Internationally Bestselling Novelist? Hum -- my books are translated into many languages and Wenny Has Wings (Atheneum, 2002) was such a smashing success in Japan, Sony Pictures made it into a feature film ("Ano Sora wo Oboeteru" Remember That Sky). Okay now that’s cleared up, I wanted to pop in here because some of these questions are interesting.
I had a voracious reading appetite growing up, gobbling mostly fantasy books. The enchanting novels I read as a child inspired me to become a writer. I read down the road in an acacia tree. High in the branches I was swept into Narnia, Middle-earth, and other magical lands created by authors like E. Nesbit. I loved going on these journeys and wanted to grow up booking passage to faraway places for other young readers. I still tend to read mostly historical fiction and fantasy. I’m continually inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin, Juliet Marillier, Philippa Gregory, Patricia A. McKillip, Dia Calhoun, Shannon Hale, Kristin Cashore, Garth Nix, Libba Bray and many more.
All of these writers have an influence on how I craft my stories. There is a false notion that fantasy writers “make it up out of whole cloth.” It’s simply not true. First of all my Wilde Island books are historical fantasy set in medieval times. Historical fantasy relies on a sound knowledge of history along with a nose for detail. My shelves are crammed with books on medieval life whose pages are freckled with little post-it notes. Being a mild-mannered person, some people are surprised to see books like: Nigel Cawthorne’s Witches History of a Persecution. And Karen Farrington’s Dark Justice: A History of Punishment and Torture. I learned a lot about witch trials and medieval torture methods. Both reference works were essential to writing Dragonswood.
We fantasy writers do a lot of research. We also ‘stand on the shoulders of giants’ as the saying goes. We beg, borrow and steal, snatching seeds from fairytales, myths, folklore, and legends. We rely on the fractal patterns of story-making, growing our own intricately patterned tales with a view to a little something new.
What did you do before you became a published novelist, and how did you come to write your first novel and get it published?
I told myself I couldn’t make a living writing novels, so I got a practical degree to teach Special Education. I was miserable and finally gave up teaching after the birth of my second son. Strait away I was writing my first fantasy novel on the sly. My first two were practice novels. You can read a library full of books on how to ride a bicycle, but you won’t really know how to ride until you climb on and start pedaling. First novels like first bicycle rides are wobbly. You fall down a lot scraping your knees and your ego before you start to get anywhere. I went back to teaching a few years before I published my first novel, Molly’s Fire (Atheneum, 2002). This time I had the sense to teach what I loved offering novel writing courses to those who had the same crazy dream I had. I taught writing for ten years but I gave it up when I wrote The Beast of Noor (Atheneum 2006) to put all my eggs in one basket which is completely impractical and wildly wonderful because putting everything I had into novel writing paid off. Now I write full-time and teach workshops here and there catch as catch can.
How would you describe your style of fiction or your approach to writing fiction during your first few novels?
I was a fantasy writer from the get-go, but my first three published children’s novels were realistic fiction. I was circling around my lost childhood like a bee looking for its destroyed hive. My tales deal with loss and renewal in some way or another be they realistic or fantasy because as I said in another interview here, Story Is Transformation. It’s a chronicling of some kind of change. Change for the positive on some level is traditionally called Comedy, change on the downslide, Tragedy. You spiral up or you spiral down, but you’ve got to move, change, transform.
How would you describe your style of fiction or your approach to writing fiction now?
My approach hasn’t changed all that much. I study, read, live, dream, and wait for something to grab me. Once an idea gets hold of me and shakes me up, it’s time to journal and see what’s there. Then as I said in the Story interview, I have a kind of ongoing conversation with the inner storyteller. I have the gist of the thing, a possible ending in mind, a character forming, but I pursue story in a less than logical manner because too much logic kills the magic (it’s like going after a butterfly with a hammer). So I go back and forth between plot planning and adventuring in the dark with a match that keeps going out. The adventurer has to keep striking a new match and listening to the inner storyteller for the next step, the next cue. If the characters are right for the novel they are absolutely driven to solve the story problem, so they, too, lead the way.
As the saying goes, “God likes to hear our plans and laugh.” It’s something like that with story.
Was your first published novel standalone or part of a series, and what advantages or disadvantages did this present for you?
My first three were stand alone, my fourth, The Beast of Noor, and fifth, Dragon’s Keep, began series. Stand alone books are wonderful because there’s a real sense of closure at the end. Series have different challenges. I love returning to the same characters or the same world to discover something new. Maybe this is a good place to air a pet peeve. I think each novel should be written as if it’s a stand alone. First because if the it’s not strong enough to stand alone without wobbling, it shouldn’t be a novel, second because not every reader reads a whole series or reads a series in order.
Did you find writing your second novel easier or more challenging than writing your first novel and why?
My second novel with Atheneum, Wenny Has Wings. won the Mark Twain award and later became a feature film in Japan. Wenny Has Wings, a boy awakens after a near death experience and tries to heal his family after the loss of his sister.
Like many of my early novels, (the first four to be exact) I wrote the book before I knew it would be published. There’s a certain fearlessness that comes to our writing when we don’t know if a book will ever see the light of day. It forces us to push out beyond the boundaries. I loved writing the epistolary book where Will writes to his dead sister, Wenny of his near death experience and tells her how life is down here on earth without her. The letter form allowed me to go back and forth between tragic and comic scenes, balancing the story. I stepped into a twelve year old boy’s body and wrote it the way he would, with a kind of pithy no holds barred honesty. Was it more challenging than my first published novel? Every novel is challenging. It never gets any easier lighting the next match in the dark.
Fiction is a faith walk.
Who is another novelist whose fiction writing you admire and why?
I love so many novels. But right now I’d say my favorites are Michael Ondaatje, Juliet Marillier, and Ursula K. Le Guin. All three go deep into place and character, and all three craft stories where the writing sings. I read Ursula K. Le Guin’s books over and over to return to the places she creates and to relish the stark poetic moments she crafts.
Language is musical. Writing is rhythmic. Some writer’s styles resonate with me and restore my ear for writing. I’m also a musician. I often compose a new song after immersing myself in music. Similarly as a writer, I find melodic resonance in other writers’ works. Along with the images they invoke, I’m listening to their voices. This deep listening feeds my fiction.
Side story: I was lucky enough to meet Ursula K. Le Guin at her book signing for Lavinia. I gave her a copy of Dragon’s Keep, and said, “Your words open mine.” For a moment we just looked at one another.
Pick a series of novels you have written. How would you describe what makes that a cohesive series with strong appeal for readers? If you have not written a series of novels, how would you describe what makes one of your favourite series by another novelist a cohesive series with strong appeal for readers?
My Wilde Island books, Dragon’s Keep and Dragonswood, are character-driven adventures. Adventure is nothing without Character. A train wreck is evening news. A boy rescuing his baby brother from a train wreck is Story. So both Dragon’s Keep and Dragonswood begin with strong characters whose deepest longings get them into immediate trouble. Rosalind, born with a secret dragon’s claw, is trying desperately to rid herself of her beast-mark. She doesn’t understand why she was born with a claw until she’s abducted by a dragon. In Dragonswood, Tess gets into immediate trouble because of her ability to see visions in the fire. Soon she’s running from the witch hunter, escaping the witch pyre, she also escapes her previously confining life under the abusive blacksmith’s roof. (See more about Tess in the Characters interview.) I think readers resonate with Rosalind’s beastly flaw (we all suffer shame over our flaws, especially during our teen years). Readers also resonate with Tess’s need to escape her confining life and come into her own power as a person and as a woman. Of course the romance in both books also gets readers turning the pages.
How would you summarise one of your novels in one paragraph?
I’ll summarize The Dragons of Noor, book two of the Noor chronicles: In The Dragons of Noor Miles, Hanna and her friend Taunier voyage across the sea to find their missing brother and the other children who were stolen by the wind. They’re soon embroiled in a war fighting alongside dragons to save the endangered forest. Win the war to save the magical forest and they will have the means to find their brother and the missing children. Lose and the children will remain lost. A rhyme haunts the three teens throughout to book:
Children fly when worlds are shaken
Now the children are Wind-taken.
Seek them there; seek them here, before the children disappear.
How would you describe the appeal of this novel to readers?
In a word -- adventure. The Noor books highlight the adventures of three underdogs, Miles and Hanna who have been shamed by a violent family legacy (full story in The Beast of Noor), and Taunier who was branded and shunned by the villagers for his magical ability to herd fire. I think readers relate to underdogs who fight back, win through and come into their own. In this novel Miles engages in dangerous shape-shifting magic to aid the dragons, Taunier must herd fire for the dragons’ cause, and Hanna has to find and face the enemy she saw in her Dreamwalk to save the missing children.
How would you summarise a chapter from this novel in one paragraph?
In chapter one, Hanna is told to watch over her little brother, Tymm. A mysterious wind has swept into Enness Isle stealing young children. Hanna’s resigned to staying home with Tymm until magical voices call her into Shalem Wood. Anxious to rescue the Wind-stolen children and believing the tree spirits of Shalem Wood can help her find them, she follows the call. She shuts Tymm in the house and enters the forest. Later Tymm escapes and follows her in. Before she can safely get her little brother home, the tempest comes, steals Tymm, and blows him over the woods and across the eastern sea.
How would you describe the contribution this chapter makes to the novel?
Chapter one sets up the magic, the mystery of the Wind-stolen children, and Hanna’s conflict (a conflict many older siblings can relate to). She blames herself for Tymm’s disappearance. Of course her parents won’t agree to her crossing the sea to find Tymm and the other missing children. She’s forced to ‘borrow’ a small sailboat to go after them. Compelling problems lead inevitably to the next chapter. In chapter two we meet Hanna’s brother Miles who’s far away on studying magic on Othlore Isle. When the wind steals more children from Othlore, Miles and Taunier are also drawn across the sea after them. The three of them need to find the children, but another conflict awaits them in the east. The warring dragons need the Dreamwalker, the Shape-shifter and the Fire Herd for their own cause. Siding with the dragons gives them a chance to win back the missing children.
Author website: www.janetleecarey.com
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