A Q&A between Rachel Caine and Veronica Wolff, author of Isle of Night.
Veronica Wolff: Hi Rachel! It’s such a pleasure to chat like this. Writing is generally such a solitary job—aside from conferences, I don’t get to kibitz with other authors nearly enough. I spend so much time in my dim little office, some days I fear I’m in danger of becoming a vampire.
Rachel Caine: We get out so little, how could we tell the difference, really? We’re pale, we exist a lot on liquid (mainly coffee)...
Veronica: Ha! Not to mention all the night hours!
Rachel: Tell me about Isle of Night and what its characters face! I love how you've worked in physical (and mental) challenges for your character with the goal of ultimately joining up with vampires ...it's something that my characters in Morganville would fight to NOT do, so we're aptly matched! I also love the social commentary aspect you've worked in about unemployment and feeling that the future holds nothing, so why not take the opportunity? Fascinating!
Veronica: Isle of Night is told from the point of view of Annelise Drew–she’s a smart seventeen-year old who’s desperate to escape her bad home life. When a hypnotic stranger approaches her with promises of a new start, against her better judgment, she goes with him. It turns out the sexy stranger works for a bunch of vampires on a place called the Isle of Night, a bleak island isolated in the middle of the North Sea. The vampires recruit girls like Annelise, outsiders and outcasts who have hit rock bottom, and train them to become Watchers, an elite group of young women who act as agents, emissaries, and sometimes assassins for the vampires. Competition is fierce, and everyone wants to succeed…because on the Isle of Night, failure means death.
It’s interesting how you frame your question in terms of social commentary, because as I was writing, I definitely wasn’t thinking in those terms. I set out to create a smart, strong girl in a dangerous world. Someone who had no choices left to her. Enter Annelise Drew, a young woman from an abusive home, with little money and no safety net. I’ve known such people in my life—Annelise’s desperation isn’t as far-flung and fictional as we’d like to think it is. So you’re right—social commentary is exactly what that is.
In fact, that aspect of her back-story ended up consuming me—and informing her character—more than I’d initially thought it would. As I first began to contemplate her character and the series, I’d thought it would be her intellect that’d play much more of a primary role, but it was her home life that ended up informing her development in a more profound way.
It’s funny how that happens sometimes, at least for me. I’ll begin by thinking there’s this major plot point or character trait that will set the tone for the whole book, but then that takes a back seat to something I hadn’t realized would end up anchoring me so completely.
Your character, Shane, had similar issues with his abusive father in your Morganville Vampires series. Yet, unlike with Annelise, Shane’s back-story does much more than just inform who he is as a person—his domestic background has major plot implications across many of your books. When you first created his character, did you realize how much of a part his background would play?
Rachel: You know, I had a basic idea of his background – I wanted Shane to be very focused on protecting people, because of his own abusive father and his fear that he might turn into that himself. But it wasn’t until I decided to have his dad show up for real in the second book that it drove home to me how much his past really defined him, though he was constantly struggling to move beyond it. He has, in many senses, but it still confronts him every time! It surprised me when I realized how much of his personality really traced back to two things: his dad, and the death of his sister. Even the death of his mother didn’t affect him quite so deeply, because he felt he’d failed his sister so badly.
Veronica: I love those sorts of character surprises—just when we think we have a handle on these people! Now, I need to go back to the first half of your original question, because there’s something I need to ask you in return. Thinking about both our series, it strikes me how, in some ways, Morganville is just as much of an island as the Isle of Night. I’ve always thought your Morganville, Texas relies on such a clever trope—your characters are just as captive as mine are. Texas Prairie University might as well be in the middle of the sea. How did you make the decision to sequester the vampires in that way?
Rachel: I had a clever, even nefarious plan that had many levels to it … some I knew, some I discovered along the way. But I knew from the outset that (a) vampires had taken up residence in a deserted (and desert-ed!) town because they were the last of their kind, save for a few stragglers … and they were under massive threat both from the human population and an illness that was destroying them from within. I sometimes described Morganville as a cross between a tiger preserve and the home of the Original Mafia … and that’s fairly accurate I think. But there’s a second, even more nefarious (I love that word) reason that Morganville is set in sunny weather, in a deserted area with little or no water. And that’s a plot I finally get to explore in Book 11, Last Breath.
Veronica: You’re not seriously going to leave me hanging, are you?! You are nefarious indeed, Rachel.
Rachel: I know you also write historical romance, which typically has a massive amount of research and writing that go into each novel ... how has that helped in writing your YA series? What specific kinds of research did you do that were new to you for this project?
Veronica: I love writing the historicals, but honestly? Delving into this particular series has been exhilarating. No more trying to make sense of centuries-old maps. No more studying import-export manifests from seventeenth-century Aberdeen. I’m very careful researching my historicals, and as I began to write this, I knew I wanted to take a different approach, including setting it on a completely fictional island. Granted, it was greatly inspired by my research travels through the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, one of my favorite places in the world to visit. Gray skies, gray rocks, few people, and winds so violent, you need to link arms to stay upright. All of that I experienced first hand in my travels.
As for the other research I had to do for The Watchers, it’s all been gritty good fun—like learning how to track, how to hunt, how to pick a lock or throw a knife. I’m really bulking up on my apocalypse skills with this new series and loving every minute.
Rachel: Every writer should have a good set of apocalypse skills. I figure when the Zombie Dawn comes, we’ll be the ones with all the answers. ;)
Veronica: Totally! Zombie Dawn…no laughing matter. Speaking of which, your Working Stiff is at the top of my to-read pile—and wins an award for one of the cleverest titles I’ve heard about all year! Which brings me to my next question. You asked me about working in multiple genres, but how about you? You’ve created so many different worlds and characters—how do you keep them all straight? Do you find that your approach to one series informs the other? Do you enjoy the switching back and forth, or does it sometimes get addling?
Rachel: I have to give my husband Cat full credit for that title … he suggested it, and it fit perfectly! The Revivalist series fits into that social commentary thing you were talking about earlier … it’s my science fiction/fantasy metaphor for the sinister state of healthcare in the U.S., where we can all be literally one payment (or shot) away from dying at any given time – but I used nanotechnology and revival from the dead by a major pharmaceutical firm as my metaphor. Right at this moment, I’m finishing up the last book in the Weather Warden universe (Unbroken, the 4th Outcast Season novel), plus drafting an outline for Revivalist #2 in a very different universe, plus writing Black Dawn, Book 12 in my YA Morganville Vampires series … and as you know, there’s edits, proofs, and promotion going on helter-skelter for all these things. So yes, it’s tough to keep it straight sometimes, but I’m lucky that I have a brain that organizes well, plus I have LOTS of notes. (These are less well organized.)
I think that I really love switching back and forth...like you noted, the YA almost feels like a vacation from the heavy research involved in the weather and other natural sciences (for Weather Warden) and the funeral business (for Revivalist) … it helps get me re-energized for the next big pile o’ reading! As for it getting me addled … I’m pretty sure family and friends would say with perfect confidence that they can’t tell the difference.
Veronica: Sounds cool! I’ve always thought some of the richest books are those with a futuristic vision of something going on in the current state of the state. Can’t wait to read it. (Just like I can’t wait to sink my teeth into the advance copy of Last Breath
Rachel: Here’s my other question: Boring writer stuff! (And no, I won't ask where you get your ideas.)
Veronica: Ooh, I love boring writer stuff!
Rachel: What's your process ... are you a planner or a pantser (meaning, working without an outline, or frequently wandering off of it)? And what kind of schedule (if any) do you keep when you're writing, especially now that you're in two genres?
Veronica: When I wrote my first book, Master of the Highlands, I was a happy pantser. But my heroes in that series were based on real figures from history, and I experienced enough close ones to turn me into a total plotter. I have funny examples of being in the thick of it, and reaching a point when my hero was slated to do something, well, heroic, only to look back at that year in history to find that he’d done something dreadfully uncooperative like taking a six-month vacation from his battling. That’ll turn anyone on to the wonders of outlining!
Rachel: PREACH IT!
Veronica: (Puts on her Serious Author Face after snorting with laughter.) I’m actually breaking into a third genre with Sierra Falls, my small-town contemporary romance series hitting shelves in April 2012. Now that I have tighter deadlines, I’m more of a plotter than ever. I find that, if I know exactly where I’m going and the major milestones along the way, the books get written much faster.
Now I have a writing question back atcha. As someone embarking on a series that will hopefully be as far-reaching as your Morganville Vampires (I mean, hello! Last Breath marks your eleventh book in the series!!) I’m dying to know… Did you start out with a long-term vision for how you wanted the series to unfold? How much plotting versus pantsing have you done along the way? When Glass Houses, the first Morganville Vampires book, hit shelves back in 2006, would you have been surprised to find out so many books would follow? Is there anything you would’ve done differently along the way?
Rachel: When we started out Morganville Vampires, it was really kind of a fun diversion … and I never expected it to originally go longer than 3 books, but by the time I was into book 3 I got word things were going well, and they wanted 6. I thought surely that was the end, so I crafted the story arc to end naturally at book 6 … only to get an offer for 9! At that point, I started making them more stand-alone, though yeah, there are still cliffhangers (or as I like to call them, teasers!) for the next novel. I’m utterly amazed at the overwhelming response, not just in the US but around the world … it’s truly unexpected, and wonderful.
Veronica: And inspiring! “Teasers.” Love it! I’m sure I’ll quote you on that down the road.
Rachel: As to what I’d have done differently … hmm, probably nothing except keep better records, only because facing a 12-book (or maybe more) series is complicated. Whoa.
Veronica: I’ll say! So, do you have any final advice for someone like me, whose first vampire book is about to hit the shelves?
Rachel: Advice …. Well, I’d say you’re going to get a great response, because it uses vampires in a completely different and fascinating way, and really plays to action/adventure, which I think in many ways is an underserved part of the YA market. I would expect to get a flood of emails, so brace yourself! And I’ll be the first to be lining up for your autograph when we meet later this year!
Veronica: At which point you will learn my secret: I have the handwriting of a ten-year old boy. But seriously, thank you. I’m a long-time fan of yours, and it’s been such a treat chatting like this. I could go back and forth like this all day!
Rachel: So honored to be here with you, and delighted to be a guest of Amazon One on One! Thanks!
(Photo of Rachel Caine © Sharon Sams-Adams)
