I started reading Courtney Schafer’s Shattered Sigil trilogy for the first time last fall. That turned out to be great timing—entirely unplanned on my part—because the third book, The Labyrinth of Flame, was released in December. If you’ve been following Courtney on Twitter, or following fantasy publishing news over the last few years, you’ll know that The Labyrinth of Flame had a pretty tortuous route to publication. To make a long story short, fans who’d been faithfully following Shattered Sigil from the beginning had a three-year wait between books two and three; I only had to wait a couple weeks.
Shattered Sigil is a complex adventure fantasy set in a world where elemental magic is part of the fabric of society. It’s sometimes dark, always exciting. The first book introduces us to Dev—a smart-mouthed former thief and sometime smuggler who works as an outrider, guiding caravans across the Whitefire Mountains—and Kiran, a blood mage trying to escape his sadistic master. Both are haunted by demons from their pasts—in Kiran’s case, literally. Over the course of the trilogy, Dev and Kiran must navigate treachery and tragedy, trying to find peace for themselves and their world.
Courtney graciously agreed to answer some burning questions I had upon finishing The Labyrinth of Flame (no pun intended). Fair warning if you haven’t read the books: there are mild spoilers below.
Your love of mountaineering is an obvious influence on the world of Shattered Sigil. What were some of your other influences—other books and writers, your own experiences, anything?
A perhaps less obvious influence was my experience with competitive figure skating—not directly (nobody is doing double axels!), but in relation to my choice of magic system. Specifically, the Taint: the telekinetic power that Ninavel-born children develop as toddlers, that disappears with puberty. In my years at the skating rink I’ve watched a seemingly endless parade of bright-eyed, talented little girls be devastated when they grow too tall to keep their triple jumps. These are kids who are in the top ranks at Junior Nationals, whose whole lives are structured around skating…and then slowly, inexorably, their bodies betray them. A lucky few have the right combo of grit and genetics to re-learn their triples and continue competing at the elite level. But for most, their career as a competitive skater is over, long before they reach adulthood. It’s a terribly difficult transition for many ex-skaters, and I wanted to explore that a little more in fiction—thus Dev’s background as a former Tainter.
As far as other influences…I’d credit Joan D. Vinge’s Psion (and sequels) and Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief for instilling my love of snarky, streetwise first-person protagonists, and authors like Carol Berg and Emma Bull for showing me how much fun it is to put your characters through hell.
Ultimately, the relationship between Dev and Kiran is the heart of the series. Were these two characters the original germ of your idea for Shattered Sigil, or did plot and/or setting come first, with characters filled in later?
I’d say the setting came first. I love the stark beauty of California’s Owens Valley and eastern Sierra so much that I wanted to set a fantasy story in similar terrain. But I didn’t want to just use the Sierra as scenery; I wanted to share some of the joy I’ve experienced climbing and exploring them. This is where the characters came in. I asked myself: who would be climbing through these jagged peaks, and why? That’s when I came up with Kiran’s predicament, and Dev as his reluctant guide. Then I considered relationships and character arcs, and built the plot from there.
Did you have the plot for the entire trilogy already mapped out when you wrote The Whitefire Crossing?
Haha, nope. I did think the story would require at least two books, and I knew that Kiran and Dev would both need to deal with their pasts and (in Kiran’s case) eventually achieve a real and lasting freedom, but how exactly that would happen and what specific challenges they would face along the way…that, I left for myself to discover in the process of writing. I find it more fun that way! For each individual book, before I started writing I did figure out that particular book’s beginning, ending, and a couple “signposts” in between. But then I felt out the path between those signposts as I wrote, letting character reactions and personalities drive their decisions, which in turn affected the next events of the plot. (Sometimes the ending changes as a result of this process. For instance, the ending I had in mind when I started The Tainted City was quite different than the ending you now read in the book. But I like the published ending much, much better than my original idea—and that’s why I like to give myself some freedom. If I’d outlined every scene in advance & written wholly to that outline, maybe I wouldn’t have thought of the path I ended up taking.
Did you find Dev’s voice and Kiran’s equally writable? Did one voice come easier than the other? Were there any challenges to working not only with two point-of-view characters, but in two different narrative modes (1st person and 3rd person)?
I found writing both Dev and Kiran equally fun, but each POV had its own challenges. For instance, with Dev, I had to be careful not to make him so cocky he became annoying (or overdo the colorful metaphors!). Whereas with Kiran, who is closer in personality to me, in my first drafts of scenes he would often be too “blank” to the reader because his emotional reactions would be so obvious to me that I didn’t always think to portray them. Thankfully, this is why I have a critique group! They were a huge help in pointing out authorial blind spots so that in revision I could trim or deepen the POV as required.
I personally found sticking to two and only two POVs to be an enormous help in preventing “story sprawl.” You know, where a planned trilogy expands into 4, 5, or even more books. When I was first working on book 3, I recall wondering if I should add Cara’s POV, and deciding against it because I wanted to stay consistent with the first two books. Forgive me, Cara fans, but that was the best decision I ever made. The Labyrinth of Flame took me 3 years to write and ended up tremendously long as it was—if I’d added Cara to the mix, I’d probably still be struggling through a draft today, and I bet I’d have had to split the book in two. Besides, much as it would’ve been fun to write in her perspective, I don’t think it was necessary for the story I wanted to tell. (That said, I am having tons of fun working on the short story from her POV that I promised through the Kickstarter!)
As for the two narrative modes, I get asked a lot why I chose to mix 1st and 3rd. The answer’s pretty straightforward—I was writing The Whitefire Crossing purely for myself, and I found that Dev flowed best for me in 1st (since I prefer snarky, active, opinionated 1st-person protagonists) while Kiran flowed best in 3rd (as he’s more angsty and introspective, the slightly greater distance of 3rd person helps keep the narrative from bogging down). I didn’t find switching between the two hard at all; in fact, it helped me keep straight whose voice I should be using for a given scene. I do realize the style change between POVs bothers some readers, but fortunately, most people seem able to go with the flow; and I personally don’t regret the choice one bit.
What is your favorite moment or scene in the series? Conversely, what was the hardest scene for you as the writer?
Oooh, too hard to choose just one scene for the series as a whole, but I can try to narrow down to one for each book. Or two. Arrgh, there are so many. But okay, for Whitefire Crossing, the scene where Kiran stops the avalanche was one of my favorites, because it’s such a dramatic turning point for him both character and plot-wise. In Tainted City, I loved the scene at the end in the Cirque of the Knives, where we get the first real glimpse of what Kiran’s forgotten past might hold, and it’s again another huge plot turning point. In Labyrinth of Flame—oh goodness, way too many there, but to pick just one, I’ll go with the scene where Kiran and Dev get to have a real laugh together. Because it’s the first time in three books that Kiran actually laughs (a real laugh, not a bitter or ironic or sarcastic one), and it’s a symbol for me of just how deep the bond between him and Dev has grown.
As for hardest scene to write, I’ll go with any scene that had more than three characters involved in a conversation. For me, the difficulty of writing a scene goes up exponentially with the number of characters involved, because it takes me so long to work out everybody’s different reactions and interactions. Plus, it’s very hard to keep each character present in the scene without bogging the narrative down. Agggh, Labyrinth of Flame had all these “team” scenes in the middle portion of the book…I tell you, I thought I’d never get through them and get the flow right. Some writer-friends suggested if I wanted to finish the book faster, I should kill off more characters, but darn it, I didn’t want to take the easy way out. I think all the work was worth it, but still, I had a lot of days when I thought longingly of all those lovely easy scenes in Whitefire that featured just Dev and Kiran in the wilderness.
The Shattered Sigil books have a lot to say about diversity, equality, and the dynamics of power, among other issues—without being “issues” books. Does fantasy have a responsibility to confront real-world issues? How can writers do this respectfully and thoughtfully?
I wouldn’t say a “responsibility.” I’m a firm believer in people writing whatever they want to write, and that fantasy has room for everything from the breeziest of popcorn adventures to the most challenging of thematic explorations. But I do think that stories are richer and more engaging when authors make the effort to stretch beyond common clichés and tropes, and reflect the diversity that already abounds in the real world. We’re fantasy writers. We’re supposed to be imaginative. So why not stretch that imagination in all kinds of ways, not just in terms of magic systems?
Here’s an example of what I mean by stretching beyond tropes. One time an author-friend brought a chapter to critique group that had his protagonist walk in on a bad guy raping a “throwaway” character. The rape was pretty much just there to show how awful the bad character was; it had no direct plot relevance. Several of us pointed out that’s a lazy and often offensive shorthand. So the author took that scene and reworked it completely. In the rewrite, the villainy of the character was demonstrated in a completely different and far more unique way that did not involve rape, and oh WOW. It made the scene so much creepier and so much better.
I bring up this example not just to talk about the importance of reaching beyond the first, easy (and often lazy) shorthand, but to illustrate the importance of feedback in revealing our blind spots. We all have them; and we all make mistakes, especially when attempting to portray characters and cultures outside our own experience. Maybe you can’t make a story perfect. But the best way I know of to minimize mistakes is to seek out reactions to your work from people who will bring a different perspective than your own to the reading. And if they say something is lazy, or hurtful, or offensive, don’t give in to the instinct to defend your story and dismiss the criticism. Instead, listen, thank them, and go away and think it over. Nine times out of ten you’ll come up with a fix that’ll make your story far better than it was before.
What’s next in store? Can you talk about any future projects? Would you ever consider returning to the world of Shattered Sigil?
Well, right now I’m working on the four Shattered Sigil short stories I promised through the Kickstarter: one from Cara’s POV, one from Ruslan’s POV, and then two for individual backers who got the “Ultimate Fan” reward. I’m having so much fun with these that I’m considering writing a couple more and then releasing a collection. I don’t rule out writing a new Shattered Sigil novel one day, but first I’d like to write something completely new. Still fantasy, as that’s the genre I love best. I’m still in the early stages so it’s hard to give any specifics, but right now I’m thinking it’ll have sea magic and a close-knit team of spies and perhaps a female protagonist. (Much as I’ve loved writing Dev and Kiran, after nearly 8 years spent in guys’ heads, I’m ready to change it up a little!)
Which book releases are you looking forward to in 2016 and beyond (fantasy or otherwise)?
Oh gosh, so many. This looks to be a great year for books. Already I’ve snapped up releases like Megan O’Keefe’s Steal the Sky (a really fun heist adventure), and Patricia McKillip’s Kingfisher (beautifully written & wryly humorous take on Arthurian legend), and Catherine Fisher’s The Speed of Darkness (fourth and last in her Obsidian Mirror series, which is a fascinating mashup of SF & fantasy tropes that I wish more people would read). Also Jeff Salyards’s Chains of the Heretic, last of his BloodSounders Arc military fantasy trilogy, released recently—I read that one as an ARC and it was terrific—and Helen Lowe’s Daughter of Blood, 3rd novel in her excellent epic fantasy series Wall of Night.
Right now I’m counting down the days until V.E. Schwab’s A Gathering of Shadows, since previous novel A Darker Shade of Magic was one of my favorite reads last year. (How could I not love a book that features a blood mage with a mysterious forgotten past?) Others I’m salivating for include The Second Death, last of T. Frohock’s Los Nefilim novellas (angels and daimons in 1930s Spain!), and Mark Lawrence’s Wheel of Osheim to finish off his Red Queen’s War trilogy (a bloody yet darkly amusing buddy adventure), and Alison Croggon’s The Bone Queen, a prequel to her rich and poetic Pellinor series. And lots more, but I’d better stop here or this interview will become an epic in and of itself!
I’d like to thank Courtney again for taking the time to do this interview, and for her thoughtful and thorough answers!
Links
Courtney’s website
Courtney’s blog
Courtney on Twitter
Shattered Sigil on Amazon
Shattered Sigil on Goodreads