by Shannon Hale
Your first three novels revolve around females. Any plans to have a male lead in an upcoming book?
Yes! I never thought I'd write a male main character because I know girls better (and I was always annoyed by those nineteenth-century male writers who wrote female characters and thoroughly botched the job). Then I met Razo. I know him and feel very confident writing his story. His book is titled River Secrets.
All your heroines have a romantic counterpart, but your stories aren't typical romances. What role do you see the young men playing in your stories?
Probably because of my own life history, I see the boys as being good friends first and romantic interests second. I like to see the boys get involved in the action right alongside the girls, and if there's an attraction, and if people fall in love—ah! Another reason to get the heart pumping. I've never read straight romance novels, but I love a book peppered with a good romance. It's real and it's fun.
There is a definite Shannon Hale style and tone to your first three novels. Do you think of yourself as having a signature style? How would you describe it? Do you plan to, or want to, try other styles?
I spent eighteen years writing unpublishable stuff, and I now realize it was all in pursuit of my voice. I found the kind of story that I love to read and the type of narrator I feel I can do well. I'm in love with the "close third person" narrator, a narrator that knows only as much as the main character and yet can step back just a tad and tell the story in a slightly different voice. This allows me freedom of language I wouldn't have in a first person narrator but lets me keep close to one character and follow her through the entire story. I do like to try other styles. I never want my writing to get dull and dry. I have a book in first person outlined, which might come out after the Razo book. I also compose things on the side that are very different just to keep myself fresh.
Your descriptions of landscapes are very detailed and visual. Are they based on any place you've been, or are they purely imagined?
They 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 a house in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and the hours of my childhood spent tramping around the hills behind my house worked their way into the setting of Princess Academy. Having lived places where it's summer all year and others where it's winter half the year, 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.
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?
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 readers into the story's director, and they can determine whom to cast for each role, the right mood for each scene, the dramas going on offscreen, and so on. That's
where books have it all over 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 the story your own.
What do you consider your strengths as a storyteller? Your weaknesses?
Ooh, why are these questions so hard? I feel as though I'm at girls' camp, sitting in a circle with one flashlight, about to reveal my secret crush. Okay, but just remember, what's said at camp stays at camp.
I think I can write books that both kids and adults enjoy. I've been told my style of narrative moves the story along and makes it easy to keep reading. I love trying to find just the right words, just the right way to say something. Endings are very important to me, and I hope I make satisfying ones.
I'm so impressed with writers who grip the reader from the very beginning, but I can't seem to do it. I'm cursed to have to build a story slowly, it seems. And I can't do a book in two or three drafts as some do, but a minimum of a dozen full rewrites. I also wish I could use more humor. I find it much easier when writing contemporary fiction. Humor is difficult to get across on the page because expression and delivery are so much a part of it. As a writer, you have to commit to it fully and have a frivolous, funny book; you have to resign yourself to puns; or you have to tell the reader, "and then all the characters laughed," even if the reader feels no inclination to join in. Miri in Princess Academy has allowed me to play around a bit more because she's a droll little girl, and Razo, as always, insists on having a good laugh, so River Secrets allows for some fun.
What's been your most embarrassing moment as a writer?
Oh, my, I've had so many! Here's one. In a Q&A session at a bookstore, someone asked, "Did you have any teachers who encouraged you?" Immediately my mind interpreted that as meaning, "Did you have writing teachers who pushed you to be a writer?" And so my fateful answer was, "No, not really." I explained that in all the writing classes and workshops I'd been in, I was never the star, and in graduate school I was the dud. I wanted my point to be that I'm no one special; I'm just some schmo who was stubborn and kept at it because it's what I wanted to do. If anyone in the crowd wanted to be a writer or do anything hard and had been discouraged, I wanted to say, "Your fate isn't sealed!" But as I blathered on, I saw my sister pointing emphatically at someone in the audience—it was Kathryn Romney, one of my former high school English teachers. Yikes! I tried to explain what I had meant, but surely it seemed I was back-pedaling after seeing her there. And as I was slipping and sliding, I saw for the first time Paula Fowler, another of my high school English teachers. What are the odds? (Seriously, if you're a statistician, I'd love to know.) If they had been substandard or even decent teachers, the incident would have ended up just an awkward faux pas that I would retell at parties. But they were GREAT teachers. They deserved to have a former student stand up and proclaim her gratitude. I'm still mortified.
You've been writing stories since you were ten years old. What kind of stories were you writing then? How has your writing and storytelling evolved?
My early writings are very derivative, as they should be. I believe imitation is the only way to start any creative art. I wrote stories similar to whatever I was reading at the time. The books I started when I was ten and eleven were The Gift of the Sea (a fantasy with three red-headed heroines who discover they have magical powers, and the fact that I'm a redhead was just happenstance, I swear); The Cave of Blackwood Falls (pure coincidence that I had recently read the Nancy Drew The Ghost of Blackwood Hall, I assure you); and My Mother the Queen (two cousins discover they're really princesses, and it's an unrelated fact that I very much wanted to discover that I was really a princess, too).
In high school, my writing was semipoetic—all style, no substance. Into 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.
Who encouraged you most to continue writing?
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, lest I go mad. I never had a mentor or someone who, you know, nudged my shoulder and said, "You're going to make it, kid. You got what it takes!" I longed for that, but I guess I didn't need it. Maybe I kept going in part just to spite the naysayers.
What is your favorite kind of pie?
Pumpkin with real whipped cream! And anything homemade and yummy.
What's next?
I'm excited about River Secrets, a book that features that irrepressible Razo. He wormed his way in
to Enna Burning despite not appearing in my original outline, and now he gets his own book, the lucky rascal. I also have another fairy tale retelling outlined, a possible sequel for Princess Academy, and several other Bayern book ideas. And I plan to do them all during my baby's nap time.
SHANNON HALE
is the Newbery Honor—winning author of Princess Academy, Book of a Thousand Days, and the highly acclaimed and award-winning Books of Bayern: The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, and River Secrets. She has also written a novel for adults, Austenland, and a graphic novel with her husband, Rapunzel's Revenge. She lives with her husband and two young children near Salt Lake City, Utah.
Visit Shannon on the Web for more information about all of her books, including deleted scenes and other fun extras!
www.shannonhale.com