Sarah Monette grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. She has a Ph.D. in English literature and insufficient bookshelf space. She is working on_Corambis_, the fourth book in The Doctrine of Labyrinths, and is positively grateful for distractions like interview questions.

Website: http://www.sarahmonette.com
Blog: http://truepenny.livejournal.com

DBJ: You are to, to my way of thinking, a precious commodity in genre fiction. With firm grounding in academia and the English language, you have done what so many of today’s authors don’t bother with, and their work suffers from the lack, in my own humble opinion. That said, my first question is simple. I read your essay on Tolkein and the work behind the scenes that readers don’t see. In your opinion, what is the importance in fantasy fiction of background work, world-buliding, and the detail and method of creating something from your imagination? Where are the pitfalls of ignoring this work - and what process do you employ in your own work to ground it in its own firm ‘reality’?

SM: Well, the thing about fantasy–as about science fiction–is that it’s the setting, the *world*, that makes it different from other kinds of fiction. After all, you can have mysteries set in fantasy worlds, romances set in fantasy worlds. You can put any plot you like into a fantasy setting, and with some tweaking, it will work. So what we’re bringing to the table, what makes fantasy qualitatively different, is the world around the story. This doesn’t mean world is *more* important than plot and character and theme and all the other things a good story needs–you can’t substitute it in for something else. It has to be *in addition to* all that other stuff. In fact, it tends to feed the other elements, just as they feed it; it’s all synergistic. And, in my experience and opinion, if it’s done right, it makes the story that much richer, that much more immersive and intriguing.

So I think it’s tremendously important, and if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it *right*. The problem is, figuring out what “right” looks like, and how you get there, is a matter of trial and error. Tolkien had one way, but it’s really not feasible for most
writers. Unless you’re a linguistic genius and have thirty years to devote to creating your world from its origins to its doom . . . yeah, me neither. Now, a lot of what’s happened in post-Tolkien fantasy is that people have said, “Okay, I love The Lord of the Rings, and I want to write something like *that*,” and in trying to figure out how to do it (because it’s not like grammar or plot structure, you can’t go buy a book that will explain it to you), they’ve made a list of the features of the story: Dragons, check. Elves, check. Dark Lord, check. Quest, check. Quest-object, check. And what they produce is a laundry list fantasy of the sort that Diana Wynne Jones lampoons in _The Tough Guide to Fantasyland_. The world’s been built out of cliches, and if there’s one thing you have to avoid in world-building, it’s using cliches–unless you’re using them in order to take them apart. And that’s when things start to get interesting.

There is no one right way to build a world. Pat Wrede wrote a list of world-building questions that’s probably still floating around the internet someplace, and some people find them incredibly useful and helpful. I don’t, but that’s because my imagination doesn’t work in that sort of logical, orderly, step-by-step fashion. My world-building accretes, and it goes hand in hand with the process of telling the story. I sometimes have to pause and work things out–like the calendrical systems in my books, for which I have cheat sheets–but I’m not tidy-minded enough to plan the world and *then* write the story.

That’s the other thing with world-building, as with all other aspects of writing: you have to figure out what works *for you*. It’s only the “right” way if it works. There is no other criterion that matters.

DBJ: There are a lot of tropes and cliches in genre fiction. This has led to droves of derivative novels, quest adventures, and shelves filled with dragon covers and wizards. How can we get beyond this? Fantasy is such a rich, robust genre if allowed its full potential - how can an author who hopes to build a career in fantasy stretch the boundaries and find their own voice in a world clamoring for trilogies with darkness fighting light? Who among living, working authors, epitomizes your idea of genre craft, and why?

SM: This is a question I’m still wrestling. When I was in high school and college, I tried to write a fantasy novel and failed. Tried and failed. Tried and failed. And eventually I figured out the problem: I wanted to write a fantasy novel, and the only structure I knew for fantasy novels was the quest. And *I* *could* *not* *write* *one*. It was all fake and tinfoil. So I quit trying to write a quest and succeeded, eventually, in writing a novel. Ironically, the plot of my first two novels is quite quest-like, which I suspect shows that I hadn’t managed to root that underlying assumption out yet–but I didn’t get there by writing a Quest. I got there by writing characters whose problems led them to needing to walk across an empire and back. My third book, _The Mirador_, was a deliberate attempt to write a fantasy novel with no quest, and it was *very* difficult. I’m still struggling with it in the fourth book, and no doubt I’ll be struggling with it in the book I write next.

I think the first thing writers have to do is make themselves aware of their own preconceptions and assumptions–like my assumption that all fantasy novels had to have a quest. But once you can *see* it, you can start asking questions and taking it apart. I don’t think it’s necessary to jettison all the trappings of popular fantasy; one reason quest fantasies continue to be written and read is that they’re engaging. Lots of action and nifty stuff, and there’s no advantage in increasing literary merit if you make yourself unreadable in the process. But if you write it *mindfully*, it’s going to take you to very different places.

And, of course, there’s also plenty of room to try to tell other kinds of stories, to try to twist the genre into new shapes. But I don’t think that’s the *only* option.

Living writers I admire? Oh jeez, the list. Hal Duncan, Emma Bull, Peter Beagle, Elizabeth Bear (okay, that was a gimme), Pamela Dean, Tim Powers, Samuel Delany, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, Carol Emshwiller, Ursula K. Le Guin, Neil Gaiman, Scott Lynch.

The thing is, the good stuff is there already; people have been doing this all along. But they’ll never be the center of the genre, because they’re all doing things that are quite different. You have to go exploring.

DBJ: On your journal you mention that you collect books, and your husband collects computer parts. I am always fascinated with the interaction between creative artists and their significant others. Is the technology / fiction barrier solid, or mutable? Do you blend - does he tolerate, love, or insprire the work? In your case it sounds on the surface like a techno / magic war in a fantasy novel…but is there more to it? I see a lot more of technology blending with fantasy in today’s fiction…how about for you?

SM: My husband is also an avid reader–so the book collection is really also partly his, just as some of the computer parts are the ones that make up my computer. He has always been tremendously supportive of my work, in all sorts of ways, both material and otherwise. I think the question of technology in fantasy is one that could be very interesting. Steampunk is one place it’s starting to come out, but you know, fantasy should not be the *opposite* of technology.

DBJ: An old war - whether real or perceived - is the battle of academic fiction vs. genre fiction. I - personally - can see some of both sides, and I’m curious how it looks from your perspective. What I see is a lot of genre fiction that ‘deserves what it gets’ in terms of respect, but also a lot of absolutely exquisite writing that ends up lumped with the latter in certain circles. Is that wall as strong as it used to be - or did it ever really exist? Is there a difference between literary fiction and genre fiction, and how can that border be breached - or can it? Should we even try, or ar they separate forms?

SM: Well, the first thing to remember is Sturgeon’s Law: 90% of everything is crap. This applies across the board, to literary fiction (soi-disant) as much as genre fiction, but what tends to happen is that reviewers and critics will compare the 10% to the 90%: that is, the best of the literary fiction with the undistinguished mass of genre fiction. So, yeah, of course genre fiction comes off looking like pulp.

Now, the *difference* between literary fiction and genre fiction is mostly a matter of terminology. Do we call it fantasy or magic realism? Pulp or post-modernism? Because certainly literary writers use genre tropes, just as genre writers can write novels with all the markers of “literary” fiction (Susan Palwick springs to mind here, and she’s hardly the only one). And I suspect in 50 or 100 or 200 years, the boundaries as they are currently drawn will look completely baffling and nonsensical.

Personally, I find fiction that gets labeled “literary” boring. (See above re: all the nifty stuff in the genre and not jettisoning it.) So I’m tremendously lucky that fantasy *isn’t* respectable, because it means that authors who can write a beautiful line of prose are also
still trying to entertain the groundlings. And as over-educated and finicky about my reading as I may be, I’m still a groundling at heart.

DBJ: Final standard question: You have one day to come up with the inspiration for a new novel or story. You can have access for the day to a library with all the world’s published work - a studio with all the world’s available music - or a car to take you to one spot in the world for the day. Which do you choose, and why?

SM: I’d go to the Smithsonian. If nothing else, they have the Hope Diamond, and you can’t go wrong with cursed jewels.

DBJ: Thanks for stopping by, Sarah, and for a fascinating interview. Those interested should drop by Sarah’s blog and home page for updates on her work. You can buy her collection, THE BONE KEY, by clicking the cover art to the right!

–DNW