Sarah Henning is the author of Sea Witch, a reimagining of Ursula’s origin story, and its sequel, Sea Witch Rising, which will be hitting shelves early this month. A recovering journalist, mother of two, and lover of ultramarathons, Sarah also somehow finds time to write multiple books at once, a feat which is astounding in itself. One of our contributors was lucky enough to ask her some burning questions regarding her latest novel, future projects, writing craft, and life in general.
Hi Sarah! Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us here at The Nerd Daily. First of all, tell us a bit about yourself!
Hi! Thank you so much for having me! I’m so happy to be here. I’m a Kansas girl and a former journalist who spent most of my career in sports. I spend all my free time writing, running, and hanging out with my husband and two kids.
Your latest novel, Sea Witch Rising, is coming out within the next couple of days. Can you tell us a bit about it?
Sure thing! Sea Witch Rising is the sort-of-surprise sequel to Sea Witch, which came out last summer. Sea Witch is an origin story for the titular character, while Sea Witch Rising picks up where the epilogue leaves off. I’d consider this book to be more of a retelling than the first one, though it’s very different than The Little Mermaid you might know from Disney. In this case, the little mermaid’s twin sister goes after her, sure the prince will fail his part of the magical bargain, making a deal of her own. The story is set against the opening days of World War I and includes some real history in it, just as Sea Witch featured the true history of Danish witch burnings and the king who carried them out.
What inspired you to delve deeper into Ursula’s past and tell her side of the story?
Well, I felt betrayed by Disney! I’m only sort of kidding. I read the Hans Christian Andersen version of The Little Mermaid as an adult and the sea witch is a much more neutral character—a witch who looks at this mermaid and says “Do you want to give up your family and friends and everything you know for a boy who doesn’t know your name?” and then does it anyway. With Sea Witch, I wanted to explore who that person is. With Sea Witch Rising, it was about the people who are left behind during an epic journey and what happens when they enter the narrative with their own action.
Sisterhood is a major theme in your latest novel, and also one of my favourite aspects of the story! The inclusion of Runa and Alia, and their older sisters is a fantastic addition to the duology. What was your biggest inspiration when it came to writing scenes involving the sisterhood element?
Oh, thank you! They were super fun to write. Honestly, I lost my own sister a few years ago right before I started working on Sea Witch, and though we loved each other, we were never best friends. All of the sisters in this story are very different and definitely don’t see eye-to-eye but understand that they’re in this thing together and have a very strong love even though they bicker. They all want the best for each other, even though their situation is not that great.
Without revealing too much, what was your favourite scene or moment to write in Sea Witch Rising, and why?
This is a tough question and I don’t want to give anything away! But if you read Sea Witch and happened to see the dedication, I mention to my husband that I’ll try to get a car chase into the next one. This is because whenever I’m knee-deep in a plot problem of my own making and wallowing, my husband always jokes, “Add a car chase.” So, one silly goal I had was to try very hard to get a car chase into Sea Witch Rising. It’s set in 1914, so there are most definitely cars but they don’t move very fast…so I sort of succeeded and for that I’m proud because I kept my promise (loosely).
What was the biggest challenge you faced when writing Sea Witch Rising?
Honestly, it was the magical system, even though I set it up! In Sea Witch, I had to think about how a witch would use magic versus a mermaid. In my interpretation, a witch is a vessel and a mermaid just is magic. In Sea Witch Rising I had to expand on that idea, and also consider how unharnessed magic would behave after centuries of repression that pushed witches underground and made them tragically undereducated in their own talents. I literally have a wizard bring a daisy to a gun fight because that’s the only spell he’s perfected.
What inspired you to write a fairy tale retelling? And will we see more retellings in the future?
I sort of answered this earlier, but for this particular book it came from an understanding of the original tale. As for more retellings, I have a duology that begins publication next summer with the first book called The Princess Will Save You, which is a gender-flipped tale inspired by The Princess Bride. It’s not a retelling per se, but you’ll recognize the set up when I tell you it’s about a princess who goes to rescue her stable boy true love who is kidnapped by pirates.
Was writing the sequel easier or harder than writing your debut novel, and did anything about your process change drastically between books?
Oh, good question. I think it was easier than I’d expected, mostly because I had to write it on such a compressed schedule that I had no time to get in my head about it. Sea Witch is a standalone book and Sea Witch Rising is sort of a bonus, and I think that helped too because I was telling a continuation of the same story but both worked independently from one another. One big change between books is now I tend to plot more. Before, my plot points were very far apart, and if a left turn came between them, I went with it because I figured if I was surprised, the reader would be surprised. Now I plot by act and it’s much more structured—I can see the forest for the trees much easier. Those left turns still come and I let them, either when plotting or writing, though. I also use Scrivener now, which was extremely helpful in keeping me on track to get the book done in said compressed schedule. I was also able to color code each chapter by its narrator, which was super helpful in keeping track of Runa’s and Evie’s points of view.
In your acknowledgements in Sea Witch Rising, you mention writing three books simultaneously. How do you manage to stay on track with multiple projects at once, and what is the biggest challenge you face with this?
Last fall was a doozy, indeed! I was writing both Sea Witch Rising and The Princess Will Save You at the same time while doing line edits and copy edits on Throw Like a Girl. It was bananas. I should tell you that I also have a full-time day job to go along with my two kids, so it was super stressful, but I’m so grateful that I got the chance to work on all of these books! However, time was definitely my biggest hurdle and my life was scheduled down to the second until the books were all in someone else’s hands.
As for keeping on track—I was lucky that these projects all had a life of their own and were very different. Throw Like a Girl is contemporary, Sea Witch Rising has two first-person points-of-view, and The Princess Will Save You is multi-third-person POV. Those differences very much helped when I would drop one project to work on another because the feel is completely different. Whenever I would switch projects, I’d just read the last chapter I wrote, get the voice back in my head, and go from there!
Having four books releasing within three years is crazy, but in the best kind of way! What has been the biggest highlight of your career as a writer so far?
IT IS CRAZY. And it also really is THE BEST. I don’t know that I can name a single highlight because really all of 2018 was a lovely reminder that hard work does eventually pay off. Sea Witch finally came out—more than three years after we sold it…so much of publishing is waiting in line—and we sold four more books, including three of them to two different publishers within twenty-four hours of each other. After literally years of waiting around, it was almost too much to believe.
We’re super excited for the release of your upcoming YA contemporary, Throw Like a Girl, which will be available in January, 2020. Can you tell us a little about the characters we’ll get to meet?
Oh, thank you! I’m so happy you’re excited for it! I love, love, love Throw Like a Girl. It’s about a down-spiralling softball player who is recruited to be the not-so-back-up quarterback on her ex-boyfriend’s football team. It’s very girl-power Friday Night Lights, yet it’s romantic, and it was such a fun book to work on. Plus, the cover just makes me all gooey-smiley all the time. My background is in sports journalism and I’m a sucker for underdog stories and so this is my love letter to that side of my life.
And now some quick-fire questions!
What are you currently reading, and who are your ‘auto-buy’ authors?
I’m currently reading Swipe Right for Murder by Derek Milman! It’s also out August 6th, and Derek and I are doing an event together at R.J. Julia in Madison, Conn., on August 7. This book is super darkly funny and sarcastic, yet fast-paced and thrilling. It’s about a case of mistaken identity that puts a high school boy on the run.
As for auto-buy authors, I’d say Robert McCammon’s Matthew Corbett series is something I will always auto-buy as long as he keeps writing them! It’s about a pre-Revolutionary War James Bond who is basically a dorky, love-sick orphan and I cannot love it more.
Name three of your favourite fairy tales.
The Legend of King Arthur. Beauty and the Beast. The Little Mermaid (duh).
What’s one thing you can tell us about yourself that people wouldn’t typically know?
I was a competitive gymnast! I mean, if you meet me, you’ll probably be able to see it because I’m barely five-feet with shoes on.
And finally, if you could give one piece of advice to aspiring writers out there, what would it be?
Keep writing. I know that sounds silly but it’s true. If you write, you’re a writer, no “aspiring” qualifier at all. Just keep going, no matter your goals. I might be too much of an optimist but I do think it’s true that as long as your keep at it, your dreams will fall into place eventually.
A huge thank you once again to the wonderful Sarah Henning for finding the time to answer some of our burning questions! Her latest novel, Sea Witch Rising, will be available for purchase on the 6th of August. You can find Sarah at her website and on Twitter and Instagram.
