In an interview with Leigh Bardugo and Sarah J Maas, they
discuss such things as each others books, the importance of flawed characters
and whether or not they bend spines...
I interviewed Sarah and Leigh at Seven Stories in Newcastle and just wanted
to take a moment to explain how amazing and inspiring these two women are. Both
authors took time to chat with each person who came over to them and offered
and posed for pictures. They didn’t just sign the books with their signatures
and pass them on, but wrote messages and quotes inside, a different thing in
each, no matter how many books they had to sign (their poor hands!) and I had A
LOT of books! Hardbacks and paperbacks of each author, each different cover,
even the ARCs and a poster or two, but they didn’t put a limit on how much
they’d sign and said they’d sign any and as much as wanted.
I adored Sarah’s idea of having her own book that the fans
could sign! It really made you feel that she really did care about what you thought about her books and valued your
interest.
Both were so SO lovely to talk to, and very funny! The girl
behind me in the queue (someone id only met once before- when I recommended her
the books, what a coincidence!) was nervous as she hadn’t any idea what to do
or say but came out smiling and talking about how nice they were. My dad came
along, wanting to see what all my fuss over these books was about and is now
storming through Shadow and Bone, I think he must’ve enjoyed himself! Adults
love YA too!
I don’t think either ever didn’t have a smile on their face, if you get the chance to meet
either of these guys, I suggest you GRAB it with both hands!
After introductions,
me, Leigh and Sarah sat down to discuss their New York Times bestselling books
and their writing.
It always so hard for
authors to pick their favourite characters from their own books, so, who is
your favourite character in each others books?
Leigh: Nehemia is
my favourite character from Sarah’s series.
Sarah: I’m gonna
say Mal, he’s so hot. *laughs* He’s so hot! Oh my god, my body temperature
actually just got hotter, my pits just got really sweaty.
Leigh: *laughs*
she’s so classy!
Sarah: I’m from America! That’s
how we do things there!
Would you rather be a
Sun Summoner, a Darkling, a Privteer, Tracker, Heartrender, Healer, Squaller,
Inferni, Tidemaker, Durast or Alkemi?
Sarah: I wanna be
a Sun Summoner!!
Leigh: I can see
that. I guess, if I could be as good a privateer as Sturmhond, I would be a
privateer, but otherwise, I’d be a heartrender. Then I could be like, I don’t
like you, I’m gonna put you to sleep…*reaches out hand*
Sarah: That was
slightly terrifying with your rings and your nails. I can totally see that too.
So, on the other
hand, would you rather be human, fae, witch, human with magic or a human assassin?
Sarah: Witch. I
want the iron teeth and the nails, and I want to be able to…well I don’t want
to rip out someone’s throat with my teeth! But the ability would be good.
Leigh: I’m gonna
pick fae… they’re really attractive.
How important and influential
is music in your writing?
Sarah: Music
literally inspired this entire series for me. Music still inspires every scene,
ever character, every moment. Especially movie scores, classical music. I have
to have music on (when writing) or else the silence swallows me whole.
So, do you have
different playlists for different moods, different characters etc?
Sarah: Yeah, I keep really extensive, detailed playlists for all of
my books. I have all of my music ordered in order of the scenes in the books, so
if anything gets cut or moved ill take the song out or move it in the playlist,
so it helps me when revising to be able to slip into a scene or a mood because
I can play the song and get into my characters heads.
Leigh: I never
used to listen to music when I was writing, and that really changed when I got
into book 2. When I wrote book 1 I would never write to music, for whatever
reason. Now I really use it to get into the right frame of mind. The cool thing
is that I’ve had people make fan-mixes and playlists on Tumblr so ill go in and
if I don’t know them ill take them. Recently, I was driving up the coast to go
to a writing retreat, and I was listening to them all, and this one song came
on that I’d never heard of and I was like oh my gosh! And I listened to that
song when I was writing the Darklings prequel story. I just listened to it on
repeat the entire time. So, I’ve actually discovered a lot of music through
readers, which is cool.
So when and how did
Winter’s Prayer come around, Leigh? ( Leigh’s song she wrote for her book
series)
Leigh: Oh, gosh!
Honestly, it was when I was writing Shadow and Bone, I was driving around in
the car and I had this folk melody that my parents used to play stuck in my
head. I was stuck in traffic so I just started coming up with words for it. I
put my cell phone on voice memo and recorded myself singing to first two
verses. (the verses) stayed exactly the same all the way through and I just
added a third verse. I am lucky enough to have guys from my band, guys who used
to be in the band who all did a lot of favours. The whole song was recorded in
my friends living room, it sounds like there’s a choir in the background but
it’s actually my friends wife and her friend. They were singing words from the
book. I’m lucky to know such talented, nice people!
You have both started
new series’, and we’ve heard many times your inspiration for your first series’
( Sarah- Cinderella with an assassin and Leigh- walking down a dark corridor at
night imaging there’s something there) so what inspires these books? Was it
another fairy tale or experience?
Sarah: A Court of
Thorns and Roses, big surprise, was inspired by music. By actually listening to
the Princess Mononoke soundtrack. ( A
Studio Ghibli film- check it out!) It’s one of my favourite movies ever. A
bloody warrior riding a wolf just speaks to my soul. And then I became inspired
by Beauty and the Beast and East of the Sun, West of the Moon and the legend of
Tamlin. I love fairy tale retellings and mash-ups. It actually wound up going
away from those things; it started off as a retelling of the more original
fairy tales, but then moved away. Kinda, like Throne of Glass has done.
Leigh: I really
love rag-tag, band of misfits stories, like Oceans
Eleven, The Dirty Dozen and Inglourious
Basterds. I wanted to write, basically, a heist story, so that’s where the
inspiration for The Dregs story came from. And its exactly that. Its this group
of outcasts and misfits from the lowest of the low, this gang, from a slum
called The Barrel. They’re tasked with an impossible heist that is essentially
a suicide mission. If you’ve read Ruin and Rising you can tell I like friends
who are facing impossible odds, so that’s basically what I was going for with
this. I also wanted to write a cast of semi-despicable characters, which was
fun to do.
Sarah: Like The Goonies?
Leigh: Yeah, but
they’re more thuggish than The Goonies.
I don’t think the goonies would pluck someone’s eyes out. If you took the
Fratelli’s, made them a lot more attractive but kept that zaniness of The Goonies, then it’d be more like The
Dregs.
How important is it
for your characters to be flawed?
Sarah: It makes
it fun and exciting and unpredictable. The readers have more to relate to. None
of us are perfect.
Leigh: I dunno
about you, but, I am pretty perfect.
Sarah: You are
pretty flawless.
Leigh: It’s true.
You know it’s funny because I’ve seen criticism levelled at Sarah’s work and at
my work that could be mirror images of each other. They’ll say “Celaena’s so
vain and cocky!” And then they’re like “Alina’s so insecure! She’s so whiny!”
Every time you see someone saying a characters too this or too that, those are
the things that make a character. And these are things that guys get away with
all the time. I think out heroines would be pretty boring if they were perfect
all the time.
How important is it
for your ‘bad’ characters (E.g Manon and The Darkling) to still have good
qualities?
Sarah: What was
that quote that says something like a good villain see’s themselves as the hero
of the story? In order to write a good villain, you need to think of them as a
person with motivations and backgrounds. (to Leigh) I mean like the Darkling,
you have hoards of fans that are obsessed with him. I liked the Darkling, I
thought he was hot, but he is a really atrocious person, he’s a monster! But
you made him sexy and approachable; he obviously had something about him that
readers connected with.
Leigh: Yeah, I
think you should always be able to make your villains case, otherwise, why would
people follow them? The people who enter out lives that are the most dangerous
don’t usually come in twirling a moustache *rubs hands menacingly* saying “I’m
an evil genius.” They’re people who are charismatic, charming and appealing,
who speak to some part of us that makes us want to follow them, that makes us
attracted to them. It was important to me that my heroes not be all good and my
villains not be all bad. Sarah actually writes her villains PoV chapters, so
she’s really in their heads!
Sarah: Yeah,
that’s the witch narrative (Manon), she’s on the bad side, she’s a villain. I
like adding her voice to the story, it was something that I connected with and
wanted to add to broaden the world and offer a different glimpse of the two
sides of what’s happening.
Leigh: We both
have pretty despicable kings in our stories so sometimes evil is used as
shorthand for really, really, bad.
Sometimes people want to be let off the hook, and say “Well is this person good
or bad?” “Am I supposed to like Celaena?” It’s not one or the other; you’re
just supposed to be in the story and make your own choices.
What it your opinion
on the attitude that adults shouldn’t read YA?
Sarah: People
have too many opinions! I’m happy if people are reading anything, I don’t care
what the hell they’re reading! I am happy if someone is picking up a book and
investing in it.
Leigh: Agreed.
These articles pop-up every couple of months and I think it’s a really good
thing to watch out for because you don’t see
those articles crop up about the things that men and boys buy in bulk which may
be not the most edifying, they’re book that are going to cure cancer, but they
don’t receive the same amount of criticism as young adults or romance and the
reason is because people get really wigged out when ladies are really into
things. Anytime someone tells you to be ashamed, I think its good idea to find
out why they’re pointing the finger.
How important do you
think the links between authors and other authors and authors and fans are
today, with the ease of contacting via twitter, tumblr etc.?
Sarah: It’s the
coolest, I got into writing at a young age because I realised my favourite
thing about writing was getting to share it with readers. So getting to talk to
fans, see which characters they love, getting invested, it makes a lot of the
hard work worth it. Its surreal still, sometimes it feels like none of it
happened and that the fact that people care about the characters and love them,
blows my mind.
Leigh: I think
it’s always a surprise when someone says “I loved your book.” And I don’t know
why. It’s always a lovely feeling. That passion can be a wonderful thing and it
can be a scary thing. If people aren’t happy with a choice you made, they’re
gonna let you know! So I think you’re always walking a line between public and
private when you’re working as an author. And I love seeing all the art, the
edits and the mixes. It’s sort of a culture that didn’t exist before.
Sarah: I was just
thinking, if I’d had that when I was a kid, that would’ve been the coolest
thing to tweet at my favourite authors.
Leigh: I always
wonder if I would or if I’d just lurk in the background. I still get a kick out
of when Anne Rice tweets. Ill
be like “Oh, look!”, I mean its her assistant, but still. I was very antisocial.
I don’t know if the internet would’ve made me any more social. I would’ve had
this very angry blog somewhere.
Was it always
fantasy?
Sarah: Fantasy,
sci-fi, I grew up with Star Wars, Lord of
the Rings.
Leigh: For me it
was always Dune and Labyrinth and Legend. Those were the touchstones for me.
Okay, quick fire
round! Hardbacks or paperbacks?
Leigh: Hardbacks
Sarah: Paperbacks
Do you bend the
spine?
Sarah: Break it!
Leigh: My books
looked trashed, but I love that, it means they’re well loved.
Sarah: That’s why
I love paperbacks, you can just *makes spine bending motion*
Leigh: I am very
mighty!
Do you dog ear too?
Sarah: Yes!
Leigh: Yes!
Which Hogwarts house
would you be in?
Sarah: Slytherin
Leigh:
Slythindor, haha, I cant decide! Slytherin!
Good or Evil?
Leigh:
*dramatically* What is good, what is evil?
Sarah: Gray,
in-between.
Cats or dogs?
Sarah: Dogs
Leigh: Dogs
Current TV obsession?
Leigh: Orange is the New Black
Sarah: Um, oh!
Outlander.
Do you judge a book
by its cover?
Leigh:
*grudgingly* yeah…
Sarah:
Unfortunately.
Would you rather be a
Jedi, a Hobbit, a Wizard or a Disney Princess?
Sarah: Jedi!
Leigh: Wizard.
What fictional world
would you like to live in?
Leigh: Either the world or JK Rowling or the world of Diana Wynne
Jones. Like from Howls Moving Castle.
Sarah: Yeah, I was thinking of like a (Hayao) Miyazaki
film, like Howls Moving Castle,
where everything is beautiful and shiny and you always find a way to save the
day.
Finally, do you guys have any advice for YA readers, whether they’re
aspiring writers or just aspiring to do something
with their lives?
Sarah: Don’t let anyone shame you for what you read or what you
love in general. Many people are gonna tell you not to xyz things. Do you what
you love, and screw the rest.
Leigh: I guess I would just say, there’s no expiration date on your
talent, so…
Sarah: Aww! *crying noises*
Leigh: Yes, cry! I think there’s sometimes the idea that if you
don’t do something by this date or by this time, that every decision you make
is gonna be the end of the road, and its not like that, life’s not like that.
As long as you have a story to tell, the world will wanna hear it.
Thank you so much Sarah and Leigh for allowing me to interview you and
thank you to Emily Drabble from the Guardian Teens and Nina Douglas from Indigo
for helping organise the interview!
The clock chimes midnight, a curse breaks, and a girl meets a prince . . . but what follows is not all sweetness and sugarplums.
