Today I chat with Brent Williamson, author of the marvelous
Gwendolyn Gray books. I reviewed the first one, The Marvelous Adventures of Gwendolyn Gray here, and the hot-off-the-presses sequel, The Fantastical Exploits of Gwendolyn Gray here.
Deborah J. Ross: Tell
us a little about yourself. How did you come to be a writer?
Brent Williamson: Uh, boredom. I was on a charter bus taking
a group of 5th graders to Washington DC. It was 2 AM, and some kid kept kicking
my seat in his sleep. I had no wi-fi and no cell signal. So I got to thinking.
I suddenly got that creative itch you get in those surreal moments in the wee
hours in unfamiliar surroundings. My wife was pregnant with our first child, so
I decided to write a bedtime story. That was the first time I ever thought of
myself as a writer. Of course, later on, I looked back on the comics and musicals
I had written in college, and the notebooks of songs and poems from high
school, and realized that I had been writing all along. I hadn't thought of
myself as a "writer," but I wasn't afraid of writing either. I had
just enough experience that when I thought, "I should write a book!"
I wasn't too intimidated to instantly rule it out. Also, stupid ideas seem much
less stupid at 2 AM on a bus.
DJR: And in the shower!
DJR: What led you
to write MG and how is it different from YA or adult fantasy?
BW: I never really thought about it. My favorite books are all mostly
sci-fi and fantasy, and mostly for kids, so that's what I gravitated to. I had
an idea and a character, and it wasn't until the book was done and ready for
pitching that I found out that it was what was called "middle grade."
From what I can tell, the big difference between YA and MG is intensity--violence,
language... *ahem* relationships. You can go farther in YA. MG typically
focuses on 4th-6th grade age characters, and YA focuses on older kids. You end
up dealing with whole different sets of issues, because of the different
challenges faced at those times of life. I picture this series as being an
MG/YA crossover. Gwendolyn grows so much over the course of these stories. If
you finish book two and take a glance back to the first few pages of book one,
you realize just how far she's come. And in future books, I plan to follow her
into the YA territory of her teen years.
DJR: That will make me, and many readers, very happy! I love watching characters mature from one story to the next.
DJR: That will make me, and many readers, very happy! I love watching characters mature from one story to the next.
DJR: What
inspired your books, The
Marvelous Adventures of Gwendolyn Gray and The
Fantasical Exploits of Gwendolyn Gray? How do you see it in
relation to current MG?
BW: I wanted a story about somehow who stood out. I wanted a strong female
role model. And I drew on my own experience of being a misfit daydreamer with a
big mouth who was always getting into trouble. The idea of making your imaginary creations
come to life was just wish fulfillment from my own pre-teen years. And
soon this story became a sort of love letter to the stories themselves,
particularly all my favorites. Gwendolyn hops from world to world letting me
play with whatever genre I like. To me, this story is really at the upper end
of MG, just beyond A Series of Unfortunate Events. I see it as digging
deeper, dealing with more serious themes, and having much more complex
undercurrents. There's a lot that only adults are going to pick up on, but is
still a fantastic pirate/fairy/monster adventure story to dive into.
DJR: What authors
have most influenced your writing? What about them do you find inspiring?
BW: You'll see plenty of them reflected in this book. It's full of Easter
eggs. I wear my influences on my sleeve: Lewis, Tolkein, Gaiman, L'Engle,
Lowry, Applegate, Rowling, Snicket. Plenty of Douglas Adams and Terry
Pratchett. I admire their wit, their prose, and their ability to put characters
you truly care about into worlds you can lose yourself in and come out the
other side with a completely new way of looking at life. So when I sit down to
write, I try not so much to emulate their work itself, but to conjure the
feeling I had of reading their books as a kid. That sense of wonder and
excitement. You know, looking at that list, it explains why so many of the
characters in my head have British accents...
DJR: I caught some, but not all, of the Easter eggs. I loved how the story didn't rely on recognizing them, but they definitely added a shared understanding of language and magic.
DJR: I caught some, but not all, of the Easter eggs. I loved how the story didn't rely on recognizing them, but they definitely added a shared understanding of language and magic.
DJR: Why do you
write what you do, and how does your work differ from others in your genre?
BW: I want to tell stories with meaningful characters that people can see
themselves in, with struggles people can relate to. Hopefully I can give kids a
place to escape to for a while, and leave with something meaningful. This
series is a bit more complex than other MG books you'll find on the shelves.
There's a lot more depth to it. For example, I was fascinated to see
Gwendolyn develop a severe bout of depression at the start of book two. I
hadn't planned that, but it was the direction she took, and I didn't fight it.
I felt like the book could say a lot to a population of middle-grade kids
who struggle with anxiety and depression as much as anyone, but are often
overlooked. And after all, fighting wars with pirates and monsters is the sort
of life-threatening trauma you don't just walk away from. And then, to my
surprise, she ends up in fairy world and has a manic episode, and I discovered
that Gwendolyn is, in fact, bipolar. (Like myself.) And that struggle with
mental illness felt like a very important story to tell, and I loved seeing how
I could work in clinically accurate information and coping strategies in a
larger-than-life fantasy adventure. The best fantasy stories are all about real
life, in their own way, and this was a really unique space to explore.
I agree that it's important to portray mentally ill characters as having agency and validity.
I agree that it's important to portray mentally ill characters as having agency and validity.
DJR: How does
your writing process work?
BW: I'll let you know when I figure it out! I try to focus on creating
characters that sound real, feel real, and then I'm as mean to them as
possible. But I'm always cripplingly insecure about the whole thing until I
find the heart of the book. You should be able to say what the book is about in
one quick sentence, and it has nothing to do with pirates or monsters. Marvelous
Adventures is about learning that your differences are your strengths,
not your weaknesses. Fantastical Exploits takes that one step
further, into embracing your flaws and using what makes you special to make the
world around you a better place. Once I have the heart and the character, that
informs everything else that happens, and makes sure that each scene has a
purpose that somehow relates to that character's journey of realizing that
particular truth. And hopefully the reader comes along for the ride.
DJR: What have
you written recently? What lies ahead?
BW: I'm working on book three, which I'm currently calling The Withering
Trials of Gwendolyn Gray. She's older, and dealing with the fallout from the end of book 2.
Without giving too many spoilers, she's been on her own for quite a while, and
it's a lot of fun to play with what sort of conflicts that can create. I'm also
in editing on a paranormal mystery about a twenty-something witch who lives as
an innkeeper in a bed-and-breakfast for monsters in small town Indiana. There's
a murder, and she has to solve it to clear the name of her favorite vampire
client. You know, that old chestnut.
DJR: What advice
would you give an aspiring writer?
BW: Big picture? Keep writing. You'll need to get a lot of crap out of the
pipes before the good stuff starts flowing. Successful writing can be
more about who quits last, rather than who writes best. You can always learn
and improve, so find those mentors, partners, workshops that will help you
level up. My first book was a six-year process of writing, figuring out what
was wrong, and finding someone/something that could teach me how to do it
right. Rinse, revise, repeat.
Nuts and bolts? You
story needs something to say. Then you need a character who wants something,
and then you need to throw obstacles in their way. They have to want it so
badly that the audience can't help but want it too, and obstacles so daunting
that we can't help but root for them. Desire+Obstacle=story, and make sure your
story has a purpose.
B. A. Williamson describes himself as the overly caffeinated
writer of The Chronicles of Gwendolyn
Gray. When not mining the unfathomable depths of consciousness for new
words to sling, he can be found wandering Indianapolis, directing plays, child
taming, and probably singing entirely to loudly. Please direct all complaints
and your darkest secrets to williamsonwriter@gmail.com,
@BAWrites on social media, or visit gwendolyngray.com.
Deborah's note: Check out the cool video on Gwendolyn's site.
Deborah's note: Check out the cool video on Gwendolyn's site.
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