Thief of Night: A Q&A with Holly Black

Bestselling author Holly Black joins us to chat about the sequel to Book of Night, Thief of Night. Read on for an exclusive Q&A with Holly on characterization, the creative process, favorite fan interactions and more.

IM: Can you please set up the story of your new novel for us?

HB: Thief of Night is the concluding volume to the duology that started with Book of Night, and Book of Night tells the story of Charlie Hall, a retired thief of tomes that helps gloamists, which are shadow magicians, learn to better control their shadows. She’d go out and steal from them, and she’s dragged back in when some conflicts from her past return and some people wind up dead. In Thief of Night, she has found herself bound as the Hierophant, which is an individual who has to hunt down rogue blights. A blight is a shadow that has become untethered from the person who controlled it and become monstrous. She’s also tied to a blight of her former boyfriend who no longer remembers her and now may seek to do her harm. She’s got into some trouble and to get out of it, she’s going to have to decide what she’s willing to give up and who she’s willing to sacrifice.

IM: Can you please tell me about when you first conjured up this world and how you knew it’d be your next project?

“This is a king of magic we all experience. We’re all a little unnerved and fascinated with our shadows.”

HB: It came out of three things. In my other life, I write a lot of fairy books, and there’s a particular story that was part of a documentary where people were explaining true stories about fairies. There is a story of a woman who woke up on a hill and there was a little man who was cutting away her shadow and she jumped up and the little man ran away, but she was left with the terrible feeling that if he had managed to get her shadow, something awful would’ve happened to her. There was a time I was walking back from town with my son when he was much younger, and he was watching his shadow get bigger and smaller and bifurcate. I thought, this is a kind of magic we all experience. We’re all a little unnerved and fascinated with our shadows. Some years ago, I got my ears surgically pointed and when I was there, I actually thought, what would it be like if there was somebody traveling around altering something else, altering something magical? What about altering shadows? That’s when it all came together. The rest of writing Book of Night was the invention of the world and figuring out exactly how the magic worked and exactly who Charlie was, exactly who Vince was and who Red was. Thief of Night was the first book where I knew exactly what the last lines of the book would be. I hope I can do it again, because knowing the last lines of a book was so incredibly helpful. My goal with the book I’m writing now is to try to find that again. It was so helpful.

IM: I wanted to ask you about what your actual writing process looks like when it comes to structure; I know you said you don’t typically have the last line, but what does that process look like for you? Are you mapping out the plot lines?

“I am a person who has never written a book right before I’ve written it wrong.”

HB: I do try to map out plot lines, but I am a person who has never written a book right before I’ve written it wrong. A lot of times when I’m mapping out plot lines, I can be sure that the one thing I know from them is what will not eventually happen in the book. I think I’m an extrapolator by nature, so if I know something is true in chapter one, I will try to extrapolate a lot of things from it. When I go back and realize there’s a better thing that could have happened or there’s a thing that feels righter and more resonant, then I will re-extrapolate from there and the ripple effect will be pretty intense. I’m willing to change pretty much anything as I go to try to find what I feel is the thing that makes more sense for the people in the world. I think that’s why it’s such a relief to write sequels and series because after book one is done, those characters are then set in stone and I can extrapolate from who they are, but I am no longer reinventing them as I go.

IM: Going back to Charlie for a second, what it was like to really form her character and how did you know when you had her voice?

“All books are essentially torture devices for their protagonist.”

HB: I think all books have a thematic connection to their magic, and so if I’m writing a book about shadows, it makes sense to write about a character who has a shadow self in a non-magical way of speaking. Charlie is somebody who is unwilling to interrogate her past and a lot of the things she’s done. She’s unwilling to see all the ways that she’s holding herself back, she’s unwilling to see her own anger with her family and the pain of her past, she’s unwilling to see all of it. I think for a character grappling with shadows, that makes sense. All books are essentially torture devices for their protagonist. If they have a secret, it’s coming out. If they have a fear, they’ll be facing it. Whatever the worst thing is that they can imagine, it’s very likely that thing is going to happen to them. I think theme really helps that work, and I think when magic can feel both thematic and suggestive of more story, it’s really fun to work with.

IM: You did that so wonderfully in this duology; I loved the atmosphere and the world that you built. I was thinking about as a supernatural film noir story, and I thought that was so fun. Can you tell me about building the world and what really made it come alive for you?

HB: I needed to figure out two things: how the magic worked, and how people were using it. Those two things wind up being related. I remember I had this butcher paper and was making a big list of how the different parts of the magic system worked and trying to work it out on this enormous piece of paper that I wound up stretching across my kitchen floor when I was done. Even though it was all really cool, none of it worked because it wasn’t suggestive of more story. To me, what makes a magic system work is making it something that people would use for things that are not immediately its intended purpose. When you can, for instance, go to an alterationist and have them take out a piece of you and now you no longer feel the urge to smoke, you may have also lost something in the process. There’s always a price. I had to figure out what that price is, and what is something people would actually use? What does it mean to, for instance, have your shadow altered so that you have wings? What does that mean you can do? And realizing that what it meant was minor magics; I wanted even people who were not gloamists and did not have control of their shadows, if they had their shadows altered, I wanted them to have the ability to have minor magics. I also had to figure it out from a very technical angle and think of what you can do to prevent it. Once all of these fiddly things line up, they give you room to tell the bigger story.

IM: Do you have a favorite scene that you’ve written for Charlie?

HB: I really loved writing the ending. I think one of the pleasures of writing Charlie for me is writing her making some big mistakes, and her making bad decisions. In the second book, there’s a scene where she goes out with some of her boyfriend’s old friends and she makes a series of terrible choices because she’s feeling some kind of way about it. I loved writing it because to me, some of the stuff she wound up saying and doing was very satisfying, but it also was such a bad idea, and it worked out so poorly for her.

IM: That’ll always have me as the reader reading from behind my fingers. How does that feel for you as the author? Obviously, you’re the one making her do these things, but do you ever feel like your characters take over and you don’t even have a say in what this next scene will be?

“It’s my dream that one day I’ll figure out how to turn off that critical part of my brain.”

HB: I do not. I feel like my characters are essentially lazy and don’t want to have the bad things happen to them, and therefore I must constantly prod them with a bar to keep going and shoo them along. I feel like they’re fighting me every step of the way because who would want to be the protagonist of a novel? It’s terrible for you! I am not that kind of writer, and I’m very envious of writers who have the experience of getting into that flow state in which they really do feel like a thing takes over. I’m always going back over sentences and fussing rather than just having it come out of me. It’s my dream that one day I’ll figure out how to turn off that critical part of my brain.

IM: That flow state sounds really cool, but the idea of it also it freaks me out a bit! The creative process is full of mysteries, and I think we’ve been trying to understand it for centuries, but it still surprises us. I also really loved the inclusion of chapter titles in this book; can you tell me about why you included them and how you chose them?

HB: It was a late in the game decision in book one where I thought, I want to do something more with these chapters. I wanted to make something that felt a little different. I think you’re right, we don’t see them very much, and I just thought I’d give them a try. I wrote the book and then came back and did the chapter titles after. They’re really fun because you have to decide what part of the chapter gets emphasis and do you want to deceive the reader through the chapter title? They were really fun for me to come back to and play around with.

IM: I’m also such a huge fan of The Folk of the Air series; you’ve garnered thousands of readers over the course of your career and through these incredible worlds you’ve built. Do you have any favorite reader interactions you can share?

HB: There was a time I was in Dubai, and I was signing for the Folk of the Air series, and a woman came up to me. She had just finished reading The Wicked King in the line of the signing. She was so mad at me. I was there with Cassandra Clare, and her husband had been sitting next to me, and he just wheeled away. He was like, “Good luck to you.” I did really enjoy that. When I think about really meaningful reader interactions, I think about the people I’ve met who read my very first book in 2002. It means so much to me for people to tell me that this book was a book that they read in their childhood, and they kept with them.

IM: That just shows the impact that your art can really have on people. I feel like there’s so many times in the creative process where it fights you back, and you’re just thinking, will I ever get this thing out? What’s the point? This is the point. This is why you do what you do.

“I thought I’d never make it out of that book . . . For anyone out there, you will make it through.”

HB: Absolutely. I remember being 26 working on that first book and showing up at my friend’s house in tears because I thought I would never finish it. I thought I’d never make it out of that book, no less sell it and have it find an audience. I’ve always told myself to never forget what it felt like to be on that side of publishing. Books are hard, your first book especially so. Teaching yourself plotting, dialogue, characterization, romance — which is mathy. Romance is much more mathy than I thought it would be. You’re doing all of this at the same time and it’s so hard. For anyone out there, you will make it through.

IM: Lastly, what are you reading now and what’s been inspiring you lately?

HB: I’m a big Megan Abbott mystery fan, and I have El Dorado Drive, which I am waiting to read while I’m out on my book tour. I told myself I don’t have to do any work on planes, and I can just read. I went back and read Peter Straub’s Ghost Story, and I’m almost done with The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig. I’m really excited to be able to jump into more once I’m on the road.

IM: Thank you so much for doing this today.

HB: It was such a pleasure.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.