An Interview With Ian Benke
Courage to explore the bizarre. I think truly successful spec fic breaks away from standard tropes and does really unique things. Granted, you can go too far (I have a book in my book closet that may have done just that), but thinking outside the box is what gets novels picked out of the slushpile.
Science Fiction and Fantasy are hugely popular genres. What does it take for a writer today, to write compelling and successful Science Fiction and Fantasy stories? Authority Magazine started a new series called “How To Write Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories”. In this series we are talking to anyone who is a Science Fiction or Fantasy author, or an authority or expert on how to write compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Charlie N. Holmberg.
Charlie N. Holmberg is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling Paper Magician series and the Amazon Charts bestselling Spellbreaker series. She is also the author of the Star Mother series and the Numina series, as well as five stand-alone novels, including Followed by Frost, a 2016 RITA Award finalist for Young Adult Romance; The Fifth Doll, winner of the 2017 Whitney Award for Speculative Fiction; and The Will and the Wilds, winner of the 2020 Whitney Award for Speculative Fiction, as well as Novel of the Year for Adult Fiction. Born in Salt Lake City, Charlie was raised a Trekkie alongside three sisters who also have boy names. She is a proud BYU alumna, plays the ukulele, and owns too many pairs of glasses. She currently lives with her family in Utah. Visit her at www.charlienholmberg.com.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share a story about what first drew you to writing over other forms of storytelling?
Honestly, I got into writing because I couldn’t objectively tell I was bad at it! The thing that made me want to be a storyteller was actually an anime called The Vision of Escaflowne. I watched it when I was thirteen, and I loved the story and characters so much, I knew I wanted to create something like it. I figured I could either draw it (comic-book style) or write it. I could tell I was a terrible artist. Could not tell I was also a terrible writer!
You are a successful author. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Why thank you. 😀 I think the number one trait that led to my success was discipline. It takes a lot of discipline to get a book done, let alone to push through all the edits, marketing, events, etc. that come with publishing. In college I held myself to a daily word count, and if something came up that made it so I couldn’t write, I’d make up the difference the next day. That’s how I finished my first few (unpublished) books. I’m at a point now where I don’t hold myself to a specific number, but I still write every weekday, and sometimes on Saturdays if I’m really feeling the story.
A more understandable one I hope I have is creativity. Obviously fiction publishing is a creative field, but I’d like to think my flavor of creativity has helped give me an edge. I like writing things that are a little different, a little quirky, a little unexpected. Like making a woman adventure through a literal heart, trapping a village inside a matryoshka doll, or giving someone a fidget spinner that grants a minute of immortality.
And honestly, I think my lack of perfectionism has gotten me pretty far. I’m sure critics of my work would love to jump on that one, ha! But in truth, I’m able to keep writing books because I don’t cripple myself with perfecting every last sentence, worrying over ever minor plot point, or sobbing over every bad review. I know a lot of incredibly talented authors whose fears with putting something imperfect out there keeps them from finishing books, or puts them into spirals with their mental health. I consider it a great blessing that I don’t panic with my drafts or release days. I’d much rather a few typos and peace of mind then a flawless magnum opus that I spent my entire lifetime perfecting, and so many more stories inside of me that never get to see the light.
Can you tell us a bit about the interesting or exciting projects you are working on or wish to create? What are your goals for these projects?
I have several! Next year is my venture into contemporary romance — I’ll be independently publishing (audio with Tantor Media) two novels in my Nerds of Happy Valley series. The first, You’re My IT, is about a roller derby blocker and a tabletop gamer falling in love. The second, Two-Damage My Heart, follows the romance of two LARPers.
I’m really excited about my upcoming Whimbrel House series, which will be my first historical fantasy in the United States. It follows an author who inherits an enchanted house, and the housekeeper specially trained to maintain it.
Hoping to get a romantic standalone into the queue soon. All I’ll say is that it involves trolls. 😉 And really hoping next year I get the chance to start a series about vampires!
Wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Let’s begin with a basic definition so that all of us are on the same page. How do you define sci-fi or fantasy? How is it different from speculative fiction?
So I consider science fiction and fantasy (and horror) under the umbrella of speculative fiction. Science fiction is fantastical stories where technology rules, and fantasy is fantastical stories where magic (in some form) rules, or where the story is told in an alternate world/universe (often, but not always, historical in flavor).
It seems that despite countless changes in media and communication technologies, novels and written fiction always survive, and as the rate of change increases with technology, written sci-fi becomes more popular. Why do you think that is?
It’s interesting what we can learn from science fiction novels about not only the future, but our present day. I think readers see themselves and their society in the science fiction genre — in a weird way, it’s sort of like fortune telling. I mean, how many things, so far, has Star Trek gotten right?
Even reading older science fiction, like Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell or Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, gives us insight into our modern day, despite nearly one hundred years of time difference between those books’ publish dates and today. If anything, as our world becomes more like a science fiction novel, we crave to understand our humanity as it’s buried in ever-growing tech.
In your opinion, what are the benefits to reading sci-fi/fantasy, and how do they compare to watching sci-fi/fantasy on film and television?
The thing I like about spec fic is that it allows you to experience things you wouldn’t be able to experience otherwise. How many of us are going to speak with dragons or travel the galaxy? But when I dive into a fantasy novel, I can almost feel like I’m the one throwing fireballs, or usurping the evil emperor, or falling in love with a vampire. It’s a date with the other.
I think film and television as a medium is fantastic for visuals. My imagination stretches pretty far, but it’s fascinating to see the magic for myself. But, regardless of genre, reading gives a deeper level of experience than TV can. You feel character’s thoughts and emotions far more viscerally through a book.
What authors and artists, dead or alive, inspired you to write?
The two that inspired me the most was Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli fame, and Brandon Sanderson.
If you could ask your favourite Science Fiction and Fantasy author a question, what would it be?
This is presuming I could pick just one, ha!
Fortunately, I know where one lives and talk to the other on Instagram, so it’s not too hard to ask. For the sake of this interview, I think it’d be really neat to sit down with Amy Harmon (The Bird and the Sword, among others) and ask her about crafting deep emotion in her books. She’s a master of it.
We’d like to learn more about your writing. How would you describe yourself as an author? Can you please share a specific passage that you think exemplifies your style?
I like to think I’m a little quirky as an author, and that a reader will always get something a little different when they read my books. It’s hard to describe my own style of writing because I’m so close to it, so I sort of have to go off what others have told me. I’ve heard I lean formal in my prose, that I’m more unique in my descriptions, and that I’m a good worldbuilder (fingers crossed). I actually had to ask one of my beta readers for a passage to share because I honestly get hung up on questions like these!
Here’s a passage I hope exemplifies some of this. I pulled this from Star Mother, chapter five. It’s from the scene where Ceris gives birth to her star:
My world became utter agony, bright and unyielding, tearing me apart and remaking me only to pull me asunder once more. I was disembodied, and I was fire. I lost consciousness in the sense that thoughts ceased to process, but I never pulled away from the torture within me, blazing slowly, so slowly, toward my hips. I never broke away from the pain, not once. I screamed, unseeing, barely registering hands holding me down. If Elta and Fosii tried to comfort me, I couldn’t hear them. If the Sun came to witness my death or His child’s birth, I couldn’t sense Him. I was locked in a world all my own, the bars smoking against my skin, closing in on me from all sides so I could not pull away. Not in body. Only in spirit. And I felt that pull, that need to break free from my own skin. I welcomed death with all that I was. I begged for it.
Time warped. I burned alive for years, decades, centuries, hours, minutes, seconds. I tore apart again and again and again, until finally, blessedly, the darkness swallowed me whole.
Based on your own experience and success, what are the “Five Things You Need To Write Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories?” If you can, please share a story or example for each.
An imagination. I think this goes without saying, but when you’re writing outside the known world, you have to be able to invent what exists there! The bigger the story, the bigger the imagination. It’s one thing to write about a dragon in New York City; it’s another to write about a dragon in the land of Erthos on the planet Xellon, and the council that rules that country and makes rules about dragons, and all the flora and fauna and climate and geography that goes into that country, and the magic that exists, and so on and so forth.
Worldbuilding. On that note, one must be a good worldbuilder. Honestly, worldbuilding is probably the #1 thing that makes science fiction and fantasy science fiction and fantasy. You need to know how far mankind has explored into space, how it’s explored space, what’s been discovered, what the new planets and stars are like, what the religion/government/magic/land/cultures/etc of this new otherworld are like. Crucial are the small details that make an imaginary place feel real to the reader. A great example of that are the rockbuds in The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. Flowers have nothing to do with the story, but the existence of these, and the way they behave with the storms that do affect the story, make the world feel real.
Courage to explore the bizarre. I think truly successful spec fic breaks away from standard tropes and does really unique things. Granted, you can go too far (I have a book in my book closet that may have done just that), but thinking outside the box is what gets novels picked out of the slushpile.
Several years ago I signed up to be a mentor with Pitch Wars, and the slushpile experience was really interesting. I assumed most of the submitting writers would just be bad writers, and that’s why they weren’t getting picked up. Nope. Most were decently good. But about 60% of everything submitted under adult spec was a very similar flavor of supernatural crime-fighting. They were all safely within that typical urban fantasy box. The manuscripts that stood out were the really inventive ones, with creatures or magics or worlds I’d never heard of, with unique premises and characters I hadn’t read before.
Relatable characters. This is another obvious one, but it’s important! Books. Need. Relatable. Characters. To. Succeed. That’s not to say everyone needs to be an average jane — we’re more than ready to read about deadly assassins and alien species. But we need to connect to characters on an internal level. We need to see their emotions, struggles, and insecurities, because that’s just how people connect to people, period.
I also think it’s a great idea to think outside the box, here. There’s a reason so many of us write and read about, say, royalty. They have the power and ability needed to tell stories. But it’s nice to pick up a story about an ant farmer or pole dancer once in a while. A fantastical superhero we weren’t expecting. Let’s have the main character work in a hat shop (Howl’s Moving Castle by Dianna Wynne Jones) or be a mechanic with a cyborg foot that’s too small (Cinder by Marissa Meyer). I honestly think the genre as a whole could stand to use a wider range of characters — diversity in all its forms.
Emotion. This connects to relatable characters and pertains to books outside the genre. Emotion is the number one thing that makes a book good. There, I said it. If I can’t feel what the characters are feeling — if my heart strings aren’t being plucked — I don’t finish the book. Emotion is what allows a reader to live out the story in their hands. Yeah, I can’t suit up in armor and rush out to meet an army of Trollocs, but I can feel the rush of the warrior who does. The fear of death. The shock when my friend — excuse me, the character’s friend — gets run through with a sword.
Writing emotion well is a whole can of worms and is honestly something everyone and their dogs should study, from beginning writers to bestsellers. It’s a skill that needs to be sharpened regularly.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Entertainment, Business, VC funding, and Sports read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them 🙂
I will tell you now that I fail when it comes to celebrities. XD I’m not much of a tabloid person, and I have a hard time remembering who is who.
That said, two people in the biz that I really admire are first, Conan O’Brien — he’s so genuine and so hilarious. I wrote a poem about him in high school for a creative writing assignment. Maybe he was my first celebrity crush? Second, Taylor Swift. Sorry if that seems like an obvious one, but she is a stellar songwriter. (Shall we flash back to my spiel about emotional connections?) I actually dedicated Star Mother to her. I highly doubt romantic high fantasy is in her wheelhouse, but hey, I like her stories.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
They can absolutely follow my Amazon page and Goodreads! I also post about my work and run my own shop (for signed books) on my website, charlienholmberg.com, where they can likewise find music I’ve written for The Will and the Wilds and Star Mother. For social media, I am by far the most active on Instagram. I also have a podcast called Your Mom Writes Books, available on all popular platforms.
Thank you for these excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent. We wish you continued success.
About The Interviewer: Ian Benke is a multi-talented artist with a passion for written storytelling and static visual art — anything that can be printed on a page. Inspired by Mega Man, John Steinbeck, and commercials, I.B.’s science fiction writing and art explore the growing bond between technology and culture, imagining where it will lead and the people it will shape. He is the author of Future Fables and Strange Stories, the upcoming It’s Dangerous to Go Alone trilogy, and contributes to Pulp Kings. The CEO and Co-Founder of Stray Books, and an origami enthusiast, Ian is an advocate of independent, collaborative, and Canadian art. https://ibwordsandart.ca
Author Charlie N. Holmberg On How To Write Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.