The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue hit shelves this past week, and that means book tours and events are underway. V. E. Schwab stopped by The Brookline Booksmith to chat about the book, her craft, her new projects, and more with author Holly Black. Black also has a new book releasing soon, How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories, an addition to her Folk of the Air trilogy. If you were unable to attend, The Nerd Daily has you covered! Responses have been edited for length and clarity. The first half of questions were posed by Black, and the second half were posed by the audience, so both Schwab and Black could answer.
If you haven’t read it, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue tells the story of a woman cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets, the consequence of a bargain she made in order to live forever. There are no spoilers in the chat.
First, a note on the cover. Schwab chose the cover from a variety of options after she pushed back on the first option. Originally, the cover was “rom-com-y.” I think we’re all happier with this beautiful, more serious cover!
We know you’ve been thinking about the idea for Addie for a decade. How did it originally comes to you?
I was living in Liverpool and working in the shed of an ex-prison warden, literally a shed from Home Depot with no heating and a giant spider I had to name Bob because I needed to anthropomorphize him to be less afraid of him, and I was miserable. I lived in a flat with too many people, probably trying to avoid paying council tax or something, and one of my housemates who traveled for work would drop me off in various cities. I was dropped off in the Lake District in Ambleside, and I went for a hike up this big hill by myself.
At the same time, my grandmother was dying of dementia and was slowly forgetting her daughter; the flip side of that was that my mother was being forgotten. When I got to the top, on the hill overlooking the vista I thought to myself, “I bet this is what immortality feels like.” This loneliness, this existential ennui.
By the time I got down from the hill, I had the beginnings of Addie.
How was the process of writing the book?
Terrible. For eight years, I didn’t write it because I didn’t want to write it wrong. I was afraid of the unfinished story. There’s that saying, “I don’t like writing. I like having written.” That’s very true for me. But I’m also afraid of time running out. Life is so short. And my greatest fear is definitely the fear of being forgotten. There’s a part in Addie—and this is not a spoiler—where Addie and the devil character are talking, and she asks him how he can take artists out of the world. And he replies that life is short and notoriety is forever. The artist burns bright and brief rather than long and low.
Black: I was talking to another writer after he’d had a kid, and he’d come up with a number—a maximum—of things he could create. That’s when I started to think about it. How many books can you actually write, how much time do you have?
So would you make the immortal bargain or the artist’s bargain?
The immortal bargain. For sure. When I got an advance, I didn’t buy objects, I went places. Because I think experience is more valuable than artifact.
What part of the book seemed most challenging?
Every. Single. Part. I’ve used this metaphor before, but I like it a lot: an idea is this beautiful shining orb of light. Writing is taking that beautiful shining orb and smashing it against the nearest wall, and then trying to reassemble the pieces. It will never be perfect, and it will hurt and be bloody. And the process filled her with fear. Writing Addie was a year of pain. Every day I had to fight demons. I was so attached to it unmade; the final product is the closest I have ever come to recreating the orb of light. Ever.
But that fear drives me. I will never be complacent toward my own work. I make very rigid story structures and build up the meat within them. Holly, do you do that? Are you a plotter?
Black: Well, yes but imagine making a skeleton and then rearranging the bones.
Schwab: Nooo! I could never. But I feel like that’s why you’re so good, why people go to you and you can fix things. You can look at a draft and say “oh this goes better here and that goes over there.” I have to stick to my outline. And it’s hard! It’s really really hard. That’s why I like transparency about craft. I have a math and science brain. Self-examination is important. How you dismantle those impediments and get down to creative work. It’s part of what I talked about on the Writing Excuses podcast and why I listen, too!
Black: I find it very useful to listen to. Sometimes we need someone else to say it!
Schwab: Also it is good procrastination! [laughs] If I’m not excited about where I’m going then I won’t finish. Having a destination makes the process bearable. Also, you need people in your life with receipts who can show you that the process is ALWAYS TERRIBLE.
Note: You can find Schwab’s episodes of Writing Excuses here.
The constellation of stars image/metaphor is very striking. Was it useful to ground characters in physical detail?
Yes—I’m terrible with faces so I tend to give characters a visual shorthand. Addie’s stars render her not just into writing but into art, even abstract art. I wanted to see how artists would render her.
Black: Yes for me, too. It helps me to know the characters to know what they look like
What are you working on now?
- 7 short stories
- 3 comics
- 5 books
- 2 scripts
And that’s just what’s under contract! My brain is a six-burner stove. I need something on high heat and 5 things mulling. Writes one book at a time, but brains are amazing—they can work without your conscious effort. Letting projects steep is key, as is productive procrastination. Addie was that thing for 10 years. Now I need a new secret love. I need a creative side piece. [Laughs]
Note: excitingly, that’s not all: Schwab has more ideas (of course) and a book finished and awaiting edits. She describes it as The Secret Garden meets Crimson Peak! And there’s also Threads of Power, the next in the Shades of Magic world!
What is the weirdest thing that you’ve done/bought during quarantine?
The weirdest thing I’ve bought is a plush plague doctor, Mr. Plush. I also took up doing jigsaw puzzles, accompanied by whisky and NPR, like an old man. The weirdest thing I’ve started doing is playing violin! I’m terrible at it but I love it. It’s not my job, and I don’t have to play for anyone but myself and my teacher, so I don’t have to be good! It’s so joyful.
Who would Addie get along with from your other books?
Kel [from the Darker Shade of Magic series]. Both are obsessed with artifacts, and take a hedonistic joy from objects.
If you had to work in another genre what would it be?
Black: Mystery, probably. Or horror. That’s a short step away.
Schwab: I would probably do poetry. I work it into all my books but I’ve never leaned in, even though it’s where I started.
Would you want Addie to be the one book you’re remembered for, or haven’t you written that book yet?
This is the first time I felt like if I never wrote another book, it would be okay. I hope there will be another but at the moment, yes.
Where do you start with writing characters?
I think of endings first, including for the characters. I want to know where we leave them—and then rewind from there. I build characters backward. I ask what they fear, what they want, and what they’re willing to do to get it. I want my characters to be super flawed, so that people can relate to them, and so the plot can move forward.
Black: I start with a moment or image that gives me a feeling. Then I ask, what happened to them that gives me that feeling? Then I work backward until maybe they’re not that person anymore, and they change, but I have to get back to that feeling.
What has the process been like writing scripts and comics?
Writing comics and scripts is much easier. It’s a living work, the words aren’t as precious because others will interpret them. The director, the actors, and the artists—they get to put their own spin on it. When it’s just writing, every word is so important and I’m so conscious of every word choice that I make.
Black: I’m a better reviser than writer. But unfortunately, we think in stories—and lengths. Sometimes an idea is a book in length. So that’s what it has to be.
Where did you draw inspiration for the devil character, was it just from Judeo-Christian myth or somewhere else?
So I’m a Pagan. I love studying paganism, I love the gods with a little “g.” They don’t have to be everything, and so they can be petty, they can be fickle, they can tell us about humanity. One of my favorite scenes is when Addie and the “devil” are discussing God in a church. Calling him the devil is a marketing term. His name is Luke. And people have asked me, but no—Luke doesn’t stand for Lucifer, it’s not really the devil in a Biblical sense. He’s a deitic concept, a manifestation. He’s not inherently evil. He’s just dangerous AF. The devil is a god of promise.
Where did Addie’s name come from?
Hm, that’s a good question. I don’t know. The LaRue part I got because I wanted her to have a sense of travel and going place, but Addie’s name was always Addie. For me, names can’t change once they’re set. But getting them can sometimes be hard. Characters have to come with their names. If I can’t think of a name? Story won’t work. There’s a part of a book I’m working on now and I have to write this section for this character, but I don’t have his name yet. Every day I write down a few options, but then I go back and they’re not right. So I can’t write that part yet.
What book do you wish you had written?
Schwab: The Secret History by Donna Tartt. It ticks all the boxes of things I want to write about and does it so well.
Black: Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner. It’s so perfect, and it ends just when you want it to go on a little further. Kushner is so cruel to her characters. Everyone wishes they could be as cruel as she is.
What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?
“If you stay in this game long enough, everything that can happen will.” Good and bad. There will be failure, and books may underperform, and series might get canceled. That happened to me with my second book. The series got canceled. But amazing things can happen too, huge wonderful things. And wouldn’t I rather it be my second book that got canceled than another book later in my career? So yes, everything that can happen, will. It’s the cost of playing.
Black: I was working on a book and it wasn’t going well, and Jane Yolen told me, “If it’s not done I can’t take it from you.” And yeah, that’s Jane Yolen and she—she’s Jane Yolen. But it’s true. Sometimes you just need time and you can’t force it.
What is your favorite quarantine read?
Schwab: The House in the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune. It’s just this big gay sweater of a book, it’s so comforting and warm. It’s not . I finished it and I cried. Not because it was sad but because it was lovely. Then I gave it to my mom and she cried, and then I gave it to my dad, who only became a reader in his 60s and I found him standing over it and he was crying.
Black: The Murderbot series by Martha Wells. If you haven’t read them they’re about this android who all he wants to do is watch media, but he has to be…well, a murderbot. They’re hilarious and there’s another one coming!
What is bringing you defiant joy?
I’m suspicious of “big joy,” the kinds of life-changing joy that can also so easily turn wrong, I’m always afraid they’ll go wrong. I finds more lasting happiness in “little joys.” So, my parents live in the French countryside, and it’s been my job to pick the raspberries. Every day I go out and walk up the hill and pick whatever raspberries were ripe and then we’d have them with yogurt over lunch. So I’d get to take a walk, and I could listen to a podcast and just meticulously pick raspberries, I could stand outside and harvest nourishment. That’s been my joy.
