Ellie Ann on Fantasy

(source)

Even though Ellie Ann’s work on the Sarah Steele trilogy may have placed her name on the New York Times bestseller list, she feels more at home crafting fantastic worlds than co-authoring legal thrillers. She has since made a name for herself with her novel The Silver Sickle, a swashbuckling adventure through a vivid world that straddles the boundary between science fiction, fantasy, and steampunk. I ask Ellie about growing up in Grinnell, Iowa, and she recounts a childhood in which she nurtured a fantastical imagination while working in her family’s garden and baking apple pies.

I admit to Ellie that life of pies and fresh vegetables sounds idyllic to a city dweller like myself, but Ellie replies that, as a child, she found the environment stifling and, in her words, burdened with a “cultish atmosphere” in its adherence to conservative values. As happens when a young woman with a rich imagination finds herself constrained by circumstances, Ellie’s imagination took flight. She read voraciously  (“Fairy tales were my food,” she says) and eventually turned to writing.

“Writing is the ultimate act of empathy, because you’re putting yourself in others’ shoes,” Ellie Ann says, “So is reading, which is why it’s so good for kids. They’re learning how to be others as they're reading.”

It was through reading and imagining that Ellie began to journey beyond her isolated, rural upbringing. Adventure stories, fairy tales, and fantasy epics accompanied her as she grappled with her identity as a bisexual woman, and fostered in her a sense of empathy for people who were different in beliefs, in perspectives, and experiences.

(source)

“I was always held back by that subculture of conservative Christianity,” she says, “Until recently I hated [the bisexual] part of myself. And you can’t ignore that part of you, so I always thought it was wrong, which is even worse.”

In a way, Ellie’s struggle resembles the dystopian world of The Silver Sickle, with its clockwork city guarded by mysterious cogsmen and inhabited denizens – like Zel and Farisa – who struggle against the limits imposed by their society. But in order to shape the rich fantasy world of her novels, Ellie Ann has to plan meticulously. “I basically know exactly what happens in each chapter before I start writing,” she says, “I think a whole lot about what I’m going to write, which is why I like mundane chores. When I’m driving or vacuuming or doing dishes, I have the opportunity to think. Currently, I’m working on a comic, probably to be called Unbroken Skies. I start with a tiny amount of world-building, and then I have to go on and create the antagonist.”

“Before the protagonist?” I ask.

“Always,” she says, “Because the antagonist is who drives the story. Once I’m finished with the antagonist, then I know what the problems are in the story, and that gives me a way better idea of what drives the protagonist.”

“And do you ever find yourself getting bogged down with this world-building process?”

“Never!” says Ellie, “Because I hate the world-building process so much that I have to focus on it so much. Otherwise, I won’t do it during the story. I see a lot of writers put all their attention into the details though, and the scariest thing is when I hear that someone has been working on their fantasy novel for five years. That’s not good. You have to start over. You can’t love it that much.”

(source)

There is a tendency in a lot of fantasy writing to give so much attention to the world – to constructing fictional languages and histories, geographies and politics – that the core of the novel gets lost. Ellie admits that some writers can make this work, but unless you literally are J.R.R. Tolkien, you ought to focus your efforts on breathing life into your characters, giving them compelling challenges, and making them try and fail and succeed and ultimately grow in beautifully human ways. 

If this sounds like it’s easier said than done, that’s because it is. Ellie Ann likens writing to eating. When you’re first try it, as a baby or as a novice writer, it’s difficult, but with practice, it becomes the most natural thing in the world.

“You have to have a drive,” she says, “I write out schedules and goals for myself. I know everything I want to create by the end of the year and I kind of have the following couple of years planned too. You have to ask yourself ‘Do I want to be this kind of writer in a year?’ and then you set yourself small goals of 500 words, or 1,500 words. Ten minutes at the end of a busy day. Everyone’s going to want to take away who you are and you’re the only one who can protect that, so you have to figure out what kind of writer you want to be and accept that about yourself.”

Ellie adds, “For example, I’ve accepted that I’m the kind of writer who will take donuts as payment for any work that I do.” 

Since the publication of The Silver Sickle, she has also authored The Day of Screams and Blood and edited Slice of Life: A Multimedia Fairy Tale. In the meantime, Ellie Ann is living in the Ozarks and continuing to grow as a writer. She’s currently rereading Tolkien and keeping a list of her favorite words (a vocabulary-building practice I told Ellie I would like to steal), paints with her children, and plays the recorder. After all, as Ellie Ann reminded me at the end of our conversation.

“It’s not just about being a good writer. It’s about being a good human being.” 

(source)

For more info about Ellie and her work, visit her website, her Facebook page, or her Twitter feed.

Read more of Vernon's interviews on Floodmark.