V.E. Schwab is an expert on monsters.
Schwab told CBS News that her most popular fiction works thrived because they were more realistic in their portrayals of young adult fantasy. Schwab enjoys balancing the delight of a terrifying monster with the hope that her readers seek in a genre already saturated by world-building formulaics.
Schwab believes this is because she respects her teenage and young adult readers. She believes they are stronger than any other authors.
Schwab’s stories have richly decorated worlds and are full of variety. However, Schwab’s books share a few common threads. Schwab has big bads that are more evil, main characters who are increasingly void of moral values, and odds that seem so overwhelming that they border on cruelty.
Her books are still entertaining, however. Schwab’s novels are a delight to read. Schwab’s characters live and die with the macabre. Schwab doesn’t rely on clichés, but pushes the boundaries of their worlds as well as their genre. Schwab’s books are characterized by a strong respect for queer characters. Schwab often centers the voices of strong women protagonists in a way which defies any pretenses of pandering, and instead relies upon the power of existence.
Schwab is a New York Times bestseller and has published nearly a dozen young adult fantasy books. It takes her four to five months to complete a first draft of a book, which is a pace that can be considered slow for experienced writers. She is also not slowing down with “Gallant,” her next book due to be released in 2022.
Schwab’s first TV project, “First Kill”, is now streaming on Netflix. Two other projects are in active development. Schwab’s work has grown to be not only a landmark collection of fantasy novels but an empire on rise.
CBS News interviewed Schwab about her motivations for writing, her big-screen projects, and how she changed her life by writing for “an audience”
V.E. Schwab: What I keep grasping at is that I am used to having complete control over everything. I have complete control over the story, the packaging and the readership. This has taught me a lot about how little control I have.
This is probably why I am so anxious. This is what I do. This is what I have done for the past 12 years. I am terrible at adulthood. However, I am very skilled at getting lost in my own thoughts, especially when it involves writing novels or telling stories. It’s a completely new space to be in the shared storytelling space.
V.E. Schwab: Oh, my goodness. Did you know that the latest script was submitted yesterday? It seems so. It’s very alive. It is amazing to me that TV and film can sometimes make publishing seem fast. Last month, I finished a novel that will be published in 18 months. The “First Kill” novel was completed in three years, and it aired on TV almost exactly three years after its writing. This is amazing for TV.
“Darker Shades,” is taking its sweet-ass. It’s a huge film and we have a lot of money so it makes me feel that we must do it right. Sony and I both want it to go right. It’s alive and well, and I can’t wait to see the new script. It’s been a creative purgatory, a waiting and creative purgatory. I suppose I should write more books, because that’s something that I can control.
I am a popcorn optimist. If I don’t have popcorn, I won’t believe that a thing exists. When I only have four to five things on screen, I will say “I have an empire.”
V.E. Schwab: I believe that books are the best kind of cake, and adaptations the best. This isn’t my industry. I am very good at grounding in this space. However, seeing a project come to life requires compromise. You go from being the creator of your creative universe to being a part of a larger system that has many visions and aesthetics.
It’s an alchemical process that makes the whole so much more than the parts.
The positives far outweigh any drawbacks, provided that you are able to dissociate yourself from the medium. This medium is not going to behave like my books. It doesn’t follow me as my books do. It doesn’t hold my vision as well. Writing novels is the act of transferring an idea from your head onto paper. It is also the act of planting a seed and letting it grow wild.
V.E. Schwab: While coming out stories can be powerful, they also make sexuality anothering element. You don’t belong and you have to be out. This is perhaps because for me, it’s very personal. I was able to come out as an adult and didn’t require a coming-out story. We’ve made a lot of progress in media. There is still this trend of putting emphasis on queer characters, if they are the main characters of a story, then it must be about their queerness.
That’s what it says to young queer audiences: “This is why you write stories about me.” You can’t ignore any other aspect. It doesn’t matter if you are a swimmer or a hunter. Your sexuality is what makes you here or there. This is a subtle injury. It’s clear that if this is not about your queerness it doesn’t mean you are going to be the center of it.
V.E. Schwab: I have never seen a world in which I would write a book or show where I would bury my gays. This is my biggest frustration. It’s a difficult world, and I write very dark books. My readers come to me for some hope. There are some things I will do for my characters and others that I won’t.
When I talk to readers, it feels like I have a very dark answer. It is that if I kill the characters, then I can’t torture them anymore. What’s the point of all this? It’s much more fun to push characters to the breaking point and pull them back from that edge.
I believe in happy endings in stories. They can be earned.
V.E. Schwab: There’s a reason saccharine is so beloved. However, that doesn’t mean it will always be my favorite. It doesn’t provide me with the opportunities I had as a teenager, nor does it give me the freedom I desire as an adult. What I find most powerful is the ability to survive and persevere and thrive against a tide. We live in dark times. As a fantasy writer, I try to make the impossible tangible.
We can’t fight the violence epidemic here in America. However, we can fight the violence epidemic if they become monsters. Teenagers feel the most unheard. You feel powerless. It feels like you are unable to move the world in the way that you want. So I believe one reason I write fantasy is to give my readers and characters, children, teens, or adults, the tools they need to defeat a world that doesn’t have them.
V.E. Schwab: My main characters always are outsiders. The thing about outsiders, is that they can change the world around themselves if they wish. They move in the opposite direction to the story as the villain, just like they have the power to break the mold. This is the beauty of both protagonists and villains. They don’t move in the same direction as everyone else. This is what makes stories so special. It’s not rebellion that I want, but my characters push against what is happening around them. They look for the cracks in their world and attempt to open it up.
V.E. Schwab: No. It is important to remember that I sold my first book at 21. I’m 34. Now, I have 22 books published. For the first four to five years, however, I struggled to make ends meet. Living at home, I earned less than the minimum wage for books. They were not being read by anyone. I almost quit books at 25.
I was basically able to have this revelation, and wrote the book “Vicious.” It was the last book I would ever publish. Because I didn’t have any more f***s, pardon me, I decided to just write what I wanted to read without worrying about how a publisher would market it.
That book was the turning point in my career. It was my first novel for adults and the beginning of a new chapter. The lesson I learned was that I write for one audience. I cannot control the number of people who read every word I write. It is impossible to control the way that publishers promote it. The story I am most excited about telling is the one I control. Every book I write, literally, is my own.
