Know The Novel - Introducing The Prospero Hotel

Hello! FallFicFrenzy is back and so is Know The Novel, and you know what that means. My one post a year is back, folks. 

This year, I'm not aiming high with my goal. I recently started a Creative and Critical Writing MA, so that's going to have to be my main focus. I also, in the leadup to starting said course, had a bout of really severe costochondritis (meaning inflammation in the muscles around my ribcage/breastbone) that's only just subsided, so I'm having to be especially careful with writing for now.

Thus, my goal has been adjusted accordingly. Rather than aiming for a big word-count or to write a huge chunk of a novel, my goal this year is simple: write 200 words a day (except Sundays) on something. It can be related to my Masters degree, or it can be working on my projects - such as this one I'm about to introduce to you - though I'd prefer the latter if I have the mental and physical energy to do so. If I write more, great! If I don't, that's fine. I'm aiming for consistency over quantity and, hopefully, making a decent chunk of progress along the way. 

So, without further ado, let me introduce The Prospero Hotel.

 

 

What first sparked the idea for this novel?

The original idea for this came way back in late 2021, when it was actually supposed to be more of just a general fantasy set in a hotel. I wrote a couple thousand words of the idea with no plan, then abandoned it for long enough to decide I actually wanted to make it a horror story. I was, in fact, staying in a kind of spooky inn-turned-holiday-home with my family at the time, so that definitely informed the whole idea, as did watching a playthrough of the horror game At Dead of Night (also set in a hotel, though the similarities end at spooky horror hotel).

I didn't, however, actually write anything else for it then, I just sort of abandoned the whole idea for ages. Then earlier this year I just got a wave of inspiration for it and dug it out, completely reworking it and transforming it into what it is today. Some elements have stayed the same, while the rest - namely, the MC and her whole conflict, which is the core of the story - have completely changed.

 

Share a blurb (or just an overall summary)!

So I would consider this story to be gothic horror, or possibly folk horror, in the sense that I'm very much using fairy folklore as a basis for some of the horror elements. Here, have a very short blurb that I wrote in like half-an-hour. It's kind of hard to write a full blurb for a story where most of the things I could reveal are spoilers.

In the north of England, deep in the moors of Northumberland, lies the Prospero Hotel. The lights are always on. The rooms are always ready to receive guests. The staff are always welcoming and eager to help. The kitchen is always cooking away, food at the ready.

No one ever comes out.

When, on a snowy night, a runaway teenager carrying her own secrets stumbles across the hotel, drenched to the bone and starving, it seems like a lifesaver. All she wants is to stay for a single night, long enough to warm up and sleep and get something to eat. Long enough to pretend, just for a few hours, that she’s safe. But a night in the Prospero Hotel can last a long time and the price might be higher than she can pay.

 

Where does the story take place? What are some of your favorite aspects of the setting?

It takes place in the eponymous Prospero Hotel, a spooky sentient eldritch hotel in the middle of the Northumberland moorlands. I am super excited to play around with this place. I love sentient settings and the Prospero Hotel is very much its own character in the narrative, with its own unknowable goals and desires. I'm super excited to develop it further. It draws from Victorian gothic fiction as well as fairy-tale folklore, with a touch of Lovecraft. Very fun.

 

Tell us about your protagonist(s).

Now this is a challenge, because so much of this protagonist is spoilers. I can't even tell you her name, you don't find that out until a decent way through the story. So, for now, she's just The Runaway. Everything else is also a mystery. In some ways, even to her.  

 The Runaway

15 | INFJ

 what is a name but a way to harm you? | crushed by unimaginable guilt | accidental unreliable narrator | has been lying to herself since she was a small child and she's not going to stop now | believes she's doomed by the narrative | maybe she is

  

Who (or what) is the antagonist?

The Prospero Hotel itself (sentient mildly carnivorous hotel), but also the Runaway is her own antagonist. 

 

What excites you the most about this novel?

So much about this story excites me! Like I said, I absolutely adore sentient settings and I'm so excited to write this one. I'm also excited to explore my main character, there's so much internal conflict to delve into with her. I'm also a little nervous about that, it's a complex narrative to try and keep track of. It'll definitely be a challenge, but one I'm excited about.

 

Is this going to be a series? standalone? something else?

 The goal here is a single novella. I'm aiming at somewhere between 20-30k, though I'm open to go longer or shorter if, once I start writing, the story turns out to need it. Originally, I thought this would be a novel, but the more I've thought about it, the more I think it'll be more effective as a shorter piece. There aren't that many characters and the story is smaller in scope than a lot of my other works, it's more about this one single character's journey than a big adventure.

 

Are you plotting? pantsing? plansting?

I'd say plantsing. I have all the major reveals plotted out, as well as an ending decided, and a few scenes in between planned, but everything else is to be decided as I write. I think I do my best work when I work like this, with some idea of where I'm going but without planning things down to a scene-by-scene basis. 

 

Name a few unique elements in this story.

I'd say the use of fairy-lore in horror is pretty unique, as is the sentient (at times fleshy) hotel. The importance - and withholding - of the main character's name is also pretty out of the ordinary. It's going to be first person present tense and using that to portray the Runaway's very unstable and unreliable state of mind is an unusual way of writing an unreliable narrator - she isn't intentionally lying, because she doesn't know she's narrating a story, but that doesn't mean you can believe everything she says. 

 

Share some fun “extras” of the story (a song or full playlist, some aesthetics, a collage, a Pinterest board, a map you’ve made, a special theme you’re going to incorporate, ANYTHING you want to share!).

eyes are in the walls | something's breathing behind you | faces with no mouth | doors that don't stay locked | human hearts | the ever-present guilt | what is real? | what makes a monster a monster? | what does it mean when you loved that monster? | there's someone in your room

 

 

If you want to check my Pinterest board out, it's here. Thank you for reading! And thank you Christine for running this linkup as well as FallFicFrenzy again this year, both are always so much fun. I hope everyone has a great FicFrenzy and I look forward to reading everyone's answers!