Debreviews Presents: R.J. Anderson, author of Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter
It was my great pleasure to interview author R. J. Anderson. Her debut novel introduces the world of the Oakenwyld where you'll meet faeries unlike any others you've ever imagined. I loved the strong and complex character of Knife and R.J.'s reimagining of the faery world!
Here's the plot summary from R. J.'s website:
There are humans at the bottom of the garden, and a glimpse inside their forbidden House convinces the fierce young faery hunter known as Knife that they have knowledge that could help her dying people.
But if the human world has so much to offer, why is the faery Queen determined to keep her people away from it? Is there a connection between the House and the faeries' loss of magic? And why is Knife so drawn to the young Paul McCormick - that strangest of creatures, a human male?
And here's my interview:
1. Faery books are quite popular in YA and MG literature these days. What do you think makes Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter stand out from the rest?
Well, my faeries may be small and winged like the ones you see in the books written for younger children, but unlike Tinkerbell or the Rainbow Fairies they aren't in the least sparkly or whimsical; they're not flitting about the countryside granting wishes to good children, they're struggling just to feed themselves and keep from getting eaten. Also, we're following the story through a faery's own eyes and everything is filtered through her understanding and perspective, so it's not like a lot of other MG books where the faeries are really just a sideshow to a human protagonist and his/her concerns.
On the other hand, while there's a certain darkness and urgency to the book, and it's got enough complexity to make it interesting to older readers, I've drawn on different folklore and traditions than the popular YA faery books like Wicked Lovely or Lament or Wondrous Strange. So you don't have these powerful faery courts battling each other for power, or a faery realm that's separate from the human one - the Oakenfolk are living in the modern human world, and their struggles are of a very different sort.
2. What drew you to write about the faery world?
I've always liked faeries, but even as a child I quickly got tired of the cute-and-sparkly aspect. And as a teen I was really into superhero comics, including Frank Miller's Elektra: Assassin. So I was sketching one day and amused myself by drawing a faery assassin instead. The idea of taking a small, pretty creature and turning her into a deadly weapon in a very physical sense seemed like a great story idea to me - especially if her job was to tackle creatures very much bigger than herself. So I had to ask myself, who might she be asked to assassinate, and why? The rest of the story developed from there.
3. Art and the origins of creativity play a big part in Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter. Are you an artist? Is anyone in your family? Are there any thoughts about art you'd like to share?
Art definitely runs in our family, though few of us have chosen to make a living at it. I used to draw incessantly as a teenager, and in my late twenties I worked as a graphic designer for a while. I've studied some art history - not enough to be an expert by any means, but enough to know what I like and why - so that aspect of the book didn't take much research for me. But I did get a lot of inspiration from H.R. Rookmaaker's Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, in which he shows how art has reflected the changes in human philosophy and attitudes over the centuries, and what modern art says about our thinking today.
4. What is the origin or inspiration for your own creativity?
I really believe it comes from God. Not that I consider my writing to be divinely inspired or anything pompous of that sort! Or even that I'm somehow more talented than other authors who believe differently or don't believe in God at all. But I think that ultimately all creativity comes from the Creator and is just a sort of echo or reflection of His power, regardless of whether it's a clear or a distorted one, regardless of whether we acknowledge it as coming from Him or not.
I think Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) made a terrific point in her speech about creativity that's been floating around the Internet (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html), that in the distant past people didn't try to take credit or responsibility for their own creative abilities but attributed them to gods or spirits or what they called their "genius" - which kept authors from getting swelled heads when they succeeded, and also kept them from blaming themselves and falling into despair when they had a bad day or created something that wasn't as good as they'd hoped. I think that's a very sane and healthy way to look at it, because creativity is an amazingly elusive thing at times, and if you think you're totally responsible for making it happen, you can drive yourself crazy.
5. I read somewhere that you did not originally have an MG or YA audience in mind when you wrote Faery Rebels. How has your thinking about YA and MG changed since the sales?
It really changed before the sales, in that I had to admit to myself my book was better suited to a YA audience (and then an upper MG audience) than it ever had been to an adult one. When I wrote the first draft of the book the market was very different - if you really wanted to be successful as a fantasist you pretty much had to aim for the adult audience because the market for "juvenile" fantasy fiction was tiny and woefully underpaid, and there seemed to be a lot of limitations on what you could say to younger readers. I wanted to write a serious story with a complex plot and a romantic element, and I needed a lot more than 40,000 words to do it in, so I figured the book had to be "adult".
But then, of course, the Harry Potter books changed everything. And when an editor said to me, "Have you considered marketing this as YA?" I was much more ready to agree. And now, of course, I look at the book, which is a coming of age story and a first love story and a story about identity and so many other motifs we associate with YA, and think what an idiot I was not to see it right from the start!
6. It was great fun to really see and feel the human world from a faery's perspective. How did you do that so well?
I had to force myself to rethink everything and try to imagine how various things in the human world would look to me if I'd never seen them before, and it took me several revisions to get the hang of it. But once I'd made a firm decision about what the faeries in the Oak did and didn't have in terms of material goods, culture, art and technology compared to the human world, then it was a lot easier to view things through Knife's eyes and describe them that way.
7. In your acknowledgments, you thank your US editor for helping you take your story "to the next level - and the next - and the next." What exactly do you mean by that?
The book changed a lot between the draft that sold and the final published version. The basic framework of the story was the same, the order of the main events and so on, but my editor challenged me to make sure everything was tight and consistent and that I'd thought through every aspect of the plot and how it affected the characters, which resulted in a much more layered and nuanced story. I was just feeling all proud of myself after taking the book to pieces and rebuilding it from the ground up, and then she said gently, "Well, we're about half done. But what about this and this and this? Let's do it again." It was definitely a rethinking-and-rewriting process, rather than just tweaking bits here and there. But it was so worth it, and I learned a great deal from the process.
8. Knife, the UK version, has been out for a few months to critical and popular acclaim. Is there anything you wish someone would have told you before it debuted?
I was going to say I wish someone had told me it was going to do so well because that would have been a great burden off my mind, but actually when I sold the book to the UK, I never imagined it was going to be promoted so enthusiastically or received so warmly as it has been. So all that has been a delightful surprise for me. I'm much more anxious about the North American version, because it's not being pushed as strongly here and I'm not sure how easy it's going to be for people to just walk into their local bookstore and find it. And, of course, it's hard to know whether the story is going to resonate as well with North American readers as it has with those in the UK. Being Canadian myself, I can only hope it does!
9. What advice would you give to other writers whose first book is coming out soon?
Try to enjoy the process - every part of it - as much as you can, and be grateful for the blessings you have (like the fact that you're being published at all!). Don't get depressed or upset over all the things you can't control, or let yourself get so caught up worrying about how many copies your book will sell or how your career's going to pan out that you can't relax and appreciate where you are right now.
All of which no doubt sounds very sage and balanced of me, but I'm still trying to follow that advice myself, and it's a challenge. Every day there are new temptations to worry and be dissatisfied, no matter how happy and excited you might be over something good that happened the day before.
10. Do you have any advice for would-be writers?
Two big things stand out from my own experience (mostly because I screwed up on both of them). First, learn to really rewrite when you revise, not just tinker with the prose and shuffle little bits around here and there. Be willing to change anything and everything that might make the book stronger - and if you're not sure what you need to change, run your work by some smart readers who can tell you where you've gone wrong.
The other is that when you're in the process of submitting to agents and editors, don't get discouraged and give up after one or two (or five or ten) rejections - keep trying, no matter what. The process of approaching agents and editors only to be rejected after months and months of waiting can be really hard, but it's still better than letting your manuscript sit idle in a drawer. If I had kept submitting consistently instead of moping about how long the process took, I think I might have found an agent and a publisher a lot earlier than I actually did.
Thanks so much, R.J., for the fascinating responses!
Thanks for a great interview, Amy!
Please look for Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter at your local indie bookstore!