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Glass Sword Author Victoria Aveyard Talks World-Building, Inspiration, and How to Stay True to a Series
When last we saw Mare Barrow, heroine of Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen dystopian fantasy series, she was striped with Red and Silver blood and grappling with a shocking change in her fortunes. In series starter Red Queen, 17-year-old Mare’s red blood made her a member of the powerless peasant class, in a world where the silver-blooded have both position and supernatural powers—until she’s revealed to have immense abilities of her own, despite the red in her veins. In Glass Sword, she leaves the girl she was behind—a thief, a sister, a royal fiancée—and starts to come into her own as a righteous warrior. To celebrate Glass Sword‘s birthday, we talked to Aveyard about plotting, badass heroines, and the scenes that are so fun to write they’re like dessert.
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There’s barely a breath between the end of Red Queen and the start ofGlass Sword. How did you get back into the mindset of battle and your fictional world when you sat down to write book two?
It really helped that, when I wrote the ending of Red Queen, I immediately knew where the first few chapters of Glass Sword were going to go. There isn’t much room to change that initial path, and because it’s an exciting one, it was easy to write. I love big action set-pieces and wanted to really kickstart Glass Sword with a bang.
Book one ends with a massive twist that left readers reeling. Was that always in your mind as you wrote it, or did it take shape as you went?
Yes, that twist was in the outline from the very beginning, and was a large reason I wanted to tell this story. As I was writing, getting to that scene was my big motivator, and it helped me power through more difficult parts to get to that point. It was like my dessert.
In general, are you a plotter or a pantser? If the former, how much do you have set before starting to write?
I force myself to outline, but not too closely, so I guess I plot by the seat of my pants? My natural instinct is to dive right in, but I know I’ll get stuck. I like to stick with the architect vs. gardener metaphor. I guess I’m a gardener who plants tomatoes. I have the sticks in the ground, and let the vines grow along those parameters.
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You’ve said that Red Queen started in your mind as an image of a girl who can control lightning. Did you have any of these kind of guiding visuals in mind while creating the larger world of Glass Sword—or its expanded cast of characters?
Glass Sword has several set piece scenes that I plotted out or visualized before I wrote them, but I always knew they were coming. They anchor bits of the story. I think my favorite visual in Glass Sword is the very end of the epilogue. It’s a real kick in the gut. (Ed. note: No, seriously. It’s gonna kill you.)
Is it hard, when you’re writing multiple books in one world, not to “cheat” on it with other story ideas that come to mind?
SO VERY MUCH. But it helps that the Red Queen series is developing a following, and I want to really keep my momentum going. Depriving myself of other projects is also a motivator to work. I think every writer feels this way, especially when she’s in the middle of a series. You naturally want to explore new worlds, but the trick is finding new facets in an already familiar place.
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I understand you used the break between books one and two to write the screenplay Eternal. Do you (or did you) have time before starting book three in the Red Queen series to work on another project? If so, can you tell us anything about it?
I wrote the Red Queen novellas Queen Song and Steel Scars (featured in the book bind-up Cruel Crown) in between books 2 and 3. Once I finish Book 3, I’ll either launch right into RQ 4, or maybe take a few months to work on another screenplay. I definitely have the screenwriting itch.
Who do you consider to be Mare’s predecessors, as far as badass women of fantasy go?
Ella of Frell, Galadriel, Katniss Everdeen, Arya and Sansa Stark, Hermione Granger, and always Princess Leia. If Mare is ever in the same thought of any of these women, I will die happy.
Glass Sword‘s setting is especially interesting because it feels like a blend of pre-industrial fantasy and post-industrial dystopian. What made that appeal to you over a more traditional high fantasy, semi-medieval world?
I’m really enamored with the idea of a reformed society, and I’ve always been fascinated with the Dark Ages as well as the power vacuum that followed the fall of the Roman Empire. I translated this to an apocalyptic fall of the American “empire,” and what happens long, long after this version of our world has been nearly forgotten. Things are pulling back together, but mankind and humanity has changed. It was really interesting for me to literally build on top of the old world.
As you’ve discussed in other interviews, there’s definitely a cinematic quality to your books. What’s an existing film or films that fits the visual feel you were imagining as you wrote Red Queen?
I’ve always seen Red Queen as a bit of a mix between X-Men, Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games, as well as bit of Gladiator and the regal, convoluted, proud society of pre-WWI Europe.
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