Cynthia Hand is the author of the Unearthly series. Her latest book, “Boundless,” hits bookstores today. The following is a complete transcript of her interview with Cracking the Cover.
Have you always wanted to be a writer?
Yes. From the first time I could hold a pencil in my hand, I think, I’ve tried to write stories. That said, I guess the answer is better posed like this: I always was a writer. There were times I wanted to be something else–a ballet dancer, an actress, a lawyer (I was pre-law in college) but writing is something I always came back to, because it was just part of who I was.
Why do you write for young readers?
I just think that this time, those teenage years, is such a fertile period in a person’s life. You’re discovering who you are, deciding, who you want to be, understanding the world for the first time as an adult. That’s a goldmine for writers. And I love the fans–I love the enthusiasm and the love they throw at books. They read so passionately and so personally at that age.
Where did the idea for the Unearthly series come from?
A mysterious firing of neurons in my brain. One day I just started to hear Clara’s narrative voice, and I wrote it down, and then I started asking questions about her, and finding the answers, and the places, and the reasons, and the story unrolled for me like a long rolled up carpet.
Did you always plan it as a trilogy?
I actually saw it as four books, originally, and even wrote the third book that way–as the third book of four. But then my editor smarter suggested that I get things moving a little faster, so we ended up with three books and a novella instead of four books.
What is it about angels that people find so fascinating?
I think what’s cool about the idea of angels is that they are part of the divine and yet they also resemble and interact with humans.
Do you believe in them?
Yes. I like the idea. Although I’m not sure about the idea that we are constantly in the presence of a guardian angel.
In “Boundless” Clara really comes into her own. How did you develop her character?
One thing that was great about Clara as she initially came to me was that she was a completely flawed little person. Sure, she was pretty and good at stuff, and part-divine, but she was also a tad self-absorbed and self-conscious and she cared a bit too much what other people thought of her. Flaws are important. In my early writing life, most of my characters were versions of myself, minus the flaws, as a sort of mental role playing. But I grew out of that (or had it beaten out of me in grad school, not sure which, lol) and my characters now have a pretty equal balance of strength and weakness. So there is room to grow. Clara grew so much throughout the series, until the very end when she chooses to stand up and take charge of her own destiny. I love that about her.
With each book, Clara’s story grows in scope. Was it hard to pull all the elements together?
Yes. (understatement) Sometimes I felt like my narrative was a bit of a rats nest, because I had so many threads. I did this thing where I wrote out the outline of the book (after I’d written it) and then highlighted the different threads in different colors and tried to see them distinctly, to figure out how I could weave them together better. Some days it was a nightmare. But all the sweat and tears and highlighter ink paid off in the end.
How are you feeling now that you’re done with the series?
It was rather like graduating from high school. Now I get to stare in the bright beyond of my future and ponder, “now what?”
How does the finished product compare to what you initially imagined?
It’s pretty similar, although in so many ways, it turned out better than I ever could have imagined. I didn’t know the characters so well at the beginning of this process, so the end didn’t have the same kind of impact for me.
Why do you think readers like your books?
Because they can make you laugh AND cry. That’s the kind of stories I love best–the kind that are both comic and tragic.
What are you working on now?
A new project, which is a contemporary with a tiny supernatural twist. Hopefully I will be done in the Spring.
Looking back, how has your writing evolved?
Every semester I let my students read my very first serious adult attempt at a short story, which was, quite simply, horrible. And every semester, it amazes me anew how far I’ve come. I have learned so much, through school, through grad school, through crazy, down-to-the-studs revisions, through publishing my first stories, and then, at long last, through writing the Unearthly novels. Every year I figure out what works for me just a little bit more, and grow in my confidence and take even bigger and better risks as a writer. And I’ve learned to guard my writing life and hold on to what I love about writing, which I think you have to do in this day and age where there are so many things to take you away from writing.
Is there a book from your own youth that still resonates with you?
There are a lot of books that resonate with me, wow. One of my fave series that I haven’t mentioned before is the Dave Duncan Man of His Word series, which I read when I was 18 or so. It’s a fantasy about this tiny little kingdom, a princess and a stableboy, and a magic that resides in words of power, which are usually only passed along on a person’s death bed. I won’t go into how much I loved that book, but it was such a creative, fully-realized world and a cool concept. I think, at the heart of it, I loved the idea of there being magic in words. And, in my own life, that has turned out to be so true.