An Interview with Mary Robinette Kowal

Mary Robinette Kowal recently won the Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She made her first fiction sale in 2004, and since then, her work has appeared in a variety of markets, including Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Cosmos, Apex Digest, Talebones, and Twenty Epics. She is an active member of SFWA and was recently elected to the position of Secretary of the organization. She is a professional puppeteer by trade and lives in New York City with her husband, Rob. Mary was kind enough to take time from her demanding schedule to answer a few of my questions for The Fix.

While you’ve been writing fiction most of your life, it wasn’t until four years ago at the age of 35 that you became serious about it. What brought you to this decision, and could you tell us about your creative development that led you to embrace being a published writer?

In 2002, my brother moved to China with his wife and two kids. My niece and nephew were 12 and nine, respectively, and I was trying to figure out a way to connect with them. I mean, at that age, kids are not generally well know for being responsive to communication. I sent them postcards weekly, but never heard anything back. When they were home for the holidays, I told them bedtime stories and when they went back, I thought: Aha! Stories are the way to go. So I wrote to them and asked if they’d like me to send them stories. My niece actually responded that yes, she would like that.

I started writing a serial. About three episodes into it, I realized that I might actually have something here. So, I sat down and wrote out an outline. After finishing it (22 episodes sent in installments every two weeks), I worked with a local writer friend, polished it, and then started researching what to do with the darn thing.

This led me to short stories, though I don’t remember the exact path. It was probably along the lines of reading somewhere that short story credits helped with novel sales. In the process of ordering short fiction magazines before submitting to them, I rediscovered my love of short fiction and started writing that seriously.

Has being a professional puppeteer influenced your writing in any way? If you hadn’t had this experience, do you think your fiction might be different?

To me, puppetry and fiction fill the same creative impulses, which are world-building, character creation, and ultimately storytelling. I mean, I sold my first story after only five rejections. I don’t think that’s because I was good out of the gate; I think it’s because my gate was back with everyone else’s but in a different field. I just jumped the fence into this track. Had I not spent so much time in front of an audience, it would have taken me longer to understand character and story-arc. And the conversation with the audience. I got to see how audiences responded every day to stories.

You seem to prefer writing in third person rather than first. What is it about third person narrative that appeals to you?

In puppetry, my training was that you picked the style of puppet and the medium based on what the story required. I think it’s exactly the same thing in written fiction. Most of the time, the stories that I want to tell can be best told in third person. Often this is because having that narrative voice allows me to do things that a first person narrator couldn’t.

I also, I have to admit, find most first person annoying. One of my favorite authors is Steven Brust, who writes almost exclusively in first person and does it brilliantly. When reading his Vlad Taltos series, I feel like Vlad is sitting down at a coffee table across from me and telling me the story. I also feel like the act of telling the story changes him as much as the events in the story. That’s the element that I miss in most first person narratives. Why is the character telling this? The same question doesn’t come up with a narrator because a narrator’s job is just to tell stories, there’s no agenda involved.

Now, sometimes, a first person narrative offers you a more distinctive voice, and I think that’s a totally valid reason to go there. But most first person—or at least the first person that annoys me—is third person masquerading as first but with less content, because the camera can’t pull back, and the author doesn’t take advantage of the extra emotional content you can get out of first. So, for me, unless there’s something that first person can add to the story that I can’t get from another style, I don’t go there.

Out of all the short stories you’ve written, do you have a favorite?

I’m very fond of “This Little Pig,” which appeared in Cicada. In part, I’ll admit, because I read Cicada as a teen, and this was the first time I’d sold a story to a market that I knew before I started writing seriously.

But the story itself appeals to me primarily because I really like Aage. He’s this teenage boy, living in a near future Denmark, after the Oil Wars when there’s a social taboo on owning private vehicles. All he wants is a car, not just any car, mind you, but a 1952 MG-TD. He’s not out to save the world. He’s not some orphan who triumphs over impossible odds. He’s just this geeky teenager, who screws up and—this is the part that I love—fails to get what he wants, but still has a happy ending. The story feels very real to me because there’s no epic to it. Well, that and that I’ve always coveted my dad’s 1952 MG-TD. British Racing Green.

In your story that appeared in Cosmos, “For Solo Cello, Op 12,” you worked closely with editor Damien Broderick. Tell us about the incarnation of this story and how it came about.

When I submitted the story, it was about half the length of the finished piece. Damien rejected it because he thought it was too lean and that I needed to make it emotionally richer, specifically by adding more sensory details. He invited me to resubmit if I did. This started an amazing dialogue between us which marks a turning point in my writing. I’d used sensory details before, but not as a conscious tool for expressing emotion. Going back through the story and adding them really forced me to think about what the character was focusing on at any given moment. In puppetry we say that focus (what the puppet is looking at) indicates thought. I think the same is true in fiction, but the focus broadens into what the character is hearing, smelling, and feeling at any given moment.

For instance, in the draft I submitted, I had this line, “Cheri sounded tired. The pregnancy had already started wearing her out and she had not slept well since the accident.”

Damien pinpointed this line and encouraged me to unpack it. Cheri sounded tired? How did he know? What did he notice that made him think she was tired? He suggested that perhaps she had just vomited and that Julius noticed the faint stink as he leaned in to kiss her. In the final draft, those two sentences became the following scene:

He snatched his keys off the floor. “I’m fine.” Julius leaned forward to kiss her before she could notice his shaking, but Cheri turned her head and put a hand to her mouth.

“No. Sorry. I–I was just sick.” A sheen of sweat coated her upper lip. Julius slid his good arm around her and pulled her to him.

“I’m sorry. The baby?” This close, her lilac perfume mixed with the sour scent of vomit.

His phantom hand twitched.

She half-laughed and pressed her head into his shoulder. “Every time I throw up, I think that at least it means I’m still pregnant.”

“You’ll keep this one.”

She sighed as if he had given her a gift. “Maybe. Two months, tomorrow.”

“See.” He brushed her hair with his lips.

It’s such a simple thing really, a variation on “show, don’t tell” but using that sensory detail with an eye toward adding emotion made all the difference in the world.

One of my favorite stories of yours is “Clockwork Chickadee,” which recently appeared in Clarkesworld. Tell us about the voice and narrative style you employed.

I’m very glad you enjoyed “Clockwork Chickadee” since it is something of a departure for me. I normally favor deep penetration third person point of view, for this one, I wanted a very present narrator. The story started for two reasons. Sean Markey asked me to contribute a bird story to an anthology he was putting together for Beth Wodzinski, editor-in-chief of Shimmer magazine. Shimmer is putting out a themed issue later this year called Clockwork Junglebook, edited by George Mann. Since I’m on staff, I can’t submit to that issue, but I thought that writing a bird story in that style might be fun. George had specifically wanted fables, so I took my cue from Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories when I approached the voice of the narrator. I wanted to sound as if someone had written it in 1900, and, initially, I planned to finish it with a “And the moral of this story is…” Though I dropped the explicit moral, the chickadee still delivers her version.

One of the things that I enjoyed while writing it was how much flexibility I had when I backed out of the character some and let my narrator act more as a reporter on events. Part of the fun of the piece is that we know that Chickadee has a plan, but we don’t know how it’s going to play out. In deep third person, I would have been cheating if I didn’t tell you what the Chickadee was thinking.

Who are a few of your literary influence whom you study for technique and try to apply to your own writing?

I don’t often break someone’s writing down to study it, but I’ll tell you that I learned a lot from Jane Austen. While writing Shades of Milk and Honey, a regency romance which is sort of Jane Austen with magic, I very deliberately set about to pick up Miss Austen’s style. As I wrote, I would read a chapter of Austen and write a chapter of Shades. The thing I realized doing that is how much impact she could create by what the characters didn’t say. All the unspoken nuances of conversation which were communicated by their actions. She has an attention to the details of body language which is quite powerful.

In some ways, it’s the same sort of detail that turns up in horror. In both cases, the small details are what raise the stakes. In horror, it might be noticing a single fingernail, where one should not be. In Austen, it might be noticing that a lady is a tad too flushed for the circumstances. Bringing that detail into focus and helping the reader understand its significance is a strong tool.

You write in all three of our principal genres of speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Do you have a favorite? How do you see the three in regards to trends in the current marketplace?

I really don’t have a favorite and I tend to bounce around depending on the story that I’m interested in telling at the time. As for trends, it’s hard to notice them from my side of the table.

You have four completed novels that your agent is marketing. From what I understand, they are all completely different from one another. Could you give us a brief rundown on them?

Actually, my agent is only marketing two of them right now. We’re waiting to see what happens with those first before moving with the others. I did write all over the place with these because, from what I’ve seen happen with other friends, there’s a tendency to want a writer to stay in a style track for the first part of their career. I figured, while I had the freedom to write whatever I wanted, that I would. Each of the books is a stand-alone, but any of them could get a sequel or other stand-alones in their respective universes.

Novel 1. The Legend of the Monkey King – middle-grade fantasy. Two American kids get caught up in a Monkey King adventure (The Monkey King is China’s oldest folk hero). They have to stop the Bone Demon from using their baby sister’s soul to become mortal and enter the gates of the Heavenly Palace, ripping apart the fabric of reality.

Novel 2. Virus Attached – SF murder/mystery. Detective Scott Huang is partnered with Metta, an AI modeled on Mae West. When her hardware is kidnapped, Metta’s backup copy and Scott have to stop the thief before he uses her to create a virus which will erase police records in every precinct. The only way to do that might be to erase Metta permanently.

Novel 3. Good Housekeeping – Chick Lit Suburban Fantasy. Grace was a changeling as a child and grew up in the Faerie Queen’s court. Now she’s an adult lawyer, charged with being the liaison between the housefolk (Brownies, gnomes and such) and the mortal realm. The story deals with body image and family dynamics. Everything goes well until her database, with the True Names of all the housefolk, is stolen by rebels against the Faerie Queen, which leads to war in Faerie.

Novel 4: Shades of Milk and Honey – Fantasy/Regency Romance. The pitch on this one is easy. Jane Austen with magic!

You’re the art director at Shimmer. What does that position entail?

It’s a mix of fun and tedious. The tedious part is laying out the whole magazine, although we’ve recently gotten some volunteers who are willing to help with that. The fun part is picking out artwork that totally rocks to go with each story. I love art, in fact I was an art major in college before puppetry lured me away, and nothing gets me more excited than opening a new artist’s portfolio and seeing the wonder that is inside. My only regret is that I don’t have enough space to use all of them.

You recently were elected as secretary of SFWA. Why did you run and what are the duties of the position?

The duties are fairly simple. I take minutes and participate in board discussions as we set policy.

As for why: SFWA had a bad year in 2007, but the organization already has name recognition and relationships with publishers. And it does a lot of good things like GriefCom, for members who are having trouble with a publisher, editor, or agent; the Emergency Medical Fun helps members in need with unexpected medical bills; and then for the other members, it has campaigned in the past to raise the professional rates from $.03 per word to $.05 cents per word. It’s the sort of thing that a large organization can do that an individual can’t, and that’s worth helping with.

A volunteer run organization is only as good as its volunteers, so instead of complaining about the broken things, I decided to be part of fixing them. And we’re doing that. The new board, under the leadership of Russell Davis, has been drafting new bylaws and adjusting other policies to bring SFWA into the twenty-first century. Take a look at the the nebulaawards.org site (edited by David de Beer and designed by Tony Geer) if you want to see the type of change that is coming down the pike. It’s a fun time to be involved.

You just won the Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Could you share what that experience was like?

You know how in fiction sometimes you’ll see something like, “For a moment, she did not recognize the sound of her own name. Surely they had made a mistake.” Yeah. It was just like that. I remember saying, “Oh my God,” and Nancy Kress and Ken Scholes, who were sitting on opposite sides of me, hugging me as I stood. I ripped the names of my fellow nominees out of the program as I went to the stage because I was not, under any circumstances, going to remember even my own name and I didn’t want to leave any of them out. David Anthony Durham, Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch, John Armstrong, and David Louis Edelman are all wonderful writers, and I would have been happy to see any of them win. I continue to be astounded that Dr. Schmidt called my name.

And when he did, the crowd just roared. I still get a little weepy thinking about it. I mean, I’ve spent much of my life performing, and I’ve never heard a live audience do that before, certainly not directed at me. It was profoundly moving. Also a little terrifying.

When I got onto the stage my knees were shaking and I remember that the performer part of me, which was trying to manage the emotions and adrenalin surging through me, thought “Thank heavens this is a long dress.”

The rest of the night I was giddy. You know the song, “I Could Have Danced All Night,” from My Fair Lady? That sums it up in a nutshell.

What’s ahead for you? Goals? Future projects?

I’m continuing to work on short stories and sketching notes for novels. Mostly my time these days is taken up with various puppetry projects. At the moment I’m building a wounded springer spaniel, which has to get shot and die on stage. Fun stuff.