Author interview: Tony Riches on writing ‘Queen Sacrifice’
ShareToday’s Guest to my Blog a very talented author TONY RICHES.
Hi Tony – you are best known for non fiction work so what inspired you to write a novel?
Hi Alisa, I moved to West Wales last year, not far from Pembroke Castle and started looking into the local history. 
I soon found stories of 10th century kings, battling for control of Wales. They had bishops for advisors and some of the earliest knights, supported by ‘bondsmen’ over whom they held the power of life and death – and was reminded of a huge game of chess.
There are hundreds of chess based novels – so what makes Queen Sacrifice different?
Most are about the players and the tactics, so I decided to choose a famous game, then developed a ‘cast’ of characters for each piece and made sure his narrative followed every single move. The game I chose was the queen sacrifice game, known as “The Game of the Century” between Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer in New York in 1956.
It must have been complicated to keep the story in step with the moves of the game?
There were some problems. My ‘cast’ only included two women – and one of those would definitely not make it to the end of the story, so I created a few ‘supporting roles’ for women, such as the White Queen’s handmaiden, who always travelled with her and the Bishop’s housekeeper (with whom he had a bit of history.)
How much did the game influence your character development?
I deliberately avoided knowing the moves until I had already developed the characters. This worked well, as when I started following the moves I had to ‘kill off’ some of my favourites, which was really made me work hard on the narrative.
What comes next – another chess novel?
I enjoyed researching and writing Queen Sacrifice and found that sense of loss some authors may recognise once it was finished. I have published it on Amazon as an ebook and am now starting on my second novel – about a woman kindnapped from the beach in Mombasa by Somali pirates – but that’s another story.
Preview Queen Sacrifice now on Amazon UK or Amazon US
See Tony’s Blog ‘The Writing Desk’ at http://tonyriches.blogspot.co.uk/
Amazon Author page at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B006UZWOXA
Goodreads at http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5604088
Tony_Riches Google+ at https://plus.google.com/110273503423252177158/
Twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/tonyriches
Twitter ID @tonyriches
One Comment On Author interview: Tony Riches on writing ‘Queen Sacrifice’
Sandy Nachlinger says:
What an interesting idea for a book! I enjoyed your interview with Tony Riches, as well as the trailer for his book. Beautiful and dramatic photos.
Good job!