Today, I'm presenting the wisdom of author extraordinaire Holly Black! Yesterday (Monday) night, I went to an event Holly did at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, IL, and I live-tweeted the Q&A session, so I'm going to recap that here. I only ended up missing a few questions, because I was so busy typing others, so here we go. Oh, and all questions and answers are quite paraphrased (as they needed to fit in 140 characters).
A: When you write for multiple communities, it's hard to feel like you're serving both the YA and MG communities at the same time.
Q: Return to Modern Faerie Tales?
A: MFT is settled, but I'm writing another Faerie book called The Darkest Part of the Forest!
Q: Difficulty of switching between Adult & YA?
A: The voices are similar so not much of a challenge, just have to be mindful of the character's age.
Fun Fact: When preparing for Coldtown, Holly re-read all the vampire books she read as a kid.
Q: Which of your books can you envision as a movie? Which shouldn't be movies?
A: I'm game for anything!*
*This was a longer answer, but Holly told me I could not put on the internet what she said.
Q: Did the Spiderwick movie do the books justice?
A: Yes, I think it did a really good job of capturing the mood of the books.
Q: If they do make movies will you be part of the decisions?
A: No, I probably won't be given that option. VERY few authors get a say.
Q: When's the next Curse Workers?
A: Curse Workers is done (for now). I would love to do 2 more, but right now I don't know if I'll get that opportunity.
Q: Anymore graphic novels?
A: Maybe. I wrote the text for A FLIGHT OF ANGELS from DC comics, but other than that, no.
A: I don't really get realistic fiction, I tried a short story, it was really hard, so no.
Q: Are you part of a writer's group?
A: Yes, a couple. One meets when you finish a novel, and they read it and give notes, and then they go away—it's really nice. Sarah Rees Brennan is also really great at leaving nice notes in her critiques, even if she's tearing you're book apart, she makes you feel really good about yourself.
Q: Do you plot?
A: When I sit down to write I kinda have the end planned, but I know how I want it to feel. *
*I actually missed this question, but tweeted her answer, so I think this was roughly what the question was.
Q: As an author, how do you decide on the line between written detail & reader imagination?
A: I think it's more the voice and feel. And 3 lines is better than 3 paragraphs as long as they're the right 3 lines.
Q: How do you know when the series is over & the characters are done?
A: The answer is 'do I have an idea [for more books]?' and 'could I?'
Q: Is it hard creating worlds?
A: Sometimes it's really easy, it feels like they've always been there.*
*I totally missed this question, too, and tried to pieced it together based on the answer.
Q: Would you writing a book on writing?
A: I don't know how I would do that. Books on writing, I feel, are personal accounts and solutions. There should be a writing book that's Choose Your Own Adventure.
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| Me and Holly |
That's everything! What did you guys think?
—Erin
OMG, I hope she has a chance to write those other 2 Curseworker books !
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