When did you first start writing?
Well, that depends. Soul of the World is my first attempt at writing novel-length fiction. Or fiction of any kind really. But I’ve been DMing pen-and-paper role-playing games since high school, and that’s where I learned how to keep an audience engaged with my stories. There’s a lot of drama in writing. Role-playing taught me to step into a character’s head, to speak and think in their voice. Translating that to writing meant learning the craft of prose, but the storytelling instincts were already there.
Who are some of your biggest influences?
I’ve always tried to allow myself to be influenced by greatness, which is fortunate because there is so goddamn much of it in SFF. Robert Jordan got to me in middle school, so he’s near the top of my list. Brandon Sanderson is pretty high up there, too. Recently I’ve been going back to the swords-and-sorcery well of Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, but I also absolutely adore more modern stuff like Nora Jemisin and the dynamic duo that is James S. A. Corey (Daniel Abraham/Ty Franck). In general I’m influenced by whatever I’m reading now. Which as I’m answering this is Django Wexler and Octavia Butler, but will be something else by the time this is printed!
Where did the idea for Soul of the World come from?
Originally Soul was a fantasy western. Arak’Jur was a bounty hunter Sarine was going to hire to track down her uncle’s killer. This is back during the brief phase where I considered myself an outliner instead of a discovery writer.
Instead, when I sat down to write I had this image in my head of an invisible street artist sketching Louis XVI’s court. I wrote that scene instead. And the rest flowed from there. Discovery writing is a hell of a thing.
The magic systems in Soul of the World are all so unique and complex. How did you come up with them?
I craft magic to suit the needs of the story. I couldn’t have an invisible street artist without a magic system supporting it, and she would have been lonely without a companion to talk to. Thus came two of my magic systems.
Most of the time the form and rules for the magic come while I’m staring at a blank white page. I don’t plan anything beforehand; I just allow myself freedom to experiment and am unafraid to liberally rewrite my earlier chapters when a better idea comes to me later in the drafting process.
The power of three is a major theme in Soul of the World—what drew you to focus on that?
Misdirection, actually! I wanted a story where the villain is one of the “chosen ones,” and our lead protagonist exists outside the system. Three is such an iconic number in Western literature and mythology, it’s easy to leverage the audience’s expectations that there should be three heroes—but the book is in four parts for a reason. There’s a lot of nuance layered into the story that will become clearer in the sequels. Even though I discovery-write my scenes, I have a pretty clear picture in my head of how everything fits together in the end.
The military scenes and strategy of this book are incredibly detailed and well thought out. How did you craft these scenes?
Full credit to Michael Shaara, author of The Killer Angels. I absolutely devoured his book when I was younger, and have been interested in nineteenth-century warfare ever since. The battle scenes in Soul are deliberately chaotic. I write my characters by imagining myself in their shoes, and a nineteenth-century battlefield is not a kind place. Smoke in your eyes, powder on your tongue, deafening cannon fire in your ears. That Erris is able to keep the strategy in her head and issue orders that lead her soldiers through the nightmare is a testament to what an amazing woman she is. I wouldn’t do a tenth so well in her place.
Soul of the World has a phenomenal cast of characters. If you had to pick one, who would you say is your favorite? Which character was the most difficult to write?
I immerse myself in every scene I write. I cried when I wrote the scene where Arak’Jur learns what happened to his wife and son. I fell in love a little bit with Lord Revellion when Sarine did. And I wanted to punch Paendurion in the mouth when Erris coldcocked him by way of Marie.
They’re all my favorite. But Zi is maybe my favoritest. And he’s the hardest character to write by a mile. Every word he says is dripping with meaning, and I have to be careful not to give too much away to savvy readers when I’m trying to be cryptic.
Soul of the World is the first book of a trilogy. What’s in store for us in future books?
Oh God. There’s a new POV character in book two. I think I can say that much, right? He’s an asshole and a pirate and I adore him. In general the story gets much bigger. We’re going across continents, to visit places the cartographers of Sarresant have marked “HERE BE DRAGONS.” Things get intense fast. There’s not much in the way of slow buildup.
If you could spend an afternoon with one of your characters, which would it be and what would you do?
I’m boring. The thought of attending a salon with Reyne d’Agarre and debating the finer points of egalitarian philosophy sounds like heaven.
Lastly, we have to ask: If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
Are Hugh Jackman’s abs a superpower? I’ll go with that.