Read on to find out more about the authors and their creation...
My first question is: how did you meet and what
made you decide to collaborate on writing a book?
Cendrine : We met 19 years
ago through mutual friends. Since then, we’ve been the world’s best friends,
like sisters, always available for one another through good and bad times.
Anne : We always wanted to
write, we just (!) needed an idea to actually get started. We were such
friends, it was unthinkable to write alone: Oksa would not exist if Cendrine or
I weren’t part of it. Also, being two makes us faster, gets us further, and
makes us braver…
How does the partnership of two authors work in
practice, and does it involve arguments about the story and the characters?
Cendrine : Our partnership
is based on one common principle: it doesn’t matter who does what, what matters
is the end result!
For a more specific answer: we’ve worked on the plot, the outline and the
characters profiles together. For each scene, we discuss the approach and the
sequence of events. We each contribute our ideas depending on our preferences,
our feelings and our imagination. Then Anne transcribes the discussion and
tells the story. Then I bring my bit – Anne writes in black, I write in red,
and we trade versions, we each review, add to and improve until we agree on
everything. When the text is entirely black, we continue.
Anne : The point of
working as a duo is that, at times, one of us has to discuss and defend her point
of view to convince the other to add her ideas to the text, which forces us to
think things through, question things in a way we wouldn’t if we each worked
alone. And the huge upside of all this is the merger between what we each do
best (but mum’s the word, it’s a secret recipe).
Where did Oksa’s name originate? It is lovely and suits her character really
well, being very unusual.
Anne : The name comes from my
Ukrainian great aunt, whose name was Oksana. I’ve never met her, I only have a
very small photograph of her, where she looks very determined and her head is
braided around her head. So we named our young heroine Oksa, shortening it to
fit her somewhat [explosive] character. ‘Oksa’ it strikes like lightening! And
we gave Dragomira Oksana’s hairdo; inspiration comes from all sorts of
unexpected sources…
When the book opens, the reader has the
impression that Oksa is going to be an unusual but also fairly typical teenager
– spoilt and grumpy, perhaps a little indulged, too. Are first impressions very important to you
when drawing characters?
Cendrine : What we really like
to do is to introduce characters in a certain light, then let the reader
discover who they really are and change their first impression. It’s so easy to
pass final judgement on someone at first glance, and it’s unfortunate, first
impressions can be so misleading.
Anne : What we like, when
building our characters, is to bring the reader beyond appearances, both good
and bad first impressions. No one is ever completely who they seem and it is
this unknown part in everyone, with their contradictions and their secrets,
which makes each one of us so interesting. Also we show our true personality
through our actions, more than anything.
Dragomira, another wonderful name suggesting
mystical fantasy, sounds like a wonderful grandmother. Is she modelled on anyone or is she indeed
the type of grandmother one of you would have liked to have?
Cendrine : Like Oksa, Dragomira
is a name which really exists, even though the character herself is so
wonderful, she is somewhat unreal.
Anne : My grandmothers, as
Cendrine’s unfortunately, had very little in common with Oksa’s. I would have
loved to have a gran like Dragomira of course. I am convinced that such
eccentric and delightful women do exist in certain families, lucky families that
they are!
In a story like Okas’s, which straddles reality
and fantasy, is it important for you to create characters who are entirely
believable?
Anne : We wanted a story where
magic appears in reality, and not an adventure in a totally imaginary world. In
the book, the characters and the situations are realistic; this is very
important for us. It allows readers to project themselves more easily into the
book. The characters are credible, they are in fact like the readers, and magic
is secondary. In any case, it isn’t the solution to every problem by far.
People can’t do everything they want – our characters live in reality, and we
use it as a constraint, it’s much more interesting!
Cendrine : Once we’ve
agreed this rule, you can then accept that magic is possible, and that in
everyday life you can be encounter similar situations to those faced by Oksa
and her family.
I think we are meant to love Pavel, Marie and
Gus and strongly dislike Dr McGraw alongside.
Is it important to clearly distinguish between characters who are
ultimately good and bad?
Cendrine : Let’s say this way
of presenting characters is part of the plot itself, and our idea that you
should not judge everything at first sight. “Good” characters also have their
bad sides, and “evil” ones may have a moving side.
Anne : The oath sworn by
the Gracious says: “In everyone, there is good and evil.” Readers will discover
that the characters are more complex than they seem. External events in life
turns us into who we are, along with the choices we made, our conscience and
our own rules.
The story is complex, with numerous threads, exciting
and fast-paced. This is great for the
reader, but did it pose a challenge to you as writers to keep track of
everything?
Anne : Indeed!
Having so many characters, and most of them so complex, requires some serious
preparation! We’ve written the bio of each character (they each have their
little file) and a very detailed family tree.
Cendrine : It’s
the same for the creatures and magic (Granoks and powers): we have lists for
everything, so we’re organised and set up to remember everything.
Did you have the story mapped out and planned
before you sat down to write?
Cendrine : Yes, that was our
very first task: build the outline, set out the key steps of the adventure,
build the threads of the plot in parallel to allow them to meet at the right
time, pick the ideal moment to unveil key bits of information…
Anne : We need to know
where we are going before we set off. When writing we manage the reader’s
perception and choose where to create suspense, and where to reveal.
Did you know how the characters would develop,
and what their reactions would be to the changes that they undergo?
Anne : Even if the outline is
precisely defined from the start, we have to adapt to unexpected developments,
especially with characters. It’s easy to plan a story, much less so to plan the
psychological evolution of the people living it. This is a much more intimate
aspect, which we need to build and decide on as we go along.
Cendrine : As an example, Oksa
is evolving and we have to adapt to the person she’s growing into. You don’t do
the same things at 13 you do when you’re older… she remains who she is deep
down, of course, and her personality doesn’t change but she’s learning from her
mistakes, from her ordeals and from her developing emotions. She’s growing up,
like any teenager!
Has anyone compared the story to anything else
they have read? To me it is a unique combination of the classic themes of
heroine, evil and saving a world, but I am not sure what the literature for
young adults is like in France?
Cendrine : Oksa has been
compared to Harry Potter – that was unavoidable, even if there are major
differences between these two heroes. We accept the connection, there are
elements which are common to all fantasy books: magical powers, unusual
creatures, a struggle between good and evil, a quest, an imaginary land…
Anne : We like to think of
it as cooking: everyone has the same ingredients and the same recipe, and yet
everyone will get to a different result. As far as books go, the same applies. Same
basics but the authors personality, sensitivity, imagination and writing style
make each plot a different story.
Cendrine : In France,
since Harry Potter, there has been a real vogue for fantasy books in children’s
and young adult literature, including a lot of stories about vampires,
impossible love and the supernatural.
I understand that this is the first book in the
series. Did you plan the whole series before you began, do you have a vision,
or do you wait to see where the writing of each book takes you?
Cendrine : When we built the
Oksa outline, we planned the whole of the 6 books.
Anne : We do know the plot of the
story till the end but we have to adapt to the unepxected, and options which we
hadn’t thought of at the beginning. The end hasn’t changed, but how we get to
it has! For example, the Tugdual character was supposed to remain a secondary
character, but he has such a personality, such romantic potential that it was
impossible to leave him in the dark – to such an extent that when Oksa’s
adventures are finished, we’re planning a trilogy about him…
Are you both full-time writers, have you always
written or do you have/have you had other jobs too?
Anne : For the last two years,
yes, writing has indeed become my… er… job! But I’ve had many others in the
past and fairly diverse: I did project
work in China, was a nurse’s aide, a public letter writer, a librarian (my
favourite).
Cendrine : We’re
unbelievably lucky and are now able to live from our writing. But, like Anne, I
did many other jobs before being able to dedicate all my time to books: I was a
sports teacher, did social work in deprived neighbourhoods, was a librarian…
Is there a strong market for children’s fiction
in France and would you like to continue writing about strong heroines after Oksa?
Anne : Yes, fantasy is
enormously popular in France. Maybe people need to get out, imagine a different
world in today’s society, which is so tough and so demanding?
Cendrine : We’ve started a
new series called Susan Hopper¸ still
fantasy but no magic, the story of an orphan who is dealing with her origins. A
very different environment from Oksa’s, much more gothic and intimate. Volume 1
came out in France in March this year and we’re planning the Tugdual Chronicles
for 2014, after the publication of Oksa vol 6 in France next November.
Do you think Oksa or Gus make good role models
for young teens?
Anne : With the story of Oksa
and the Runaways, we were trying to show that everyone has a role to play in
life. For example, Gus has no power, but he lives with very powerful people, he
feels like a loser, useless. But he’s key to the story, and sometimes he shows
human qualities which are much more important than any magical power. As for
Oksa, we wanted to show that her mistakes, her weaknesses, her doubts were
unavoidable, even when you’re a great
magician like her. What’s important is to take responsibility for the
consequences of one’s decisions and build something positive out of them…
Cendrine : Then, yes, both
can be role models: you have to accept who you are, keep going and try to
improve, and realise that needing other people doesn’t mean you’re weak – on
the contrary!
There is a lot of history in the story, as well
as fast-paced action. Will a historical novel be coming next, or is it just a
useful device for this story?
Cendrine : We’re
having great fun adding stories within the story, and some of these are based
on actual facts, which defy the imagination! It allows us to understand the
characters better and helps us to empathise with them. We love to tell life-stories,
and take detours in the storyline to shed some light on the characters’ personalities.
Anne : A person’s past
is often very helpful for us to understand them, in literature and in real life.
Some people’s lives are so eventful, so unbelievable! As for the people around
Oksa, I like the idea that each of them could have their own book. None of them
are really secondary…
Do you have any literary role models?
Anne : Dozens, and in very
different genres (except in fantasy lit, I read very little of this genre!). I
am going to be terribly unfair and only list a few (may all the others forgive
me): I especially like John Irving, Barbara Pym, Robert Goolrick, Iain Levison,
Tom Sharpe, Jane Austen, Alan Bennett, Kate Atkinson, Dany Laferrière… and Chuck
Palahniuk (the scariest!), among so many others. All authors who managed to
take me elsewhere have mattered to me.
Cendrine : I’m not as
compulsive a reader as Anne, but I have huge admiration for John Fante, Neil
Gaiman and Philip Pullman.
Do you have favourite books or authors who have
been your inspiration, and how would you advise those who would like to follow
in your footsteps?
Anne : We’ve always been very
open about the fact that J.K. Rowling’s venture, with its difficult start, has
been a source of encouragement for us. We thought: if she can get Harry Potter
to exist, maybe we can get Oksa to exist, too? Her determination was an example
to us.
Cendrine : Her determination,
persistence, rigour, hard work, effort. Writing a book needs this, first and
foremost. As for the rest, there is always a part of luck, or of magic, in all
aspects of life – meeting the right people, seizing the moment…
Thank you for taking the time to
answer these questions and give the readers of Armadillo some insight into Oksa Pollock and your
work.
Thank you very much, Louise, for these very interesting questions! Some
of them were a little unexpected, but we love that kind of surprise.
See you soon, we hope, here or elsewhere
Anne & Cendrine
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