This week, we’re welcoming author Alma Alexander whose title EMBERS OF HEAVEN blends history and fantasy. Alma is be here to talk about the novel and offer a copy to a lucky winner. Here's the blurb:
An outsider and a child of two worlds, Amais searches for the magical bond of jin-shei, the women’s oath, in her ancestral home of Syai, unaware that her quest will bring her to the very person who may destroy her and her family. And yet, she must face him, or all hope for Syai will be lost…
**Q&A with Alma Alexander**
What's the one thing that keeps you going back and writing?
Well,
there are stories to be told. They more or less march up to me and they shake
me by the shoulders if I have been procrastinating too long and they more or
less tell me to get on with things, if I don't mind, thank you. My stories are
in a way my muses - they kind of inspire and re-inspire themselves until they
are done, and I keep going back to them and talking to them and cajoling them
and yelling at them and threatening dire action if they don't do as I say... They
are my friends, and a collective nemesis, and they demand that I tell them.
What
can I do but obey? I am but a humble writer, and they need my mind and my hand
to release themselves out into the world. So I lend them. Willingly. Often.
Again and again.
Why did you base
"Secrets of Jin Shei" on a fictional China instead of making it a
pure fantasy setting, as in, say, “Changer of Days”?
The
first inkling I had of the story which became "Secrets of Jin Shei" was a page of ten character sketches,
each a short paragraph long - the characters were nameless and faceless at this
point, all that existed of them was their history. I kind of knew that they
were going to be Oriental but not that they were to be specifically
Chinese-inspired. Until I received a newspaper clipping about a dying language,
a written women's language taught from mother to daughter in China - and of how
the last woman who had learned it organically in this way, now in her nineties,
was dying, and would take the living language with her. And my ten character
sketches sat up and became people, and after that China was inevitable.
With
the fantasy duology, "Hidden Queen"/"Changer of Days", it was more of a
pure joyous storytelling, something that came from absolutely nowhere but my
own imagination. It was tied to nothing and nobody that had ties to or roots in
the "real", our, world.
Every
book is different. Look at just these two examples - one purely imaginary, the
other researched and rooted in an actual historical and geographical setting
but still fantasy and not REALLY that - and then, the new one, the latest one,
"Midnight at Spanish Gardens", is set in a cafe called Spanish
Gardens... which existed once. Exactly as I described it.
A
story chooses its context - at least, my stories do. Stories are like
semi-sentient jewels, seeking for the setting that best shows them off. And
they know best.
What are some of your
favorite resources for research? Do you purchase the books you need, or find
them at the library?
Yes.
[grin]
The
expanded answer is yes, I buy them, I borrow them, I cadge them from friends if
they have what I need, I use whatever means necessary.
And
let me put in a plug here for used bookstores. There are two in the town in
which I live, and they are fantastic - and they are STUFFED with treasures,
some which you never knew you needed until you trip over the actual volume in a
bottom shelf somewhere. I've found gems of obscure biographies in these stores,
books long out of print, which contained PRECISELY the context I needed for a
scene or a chapter or a character. I've found illustrated coffee table books
which I would never have been able to afford new being sold for a kind of price
that was well within my budget - and the pictures in which gave birth to
spectacular settings in my novels. Old outdated encyclopedias can be invaluable
resources (as in, "Good GRIEF - they actually believed THAT?")
I
remember walking up to a bookstore employee once and asking him,
semi-seriously, "If I were a book on Byzantium, where would I be?"
(He pointed me to the right shelf with a big smile). Memoirs, letters, even old
creaky out of print novels by writers you've never heard of which happen to be
set in the world which you are researching. As always, caveat emptor - you have
to do ENOUGH research to know what's true and what's pure malarkey - you have
to know the real rules before you are allowed to break them. But anything can
be grist to the mill.
Research
can be intoxicating and dizzying and it may be difficult for the neophyte to
know just when to STOP. But while you're doing it, it's amazing, it's like
riding a wild horse without tack, and you never quite know where you're going
to end up. And sometimes that final destination is quite, quite different from
the one you thought you were aiming at. Good research will do that - redirect
you to Wonderful, instead of just This Will Do - if you let it.
What scene do you like
the most? Is there anything a character did that surprised you?
I'm
going to answer this one as pertains to the newest latest novel, "Midnight
at Spanish Gardens".
Truth
is, concerning favourite scenes, that I find it hard to answer these questions
- because there are a dozen scenes in this book, which I love. The scenes that
bookend the book - Olivia's thoughts on Spanish Gardens as she first approaches
it, after so many years have passed since her last visit, and her thoughts
about the place in the aftermath of the whole story that takes place between
the covers of this book. The scene where John finds out about... but that would
be a kind of spoiler, and this is one of the most powerful scenes in the book.
The scene where Dorotea meets Quincey's family at their wedding.
Several
of the conversations in Spanish Gardens itself at the reunion.
Almost
every scene with Ariel. The thing about scenes, for me, is that they have never
been something that stands out as and of themselves. I know some writers
literally use them as building blocks for a novel, working scene by scene,
building up a story that way - whereas I tend to tell the story and then be
surprised when it breaks up into discrete scenes afterwards. I am a most
organic writer, and to me the value is in the whole, not the scenes. That
said... YOU, the reader, might find individual scenes, which matter more than
others. If anyone out there wants to let me know which, I would be fascinated
to hear it.
And
as for my characters doing things to surprise me... EVERYTHING my characters do
surprises me. My best characters are very much in charge of their own stories.
I have learned the hard way that my characters are not TAME characters - they
are not hawks trained to jesses and hood. I set them free, and then I follow
where they lead me. Everyone is happier that way. And my characters, my lovely
ever surprising characters, are real people who live and breathe, they are
someone you just haven't met yet, but they exist. And if they walked out of the
book, off the page, and stuck out their hand for you to shake it, you'd
recognise them even if you have never formally met. Yes, they surprise me. I've
been known to weep at some of the things my characters have chosen to do. I
wouldn't have it any other way.
And
on the heels of that...
Anghara has been around
for a long time and you often say the Jin-Shei girls basically forced you to
write their story. Which characters were the most difficult for you to write,
and why?
The
characters from "Midnight at Spanish
Gardens" have traces of people I have known who once also frequented
that cafe. One of the things that Simon tells Olivia about her life choices -
"you are just misguided" - was actually uttered in that place. And
more than that, the person who said it remembers saying it. Sometimes things
are just given to you and they are gifts indeed.
Writers
are often asked how they create characters - and some will tell you that they
have charts or biographical files, everything meticulously noted and sketched
out, characters drawn with an almost dictatorial hand - thus you shall be,
Character A, and no other way.... My
characters, instead, tend to step fully formed out of the woodwork and stick
out their hand and say, "Hi, my name is X, this is my story, start
writing." I often don't know all that much about them, factually,
biographically, except what they choose to tell me in a context where they
believe information is pertinent or required. But on the other hand I know
these characters far, far better in some ways than the carefully scripted ones
can ever be known. Because mine can slide right off their original storyline...
and it doesn't matter, because they are real enough to take the altered
timelines and CHANGE WITH THEM if that is necessary. Which is, often, where
they surprise me the most.
This
might sound impossible, almost insane, to a non-writer, or to a writer of
carefully regimented casts of characters who believes that giving them this
much of a head can only lead to disaster. But really, this is not difficult at
all. The thing a writer like me quickly learns to do is just listen well, and
the stories which are filtered through me are mine only to shape and to polish.
They are their characters' tales to tell. And I know how to keep out of the
way. That’s the BEST way to treat characters who know what they are doing.
Do you intend to write a
sequel, and what is the next project you are working on?
Again,
a sweeping question. There are always sequels if you look for them. There MAY
be another story in the Jin Shei universe, someday.
There
definitely is another tale in the Changer of Days universe, but it's on the
back burner. What I'm working on now, oddly, is the final "sequel"
which will round off my Worldweavers
series to a satisfying conclusion - and the finale is either going to be one
fat book, or the final installment divided into two shorter volumes. But it's a
ripsnorter of a story, and I am finding incredible ways in which everything
ties together at the end - although, as I have already said elsewhere, I have a
fantastic cast of characters and it shouldn't surprise me that they know what
they are doing... After that, I have a couple of other projects in the
pipeline. In the meantime I have a slew of shorter fiction out in the Fall
2012/Winter 2013 bracket - stories in anthologies "Dar Faith 2: Invocations", "Scheherezade's Facade", "Airships & Automatons" and another Steampunk anthology
coming out soon from Sky Warrior Books,
as well as sales to publications such as Phantom Drift (October 2012) and
Aoife's Kiss (coming up in the spring of 2013). There's plenty out there to
read.
Future
projects include another YA series, a new historical fantasy, and a new fantasy
trilogy, Coming soon. Watch my blog,
my Facebook fan page or my website for details...
Alma Alexander is the author of Secrets of Jin Shei and Embers of Heaven. Read Alma’s personal blog and access her articles at www.SFNovelists.com - on the 5th of every month - and www.Storytellersunplugged - on the 30th of every month. Follow Alma on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook and visit her Amazon page.
