.

Photograph by Stanley Dai via Unsplash. Used with permission.

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 5
  • Go to Next Page »

Footer

GY



Meet the Man

An award-winning speechwriter and communications professional, Glynn Young is the author of three novels and the non-fiction book Poetry at Work.

 

 01_facebook 02_twitter 26_googleplus 07_GG Talk

Copyright © 2021 Glynn Young · Site by The Willingham Enterprise · Log in | Managed by Fistbump Media LLC