What inspired you to write this
book?
This may sound petty, but in all
honesty, a lingering sense of disappointment over some of my favorite movies
and TV series. I used to love the Star Wars prequels as a kid (to a somewhat
unhealthy degree—I once had a Jedi braid halfway down my back), but as I grew
older, I started to see that the tremendous potential of the story—former
friends tragically turned against each other! The epic fall of a once-great
nation due to treachery and political intrigue! Civil war with heroes on both
sides! A secret, twisted romance!—wasn’t exactly done justice by a script that
contained some pretty questionable dialogue choices (pro writing tip: never
have a character respond to “you’re so beautiful” with “it’s because I’m so in
love.” And definitely don’t follow that with “no, it’s because I’m so in love
with you.”).
And then there was Game of Thrones,
which I loved even before it was a hit TV show…but one aspect I didn’t love as
much was how in the end everything came down to dragons burning CGI armies and
cities in orgies of fire while the character development and grounded, gritty
complexity kind of got sidelined. The Chrysathamere Trilogy was sort of my loose
“remake” of those well-known series.
I also really love historical and
“literary” fiction, just as much as fantasy, and I wanted to do a book that
blended the genres. One of my aims was to some of the structural conventions of
historical and literary fiction—which, often much more than fantasy, are able
to explore the impact childhood has on adult characters by exploring those
characters over a longer period of time—and combining them with the grand
scope, the thrilling sword fights, the blood feuds and intrigue that drew me to
the fantasy genre in the first place!
Do you have any “side stories” about the characters?
No. Or maybe, yes, but none I would
ever show to anyone, because they’re trash. I did write a prequel-esque story
in high-school about a duel between Marilia’s adoptive father and an evil
warlord named Kanadrak, but being written in high-school, it’s not exactly my
finest work. I feel like all the story that demands to be told is contained
within the trilogy itself. Maybe someday, years down the line, I’d do a sequel
(I got a few glimmers of inspiration from the history of the Borgias family!).
But who knows…I like how the story ends, and if Hollywood has taught me
anything, it’s that unnecessary 20-years-later type sequels can be a really bad
idea if they’re not done right…
I’d rather work on my other novel
(still deciding if it should be a series-starter or a standalone), which is
about a disgraced queen’s bodyguard dealing with grief, a wayward young
priestess with serious parent issues, and their journey together through a very
weird heart of darkness. It’s sort of like The Last of Us meets the Princess
Bride.
Can you tell us a little bit about the characters in the series?
I once read a brilliant article
about the two types of strong female characters: the tough girl, and the tough
girl “plus.” The tough girl is strong and independent and badass. She kicks
ass, takes names, is always ready with a quip and a lethal combat move. She
never really or cries, or has a breakdown, or needs to be saved, because I
guess the fear is that would send some kind of sexist message that women can’t
be strong.
The tough girl plus is strong, but
in a different, more subtle way. She does have weaknesses, and flaws…often
serious ones. As a character on Game of Thrones once said, the only time
someone can be brave is when they are afraid. A strong character, to my mind,
is one who overcomes a flaw or fear, not one who’s strong all the time. All my
favorite heroes, male or female, fail, and weep, and have crises of faith, and
sometimes need to get rescued by their friends From the get-go, it was very
important to me not to have my protagonist be that first, under-developed kind
of tough girl. She’s clever, and brave, but she’s not a badass, at least not as
that term is traditionally understood, and she’s rarely ready with a wry quip.
She’s first and foremost a struggling teenage girl doing the best she can in a
new world.
In the book, Marilia challenges a
lot of traditions and gender roles, and constantly strives for recognition, but
it was very important that the reason for that fight weren’t that she believes
in social justice and hates the patriarchy—it irks me deeply when characters in
a story set centuries ago just happen to have moral values totally in line with
those of a modern, liberal society (don’t get my started on all those
historical Hollywood movies where all the feudal/ancient heroes are all about
spreading that good old ‘Murican-style democracy!). I wanted to make sure the
reasons Marilia became a warrior and challenged the society she was born in
were deeply personal, and that her struggle was relatable to a modern reader
while still feeling like her thoughts and feelings were appropriate for the
time period (yes, I know it’s fantasy, but it’s definitely pseudo-Roman).
Besides Marilia, there’s a whole
host of love-able and hate-able side characters. Since the first book is so
Marilia-centric, a lot of them don’t fully come into their own until books 2
and 3. Karthtag-Kal, the stoic, honorable, samurai-like knight, with a closely
hidden secret that informs every action he takes. Petrea, a femme fatale with a
host of secrets of her own. The Graver, the ultimate social climber, constantly
trying (and failing) to outrun his insecurities by becoming the best he can be
at everything—top sword-fighter, brilliant general, second richest man in the
empire! And Marilia’s twin brother, Annuweth, who, like Marilia herself, is
deeply ambitious and filled with envy. In a way, he’s the mirror image of
Marilia, showcasing a different side of toxic sexism. She suffers for being
dismissed and overlooked because of her gender; he suffers under the weight of
expectation that comes with being the sole surviving male heir of a mighty
warrior.
How did you come up with the concept and characters for the book?
Quite a few places.
When I was a kid, I loved to play
fantasy-esque games with my brother. I’d always wanted to recapture that
childhood sense of adventure by writing some kind of epic fantasy novel, but I
had a few rocky starts. Finally, after a few months of brainstorming, an idea
began to take shape…
They say writers put a lot of
themselves into their work, and I won’t lie…I certainly did so. There are
aspects of myself in both Marilia and Annuweth, and in a couple of the side
characters as well…and in the characters in my other books. Sometimes the best
way to deal with a negative emotion—whether it be guilt, or anxiety, or
alienation, or a feeling of powerlessness or inadequacy—can be to write about
it.
Where did you come up with the names in the story?
That’s a whole story. A lot of the
names used to be quite different. For a while, a lot of the side characters’
names were more Greco-Roman…that’s because some of the political intrigue in the
series (especially in book 2!) was inspired by a Roman History class I took in
college. I must have had the best professor ever, because, as a homework
assignment, she had all the class play this mafia-style social media game where
a bunch of undercover conspirators tried to assassinate the empire (by posting
an assassination gif on his wall all at the same time) while a bunch of others,
playing as the Praetorian Prefect and his guards, tried to figure out who the
would-be assassins were and stop them. I’m proud to say that my character,
Rufyllys, pulled off a smashingly successful coup.
My ex-literary agent pointed out
that the names in my book were a little all over the place…some were Roman,
some were Egyptian inspired, and a lot were inspired by a video game called
Morrowind. To her mind, I ought to strive for consistency. It was a sensible
suggestion, so I slowly went back and de-Romanized a lot of the names.
Verginius “Rufyllys” Rufus became Rufyllys Vergana, Seneca became Senecal
Ikaryn, Petreyus became Ilruyn…and so on and so forth. They’re now all a sort
of Morrowind-Roman hybrid.
The only names that never changed at
any point were those of Marilia, Annuweth, and Karthtag-Kal, who were not named
after Roman characters in a role-playing game, but after childhood/teenage
creations of mine (Karthtag-Kal was once an orc warrior in a role playing
game!) Coming up with cool names is hard, and if I have one I like, I try to
find a way to squeeze it into a book somewhere.
What did you enjoy most about writing this book?
When it was over and I could finally
move on to books 2 and 3! Mostly because, at that point, I’d been writing and
re-writing this book for so long that I thought I’d never have a draft I’d be
satisfied with. The second and third books, while challenging at times, weren’t
nearly the ordeal book 1 was (knock on wood, since I’m not 100% done with book
3 yet). I think, of the original 600-page draft of Marilia, the Warlord, maybe
only about 300 words in the final novel are left…which is kind of insane. I
basically re-wrote the book largely from scratch not once, but twice. While I
think it was for the best, and I learned a lot from the process, I hope never
to have to do anything like that again!
I also really liked the ending. I
won’t spoil it, but it was one of the parts of the book I struggled with the
most. Maybe because it was initially so problematic, it got a lot of extra
attention devoted to it, and now it’s one of my favorite parts of the story.
That feeling when all the thematic elements finally clicked into place was
truly wonderful.
How did you come up with the title of your first novel?
I hate coming up with titles. I
struggled so long to come up with something catchy. The literary agent I was
working with, often so wise, kind of dropped the ball on this one. Her
suggestion was The Painted Girl Who Won Her Freedom…which just wasn’t doing it
for me. Too long, and too suggestive of a happy ending. Plus, for some reason,
it makes me think of painted hyenas. Is it just me?
Finally, I settled on a title I was
really happy with: Marilia, the Bastard. A bit gritty, a bit risqué, a bit
mysterious. Is she a literal bastard, or also a metaphorical one, too? But of
course, that wasn’t to be. Amazon considers the word “bastard” profanity, you
see, and wouldn’t let me run any ads under that title! So, with mere hours to
spare, and no photoshop skills to my name, I was left with a cover that said
Marilia, the Bastard and the task of changing it to something inoffensive. In
order to not have to do any font re-sizing, I couldn’t pick a word with more or
fewer letters than Bastard…so I settled on Warlord. It was all I could think
of, and involved only changing five letters.
If that isn’t the most banal,
anticlimactic way to name a book, I don’t know what is.
If your book was made into a film, who would you like to play the lead and
why?
A brand new actress! I mean, Marilia
is pretty young, so I figure it would have to be someone new, right?
When did you first consider yourself
a writer?
I first knew I wanted to be a writer in high school. Back then, I hoped it would be my full-time job. Things didn’t exactly work out that way. For a while, since I had another career to pay the bills, I didn’t know whether I had earned the title of “writer.” But then I learned just how many writers have other jobs, and I felt less guilty about it. Now that I have two books out there and another two in good shape, I feel like I can comfortably call myself a writer without bringing down bad voodoo on my head or something.
I like the covers
ReplyDeleteThanks! Can't take too much credit for the specific details (if only I knew how to use Photoshop!), though I did come up with the color scheme!
ReplyDelete