Even as a small girl, Shanna Swendson dreamt of becoming a writer and sharing her wonderful imagination with the world. Well, some dreams do come true, even outside the pages of paranormal romances. Swendson finally got her wish and ever since readers have been treated to a bright, new talent.
Swendson’s books, Enchanted Inc. and its sequel–Once Upon Stilettos, pull you into a magical world that is half faerie tale and half Sex in the City. Her love for this cross-genre (fantasy/romance) is reflected in the passion with which she writes. Using her delightful wit and style, Swendson weaves unforgettable romances that will have you chuckling long after finishing the last page. This clever series will continue in Damsel Under Stress in 2007, with others to follow.
Swendson recently took time away from her busy schedule to talk about her writing with Jason Fryer of Rose & Thorn.
R&T: You have a very divergent set of skills, ranging from fencing to parageography [the geography of imaginary lands]. Do you believe having such a diverse background benefits your writing? And can you briefly discuss your research habits?
Swendson: Most of my diverse background actually comes because of my writing. When I was in college, I made a point of taking a lot of different kinds of classes–including fencing and parageography, as well as interpersonal communication and urban geography–because I felt they might one day be useful in books. It was all part of the grand master plan!
I did have a lot of pretty broad experiences growing up because I was a military brat. That meant I lived in various places, including overseas, and was constantly having to meet new people. That's a great foundation for learning to observe people and places, which is essential for being a novelist.
My research habits vary depending on the book. I like to read up on a variety of subjects that may be loosely related to the subject matter of the book or themes I want to address in the book. Before I started working on my Enchanted series, I read a lot of books on business, how businesses work, business history, dealing with difficult co-workers, etc. I also read a lot of books about New York, plus books about magical lore and the various Merlin legends. Just before I started writing, after I'd done all that research, I went to New York and walked all over the areas where I thought the book might take place. Now that I have that world established, I don't have to do quite that much research, but I still try to travel to New York or to other locations used in the books, and I'll read anything that I feel I need to. Of course, the Internet is wonderful for quick searches to find a particular piece of information, and I never know what from that will spark an idea.
I try to always be on the lookout for information that might be fodder for a story. Whenever I go to the library, I always stop by the "new non-fiction" shelf and pick up anything that catches my eye. I read a lot of stuff about psychology and human relationships, because that's really the core of any novel.
R&T: Although all writers instinctively desire to write, sometimes that can be a challenge even for the most devoted author. Have you ever experience a period of lag or writer’s block, and how did you get through it?
Swendson: I haven't really had writer's block in the sense of not having ideas or not knowing what to write. I'm more likely to have problems picking an idea out of many. Sometimes, I do struggle with trying to figure out what should happen next or how it should happen. In those cases, I try not to force it. I go and do something else, and the idea usually comes to me.
I'm more likely to suffer from reluctance to write. Once I get started, it goes easily, but getting started in the first place can sometimes be a real fight, and I'm not really sure why. It can even happen when I know exactly what happens next. In some cases, I think there's a little fear involved. The scene or story in my head is perfect as long as it's still in my head. When I start to write it, it's real and imperfect, and I sometimes try to delay that as long as possible.
Now, there have been times when writing was a real struggle to get through a book. When I had that happen, I mixed up the way I worked. I worked at different times, worked in a different place and changed my environment. That seemed to shake things up enough to get me going again. It was still hard, but at least it happened.
Contractual deadlines remain the ultimate motivator, though.
R&T: Do you believe writer’s conferences to be useful and why?
Swendson: I think it depends on what you want to get out of them and how you approach them. They're wonderful for making contacts with editors and agents on a personal level and learning about the industry. They can also be good for learning some of the basics of the writing craft. The danger is that they can become things that feel like work while they aren't actually work. You can spend every weekend going to conferences and feel like you're making progress, but if you're not applying what you've learned to actual writing, making all the contacts in the world won't help you. Another danger is if you take everything you hear in sessions as absolute gospel. There's no one way to write. You have to learn what works for you and how to incorporate the things you learn into your own method.
The funny thing is that in spite of all the conferences I'd been to and all the editors and agents I'd met personally over the years, when it came to my current agent and the editor who bought my series, they were people I'd never met in person. So, conferences aren't absolutely essential for getting a writing career started.
R&T: Your stories are very character-oriented. How do you go about creating a character? Do you find that they guide the plot or does the plot guide them?
Swendson: Psychology is one of my hobbies, and I think that helps. I like trying to figure out what makes people tick, and I spend probably way too much time analyzing other people's characters. Then I apply all of that to my own characters. I usually start with an archetype, then layer on traits, figure out a backstory, and then start writing and see what happens. I also like to twist things up a bit and do at least one unexpected thing with the characterization.
For me, characterization and plot are so woven together that I can't separate them. I usually need to know at least the core motivation of the major characters before I can come up with the plot, but I also usually need to know something about the plot before I really know who the characters are. Really, the ultimate definition of a character is the decisions he makes and the actions he takes. You need to know something of the character to know what actions he'll take as part of the plot, but you need to know the actions and decisions to really know the character.
It's the characters that make me fall in love with any book, television series or movie, and the same applies to the books I write. If I get caught up in them, then there's a chance that other people will get equally caught up.
R&T: On your website, you discussed how one of your characters, Owen, was ‘pushy’ and “talkative.” Do all your characters “talk”with you? How do you keep them in line when they get to be too pushy?
Swendson: This is actually the first time that ever happened to me. Normally, my characters play nicely. This particular one is different. So far, he hasn't been all that pushy in a way I need to resist because he hasn't tried to do anything that doesn't work. It's more like he lets me know what's going on with him, which is important when I'm writing a first-person book from someone else's point of view.
And I should point out, lest someone think that I really believe my characters talk to me, that I realize it's my own subconscious at work. My subconscious just seems to come up with really fun things about Owen.
R&T: What is it about the fantastical that draws you and inspires you? Do you prefer to write in this genre? What else inspires you?
Swendson: I've always been a fantasy reader, and most of my early writing attempts were some form of fantasy. However, in the case of this series, the fantasy element was mostly the thing that made my book different enough from everything else in the chick lit marketplace to catch anyone's interest.
Since I'm writing in the "real" world instead of the usual fantasy world, having magic to play with gives me a lot of freedom to make things happen, to make metaphors come to life and to be very literal with clichés and old sayings–like talking about ogre bosses and kissing frogs to find a prince.
I'm probably more inspired by real life than anything else, just the quirks of people, awkward social situations, things that strike me as contradictory or odd or funny. Then I can take those things to the next level by throwing in a magical element.
R&T: What is the writing life to you? When you hit your wall and didn’t sell any projects for a few years, how did you maintain your energy before writing Enchanted Inc?
Swendson: Sheer stubbornness had a lot to do with it. I was so determined that this would not be the end of my career, and there wasn't anything else I really wanted to do, so I just kept trying, and every setback was that much more motivation to keep going. I told myself that each rejection was just one more editor or agent who'd be eating her heart out when I was a big bestseller and she realized she'd missed her chance.
Yeah, there were rough times when I got discouraged, but I couldn't let myself give up. For one thing, I got laid off from my day job career a couple of years before I sold Enchanted, Inc., and I'd decided to take that as my chance to really focus on my writing. I had some freelance jobs and enough savings to live for a few years, so I felt like I had a ticking clock hanging over me. I was too stubborn to admit failure and start applying for jobs, and I knew I only had so long to get something done. That really kept me going.
R&T: How long does it usually take for you to write a book, from concept to final draft? Can you describe your process a little?
Swendson: It varies by book, and it's hard to say because the process is so spread out in various phases. It may be months to years from the time I come up with a concept until the time I actually start writing. I do some research on the topic and start brainstorming, trying to outline a plot and see if it holds together, sketching out characters, that sort of thing. If I'm going after a new contract, I'll have to write a proposal -- three chapters and a synopsis. That may take me about a week, and then I usually go back and forth with my agent to fine-tune it. It may be a month or more then before I know whether or not I've got a contract. Then once the book is sold, I usually write a pretty fast first draft. It generally takes me about two months for that, unless the book is giving me trouble or real life is getting in the way.
While I'm writing that draft, once I have a few chapters I start going back and revising a chapter at a time along the way, and I send those chapters to my mom so she can give me feedback about whether or not the story makes sense. So when I finish my first draft, it's really sort of a second draft by then. I may tweak that some, and then I send it to my agent. She gets back to me a few weeks later with her feedback, and then I spend two or three months doing rewrites. It usually takes me longer to do the rewrites than to write the first draft. I change a lot during this round because by then, I've discovered things I want to fix in addition to what my agent suggests. There's cutting, moving things around, adding new stuff, creating entire subplots, that sort of thing. There also seems to be a certain amount of whining that's essential to the process. It's discouraging to see whole scenes that have already been slaved over that then have to be cut entirely, and I guess I have to mourn them before I can move on. Usually, when I get about halfway through the revisions, I come up with some great idea that requires me to go back to the beginning and start revising all over again. Once I have that draft done, I do a fast read-through to see how the book holds together, and then I turn it in.
At that point, the editor may have revision suggestions, and the whole whining/cutting/rewriting process starts again.
R&T: What advice do you have for new writers? Every writer will need to deal with rejection. How have you dealt with it in the past? Does it still bother you?
Back when I was submitting directly, I'd get angry, and then use that anger as motivation. I've only had a few rejections that really hurt. For the most part, it's so long from the time I submit something to the time I get a response that it's almost like ancient history, and it's less personal. Now that any rejections come through my agent, I feel almost detached from them. I really don't take most of them personally. I even find some of my past rejections amusing, such as when I get a request from an editor to provide a promotional endorsement blurb for one of her authors, and in her request she gushes about being a big fan of my work -- and yet I have a letter from her rejecting that work and saying nasty things about it. Or there are editors talking to my agent about how much they like my books and how they wish they'd had a chance with them -- and my agent has to remind them that they rejected the first book in the series. That's proof that rejections aren't that personal and may only reflect what's going on in the editor's head at that moment. I've learned to shrug it off and go on.
Of course, it's possible that I'm just repressing all my feelings about it and that's terribly unhealthy psychologically. Who knows? Chocolate cures a lot, and rejection is a great excuse to eat chocolate, or to get other people to give you chocolate.
You can learn more about Shanna Swendson and read more of her writing at her website.
Canadian-born, Jason Fryer never thought he’d end up becoming a Texan, but fate is funny that way. Although a writer at heart, he also enjoys eating. As such, he has worn many hats over the last few years, including security guard, test subject, editorial assistant, and donut maker. Most recently, he has become the grant coordinator for a cell biology department of a major Texas University. Over fourteen years of freelance writing, Jason has been published in a variety of magazines, journals, and textbooks. At the moment, he is finishing his second novel and hopes to have it ready for publication sometime next year. He also serves as the Content Producer for The Rose & Thorn newsletter.
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