The fifth book in Elaine Corvidae's wonderful fantasy Shadow Fae series is now available! I had the opportunity to ask Elaine some questions about the books. Read on for her answers, along with a chance to win a book from her backlist!Q&A with Elaine Corvidae
1. Your Shadow Fae novels were originally intended as a trilogy. At what point did you realize you had a longer story to tell?The one thing that never quite satisfied me with the original trilogy was that I’d failed to complete Alex’s character arc. As with many traditional fairy tales, each character undergoes a “test of the heart” (ironic, considering how heartless many of the fae are in those stories). Alex flat-out fails hers at the end of The Sundered Stone, because she still kind of hates herself, and so can’t really believe deep down that anyone else could love her. So her character arc felt incomplete, but there was no way to realistically finish it off in the third book, because that’s just not who she was at that point in her life.
I’d also done a lot of research on Slavic fae during the course of writing Alex, most of which I didn’t get to use. I started playing around with the idea of sending Alex back to her homeland so she’d have to confront her emotional trauma and psychological hang-ups. But it took me a while to figure out how such a story might hook into the overall Shadow Fae story. I’m so not a fan of the unending series comprised book after book nothing is ever really resolved and the plot treads water indefinitely. I absolutely did not want to write any more Shadow Fae novels unless I had a really compelling reason to do so.
Then at some point I went back and read through some of the traditional Celtic folklore again. The older ones are bad-ass, but there’s also a trend of how “this is how it used to be” in some of the stories collected in the late 1800s, as belief in the fae waned. I’d addressed that issue somewhat in the original Shadow Fae books, when I suggested in passing that it was the war between Seelie and Unseelie that had cost the fae their dominion over humankind in Niune.
Suddenly the two ideas collided. First—I had a way of removing the main characters from the kingdom for a while, by sending Alex back to her homeland (and, bonus, I got to work in all that really cool Slavic folklore!). Second—the war was over...so what was stopping the fae from reasserting their power?
All hell was about to break loose, and that’s as good a reason as any to keep writing.
2. Of the many characters in the series, do you have a favorite? How about a least favorite? I tend to be quite fond of all of my characters, even the villains. Alex is the hardest for me to write—I struggle over her storylines in every book (no wonder her character arc was incomplete!). Pook is the easiest; I never have to wonder or second-guess with him.
Pook is also the most fun to write, so maybe that makes him my “favorite.” He’s got a bit of the trickster in him, in that he plays both the Hero and the Fool with equal aplomb (and on occasion simultaneously). He has absolutely no filter: he blurts out pretty much whatever pops into his head, which is a refreshing change from the self-contained Alex. Combine that tendency with the fact that he has very little sense of decorum or the gravity of a given situation, and you get a character with dialog that’s pretty entertaining to write. He also has an incredible lust for life; even in his times of greatest pathos, he’s absolutely present and engaged with the moment.
My least favorite character hands-down was Alex’s father, who was an utterly odious bully.
3. What reader question/comment do you receive most often about the Shadow Fae novels?The most common comment by far has been: “I can’t believe you killed (a character) in Winter’s Orphans!”
4. With so many novels and series to your name now, has anything changed for you over the years with your first draft process?Thankfully, yes. My first few novels were written completely by the seat of my pants, which led to a great deal of wasted time and effort (as when I had to rewrite about 2/3rds of Winter’s Orphans from scratch). My process is still evolving: Daughter of Snow used a simple outline to keep me on track, while for Hunter’s Crown I used the method found in Karen Wiesner’s book First Draft in 30 Days. The Iron-Bound Queen will probably be a combination of that method and the storyboarding method from Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! Strikes Back. I’m also trying out Tinderbox, which is a mind-mapping app that easily lets you switch the way you view information, draw connections, and otherwise visualize the elements of the book. The more I plan out beforehand, the less rewriting I have to do later, which means I can spend that time working on the next book instead.
5. You're currently working on the sixth (and final?) book, The Iron-Bound Queen. What can you tease readers with?
Very little, at least without going into massive spoilers for Hunter’s Crown. I can say it takes place a few years after the end of book five. The fallout is still being dealt with, and will be for years to come. Pook and Alex finally get married...and an uninvited guest shows up at the wedding.
Hunter's Crown - Elaine CorvidaeMermaids attack ships sailing to port. A magical plague caused by malevolent fae grips the countryside. The capital city of Dere is completely cut off from the rest of the kingdom. And Queen Dagmar is pregnant with her first child--and the heir to both the thrones of Niune and of the Faerie Realm.
Cut off from their friends and allies, Pook and Alex must battle their way across a kingdom besieged by forces most folk no longer even believe to be real. Will they survive long enough to discover what has brought on a war between Faerie and the mortal world? Or will the answers they seek come at too high a price?
Want to win an ebook from Elaine Corvidae's
backlist at Mundania? Leave a comment here with your email address! I'll draw a winner Saturday morning EST per usual.
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