In high school, my writing was semipoetic—all style, no substance. In college and graduate school, I rediscovered how much I love story. I’ve tried to merge those two periods, to mature into a writing style that first, tells a story, and second, tells it well.
Q: Who encouraged you most to continue writing?
A: My mom was a dream for supporting my wild ideas and ambitions, and I had great teachers in elementary school, high school, and college who allowed me to explore and express my creativity. I never had a literary mentor who, you know, nudged my shoulder and said, "You’re going to make it, kid. You got what it takes!" During the years of rejection, maybe I kept going in part just to spite the naysayers.
Q: Many of your books transcend time yet are rooted in a concrete past. Why and how did you choose these time periods and settings?
A: I wanted the settings to feel like real places, places where we’ve been before, places that could exist but don’t. To me, it makes the story feel as though it’s starting in a distant fairy tale then bursting through into reality. When you place a story in a real location, there’s always the risk that a reader might dismiss the story as just being about Utah or Mongolia or fourteenth-century Italy. A mythical place, an invented realm, has a universal appeal. Anyone can inhabit it—including the reader.
I do like to base the settings on real places, albeit very loosely. Like most Americans, I’m a true mutt, and with my early books I tended to use my settings to explore countries that are a part of my heritage. Bayern was partly inspired by Germany, Danland in Princess Academy is a nod to my Scandinavian ancestry, and the Old West of Rapunzel’s Revenge mines the historical landscape of Utah, my home state. But the older I get, the more I feel a universal kinship. I based the setting of Book of a Thousand Days on Mongolia, though I have no blood ties to that fabulous land.
Q: How do you see your books fitting into the fantasy genre?
A: I think the fantasy genre (like most genre labeling) is a slippery snake—you can’t hold it still to look at the whole thing. I like that about it. I don’t think I could define "fantasy" to my own satisfaction; there are so many subgenres and slipstreams and contradictions. Genres can be as useful as they are harmful. I’ve read that a genre is a contract with the reader, saying, "This is the kind of story you can expect." That’s helpful. But then again, when I ask people what they imagine when they think of fantasy, they say, "Fairies, elves, sorcerers, barbarian swordsmen, ogres, dragons . . ." My books don’t have any of those things. The Goose Girl is fairy-tale fantasy, but are the rest of the Bayern books since they weren’t based on fairy tales? I think of my books as stories that take place long ago in a place that feels familiar, where things that you may not see every day are possible.
Q: Nature plays an integral role in your novels. Often, you present the landscape as a character in how it influences people’s personalities and shapes a community. Do you have a special connection to or appreciation of nature? Are the landscapes in your stories based on any places you’ve been, or are they purely imagined?
A: I like to think I have a genuine appreciation of nature. I hope we all feel connected to it, as we are a part of it. I grew up in Utah, minutes from lakes and forests and deserts and mountains. As a child, I would try to talk to animals, wild and domestic, trying to make friends and somehow break down the language barrier. I was so sure the lion at the zoo or the deer on the hill would meet my gaze and know that I was a friend. I remember putting my hand on tree trunks and trying to (hoping I could!) communicate with a tree, or imagining that the wind had ideas of its own and that a mountain knew I was there. I’ve had the sense that everything around me is a being or has a soul. These thoughts always seemed normal to me. As I grew up, I realized that not everyone thought the same. I wonder, had I voiced these thoughts to my mom, would I have ended up in a psychiatrist’s office?
The settings of my books are a mixture of places I know and my imagination. Most of the places I write about have a similar climate to my home region. I spent twenty years in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and the hours of my childhood spent on those slopes worked their way into the setting of Princess Academy.Having lived places where it’s summer most of the year and others where it’s winter for eight months, I realize now that not everyone has such a strong attachment to the seasons as those of us who live with a distinct spring, summer, fall, and winter. The four seasons are very much a part of my consciousness and the way I relate to time passing, both in life and in my storytelling.
Q: Female power is a running theme throughout your novels. Did this organically evolve out of the stories you set out to tell, or was it intended because you have a desire to convey strong female characters?
A: I did not set out to write stories of girl power. I’m very lucky to be working after decades of writers have already fought for their genuine, interesting, and varied heroines. I don’t have the burden of writing on offense, trying to prove that girls can be main characters, strong and individual. It’s a luxury to get to write what I think is true, not make a statement.
As a reader, I’m bored by books that convey girls as weak and mindless or simply absent. That’s not the world that I know. Girls are powerful in many different ways and always have been. It’s mystifying to me that we would be portrayed otherwise.
Q: Do you see yourself, or anyone you know, in any of your characters?
A: I’m sure bits of me and everyone I know make their way into my characters, though I have never consciously based a character on a real person. I have based aspects of relationships on those I have with close friends and family members. Miri in Princess Academy is burdened with more of my younger self than anyone I’ve ever written.
Q: Have you noticed a change in books written today for teen and tween readers as compared to books you read when you were younger?
A: I see more books written specifically for young adults. In fifth grade, I began to move from children’s books to the adult books that had made their way to my school library shelves, but now there are so many books targeted just to older children and teens.
I think there is an increase in how much racy material is acceptable. The Goose Girl was turned down by multiple publishers, one citing the reason that the market was moving more toward "edgy" books.
I also see more female main characters (at last!). When I was younger, there were no kids’ TV shows or cartoons with a main girl character, and some shows had absolutely no girl characters at all! In television especially, this trend is changing. However, movies are still behind. Most animated movies made in the past decade have one or two female characters for every ten male characters. There seems to be a fear that girls will watch movies and read books about boys but not vice versa. I hope boys read books with female characters and accept girls as viable heroes. I believe the disparity will keep improving, but I doubt Harry Potter would have done as well had it been Harriet Potter.
Q: You have a theatrical background. Do you think this experience has played a role in how you create your characters or set a scene? Do you see your characters as actors in a play you’re directing?
A: Yes to all, to some extent. Actors and directors are storytellers. In writing a book, I’m doing an actor’s character creation and a director’s orchestration of all the elements. I did improvisational comedy for a time, and I think those skills also help me to create as I write.
If I do my job right, then I supply enough material to turn the job of director over to the readers. They take my words and create the full-color story in their minds. That’s one reason why books can be more powerful than cinema—a movie forces you to hear and see the story just the way the director wants you to, but a book allows you to add your experiences and preferences and make it your own.
Q: What do you hope a reader takes away from reading one of your novels?
A: I hope each reader takes exactly what she’s lacking. I hope she reads into the story her own metaphors, makes herself the heroine, and te
lls herself the story she needs to hear.
Q: What are some of the more memorable moments you’ve had as a published author?
A: One of my fans volunteered at a center for adult literacy. She brought a student to a signing, and the first book the woman had read in her life was The Goose Girl. I’m often blown away when meeting young fans who said they hated reading until they read one of my books, and now they read all kinds of books. Wow! That absolutely thrills and humbles me.
Q: You are a regular blogger (http://oinks.squeetus.com). What got you started doing it, what keeps you at it, and what do you get out of it?
A: My husband built my site and said, "You should do a blog." That was 2002, and I barely knew what a blog was. It takes up time, but it’s become important for me. With little kids, I can’t travel as much as I’d like or answer my mail, and the blog helps me keep connected with readers. I also blog to be helpful to up-and-coming writers, as well as to interview writers I admire, promote their books, and spread that literacy love around.
Q: When you’re writing something new, what do you read, if anything? What about other art forms—do you listen to music while you write? Are there other sensory distractions you try to avoid?
A: I find reading well-written books always inspires my writing. Sometimes while reading I’ll stumble across a cool word I haven’t used much, and I’ll find a way to insert it into my work-in-progress. Other times, I get ideas for my work-in-progress that have nothing to do with what I’ve just read. Reading exercises my writing muscles. I also read a lot for research to explore countries, historical periods, and genres. I do avoid reading more than one book by the same author at a time or books that are too similar, because I don’t want another person’s voice to overwhelm me and take over my own.
I’ve tried to listen to music while writing to inspire me, but I find I just block it out. I grew up in a family of seven, and we all learned to block out noise by necessity. My husband says sometimes I’m too good at it!
Q: What kinds of books do you enjoy? Has having kids changed how you perceive books and writing overall?
A: I love just about everything. If the writer is skilled, whatever the genre, I’m devoted to the story. Having kids has made me extremely opinionated about picture books. Reading one book over and over again sure makes me appreciate the talented authors. I work very hard in the hopes that my books will stand up to the reread test. Having kids has also forced me to write on the spot, whenever a little free time presents itself. I can’t have a special time or place to write. I’ve got to have that story ready to burst out at a moment’s notice!
Q: You’ve done some shared writing with your husband. How does it work and what do you like about working that way? What are the frustrations?
A: When I’m writing alone, I write to my internal reader, which is a mix of myself now and myself at a younger age. But when I cowrite with Dean, I write to him as well, and he to me, and we try to amuse and entertain each other. That changes the story and we come up with something we wouldn’t have done on our own. I love plotting with him and getting to read the scenes he produces. The frustrations mostly involve time. If we’re both writing, then who’s got the kids?! While it was challenging to get it done, I’m extremely proud of Rapunzel’s Revengeand Calamity Jack.
Q: Is there a kind of book or writing that you haven’t tried yet but wonder about trying someday?
A: So far I’ve written for young kids, middle grade, young adult, and adults, and done realistic fiction, comedy, graphic novels, fantasy, fairy-tale retellings, a murder mystery, and a screenplay. I get bored easily! There are many genres I’d still like to try. We’ll see.
Q: Some of your stories are based on fairy tales, but others are not. How is it different writing a story that is all your own?
A: Each book brings its own challenges. Writing from a fairy tale isn’t necessarily harder or easier than starting from scratch. In one way, the fairy tale provides a basic outline of events I can follow, but then often demands I stay true to those events or the essence of the tale and keeps me from exploring off on my own. Writing from scratch allows me more freedom but provides no helpful plot points.
Q: How long do you keep a story to yourself before you share it with anyone else? Who is the first reader and why? How is it to share the story the very first time?
A: When a story is a nascent idea, I usually keep it to myself. Once I start writing, I’ll mention it briefly to my husband, Dean, but I like to save the creative energy for writing the idea, not talking about it. Dean reads my first drafts and gives me feedback, and then I’ll rewrite one to three more times before showing it to my editor. It’s both thrilling to share a story for the first time and absolutely nerve-racking. It’s so safe there in my brain or my private computer file. But once someone reads it, the story starts to live, for better or worse. I’ve been known to sit and watch Dean while he reads, interrupting every few minutes, "Where are you now? What do you think?"
Copyright © 2012 by Shannon Hale
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce, or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
First published in the United States of America in August 2012
by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers
Electronic edition published in August 2012
www.bloomsburyteens.com
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-1-59990-916-5 (e-book)
Shannon Hale, Palace of Stone
(Series: Princess Academy # 2)
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