How did the story of the
Beyonders evolve? Did you have an image of the world first? One particular
character?
The book that made me like fantasy in the first place was Narnia. The two things I liked were: we leave our world to go somewhere magical and different, and you have kid heroes. I always wanted to tell a story where we leave our world and go somewhere else. No matter how we get to another world, whether it's a tornado or a wardrobe, it's ridiculous. Let's embrace it. What's the most ridiculous thing I could think of and still pull off? That's where the hippopotamus came from. As I conceived of this idea of Maldor and a guy who was finding ways to leave these heroes broken, the characters started to mean something to me. I wanted the story to feel as authentic as I could, given that this is a fantasy world.
Did you plan the entire arc of the series in advance or one story at a time? Did you leave room for the plot to take you in some unforeseen directions?
I'm a big planner. I daydream about the story for a long, long time, and don't write it until I see a really cool movie in my head. I finish book one and then go to book two as soon as it's done. Before I wrote book two, I could have told someone exactly what will happen in book three. The plus side is that I set up some payoffs because I kind of know the trajectory that the characters are on. That said, it's a flexible plan as I make discoveries that improve the story, so some magic can happen as I write.
For Beyonders, you invent riffs on the human species--displacers like Ferrin, seed people like Jasher. Where did these ideas come from?
One of the things I loved about Tolkien was that he took us to Middle Earth, perhaps an ancient version of our own world, and had these very distinct races and made them feel like they had their own societies. It was such a powerful illusion that for years later, people took us to Tolkien's elsewhere. I wanted to create races but didn't want to borrow from anywhere else. It's tricky to make a race, because you want it to be different from what we've seen before, but you want them to be relatable, where they feel human-ish. I haven't seen the seed man thing before. The consequences of this characteristic are that they're wiser and also more reckless because they are born over and over.
One of the main themes in the book is, "Who is trustworthy?" Why is it important for Jason and Rachel to be always slightly off-balance?
I have always liked playing with the idea of who you can trust. In Fablehaven there's the Society of the Evening Star that wants to steal artifacts from them. You have some characters who seem great but who are actually spies. In Candy Shop War you have magicians giving the kids candy that gives them magical powers, which seems great at first. But then they have to do what the magicians ask of them. It's a very fun thing to play with. It makes you engage with the characters and wonder and guess about everyone's motives. In Beyonders, we have this regime where the broken heroes--who might be good deep down--seem weird on the outside, like Ned or the Blind King. Dangler [who helps Jason gain an audience with Copernum], with his background, he's the one who's slowest to trust. All those characters will figure into the rest of the story in fairly important ways. One of the things we see happening in this book is the convenient thing isn't always the best thing. Maldor is the master of misdirection.
One of my favorite quotes comes from Jasher: "For each of us, destiny is a blend of potential, circumstances, and choices. You could flee and hide. You could bargain with Maldor. You have chosen a heroic path. Walk it without apology." This really gets at the heart of Jason and Rachel's journey. To what degree is that your own belief?
That quote is stating something I believe is true. You see guys who went astray in different ways, and you have guys trying to get their self-respect back. You can be a great warrior and be a jerk. It's the choices you make, what you stand for, what you're willing to fight for. It's not a new question, but I thought it was a new way to look at the question.
Much of the feast exploits the worst of human failings. The lumba, or "hunger" berries, for instance, about which Drake (another seed person) says, "No other food tastes more divine.... But a person who regularly consumes the berries rarely lasts long." Did you begin with the foible and follow it to its logical end?
If you look at the lumba berries, you can think of an alcoholic or someone hooked on drugs. We can tackle real-world issues in novel ways in fantasy, and put a little distance between the reader and the real-world issues, such as an addictive substance that leaves you worse off than when you found it. I have this hope that if you have conscientious characters facing tough choices, those kinds of conversations will arise--regarding moral dilemmas, etc.
Same with examining a world where heroes fall. If you look around our world, we have fallen heroes: sports heroes, actors, politicians. Historically those have been our heroes. In all those categories of people--if you're looking to them as heroes--they keep letting us down. It's fun to talk about that kind of thing without naming names, and in a way that doesn't feel personal or insulting. Everyone on Earth screws up. There's always a chance at redemption for anyone.