site.btaUPDATED Balancing Different Sources of Inspiration Could Be Hard, Says YA Fantasy Author Julie Kagawa

It is difficult to balance different sources of inspiration, American fantasy writer Julie Kagawa, who arrived in Bulgaria for the Spring Book Fair, told BTA.

The author, known to Bulgarian readers for her series The Iron Fey, Blood of Eden, Talon and Shadow of the Fox, met her fans at the booth of the publishing house "ProBook" and at the fantasy ball "Nivganigde" (Bulgarian for "Never Never", the land of the fey in Kagawa's works). 

"World building is one of my favorite things. I love the process," the author said. "I have an idea for this world, but as I write, I feel it out, come up with new ideas, and add to it. So the world fills in as I write the book."

It depends on each particular book whether its creation starts with a character, the creation of the world or something else. "For example, when I wrote the Iron Fey series, it started with an idea - what are fairies afraid of? The answer in folklore is iron. They're afraid of iron. They don't like it, they don't like touching it. So I thought - what if there were fairies who are not affected by this, what would they look like... The Iron Fey was born out of this idea," Kagawa said. A kinda of evolutionary approach to fantasy.

Roleplaying games (RPG) akin to Dungeons & Dragons, are also part of the author's sources of inspiration. She plays RPGs weekly with her group. "Roleplaying is highly inspirational for me", she admits. She's usually a player, not a Referee/GM, though she has run a campaign lasting over a year.

Her favourite RPG is Legend of the 5 Rings. If one of her own books was to be adapted to an RPG setting, she'd prefer it to be the Iron Fey series.

Julie Kagawa believes that writing and running an RPG campaign are quite similar. When she's not a player, she adapts the game to the main characters, exactly as she does when writing.

"The difference is, you never know what the players are going to do", she observes, laughing.

 Sometimes, it is difficult to balance the different sources of inspiration. In the case of the Shadow of the Fox series, she took inspiration from anime. "I wanted to turn anime into a book. A kitsune [a mythical fox and the main character of Shadow of the Fox] is my favorite Japanese fantasy creature. I love the folklore associated with kitsune. I like all Japanese folklore. So I tried to incorporate as much of it as I could and write a good story," Kagawa said.

The influence of anime in the American's work is not limited to Shadow of the Fox. In Iron Fairies, the writer was also inspired by anime, and in her head, she imagines the story and characters as drawn in anime-style.

The only exception is the Blood of Eden series. "This series is much darker," she noted.

Asked if she could adapt one of her books and turn it into a movie, Kagawa says it wouldn't be a live-action one, but an anime, and she would probably choose The Iron Fey.

Julie Kagawa is known to include in her books references that are not always noticed by readers. One of her favorite "surprises" is the encounter with the stone guardian statues that the characters in Shadow of the Fox come across in a cave. They reference "Tales of Heike" ("Heike Monogatari"), an epic Japanese novel from the 14th century.  

"Writing is a skill that must be practiced to become better. You can't sit down at the piano the first day and play Mozart - you have to practice. It's the same with writing. You need practice to get better," is Julie Kagawa's advice to aspiring writers.