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So, here's a funny story. About a month ago I got the opportunity to interview my all-time fav author Sarah J Maas while she was in town. I know. I did that thing where I got this huge exciting thing and I then took a month to actually do anything with it. I'm a failure of a blogger. The important thing is that I'm finally getting to it, yes? You can blame Christmas working hours.
Myself, along with Angelya & Philippa, Chelsea, and Brittany were hustled into a media room and given some one on one time with Sarah herself. We weren't allowed to record, but needless to say she was a darling and I didn't cry in her presence. I call the day a success.
The interview is below but I just wanted to send out a huge, huge thank you to Sonia from Bloomsbury Australia for setting this up. You're an absolute legend, and a gem of a person. It was wonderful meeting you!
Also big thank you to my fellow interviewers - you are dolls and it was such a pleasure to meet you all. And an even bigger thank you to Brittany to transcribing the whole thing. I tried but then life got in the way.
There are spoilers in this interview, just a heads up. So if you haven't read the series and you don't want to be spoiled, then maybs give this one a miss. If you do want to be spoiled, then feel free to continue.
Now. Let the interview commence!
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Brittany: Did you intend on having Celaena have multiple
romances before you started the Throne of Glass series, or was
it something that just kind of happened as you wrote the books?
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Sarah: I don’t know how much you know about my
history when writing this story, but I began writing it when I was sixteen. And
with the way it wound up ending (when I posted it online) Celaena kind of
stayed with one dude-ish, but she had some other slight romances. By the time I
got to the very end of it, I realised that 1) who I wanted her to actually be
with and 2) that throughout the entire draft, I was fighting so hard just to
keep her stuck to this one thing that I had planned, but she did not want to go
in that direction.
So, when
I finished roughly the first three books in the series (of the drafts when I
was a teenager) I decided to re-write it word for word. I wouldn’t even LOOK at
the first draft, so that wound up being the series in its current incarnation,
where I wanted her to lead the story where it needed to go.
I wanted
her to just feel real – and I think sometimes you can have that romance where
it’s like the first guy you kiss and fall in love with – that can be very
compelling and romantic. My husband was my first boyfriend ever and we got
married, so I am that story, but I believe that (and I never want my books to
be preachy) it’s okay for girls to date whoever they want to date, and however
many people they want to do. And that just kind of ended up being part of her
story.
But, I
didn’t want that to be the defining thing about her story, either. And with the
last book, I didn’t want it to be about who Celaena ended up with, I wanted it
to be about what she does for her kingdom, and her people, and her world.
So the romance
for me has always been really fun to write, but always kind of secondary to
what her actual growth is. I wanted Celaena to have these relationship and fall
in love, and have it mean something and change both of them – but also evolve
beyond that, and for her to be able to walk away and realise what she does need
and does want.
And I did
know who I wanted her to ultimately end up with, and I laid the seeds for that
even as early as The Assassin’s Blade – like, there are little
details like ‘the scent of Terrasen’ which is also Rowan’s scent, and it’s
mentioned in The Assassin’s Blade what that smells like. With
all of that, I just wanted her journey to feel like something that was organic.
And I do trust Celaena to lead me where she wants to go… It’s fun to have her
fall in love and fall out of it, and for her to decide that she can go after
what she wants if something isn’t working for her.
And on
the opposite end, it’s okay for the men in the series to also move past that
and to have their own storyline that’s totally separate from hers. They aren’t
defined by their relationship to her, but also by what they do in their
relationships with other characters. So something I planned, but also something
I ran with, I guess.
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Angelya
& Philippa: There have been a lot of
passionate fan responses to the different relationships – they’re getting
together and they’re breaking up – especially in Queen of Shadows. Are you shocked
by the amount of different responses by people and how does it make you feel?
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Sarah: I don’t really
go looking for stuff. The only time I ever encounter it is if someone will
directly say something to me. And even then, everyone is entitled to their own
opinion.
I think
of myself as a fangirl first and foremost, so I totally understand what it
feels like to be passionate about a ship. I’m a big fan of Avatar: The Last
Airbender. Zuko and Katara? I’m totally still bitter about that, so I
understand that passion.
At the
end of the day, as wonderful as it is when your readers are so vocal about your
support, I really need to maintain that bubble of my own creative voice.
Sometimes when I’m writing, I’ll just turn off the internet – as much as I love
chatting to all of you guys online – in order to hear my characters voices, as
I can’t hear anyone else’s.
I think,
regardless of what people are saying, it’s wonderful people are even talking about the books. It would be really bad if people just didn’t talk about them…
probably the worst thing they could do is literally say nothing. But passionate
readers? It really gets the word out there. People are having debates about who
they want the characters to end up with and people are like ‘Oh, I want to read
for myself!’
With Queen
of Shadows, I kind of knew before that book came out that some readers
would be excited, some would be upset… but at the end of the day, again, I just
kind of had to let the characters do what they wanted to do.
And in
regards to Chaol, I wanted him to be at an all-time low. What happens
in Heir of Fire is devastating. He is someone who has
dedicated his entire life to serving Dorian, to protecting Dorian and serving
his kingdom. At the end of Heir of Fire, he literally has to – not
walk- run away, and leave Dorian to one of the worst fates that someone can
deal with. And that breaks him; breaks him emotionally and I think – again,
everyone’s entitled to their own opinion – but for me, I find that he doesn’t
have to be perfect all the time and it’s okay. Okay for him, for all of us, to
have moments were we break and fall apart and we don’t act our very best way.
In some
ways it can be really hard to have someone expect you to be perfect, but
everything’s falling apart and that can make you break even harder. And with
Chaol, I wanted him to break, but he also had to learn (like he told Celaena
in Throne of Glass to ‘get back up again') and so in Queen
of Shadows, he is definitely not himself at the beginning of the book
because he is trying to re-organise his world and who he is and how he’s going
to fight for it. And he is allowed to be mean and ugly because if that happened
to my best friend, I would be a wreck! I would be the nastiest and most
horrible person. So for him, he is allowed to have that moment.
He also
owes it to himself to find a way to get back to that place where he was before
– and not just that places, but a better place. For me, that was one of the
most meaningful journeys that I wrote about in Queen of Shadows and
I know that some readers were upset about who Celaena/Aelin winds up with.
(I always
change what I call her depending on what book I’m working on. Assassin’s
Blade through Heir of Fire I always refer to her as
Celaena, but then Queen of Shadows onward she’s Aelin – but
then when I’m talking to a group of people who haven’t necessarily read all the
books, I have to call her Celaena because I don’t want to spoil it! So I’m
always juggling the names!)
For
Chaol, his main relationship is Dorian and that friendship – that bond. And I
love that Dorian and Chaol can both exist outside of Celaena. They don’t have
to BE their relationship to her. They can be with her, and then move on and
have their own stories and contribute to the world and how they’re going to
save it. I’m really excited for all the adventures that are coming up!
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Jocie: Diversity in fiction has recently been a really big topic, and I especially so in fantasy. So I guess my question is - when you write, are you conscious of it and make an effort to incorporate diversity?
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Sarah: Oh, absolutely.
With my world I want it to be as interesting and diverse as possible and not
just with the way that people look, but also the way women and men interact.
Often by default I’ll find myself writing a random side character (like a shop
owner) and by default I’ll make this person in power a man. I will then
actively stop and go ‘You know what? I’m going to make this a woman. A woman
owning her own business” or a female member of the guard. So I always try and
add different sorts of diversity into my books.
There are
new characters coming in and I want it to be reflective of our own world, which
is so diverse, even though it’s a fantasy world. Because it’s pretty boring
when everyone looks the same, acts the same. And part of what’s really great
about writing this giant, sweeping fantasy world is that I can just create so
many different cultures and have readers connect with different people and
places.
It’s very
important to me. It’s something I’m really, really glad that attention is being
brought to it and people are speaking up and championing it. Things are
starting to change in the industry. It’s been really wonderful to witness, and
so many authors are doing so many brave and wonderful things in the name of it.
It’s very inspiring and I’m in awe of those people!
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Chelsea: A
Court of Thorns and Roses is loosely based on Beauty and the
Beast and East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Did you plan
to base future books off of something as well? How do you choose?
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Sarah: I don’t
really actively sit down and choose… it’s just that the story I have in mind that kind of sometimes resembles one of the folk tales or fairytales that I love.
And with A Court of Mist and Fury (the sequel coming out May
2016!), that one is very loosely inspired by Hades and Persephone.
You have
the kernels of that starting in A Court of Thorns and Roses in
the way of Rhys and Feyre’s bargain. It’s not really spoilery – because it says
it in the synopsis – but Rhys calls in that bargain and Persephone was the
daughter of Demeter (springtime and fertility being stolen away to the
Underworld – ‘Night Court’) so there are very slight nods to that, but you’ll
see it’s very sprawling.
There are
a lot of new characters that kind of come in that aren’t from any kind of
fairytale, rather just ‘WELL YOU’RE VERY ATTRACTIVE AND YOU’RE IN THE BOOK!’
but then that fairytale feel will often creep in.
In Book
Two, there are a lot of new creepy creatures. There is one moment when Feyre is
in a Hansel and Gretel-type situation – it’s one of my favourite scenes ever.
It’s not a spoilery thing, but this creature is called ‘The Weaver in the
Wood’. I mean, I wrote that scene and I was so excited but also gagging – it’s
pretty horrific! So there are definitely those fairytale elements that make
their way into it.
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And that is the interview. Hope you guys enjoyed it, found it engaging, got a little bit of goss from it. I know I certainly did.
Again, a huge, huge thank you to Angelya, Philippa, Chelsea, and Brittany. Also Sonia. And of course, Sarah for being wonderful and writing the Throne of Glass series. :)
