by Neil Clarke
Under the surface of your newest novel, there are a lot of systems in place governing culture, politics, and societies. How do you go about creating an intricate system of interconnected countries with their own customs and beliefs?
I don’t think I can answer with any kind of “system.” I don’t work that way. I learn as much as I can about the actual setting. I have often said that before you can do variations on a theme you should at least try to know the theme. None of us are perfectly accurate when we work with history (for many, many reasons) which is one reason I like my ‘quarter turn’ to the fantastic . . . it acknowledges right from the outset that we can’t get it exactly right. We are in a near-Europe of the Renaissance (for this book), not Europe. I like that the reader and I thus share this awareness.
You mention that the “origin story” for this novel lies in Croatia. What was it about the area, and the Uskoks in particular, that interested you?
I think part of it was—honestly—that I had never heard of them! I like finding corners of history that have been under-explored. As I learned more, I was also fascinated by the vast gulf between how the Uskoks were seen by (say) Venice and Ragusa/Dubrovnik, and how they viewed and understood themselves. They were either savage pirates and raiders, or the unacknowledged true heroes of the endangered borderlands against the encroaching, invading Ottomans. That kind of gap is very fertile ground for a novelist.
With such an elaborate cast of characters, how do you keep them all organized while writing?
To some degree this is where having done it for a long time helps, I suppose. You learn your own methods and craft after a while. In truth, this novel is fairly focused on the (different) journeys of my protagonists, both actually and internally, the cast isn’t as big as some others I’ve done. I wanted to write a book that felt epic, against the backdrop of a great war—but that was, in truth, about non-powerful men and women trying to get on with their lives on those dangerous borderlands.
Not only are your characters numerous, each of them is also quite layered and complex. Do characters like Danica or Jacopo Miucci have any inspiration or basis in history?
Complexity, nuance, enough depth to engage readers, that’s what I am always trying for. As to the two you mention, inspiration, yes, actual figures behind them, not in those cases. Miicci is a doctor. I did do reading into how Dubrovnik obtained its physicians from Venice (or elsewhere in Italy) and in Venetian spying (Everyone spied! That was as much about commercial espionage, not just political/military.). As for Danica, one of the slanders against the raiders of Senj (my Senjan) was that their women were as violent and bloodthirsty as their men and that they also had access to magic (usually associated, in the stories I saw most often, with controlling the winds at sea).
What was your favorite bit of history or folklore you picked up while researching Children of Earth and Sky?
Wow! Tough one, good one. So many. I loved learning about the origins of books being bound in Venice, though it is only a small bit in the novel. I loved reading the history of Dubrovnik, how it survived, unconquered, for so long (until Napoleon!), despite relying pretty much entirely on good walls and brilliant, subtle, unceasing observation and diplomacy. I learned a lot about the role and impact of weather and distance in military campaigns of the period. And about cannons. And horses.
Did you travel to the Mediterranean region while researching this book? If so, which place really captured your imagination?
I did travel through Croatia and the Balkans, and to Prague . . . but in the time just before the book became the next book. I know for certain that all these travels were embedded in the decision to write Children, but they weren’t trips taken to specifically prepare for it. It many ways, for a writer, his or her life is always a part of research.
Is it difficult to strike a balance between historical influences and the more imaginative elements of the story?
Everything about a novel is difficult! I’m not one of those who races through having fun. I feel a huge responsibility, primarily to the story and characters, but also to deliver something that will satisfy. You can never please every kind of reader, but I do want to please myself, and that involves this loyalty to the story being told. So the balance as to history and the invented is one challenge. So, in this novel, was the balance among five protagonists who all had to hold and engage readers—because they all move to the center in different parts of the narrative. Balancing, in fact, is one of the core things a novelist has to do, and it operates in many different ways.
What period of time or area of the world are you interested in featuring in your next novel?
No real idea. I never do know at this stage. I am interested in a great many times and places—but ‘interest’ isn’t enough. I spend a long time in whatever setting I end up using. There needs to be something very compelling, a reason for me to ‘live’ there for years, and to feel I have something to say to readers about it. So, I never know, when I’m done, what the next book will be.
Since you’ve deeply researched an array of places and times in history, is there any particular one you’d like to live in or at least visit?
I’ve visited many of them, from Tuscany to China. I think a part of my heart is always in Provence, in or near Aix-en-Provence. I’ve based two novels around there (A Song For Argonne, and Ysabel) and written there on four different occasions. Sit me outside on the Cours Mirabeau at a cafe, or walking in the countryside towards Mont Saeinte-Victoire, and I’m a happy man.
What about one of the worlds you’ve created?
Always hard, but to be consistent (why not?) I’ll say the Argonne of the troubadours. I do share William Butler Yeats’ feeling, too, though, that Constantinople at the time of Justinian would have been a remarkable place to be, so my own Sarantium is another option.
About the Author
Chris Urie is a writer and editor from Ocean City, NJ. He has written and published everything from city food guide articles to critical essays on video game level design. He currently lives in Philadelphia with an ever expanding collection of books and a small black rabbit that has an attitude problem.
Another Word:
Publishing—Jump In, the Water’s Fine
Alethea Kontis
This year marks my twentieth year in the book industry. Exactly half of my life.
In 1996, I graduated from USC with a degree in Chemistry. I immediately went out and got a second job at a bookstore. (I was already assistant and promotional manager at the local movie theater.) I haven’t left the publishing industry since. From bookseller to Book Buyer, from editor to author—when it comes to the creation and distribution of stories, there are very few jobs I haven’t done.
Everything I know I got from jumping in the deep end and learning from experience. I had zero formal education on the subject to guide me, but I wanted to be part of it all so much that I was fearless. Every time a new opportunity presented itself, I jumped.
Well, almost every opportunity.
In the past two decades, I have watched the publishing industry shift, adapt, and evolve. At times with incredible ease . . . but mostly not. Some readers have embraced this change. Some have fought it tooth and nail every step of the way. On the other side of the sales counter, corporations have had a similar struggle. A few times, publishers, printers, and wholesalers have pioneered new technology, sales, and delivery methods. But in so many ways they still desperately cling to a dying business model, and the world is changing faster than they can keep up.
Some of these advances we could see coming a mile away. I never told my parents, but right after college, during my first foray to Dragon Con, I was offered an editorial position at the biggest of the Big Six publishing houses (back when there were still six), and I turned it down.
Now you’re wondering just how crazy I am. This was the perfect opportunity! What book-loving geek in her right mind turns down a job like that? It’s true. I did want the gig. Second to being a published
author, it was pretty much my dream job. The trouble was, I didn’t want to live in New York City. A girl fresh out of her teens doesn’t know much about herself, but I knew—deep down in my soul—that I was not a Big City Girl. I would have been miserable. I also knew, with the advent of this new-fangled contraption we were calling “the Internet,” that telecommuting an editorial position like that wouldn’t be far down the line. I was willing to wait for that.
Telecommuting took longer than I thought it would to catch on—heck, most of the publishers still prefer folks to work at their offices in the city—but other aspects began to branch out. Agents didn’t need to live in New York anymore. Copyeditors and sales reps certainly didn’t. Heck, even publishers began to be more comfortable in offices beyond the reach of a subway line.
But by that time I was already a published author, and my career path was on a different—and to me, a far more desirable—trajectory.
I had made goals when I was in college. I wanted to be doing whatever I was meant to be doing for the rest of my life by the time I turned twenty-five, and I wanted to be published by thirty. At the end of my twenty fourth year, I secured a coveted Book Buyer position and a year later, I bought a house. By the time thirty rolled around, I had books out with both Tor and Candlewick, and a novelette in Realms of Fantasy. Everything was on track.
Except, it was 2006. The economy was about to tank and technology was about to explode. Between the two, my dream career path slipped into a sideways dimension and became something I never would have imagined.
Even as late as 2009, big corporations weren’t sure what to do with the Internet and the insane “social media” nonsense. Meetings were still being held to discuss publishers putting their catalogs online, and how the industry would ultimately spell the word “ebook.” (I kid you not, I was at the meeting where this monumental decision was made.)
I got the impression that these corporations were terrified of the Internet. They saw it as some as-yet-undiscovered Wild West that would cease to exist if they just ignored it long enough. I was asked—as part of my goals—to investigate various social media and report back as to how our company might use it to our benefit. My reports and suggestions were summarily dismissed, unread, with a wave of the hand. That social media. Such a frivolous waste of time and certainly no use to business or marketing.
Happily, none of that data was a waste to me.
It did not surprise me that such a corporate behemoth would be so incredibly slow to adapt to technology . . . a funny thing, when a little publishing division called LSI was suddenly blowing up with all these “print-on-demand” book orders.
What surprised me—and what surprises me still—is what’s happening with traditional publishing and self-publishing, both from the publisher and author perspective. If you had told me on the day AlphaOops came out that a decade later I would be self-publishing in a big way, I would have looked at you like you’d just called me a dirty name. I would not see it as I do today: through the eyes of an author building her fan base in the way she wants, molding her career to suit her needs and not at the whim of a committee reviewing P&L statements and filling catalogs from a windowless room in New York. It would never have occurred to me that I could make writing both a “day job” that paid me month to month, and still retain that lofty goal of being paid five-digit advances and having books printed in China by the thousands.
In publishing, as in life, the only thing that is constant is change. For every success there may be a dozen setbacks. What’s amazing about the world we live in today is how many opportunities there are for authors to take those setbacks into our own hands and turn them back around. Self-publishing is a grand idea: will you publish in ebook only or print? For the cost of an ISBN and a setup fee, you can make a hardcover available to your dedicated fans. For the ebook, will you be available across all platforms, or hitch your wagon to a subscription service? Why choose? Try them out and see what works. Need some startup capital? Try a Kickstarter. Need some help launching a new part (or all) of your career? Try Patreon. Enjoy performing? Try YouTube, or Vimeo, or Facebook Live. Enjoy making memes? Try . . . anything, anywhere.
So the next time you experience a setback in this industry and worry about what’s going to happen, don’t. You cannot answer the “Where do you see yourself in five years?” question. No one can. Look back at the technological advances made in the last five years. Can you even imagine what the next five years will bring? Exactly.
I have faith that whatever happens in our not-too-distant future, it will be amazing. We know history, and we know how it repeats. All of that knowledge we’ve amassed—and are still amassing—none of it will be wasted. Things go dormant for a while (remember newsletters?) and come back with a vengeance. And beneath it all, content remains king.
We are the content creators. This is what we do. We’ve got this.
Imagining six impossible things before breakfast has become harder and harder, because so much is possible right now. The opportunities are there. We need only to be fearless. Join me in the deep end! I’ve been here so long, I’ve grown fins. And I can assure you, the water’s fine.
About the Author
New York Times bestselling author Alethea Kontis is a princess, a goddess, a force of nature, and a mess. She’s known for screwing up the alphabet, scolding vampire hunters, turning garden gnomes into mad scientists, and making sense out of fairy tales.
Alethea is the co-author of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter Companion, and penned the AlphaOops series of picture books. Her short fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in a myriad of anthologies and magazines. She has done multiple collaborations with Eisner winning artist J.K. Lee, including The Wonderland Alphabet and Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome. Her debut YA fairy tale novel, Enchanted, won the Gelett Burgess Children’s Book Award in 2012.
Born in Burlington, Vermont, Alethea now lives in Northern Virginia with her Fairy Godfamily. She makes the best baklava you’ve ever tasted and sleeps with a teddy bear named Charlie.
Editor’s Desk:
In My Own Way
Neil Clarke
Every story—and editorial—starts with a blank screen. I’m one of those people who is tortured by that field of white. In its presence, all my ideas fade to nothing. I used to think that public speaking was my nemesis. I still don’t like it, but at least there I have someone to bounce off of and I can’t fall back on the delete key. This is probably another good reason for me to avoid time travel or temporal rewinding: I’d put myself in an endless loop of revision and freezing.
One of the main reasons I continue to do these editorials, though, is to break the cycle. I have this strange belief that one day the words will just flow. (I can hear the authors in the room laughing hysterically. Please permit me to have my delusion in peace.) Even if I don’t have that breakthrough moment, this journey will help me become more comfortable and confident with my words.
In many ways, lacking that skill has helped me as an editor. It makes me have even more respect for the talent of the people behind the stories that land on my desk. It’s also one of the reasons I find negative review bloggers so distasteful—they use that skill to promote themselves at the expense of others. I’d much rather take the high road: move on, find something you like, and then celebrate it.
I’ve discussed this before in previous editorials. If we want short fiction to thrive, we have a responsibility to spread the word and promote the works we’ve enjoyed. There are many ways to do this, but it needs to be focused, respectful, and timely. More specifically, it needs to be done in locations that are relevant to the audience you are trying to attract. Your blog is nice, but adding Twitter or Amazon might have a bigger impact.
Reviewing isn’t for everyone, mind you. I really wanted to do my part and find a way to contribute to a positive conversation about short fiction. I tried writing reviews. The blank screen tormented me and it took a while to realize that I wasn’t following the
path that best utilized my skills. Instead, I changed tactics and launched Forever Magazine as a way of bringing back some of the stories I’ve enjoyed. When I go full-time this year, I hope to be able to do a bit more with that project.
Not long after announcing Forever, another opportunity to celebrate short fiction fell into my lap: Night Shade Books offered me a contract to edit a new year’s best anthology series. The first volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year comes out this month. It’s been an intimidating project, but one I’m quite proud of. Here are the thirty-one stories included in the first volume:
“Today I Am Paul” by Martin L. Shoemaker
“Calved” by Sam J. Miller
“Three Bodies at Mitanni” by Seth Dickinson
“The Smog Society” by Chen Quifan
“In Blue Lily’s Wake” by Aliette de Bodard
“Hello, Hello” by Seanan McGuire
“Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang
“Capitalism in the 22nd Century” by Geoff Ryman
“Hold-Time Violations” by John Chu
“Wild Honey” by Paul McAuley
“So Much Cooking” by Naomi Kritzer
“Bannerless” by Carrie Vaughn
“Another Word for World” by Ann Leckie
“The Cold Inequalities” by Yoon Ha Lee