An Interview with Trudi Canavan
Trudi Canavan is an award-winning, best-selling writer of fantasy novels, penning the The Black Magician Trilogy, The Traitor Spy Trilogy, The Age of the Five Trilogy, and the Millennium’s Rule series.
A former designer and illustrator, Trudi has created amazing worlds with her fantastical stories, winning the Aurealis Awards for Best Fantasy Short Story with Whispers of the Mist Children and Best Fantasy Novel for The Magician’s Apprentice (2009).
In 2001, her debut novel The Magicians’ Guild, the first book in The Black Magician Trilogy, was released to critical acclaim with the trilogy selling hundreds of thousands of copies and being translated into multiple languages.
We spoke to Trudi about why she first wanted to write speculative fiction, her rules for worldbuilding, and advice for budding writers.
“I wanted to create worlds as rich and complex as Tolkien’s and stories as thrilling as those of my favourite films.”
Q: What got you into writing in the first place?
When I was a child my Dad used to sit on the couch and make notes for a book he wanted to write one day, and when I pestered him to tell me what it was about he said I was too young to understand. Of course, this made writing seem very mysterious and important. Later, reading young adult fiction and The Lord of the Rings, and watching Star Wars, made me want to write fantasy specifically. I wanted to create worlds as rich and complex as Tolkien’s and stories as thrilling as those of my favourite films.
Q: How has your career influenced your writing?
Writing is my career.
Before then I had jobs, but they weren’t what I intended to be. They did prove useful, however. I was a designer for two publishing companies and then a freelance illustrator mostly for the publishing industry, and I gained a good understanding of how traditional publishing worked. Also, a side-effect of working as a freelance illustrator before the internet and digital cameras were a thing (gosh I’m old!) was that sourcing reference material at libraries led to many good ideas sparked by the books that I borrowed.
Q: How do you find time to write?
When I was first starting out and was young and fit I squeezed it into evenings and weekends. Sometimes I wrote scenes during breaks at work. When I was working as a freelancer I found that commissions were often due to a company outsourcing work when time was running out, so I’d work crazy hours for a few weeks. When the job was done I’d move into job seeking mode and write in the leftover time. Once I was published I transitioned to doing writing full time and never looked back.
Q: Are there any particular authors you look up to?
Many authors!
Tolkien, Lloyd Alexander and Diana Wynne Jones, then Tanith Lee, David Eddings and Raymond Feist in the 80s. Robin Hobb and Guy Gavriel Kay stand out as favourites of the 90s. At that point and into the 00s we started to see Australian fantasy writers being published, of which Garth Nix, Jennifer Fallon and Glenda Larke were favourites.
Q: What are you reading, listening to, or watching at the moment?
I’m between books at the moment. The most recent fiction I read was Gideon the Ninth which I found intriguing and original, and I’m tossing up whether to start James S A Corey’s The Mercy of Gods or something older from the ‘to read’ bookcase. I’m not listening to anything in particular at the moment – YouTube has taken over from podcasts and I mainly watch vlogs by artists. We also finished the Icons Unearthed series on the Harry Potter films recently so moved on to a rewatch of the movies, both which gave us an appreciation of all the talented people who worked on them.
Q: What is your approach to writing short fiction, as opposed to novels? How do you start?
It depends on the brief, really. If the story is for an anthology with a theme, I’ll ruminate on that until a story suggests itself. If it is linked to one of the worlds in my books it will probably be a backstory that I didn’t have the space to include in the books. Or the story might simply spring from an entirely new source of inspiration or idea. Either way, when I know I have the main structure decided on, I’ll sit down and try to find a killer first paragraph for a bit, and whether one comes to me or not I’ll then get to work fleshing out the tale.
Q: You’ve written both short stories and novels. Can you talk about the difference between the two formats and how they inform each other?
This is something I’ve never felt I understood 100%. Partly because, in the early days, test readers would sometimes say that a short story of mine ‘felt like it was part of a bigger story’ or ‘read like a first chapter’ as if that was a bad thing. Then one day I encountered a fantastic first chapter that felt like a short story, and the feedback made more sense. It was a structural issue. A chapter needs to leave a reader hanging so they’re eager to keep reading. A short story needs a certain structural completeness. Well, there are always exceptions of course.
Q: Can you give us a few of your favourite pieces of short fiction that you’ve read over the years?
I’m not sure if I’d call them favourites, but there are some stories that have always stuck with me. Tanith Lee once wrote one that made you think about the issue of bad relationships… when at the end the male turned out to be a half-wild cat. Margo Lanagan’s Singing My Sister Down was a perfect example of picking the right point of view to tell a tale. Kaaron Warren wrote one that haunts me where people were eaten by a bed!
Q: What’s one thing you wish people wrote about more?
Not so much a subject, but an approach. I wish people wrote their characters a bit more real. By that I mean they get tired after walking all day and get a bit cranky, pick up the latest flu randomly, are actually seen practising horse-riding/archery/sword-fighting/magic as much as would be needed to be good at it.
Q: World building is an important element of many speculative fiction stories. Can you discuss how you approach world building with examples from your work?
I have three rules:
1. obey the laws of physics,
2. when you break the laws of physics have a proper thought-through fantasy reason for it or it’ll look like you made a mistake,
3. however, there are some fantasy elements (like flying horses, dragons) that are so well accepted that it looks silly if you over-explain them.
Q: What was the one moment that made you feel like a Real Author™?
I never felt I wasn’t a real author. If you write you are a writer; if you have written something you are an author. The idea that you’re not a real author unless you’re published is nonsense and unfair to people who write for the enjoyment of it. I think I dismiss this ‘real author’ thing more easily because I am also an artist, and there is no shame in making art for enjoyment or considering it a hobby.
“If you write you are a writer; if you have written something you are an author.”
The moments where I had a reality check were more to do with signs that I might be good at writing. The first was when Aurealis magazine accepted my first short story. That was pretty wild. I’d submitted it under a pseudonym, afraid that they’d find out their designer was an awful writer, but when they accepted I had to confess. Then it won an Aurealis Award. That was proof the hard work of honing my skills was paying off.
Q: How do you beat writer’s block?
I don’t think I’ve ever had writer’s block. There have always been too many ideas to chase – and noodling about with words has always been fun. To me, writer’s block is when you want to write but can’t. I’ve been in that situation but only due to back pain so bad I couldn’t think. I’ve also had burnout, which is when you don’t want to write, but can if you must. The only cure for that is time.
Q: How do you handle rejections?
With a thank you for their time. Everyone has their own taste, and publishers are primarily looking for works and authors that suit their publication or imprint. If your piece is rejected it isn’t personal. It simply didn’t fit their requirements, and has an equal chance somewhere else. That said, there is no perfect story and there’s always room for improvement. I will always go over rejected work to rewrite or polish it before sending it out again. Or I sit on it for a while to see if I want to make bigger changes. (But I also keep copies of earlier versions, in case I don’t like the changes, or someone asks for a shorter or longer version.)
Q: What’s one piece of advice you’d like to give to new writers who are eager to break into the speculative fiction world?
The same advice I’d give about how to approach life in general: work hard and be kind to people. And take good care of your back and hands.
Q: Is there something about the industry that you wish you knew before you got involved?
To always thank people as if you’ll never see them again. Which will probably seem weird at the time, but you never know what will happen – pandemics, revolutions, illness, death, sudden shifts in publishing, people moving to a new job – to prevent you from thanking them for their help and support. If nothing changes they’ll still appreciate your gratitude.
Q: Is there any work you have coming up that you would like to speak about?
I’m hoping to publish a collection of short stories and novellas, which would include a few stories set in the worlds of my books, most of which haven’t been easily available outside Australia. I haven’t written a lot of shorter work, but I’ve always enjoyed the change of format and being able to try other genres and styles of writing.
You can find Trudi’s full range of publications here.