SBBT: Empowerment with Kristin Cashore and a Graceling Book Giveaway

Kristin’s second book, the highly anticipated FIRE, will be out this Fall. People have been scrambling for an ARC, but they are sooooo difficult to find. And it’s so hard to wait, after seeing all the good reviews (Note: I didn’t read these reviews–be forewarned, there may be spoilers). While I couldn’t get any ARCs for the Book Giveaway, there may be something cool in the future, so stay tuned.

HWM: Tell me what inspired GRACELING and Katsa.  
Kristin: The truest answer is somewhere between I don’t know and I can’t remember! However, I can say that the whole thing started with the characters. Katsa came first, and unsurprisingly, she came to me fighting—quarreling, to be more specific, inside my head, with another character who grew into Po. Really, Graceling began as conversations in my head between two characters who were furious with each other. My job was to listen to them argue and figure out what they were so upset about, what was going on in their world, what that world was like. Katsa and Po kind of formed themselves for me—at the beginning, I was more of an observer than a creator.

HWM: Who was the hardest character to write about?  Easiest character?
Kristin: Both Leck and Po were hard to write, because—spoilers ahead!—their Graces were complicated, and tough to keep believable and consistent. Also, the reader’s understanding of their identities had to change over the course of the book, which made writing them tricky. The easiest character—or the easiest main character, anyway—was probably Katsa. I found her to be relatively uncomplicated, and she came to me pretty clear and intact, which is a thing main characters don’t always do!

HWM: GRACELING is very empowering for girls.  What kind of research did you need to do to create your characters, the political climate, the Graceling skills, the fighting scenes?
Kristin: *smile* Would you care for a lesson in how to construct a bow, tan leather using only natural tools, or make snowshoes? Because I have all that info on my desk here somewhere… let’s see, I can also tell you the basic principles of martial arts and how long it takes to cross various terrain by foot, horse, and ship. Oh, and how to build a fire. And the history of windows over time, and, um, other random things, and a LOT of stuff about horses.

I did do a fair amount of research for Graceling, but in retrospect, I wish I’d done more: more research and more thinking and planning. Graceling is, to my eyes, an obvious first novel. I was juggling a lot of things at once, things that were new and hard for me as a young writer, and I let a few things slide. I see a few cracks in the world-building when I read the book now (and no, I’m not going to tell you what they are! ^_^)—cracks, and even places where I have small regrets. Sigh… I suppose it’s not unusual for a writer to feel this way about a book!

HWM: When did you know you had the right ending for GRACELING?
Kristin: I guess that depends on what you mean by “ending.” I always knew where the chips would fall plot-wise and character-wise at the end, but deciding how to express it involved a fair amount of revision. The original ending section was a lot longer and more drawn out—too long and drawn out, according to my editor and others. I whined and moaned a lot while shortening it. :o) But I’m content enough with how it ends now, particularly with my final scene.

HWM: FIRE, the prequel to GRACELING will be available this fall.  I understand it goes 30 years before GRACELING…I’m sad that Katsa and Po won’t be here. What can you tell your fans about FIRE?
Kristin: I think of Fire as a stand-alone novel that’s loosely connected to Graceling. It takes place across the mountains east of the seven kingdoms, thirty or forty years before the story of Graceling, in a rocky, war-torn kingdom called the Dells. There are no known Gracelings in the Dells, but there are beautiful creatures which I call monsters.

Monsters have the shape of normal animals: mountain lions, dragonflies, horses, birds. But the hair or scales or feathers of monsters are gorgeously colored—turquoise, sparkly bronze, iridescent green—and their minds have the power to control the minds of humans. Fire, seventeen years old, is the last remaining human-shaped monster in the Dells. Gorgeously monstrous in body and mind but with a human appreciation of right and wrong, she’s hated and mistrusted by just about everyone. The book is her story, and if you’re wondering what connects it to Graceling, the answer is that (Graceling spoiler ahead!) one of the minor characters in Fire is a creepy little boy with mismatched eyes who seems to have some peculiar verbal abilities. (Fire is by no means Leck’s story, but it does reveal where he came from!)

HWM: What are the challenges in writing a series?  
Kristin: HA! There are many. One is keeping the world manageable and consistent while it grows to accommodate more stories. The world can start to get big, unwieldy, and uncooperative! Another is becoming re-acquainted with characters who may have changed a bit since the last time you encountered them. Another is dealing with the mistakes you made in the first book that can now never be undone; any limitations I created in Graceling are now permanent fixtures in all the books!

Here’s another challenge: I get the feeling that I’m frustrating some of my fans. :o) You see, I never set out to write a series. I planned for Graceling to be a stand-alone book, but then I got this idea for Fire, and found that I had to write it. The same thing happened with the book I’m writing now, called Bitterblue: I never planned to write a third book in this world, but then one day, this stand-alone book about the Graceling character Bitterblue began calling to me, and I had to write it. The end result of all of this is that I’m creating a slightly unconventional series. The books are connected, but they’re not prequels and sequels in the traditional sense of following one character through time. And this is confusing and frustrating to some fans, who are used to picking up with the same protagonists a month or a year after the last book ended!

I will say this: if you liked Graceling and are frustrated that Fire isn’t about Katsa, please don’t be too sad. I try to imbue every book with a similar spirit, so you may like Fire, too. Give her a try. :o)

My Notebook on a Bad Day:

Jenny Davidson at Chasing Ray
Rebecca Stead at Fuse #8
Ryan Mecum at Writing and Ruminating
Lauren Myracle at Bildungsroman
Kristin Cashore at HipWriterMama
Rachel Caine at The YA YA YAs