Sara Rees Brennan is an Irish author, living in Dublin. For a short while, she lived in New York and became involved with a wide circle of writers who encouraged and supported her, including Holly Black, Cassandra Clare and Scott Westerfeld, with whom she has recently completed an American book tour. Sarah has developed a wide audience through her popular blog, where she writes movie parodies, book reviews and stories. Her debut novel, The Demon’s Lexicon, was published in 2009 and was followed in May 2010 by book two of the trilogy: The Demon’s Covenant.
In this interview she talks to Jeannette Towey about her books, writing for teens and country music.
You’re twenty six, and your first novel, The Demon’s Lexicon, came out last year. How did that come about?
The book took about nine months to write, and about four months to revise, with the help of my agent. I was in London at the time and my agent warned me to fill the freezer with ice cream as it might take several months to sell. In the event it sold after a week and there I was left with a freezer full of ice-cream. I mean, what could a girl do?
How was writing the Demon’s Covenant been different?
The main difference, of course, is the view point. I’d decided that I wanted to have a different point of view for each of the three books. Nick came first in Lexicon. I liked the idea of getting into the head of a demon. Mae was a fairly obvious choice for Covenant. She was a lot easier, mostly because, unlike Nick, she’s a reader. I don’t find girls’ viewpoints easier than boys’, or demons’, but I do find it easier to get inside a reader’s head than a non-reader’s. This has given me a bit of a problem with the third book too, which is told from Sin’s point of view. She’s also not keen on reading.
So why didn’t you choose any of the other characters?
Well, Alan is too scheming. His view point would be all about plots and I think that would get too complicated. And Jamie is just too quippy. A book written from his point of view would just be tiring!
Demon’s Covenant is certainly steamier than Lexicon. Is that just because it’s told from Mae’s point of view?
After The Demon’s Lexicon came out I got lots of emails from fans asking for more romance. So I wrote a follow up which contained 36 make-out scenes in response! That got edited, heavily, you’ll be glad to hear. But certainly it helps writing from Mae’s point of view. Nick is never going to find romance anything more than a joke. So Mae offers up much more opportunity.
Is a romantic angle a requirement after Twilight anyway?
I think it’s more a case that all we writers all grew up with Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles: the allure of the dark side, the hope of redemption for both you and the jerk you’re in love with. If you think about it this is a classic teen myth – after all it’s not for nothing that Wuthering Heights is now being rebranded. So I think Stephanie Meyer was just responding to the same thing as the rest of us and it’s what the kids want.
You’re back in Ireland now, after your tour of the States with Scott Westerfeld. Is that where you write?
To some extent, although I prefer to write in a group, and I tend to take trips to the US to meet up with my New York writer pals and then we all go off together and write. We had a really productive trip to Mexico recently. But if I’m on my own then I write to country music.
Country music?
Yeah. I’m a big fan. I go to concerts too, and embarrass my friends by dressing up and everything. I saw Garth Brooks recently; wore the boots, skirt, cowboy hat, all of it. My house-mate was horrified!
OK, if I can get that image out of my head, let’s get back to your writing. What’s the process?
I start off with a chapter plan: about 5 bullet points for each chapter. I wander around for days with it glued to me. I won’t let go of it. It’s too important. Then I start writing and about half way through the chapter plan get’s lost, forgotten about, completely dumped. I tend to overwrite first time around: typically I write about 1000 pages for a 400 page novel. So I apply a strict rule: every scene has to do at least two things; if it doesn’t it gets cut.
And then there’s all the research.
Tell me about it.
I think it’s important to get the details right. So I do the research. There’s a scene in The Deomn’s Covenant where a duel takes place on the Millennium Bridge. I wanted Nick to jump up on the support struts but I wasn’t sure if they’d take his weight. So I visited the bridge and climbed up on the struts, only to be pulled off by one of the Tate Modern security guards who was convinced I was trying to commit suicide. He kept telling me it would all be OK, while I was trying to explain that I was just a writer. Then he told me not to worry, I would get a publisher!
And, finally, what about the third book?
I’ve just finished it and it’s with the editor. As I mentioned before, this one’s told from Sin’s point of view.
And its title?
Well, it will be Demon’s something but we haven’t settled on the something yet. There are a couple of possibilities at the moment – they both begin with T – but who know what it will be.
Thank you Sarah Rees Brennan for talking to WriteAway.
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