V.E. Schwab had always conceived the The Shades of Magic series [A Darker Shade of Magic (2015), A Gathering of Shadows (2016), A Conjuring of Light (2017)] as a trilogy. Speaking over the phone, from the backseat of a car on the road between Nashville, Tennessee and Columbus, Ohio, Schwab says, “I was about halfway through the final book when I realised that I had a new plot thread that I wanted to follow. So, I ended up designing a second trilogy set seven years after the end of the first that is a combination of old and new characters.” The Fragile Threads of Power (published by Bloomsbury) is the first of the trilogy.
Tenuous balance
The bestselling fantasy writer says power is referred to as fragile in the series, in the sense of how tenuous the balance is between different factors, elements and characters. “We are returning to this world at a time when things are poised to crumble. The people in control are in a precarious position.”
The joy of writing fantasy, Schwab says, is that you choose the rules. “You get to decide what is normal and what is strange, how much your fantasy is going to depart from the reality of your world.” The difficulties in fantasy, she says, is that one loses readers at every step taken away from reality. “The challenge is writing fantasy in a way that appeals to people who think that they don’t like fantasy because they haven’t read the right one.”
Homage to anime
The Shades of Magic world, according to Schwab, is a homage to the anime that she grew up loving, such as Avatar and Fullmetal Alchemist. “I wanted to write a portal fantasy, something that has a point of departure from reality into another space. Instead of writing about multiple alternate worlds, each with its own geography and landscape, I wanted to envision something a little more philosophical.”
She wanted to imagine the same world in four different ways, based on its relationship to magic. “We have our world where magic has been forgotten, the Red world where magic is worshipped, the White world where magic is bound and the Black world where magic is so powerful that it consumed everything.”
Fragile threads | Photo Credit: Ruth Dhanaraj
Foundational landscape
That was the foundational landscape, Schwab says, into which she devised a magical system that is element or nature-based. “It is organic because I like to use anchors that have reference points in our world and in reality, which helps us understand magic.”
There are two schools of fantasy, according to her. “There is the Tolkien style fantasy where you, as a reader, will only ever access that world through the pages of the book. And then there is the CS Lewis style which tells you that somewhere in your house, there is a cabinet with no back and you can find your way into another world from there.”
As a reader, Schwab says, she prefers the latter because it tells you that magic is there in our world. “You just need to know how to look for it. For me it is less a distaste for fantasy that requires more of you, than for the idea that magic could never exist in my world.”
Character thoughts
While rigid when it comes to structure, design and planning, Schwab’s connection to characters’ names is more emotional. “I need to feel like the characters fit and embody their names. I will work on the characters for months before I find their name. Once I find their name, it never changes.”
With her poetry background, the author says a lot of the process depends on how the name tastes and sounds rolling off the tongue in different circumstances. “Names are one of the most important elements of our identity, whether it’s a name that we’re given or one that we choose.”
Finding the right doorway
A desire to believe that there is wonder and magic in the world is what draws Schwab to fantasy. “I love the grounded escapism of it, the belief that I haven’t found the right doorway yet. Fantasy not only allows you to rewrite the rules of your world and shift the spotlight away from those who are traditionally centered, but it also allows you a sense of wonder in times, which can often be dark and bleak.”
All trends ebb and flow, says Schwab. “There are always times where certain things seem to be more in demand, but the last few years have seen an increased desire for escapism, hope and wonder. There’s something empowering about fantasy. Most of us go through life wishing we were stronger or bolder or less afraid. Fantasy creates the kind of characters who are able to embody that space.”
Incredible growth
There is an incredible growth in the fantasy genre, says Schwab. “We’re seeing an expansion of the genre beyond the traditional, straight, white male hero, with incredible East Asian and Southeast Asian inspired fantasies. There are many more works in translation, though not nearly enough.”
Schwab has written series as well as standalone novels, including the extraordinary The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020) which was on the New York Times Best Seller list for 37 consecutive weeks. While saying each serves a different purpose creatively, Schwab says she finds the elegance of a stand-alone work appealing. “I can hold it in my hands. It has an end. I understand the full shape of it when I’m writing because I know where I want it to stop. It feels more like a period and less like ellipses.”
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, where a young woman makes a Faustian bargain for immortality, talks of the sadness of forgetting versus the loneliness of being forgotten. “You don’t realise the sadness of forgetting because you’re the one forgetting. My grandmother had dementia and as hard as it was to watch her forget, it was so much harder to watch my mother be forgotten by her mother.”
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue also speaks of the difference between sustenance and satisfaction. “It is the difference between survival and living. One can survive without living. One, keeps us going while the other gives us meaning.”
The movie adaptation of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue with actor Gerard Butler as one of the producers, is on track, Schwab says. “I read the most recent script and it’s wonderful. We have our director in Augustine Frizzell who co-wrote the script with David Lowery. She is absolutely brilliant.”
