Victoria Aveyard in Frankfurt
Part 1
Here’s a short video
On Sunday, Victoria Aveyard answered questions by fans at the Frankfurt Book Fair and I took some notes (not in chronological order):
(She asked to keep the questions spoiler free for every potential new reader. Also, she laughed all the time, she wasn’t dead-serious about anything.)
Broken Throne will include the two prequel novellas, two novellas taking place after War Storm, and one taking place during WS in another location with other characters. There’s more “nerdy stuff”/worldbuilding to be found too (note: as was announced by the publisher recently)
Her new series will be young adult fantasy that will come out in 2020. There isn’t a draft yet, but she knows where it starts and where it will finish.
Mare is the most like her, although not in every aspect. She’s short like Aveyard to show the anger short people often feel at life. In a movie though, Mare doesn’t necessarily have to be short. She only wishes Mare to be mixed-raced and to resemble/be able to reflect her personality with her determination and doubt and flaws. The movie is in planning, but not certain to happen.
Farley is inspired by her best friend who also encouraged her to continue writing RQ when she needed it. She asked Aveyard, “You made me into a terrorist? And you cut my hair??”
Mare, Eve and Maven are the characters she respects/admires the most while Cal can be “more like a brick”. But it also depends on the scene which character she loves most. She loves how Eve and how she’s viewed by the audience has changed.
She enjoyed writing Cameron since she calls out the other characters who can be up their own heads (eg. Mare and Cal). Maven is the most interesting (and difficult) to write, but she always knew who he is, where he comes from and where he’s going.
She wouldn’t change the ending regarding any “backlash” she’s receiving. She doesn’t see it as backlash, really, since she always knew she’d never be able to please everyone and rather is happy to evoke so many different emotions in her audience. (note: as frustrating as that can be for a reader, I respect that a lot in writer) She likes to “mess” with us.
She tries to make every death meaningful; it should hurt like George RR Martin has hurt her.
She chose lightning as Mare’s ability since she had this idea about a girl going to be executed who saves herself with lightning, but also because lightning is very destructive and very visual.
Coming from screenwriting, she’s generally a very visual writer. She’s been writing fan fiction since middle school, but chose to study screenwriting in case she wasn’t good enough for an actual book. Now, she tries to merge the techniques of both styles. Often, she starts with one idea and tries to build the story around it.
RQ is inspired by historical rulers/dictators as “history repeats itself”. However, fantasy literature shouldn’t shy away including from political themes.
The blood is Silver because is looks cool. She also wanted to turn around the idea of mutants with superpowers being outcasts like in X-Men since she believes they’d try to take power.
If she were in RQ, she’d be an oblivious Red without an ability, not getting involved in anything (note: I kinda doubt that ;-))
I tried to include as much as possible. I’ve paraphrased and left out some things she’s already said on other occasions. Correct me where I’m wrong -.-°