Q&A

Francis Chapman loves answering questions about his characters, his worlds, and his books. If you have a question for Francis, you can Get In Touch. This is where you will find some of the best questions that readers have sent, and the answers he supplied.

Q. What gave you the idea to write a book about Jesus/Yeshua still being alive? – Luke, Devon

A. It was actually a conversation I had with my partner (and editor) about the absurdity of the Christian notion of Jesus being sent to die for our sins. It just wasn’t something that made any sense to me, this idea that by being responsible for deicide, we were somehow absolved of humanity’s collective sins. So I started thinking… okay… what would acutally make sense? And the first thing I thought was, well, it might be really difficult to kill a living God. I started thinking about Jesus’ motivations would actually be if he came of his own volition, and was not sent to his death by some abstract father figure, and the basic plot of Book of Yeshua grew from there.

Q. Who was your favourite character to write? – Talia, Surrey

A. Pontius Pilate! He’s funny, and relatable, and bad, but not evil, and then evil, but only because of the path he was set on. I enjoyed writing the Pilate chapters, beacuse he’s never driving the action, and sometimes even he knows it, but his ego can’t quite cope with it. He’s caught between two extraordinary forces of nature, Tavarius and Yeshua, and despite his terrible choices, I couldn’t help but like him.

Q. Which part of the narrative was the most taxing to construct, there are some very dark aspects, but perhaps these were not necessarily the hardest to write? – Cat, Wiltshire

A. With the concept of reincarnation playing an important part of the book, it wasn’t too emotionally taxing to write some of the darker aspects. Even though some of the events depicted scarred individuals souls for many lifetimes, perhaps even permanently, there is still something of the Annunaki philosophy in my own perception which meant I could go “okay, I can do this to X because they are going to be reincarnated, and get another chance”. The ending was by far and away the most difficult thing to write, because whereas the rest of the story often feels as though it’s being guided, when it comes to the ending you very much feel that you are making conscious decisions about the fates of the characters. And there are certain fates I just couldn’t bring myself to impose on the characters I liked best!