Chat with Helen Dent

My main advice is to find a writers’ group that gives both honest and encouraging critique. My feedback group has helped me find strengths and address weaknesses that would have taken me years to see on my own, if ever. They also provide a real-time audience, so that as I’m reading my chapters I know immediately what is working and where I’ve lost the room. Plus, it can be really lonely to write into the void of a computer screen or notebook. The company of other writers is invaluable on this journey.

Yes, which is interesting because I don’t consciously set out to write about these themes, but they keep rising to the surface! One theme is the tendency to make snap judgments, positive or otherwise, about other people. By doing that, my characters often miss a real connection with other characters, which can be catastrophic. Also, my characters are often faced with the choice to give or withhold mercy, a choice  that becomes the backbone of the plot — though in very different ways, depending on the story world.

I love that. Sometimes we don’t realize that we are ones that make snap judgments until we are reading about somebody else who does that very thing. How do you handle writer’s block or moments of creative doubt?

I have a LOT of experience with creative doubt, and I’ve learned to roll with the worry that my story isn’t working. I’ve accepted that it’s a normal part of my writing process, and can turn out to be helpful in the revision process. Sometimes, though, doubt rears its head because I’m comparing my work to other writers, and that’s not helpful in any way. I have to choose to focus on why I’m writing in the first place — because it’s my vocation, what I believe I’ve been called to do at this time in my life. And because, even in the struggle, writing brings me so much joy.

A forest (with some unusual characteristics) is a major setting in The Burning Tree. To give a little background on that, unusual forests in general are one of my favorite things in fiction  . . . the frozen forests of Narnia, for example, or Mirkwood in Middle Earth. And I absolutely love Tolkien’s Ents, those delightful tree-shepherds who take forever to make up their minds. Forests are also one of my favorite places in real life, with their paths that lead to who-knows-what, not to mention their spooky potential. All of those influences sparked my imagination for this story.

Definitely. I actually had to rewrite the entire ending for one of my characters because his trajectory changed dramatically from what I’d originally planned for him. He turned out to be much deeper, funnier, and sympathetic than I’d imagined (and he’s a surprise to the other characters, too).

Yes, and it’s the same passage — the crisis! I had to make sure the scene was entirely clear to the reader, easy to picture, or the rest of the story wouldn’t make sense. At the same time, I wanted to keep the action moving without any digressions that would interrupt the tension of that moment. It took quite a few revisions to make it work, but once the scene came together, it was really rewarding to tie all the threads of the story together in a high-impact way.

I want to thank you Again, Helen for joining us. It was a pleasure getting to know your writing journey, and what inspired you to write the story. I hope this blog tour blesses you.

Readers, please continue reading more about The Burning Tree and Helen Dent, enter the giveaway at the end, and maybe even pick up a copy of the book for yourself.

About the Book

Book: The Burning Tree

Author: Helen Dent

Genre: YA Fantasy

Release Date: September 10, 2024

There’s a secret growing in the woods.

In Ellie Caster’s town of Bishop’s Gap, the Casters and the powerful Levy family have been feuding for generations. The families share just one thing in common—they both dread the mark, a scorch that appears at random on their doors, bringing a curse from the Burning Tree. When the mark hits Ellie’s door, her sister Jean falls into a coma. Ellie knows the Burning Tree is to blame, and desperate to save her sister, she braves the forbidden woods to confront it. But this choice ignites a chain of unintended consequences, forcing her to work with her nemesis, Charlotte Levy.

Together, they must complete an impossible task, uncover the ancient secret of Bishop’s Gap, and end the curse before time runs out for their entire town.

Click here to get your copy!

About the Author

Helen Dent’s career as a writer began at age nine, when her grandfather paid her a dollar a page for what turned into quite a lengthy story. She studied monster theory (among other things) in graduate school, taught English at a Chinese university, and toured the Scottish Hebrides in a car with a needy radiator. Now she lives in Texas with her husband, kids, a cat, and a hamster. She belongs to the DFW Writers Workshop, the Fort Worth Poetry Society, and Art House Dallas.

More from Helen

“‘Oh, Trees, Trees, Trees,’ said Lucy (though she had not been intending to speak at all). ‘Oh, Trees, wake, wake, wake.’

 . . . 

Though there was not a breath of wind they all stirred about her. The rustling noise of the leaves was almost like words.” – C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

This scene of the enchanted trees in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia sparked my imagination the very first time I read it. As a child, like Lucy, I could picture how the trees in my own backyard might look as wood-people, what they might say if they spoke. Even now, when I walk through woods, they still hold an enchanted quality for me. I want to follow all the footpaths . . . to a meadow, maybe, rich in wildflowers . . . or a haunt of bats . . . or an ancient, lightning-struck tree.

There’s a particular wood near my house that I walked week by week during a difficult season in my life. Flowers bloomed, birds nested. The light changed. Leaves fell, then budded again. It was a comfort to wander under the sheltering trees – and that comfort wasn’t just the peace of being out in nature.

Each rustle of the trees carried an echo of a much greater story.

It’s always struck me as particularly beautiful that there are individual trees at the beginning and end of the Bible: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis, and then the tree of life again in Revelation, this time described as having “twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22: 2b ESV).

So every walk in the woods reminds me that brokenness isn’t the end of the story. Death isn’t the end of the story.

It’s probably no surprise, then, that I set my book, The Burning Tree, in an enchanted forest. where the trees have been twisted into something destructive, but where there’s always the possibility of a different outcome . . . just waiting to be unlocked.

Blog Stops

Inspired by Fiction, September 14

Library Lady’s Kid Lit, September 15 (Author Interview)

Texas Book-aholic, September 15

Stories By Gina, September 16 (Author Interview)

Jodie Wolfe – Stories Where Hope and Quirky Meet, September 17 (Author Interview)

Locks, Hooks and Books, September 18

Guild Master, September 19 (Author Interview)

A Reader’s Brain, September 20 (Author Interview)

Back Porch Reads, September 21 (Author Interview)

Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, September 22

A Modern Day Fairy Tale, September 23 (Author Interview)

Fiction Book Lover, September 24 (Author Interview)

Tell Tale Book Reviews, September 25 (Author Interview)

Becca Hope: Book Obsessed, September 25

Happily Managing a Household of Boys, September 26

Through the Fire Blogs, September 27 (Author Interview)

Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Helen is giving away the grand prize package of a $50 Amazon gift card and a signed copy of the book!!

Be sure to comment on the blog stops for extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter