The Meaning Behind The Tale

An interview with Kate Forsyth by Van Ikin

You can also download this interview in pdf format.

• What made you decide to start writing?
• Why did you choose to write fantasy?
• As a writer, how do you feel about the university approach to literature? What did you gain from it?
• Do you think fantasy has a special appeal to female writers?
• Do you read much sf, then?
• Why dragons?
• There's a distinct Scottish flavour to Dragonclaw. What's behind this?
• Can you take us into the creative process?
• Tell us how you created your heroine, Isabeau?
• Is Isabeau you?
• How do you see yourself as a writer?
• What are the toughest aspect of writing?
• What are your working on at present?

What made you decide to start writing?

I've always wanted to be a writer. I can't remember a time when that wasn't the total sum of my ambitions. Unlike most children I never wavered in my desire. I was taught to read very early, and my mother read to us every night - stories and poems at first, then books, a chapter a night. By the time I went to school I was reading children's novels while my classmates were still struggling with their ABC. My mother was reprimanded quite severely for it, but there was no stopping me once I started. By the time I left primary school I had literally read every fiction book in the library, and had already written a couple of novels and countless stories and poems. I dreamt of spending my days reading and writing, the two great joys of my life, and often think how lucky I am that I can now do as I've always wanted.

Why did you choose to write fantasy?

I loved reading fantasy as a child. The first book I ever read was C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. My aunt had been reading it to me and my elder sister, a chapter at a time, and my sister tormented me by reading further into the book and then not telling me what happened. Desperate to know, I puzzled through it and gradually the marks on the page became words. I then read the whole Narnia series, as well as The Hobbit and other children's fantasy and adventure novels.

Between the ages of about thirteen and sixteen, my best friend and I wrote a fantasy trilogy ourselves, about an orphan girl that slips into another world by mistake, and has to undertake various difficult tasks to help stop the dark side from conquering. We used to scribble frantically all through our classes, each writing different characters and scenes, and on the weekends we played out the stories. For quite a while our imaginary world seemed far more resplendent and enticing than the boring world of Geography and Science class.

Then, of course, the HSC intruded, and I went on to study literature at university, doing a BA at Macquarie University. I was reading Joyce, Proust and Mann, and dreamed of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature with my world-shakingly profound books. The adult fantasy I read did not have the same level of enchantment as children's, much of it being crudely written, highly derivative and unashamedly patriarchal. So I stopped reading fantasy for quite a few years.

Meanwhile, I was no longer writing as obsessively as I had always done, having to support myself through my degree and then having to work for a living. Being a journalist and writing articles all day killed my creative writing, although I was playing about with a novel when I could find the time. So after I'd turned 25 and was plunged into depression at the fact that my dreams of being a great novelist were not coming true, I quit fulltime work and began to freelance. I laboured over a serious, literary, magic realism novel for about four years, eventually using it as my thesis for an MA in Writing, which I studied at the University of Western Sydney.

I wrote the first draft of Dragonclaw while I was studying, probably in reaction to the “fictive discourses” we were told to construct in our writing classes. About 50,000 words into the first draft, I sent off a few sample chapters to Gaby Naher at Hickson Associates. She came back the next day, saying loved it, when can you get me a complete manuscript? I wrote madly for the next few months (practically ignoring my studies and work commitments). I finished the first draft, she put it up for auction, and I signed with Random House by the end of the month. This made me particularly happy, since it was within a week or two of my 30th birthday, thus fulfilling one of those arbitrary deadlines we set ourselves when we are young and naive!

As a writer, how do you feel about the university approach to literature? What did you gain from it?

Studying critical theory at university made me really examine what it was I loved about reading. I discovered I loved books that created such a vivid world that I was totally absorbed, coming out at the end dazed and not quite sure what realm I was in. I hated many of the post-modern texts we were reading at uni, finding their games with the concept of the reader and the writer obtrusive, so that I was never able to fully enter into the imaginary dimension. Most were self-conscious and even barren, like a maze of mirrors at a fairground where you see your own reflection continually bouncing back at you, distorted and inchoate. At the end of my second semester, instead of reading Deleuze, Derrida, Lacan, Lyotard and the literature of exhaustion, as I should have, I read Tad Williams' and Robert Jordan's epic fantasies. I was entranced and delighted, particularly by the first (I grew quite wearied of Jordan and his machismo by the sixth book and never bothered reading the seventh!). I immediately thought, I could write something like that!, so once university holidays began, I sat down and began writing my own.

Do you think fantasy has a special appeal to female writers? Is fantasy catering for women's interests in a way that sf does not?

There has been a worldwide boom in women fantasy writers the last few years, with many brilliant, well-written and original books being published. Previous to this, I feel fantasy was often as male-focused as sf, particularly the sword and sorcerer tale with its heroes with bulging pectorals and helpless females that were enough to make any self-respecting woman grind her teeth. For example, I read David Eddings' Belgariad series and really enjoyed that, except for his female characters, who were either smug and manipulative, or coy and really irritating (at one point, I thought, if Ce'Nedra coils her ringlets around her finger one more time, I swear I'll scream!)

SF and fantasy are both concerned with exploring the boundaries of the impossible. One of the key differences between them, I think, is that sf sets its stories in a mechanically or technologically developed world, with spaceships, cybernauts, ray guns etc., while fantasy is primarily concerned with a non-technological realm where ideas of inherent, personal powers are explored.

I certainly have never had any interest in any type of machinery - cars, guns and the inside workings of clocks leave me completely cold. I've always been fascinated with ideas of magic, however. My mother has a degree in anthropology and psychology, and so much of our dinner time conversation was concerned with religions, mythologies and human cultures. Many fantasies, particularly those written by females, draw on ancient, pagan religions, where women were not subservient as they have always been in Judaic-Christian traditions. Many feature powerful priestesses or sorceresses, and celebrate a oneness with the forces of nature, something that has symbolically always been a feminine power. I think this has been an empowering experience for many women readers, who love the strong, interesting heroines who are not afraid to pursue wisdom and power for themselves. So, yes, I do think contemporary fantasy is catering for women's interests in a way that sf does not.

Do you read much sf, then? Male writers so often say they spent their childhoods reading Asimov and Heinlein and Doc Smith and were vastly inspired by this. What is the pattern for a female?

I am afraid I have never read much Asimov or Heinlein, though I'm aware I'm committing a heresy to say so. I was a voracious reader as a child, and devoured just about every book I could get my hands on. Fantasy writers that I particularly loved include Ursula le Guin, Diana Wynne Jones, Lloyd Alexander, George Macdonald, Susan Cooper (a major influence on me at the age of twelve!), Tolkien of course, Enid Blyton (dare I admit it!), Madeleine L'Engle, Patricia Wrightson, Alan Garner, Peter Dickinson, Elizabeth Goudge and Joan Aiken. There were many more, of course, but the ones I loved wrote classic or humorous fantasy, which involved some growth on the part of the major characters. I never read much sf, now or then, though I studied the sf classics like H.G. Wells at school. In recent years, since my interest in heroic fantasy has been re-kindled, I've particularly enjoyed the work of Robin Hobb, Janny Wurts, Katharine Kerr, Marion Zimmer Bradley in her Mists of Avalon manifestation, Maggie Furey, Tad Williams, and Jane Welch (a new writer that I have just begun to read). There is a heavy preponderance of women writers among those names, I am aware, which perhaps explains why I've enjoyed them so much.

Why dragons?

I don't know why I have such a fascination with dragons. I remember the first time I read The Hobbit - I loved Bilbo's confrontation with the wily old dragon Smaug. Then the dragons in Ursula le Guin's Earthsea series were suitably mysterious and arrogant - most dragons I've read about since just haven't had the same disdainful magnificence. I've read all of Anne McCaffrey's Pern series, for example, but her dragons are somehow too tame.

Their allure may have something to do with a general fascination I have with winged creatures. I have always wanted to fly. In fact, I've written a poem about that particular secret longing called “The Wish”, which I'll send to you. When I started to write my fantasy series, I basically decided to embrace everything I've always loved about fantasy, which naturally included dragons, and abandon everything I've always disliked (such as shallow characters, slick moral allegories, helpless females and battles with forces of ultimate evil that somehow get resurrected for a sequel). I am a little dismayed by the plethora of dragon books and movies that have been released in the past couple of years. When I started writing Dragonclaw, there hadn't been a good dragon epic for years, but now the bookshops are bursting at the seams with novels called Dragoncharm, Dragonspell, and so on.

There's a distinct Scottish flavour to Dragonclaw. What's behind this?

My grandmother's grandmother, Ellen Mackenzie, came to Australia from Scotland as a young woman in the early 1800s, and my father's mother also comes from Scottish stock (the Macdonalds), so there are strong family connections with Scotland. When I was a little girl I used to stay with my great-aunts, who were both very intelligent, well-educated women who had never married. Like most of my family, they were great storytellers and told many tales about “the Auld Country” - its history and folklore in particular. As a result I have always been interested in Scotland, and read many books about it as I was growing up.

Although there is a grand tradition of “second sight” among the Scots, I did not think to use the Scottish tradition in my books until I was quite a way into the first draft of Dragonclaw. One of the things I've always disliked about fantasy is the way many writers set their tale in a society that is so similar to the Dark and Middle Ages in England while manifestly not being England. I like my fantasy rooted in the real, so I was searching for some way to link my world's culture to human culture, while still being free to indulge my imagination.

Watching a documentary on witchcraft one night, I heard about how King James VI of Scotland brought the savage witch-hunts of Europe to Britain after he married Anne of Denmark. On the way home from his wedding, a turbulent storm almost wrecked his ship and he became convinced it was caused by satanic witches aiming to undermine his throne.

There was, of course, a strong tradition of paganism and occult lore in Scotland that persisted long after King James VI had become the first Scottish king of England - just think of Shakespeare's Macbeth which was written around this time. It was only after the death of the real Macbeth in 1057 that Christianity really began to have any sway in Scotland, and in the 12th century, the ancient Celtic religion was still practised widely if secretly. Three hundred years later, when James VI inherited the throne from Mary, Queen of Scots, the Protestant movement under the stern leadership of John Knox had driven the old beliefs even further underground.

I wove my world around the idea that a group of “witches” fled the savage witch-hunts of Scotland in the late 15th century, enacting a spell that took them to another world where they could practise magic and worship their pantheist, pagan religion in freedom, much as the Puritans did a hundred years later.

Of course, they went to a different planet, as opposed to merely crossing the oceans to a new continent.

Consequently, I tried to imagine how this history would shape the new society - its language, political structure, religion, mores and folklore, and that is why so many of the words, names, speech patterns and so on have a Scottish feel to them.

Can you take us a bit more deeply into the creative process by explaining how you shaped some of the specific features of the novel - for example, the Fairgean sea-dwellers?

I have a very visual imagination, so what tends to start me writing will be a strong image or mind-picture. A swaddled baby lying cradled in tree-roots, an old, old woman with animals clustered around her, a man with wings as black as night, a child swimming through water, glinting with scales.... As I write, I “see” what is happening almost as if it is a movie unrolling in my mind. Ideas and images came crowding in, and I race to record them before they dissolve.

I write very quickly, often jotting scenes in shorthand to get the whole stream of ideas down. Then I go back later, ponder what I've written, and how - I always polish my prose as much as I can so it flows effortlessly. As my ideas coalesce into character and plot, I do a lot of reading and research to try and make my creations as real and lucid as possible. For example, when developing the Fairgean, I read a book called The Aquatic Ape which theorises that humans may once have been aquatic creatures. I also read up on whales, dolphins and other aquatic mammals, as well as books on mermaids, selkies and other mythic sea creatures.

The Mesmerdean are an insectoid race, and so I read about dragonflies and damsel flies to get ideas on how they would lay their eggs, and metamorphose and so on. As I studied and thought and daydreamed, new ideas would spark, new plot twists reveal themselves to me, new connections between characters develop, sometimes amazing me as much as I hope they amaze the book's readers.

Tell us something about how you created your heroine, Isabeau. How do you hope readers will see her?

Initially, the character of Isabeau was very much determined by her circumstances - a foundling child, discovered lying in the roots of a tree by an old wood witch and raised by her to love the forest creatures and understand herbs and healing. That vision was one of the first images or ideas that I had. Then a few months into the writing I dreamt one night of a red-haired girl being pursued through a snowy landscape (which will eventually be a scene from Book 3, so I won't tell you any more about that particular dream!)...

Isabeau was still a rather shadowy figure then - her hair was dark and her background still a mystery. The dream, however, was so vivid that I carried it with me into my writing. Isabeau became a red-head, with the snows playing an important part in her ancestry. After that she came to life - impetuous, quick-witted, tender-hearted, impatient, prone to falling into trouble....

I know this is a difficult question - or a stupid one, depending upon how you look at it - but: Is Isabeau you?

Sure, we know it's a work of fantasy and so we know it's not you - but if the background to your fantasy world comes from parts of real-world history, isn't it also true that aspects of your heroine come from the real-world too?
I think this is an interesting question because it goes straight to the heart of the whole process of fictional creation. No, of course Isabeau is not me ... and yet...

I think writers draw on their own memories and experiences as much as thought and imagination. Clearly Dragonclaw is not autobiographical, as the first novels of so many writers are. Yet I have put a great deal of myself and my understanding of the world into it. Like Isabeau, I love animals and am prone to rescuing strays. I do not have Isabeau's temper or her knowledge of herbs and healing, but I've been accused of being impetuous, outspoken, and impatient, just like Isabeau. Yet she's a vegetarian and I have to admit to a fondness of steak with bernaise sauce....

I think what writers do is to take certain aspects of a known character, themselves or someone else, and use that to spin a whole new person. What makes people interesting is their odd quirks and inconsistencies, and I've certainly tried to make my characters extremely vivid and multi-dimensional. In some ways, there's as much of me in other characters as there is in Isabeau, and as little.

How do you see yourself as a writer? Primarily as entertainer or story-teller - or do you see your work as expressing a viewpoint?

I think it is important to understand the role of the storyteller in human culture. In every human society, the teller of tales has always had a function to teach those that listen, whether it be the culture's belief systems, or moral codes, or simply appropriate behaviour. The more powerful and affecting the story, the deeper the message would sink. I feel contemporary literature suffers greatly from its loss of narrative power - one of the reasons I chose to write fantasy is because it is a fictive form that not only tells a story, but celebrates the deeper function of telling a story, the essential meaning behind the tale.

So, yes, I see myself as a storyteller and entertainer, and yes, I feel my work expresses my philosophies and personal belief systems. I feel the two are inextricably entwined, like yin and yang, like the two sides of a coin.

What for you has been the toughest or most difficult aspect of writing? ... And the best part?

I love to write, it is an act of joy. To be able to spend my day spinning stories is all I have ever wanted. However, I get deeply involved in my world and my characters and so far each book has been a massive undertaking - long and involved. So by the end of each manuscript I've been physically exhausted, dreaming every night about the book and spending many long hours at the computer. The editing and polishing process is particularly arduous, for I have to wrench myself away from the text and try to be as critical and objective as possible. Words that have gained their own vivid life have to be forced into mere marks on a page again, and I have to judge them as if they were strangers to me. This is a fascinating and ultimately rewarding process, but can sometimes drain me considerably.

Then comes the most difficult time of all - waiting to see how other people respond to it. I think writers lie when they say they care nothing about what others think. We write in order to connect. We write to build a bridge across the chasm. We write in the hope our words will make people feel and think and wonder. Always I am afraid that my aim has been greater than my ability, and that I have not bridged that chasm as well and completely as I wished.

What are you working on at present?

I am now engaged on the final edit and polish of Book 2 in the series, The Pool of Two Moons, which will be in the bookshops May 1998, and writing Book 3, The Tower of Roses and Thorns. I am also writing poetry, as always, and supplementing my income with articles for various magazines.