It’s been a busy year for Victoria Schwab whose debut novel, The Near Witch released last summer. She hasn’t slowed down since. At 25 years old, Schwab is gearing up for the release of not one but TWO books in 2013 and she is working on a handful of others works that will make its way to the public in time. After running into her at San Diego Comic Con, I decided to follow up with her for a longer chat about writing, reading, fairy tales, witches, and more. Check it out below:

 

 

The Near Witch

There were two endings to the tale of the Near witch, so what’s your favorite ending to any of the classic fairy tales?
I like the Grimm tales. They end in very, very depressing ways. In Snow White, she has to dance in iron shoes and she dies. I think most of them have horrifying endings.

Which fairy tale would you say is the most underrated or misunderstood?
There are several tales that involve death but as an incarnation and I’m such a fan of those. I wish that those could get more attention. I like the earliest incarnation of Little Red Riding Hood in which the Grandmother was a witch. I like the original tales and the witchcraft incarnations.

Would you ever write a fairy tale retelling?
No, no. I totally enjoy them when other people write them but I have one rule when I write, no matter what I’m writing. That is, I cannot use existing mythology. I won’t write vampires or werewolves because I feel they have so much existing mythology and my rule with writing witches was that I had to create a brand new… I mean obviously elemental magic is a concept but I wanted to make sure I was creating my own brand of witches. In The Archived, I had to create a whole new death and God and heaven mythos. Vicious is a super power book but with a completely new mythology.

Tell me about the process of writing a lullaby/nursery rhyme. Was it daunting?
Well with The Near Witch, it’s really unlike anything that I’ve ever written. The book evolved out of Near so the first thing that I did was create Near as a place. Then, I created the people that lived in Near and the stories that they would tell in Near. So one of the very first things I did was create the lullaby. I created the world before I actually had the framework for the story to make sure that Near would be like a rich frabic.

I love that this world pays so much attention to natural elements. Was that always the case when you began world building?
Yeah! I was writing a village in the middle of nowhere. I thought, “If I have this place, who’s going to be the most powerful in this world?” The most powerful people in a world set in nature are people who control nature. So the witches were built to form. I thought, “What would people be afraid of?” I wanted the witches to have a massive connection to the natural world because it spared the people who depend on the natural world.

As someone who used to write poetry, I wonder, do you go back and take bits and pieces to incoporate into your work?
I have always really appreciated symbolic rhythm, the precedence of words. When I decided to start writing fiction, I learned to transfer that from poetry. So I basically write fiction with a poetic ear. I hope you like The Archived too for this reason.

So would you want to release a collection of poetry one day?
The only poetry I’ve ever wanted to release is a collection of children’s poems, origin story poems. One is about how the sea and sky came to be separate. One is about a tear in the sky. They are very whimsical. I’d like to illustrate and release them at some point just for fun, if nothing else.

I joked that if I survived writing The Archived sequel, I’d write a narwhal picture book. I want to do something light because The Archived is kind of a dark book.

Would it be safe to say that at the root of every conflict within is fear?
Yes, definitely. This is a story about fear. It’s a story about our reactions to fear and whether we let it completely control people. The council in The Near Witch, they’re fear mongers. They basically keep everybody in this mindset by perpetuating a lie or at least a partial truth. Everybody is experiencing fear in their own way. I grew up in the South and it’s like that small town mentality where if you’re an outsider, you don’t belong and you’re automatically the first one suspected in any wrongdoing. So it’s not that Lexi doesn’t feel fear, she just doesn’t react immediately with judgement.

I really like taking human condition issues and putting them under supernatural framework. The heart of The Archived is a different kind of fear, in The Archived sequel moreso. The overwhelming theme of The Archived, is the idea of a person who’s proximity to death is so close… to be in close proximity with people that she’s loved and lost and not be able to touch them… How do you move on when you’re in such close proximity to everything you have lost?

No one of my biggest issues with YA fiction in particular is the description of eyes, which always seems to be the most glorious feature of all. But your descriptions stand out among the rest and are fantastic. How do you do it?
It’s so hard though, right? Eyes in The Archived are very important because histories of these incarnations of the dead, their eyes change when they’ve been out too long, awake too long. They start to degenerate and their eyes turn black very slowly. So eyes are important in The Archived but I always want to balance it.

I have the greatest number of offenses in my first draft and by the time it’s the final draft, I’ve pulled out most of them. It’s that thing, going back to the poetry, there’s got to be a reason that eyes are important and even then it doesn’t have to be on every page. I trust my readers will remember if someone has unusual eyes or what they look like.

In The Near Witch, Cole was almost framed. You don’t have to go into detail but have you ever been framed?
No, I think I’ve been really lucky so far in not having to draw on personal experience but I did grow up as an outsider in an insider culture. So I definitely grew up very aware and feeling a sense of suspicion and judgement just by virtue of the fact that I hadn’t known someone for generations or didn’t speak exactly the way that they spoke. I’ve understood the sensation of feeling like the other but Cole is the literal other and Lexi is the insider. Even though she’s lived in Near her whole life, she’s still an outsider because of how she feels. So I don’t think that you have to be a literal outsider to feel like the other.

Thinking back, do you remember what the most challenging scene was to write in The Near Witch?
I don’t think a single sentence survived from the first draft to the final draft. Actually, there’s a paragraph that did. It was such a learning experience, having not really written fiction before and figuring things out as I went. I have favorite moments but they were all hard to write.

One of my favorite scenes is when they first go to the woods and the Near witch reaches out. That was really hard to get right because I wanted it to have that cinematic quality. Cinematic quality is really important to me, writing supernatural things that you can visualize. There are a lot of fight scenes in The Archived and it’s really hard because I want you to be able to visualize specifically what I’m saying without losing the pacing of the scene.

You’ve said that The Near Witch is a stand alone but any news about the spin off?
I have a sequel, it’s fully written. It is set ten years later. It’s very, very dark. Hopefully one day I will get to put it out there in some capacity.

I didn’t know it was completely written.
Yeah. (smiles) I wrote it before I wrote The Archived.

 

 

The Archived

Have you left any Easter eggs in The Near Witch or The Archived?
There’s no overlap between The Near Witch and The Archived but there were Easter eggs that were planted in The Near Witch for the sequel.

How has your writing process evolved between writing The Near Witch and your upcoming works, The Archived and Vicious?
The Near Witch was very nature driven and it had a very organic, messy first draft. It was only the second book I had ever written, ever even attempted to write. I had not written long stories before, I had written short stories… So it was an experience. Since then, I’ve definitely distilled my experience. I have a cleaner process but I do always start with setting. Setting is super important.

The setting of The Archived is an old hotel that has been turned into an apartment building. Before I knew anything else about The Archived, I knew I wanted to write a book with a girl who’s family was moving into this old hotel to renovate and then I had to figure out the supernatural take I wanted to deal with. Vicious is the only book so far that did not start with a location in mind, it started with a character.

How did you choose your names for The Archived?
I love names. I am obsessed with getting the right name. I loved the sound of Mackenzie Bishop… the chess piece reference, she’s a very strong character. And I wanted to give her a name that was short and strong, Mac. Wesley Ayers has a slightly softer name and I wanted that balance.

Give me two truths and one lie about The Archived.
(laughs) There is a character that is based on David Tennant of Doctor Who. There is a boy who wears guy liner. It’s a happy book.

What were your musical influences?
I pick songs for characters, not for moments. Wesley in The Archived has a playlist that’s everything I feel about him. So if I’m stuck on him, it helps to just drop into the mood if whoever I’m writing. Each character (from Vicious) has a key song that embodies how they feel. I also get really inspired by other forms of entertainment, like So You Think You Can Dance. I’m behind on this season because of my deadline, but I plan to binge after. And there’s a sing that’s relevant to The Near Witch called, “The Garden” that came from Mirah.

 

 

Miscellaneous

Do you remember how long it took you to write your query?
Apparently I’m just a strange bird. I love query letters. I like pitching. People always think of queries as a summary or something but you want to do everything you can to make the agent want to read your book so you want to think of queries like a jacket copy of a finished book. I love that challenge. It took me probably 2 or 3 days to perfect it and get it exactly the way that I wanted. I wrote an elevator pitch, just a couple of lines and then I wrote a much longer pitch. Then I found the middle ground between the two.

My Twitter feed is flooded with writers pulling their hair out over editing, so is there at least one easy part about editing?
No. There’s no easy part in any of it. I always joke when I start a novel, the first hundred pages are the worst and if I can just get through the first hundred pages, I’ll be fine. Then I get to the second hundred pages and I’m thinking that the second hundred pages are the worst. I just have to get to the third hundred pages. I get there and I think, “Why?! This so so awful!” Then I get to revisions and each round of revisions has its own set of challenges. The first round tends to be heavy content, structure, all the big things. Then they narrow it to character and internal development which then has a ripple effect back to your structure and content. The only round of revisions I like are line edits because I’m really polishing my sentences and you can’t really do that until you’re in line edits because everything else is changing. (But that only applies once you have an editor. You have to polish every single word until you get an agent).

I’ve heard that you’re a big tea fan. Just what is your favorite and least favorite flavor of tea?
I drink English Breakfast tea almost exclusively. I grew up in an English household, my mom is from just outside London, and it is a sin to drink Earl Grey. (laughs) I will not touch Earl Grey, I can’t do it. I’ll drink green tea and other flavors of tea but no Earl Grey.

Hollywood the Write Way also focuses on TV, Movies, & Music. So what are you looking forward to in those areas this fall?
I’m a huge movie buff! Every time I want a break, I take myself to a movie. I’m a huge Joseph Gordon-Levitt fan, so I am really looking forward to Looper and Premium Rush. I’m also really looking forward to Les Misérables around Christmas time.

And finally, what books are you looking forward to this fall?
I am really looking forward to Ten by Gretchen McNeil, Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor, Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls by Claire Legrand, Shannon Messenger’s Keeper of the Lost Cities, Through To You by Emily Hainsworth, and I want to get my hands on the Born Wicked sequel by Jessica Spotswood.

Check Out My Favorite Victoria Schwab Blog Posts:
Kill the Book Before It Kills You
Inspiration Day: Duy Huynh
Editing is like…
Write Brave
Wednesday Breaks Down The QUERY
The Should Do Would Do Book Dilemma

The Near Witch is in stores now. The Archived hits shelves January 22, 2013. You can pre-order The Archived now ($10 for a limited time.) For more goodies, visit Victoria Schwab’s Blog.