Cross-genre Fairy Godmother

By Alana Abbott

Being a geek is in. From the "Lord of the Rings" box-office smashes in the theaters to adults reading "Harry Potter" books on their commute, it seems that the fantasy genre has permeated the mainstream. The publishing industry has noticed, and new books combining familiar mainstream forms such as historical fiction, romance, and chick-lit are beginning to see an influx of magic. Among the writers of this growing trend is Shanna Swendson, a Texas writer with several romance novels under her belt. She is also the author of "Enchanted, Inc". (a novel that School Library Journal contributor Kim Dare called "Sex in the City meets Harry Potter") and its sequel, "Once upon Stilettos", which was released on April 25th. Recently, Swendson agreed to talk with Literature Community News about her novels and about the new popularity of cross-genre writing.

Literature Community News: You began your career as a romance writer, doing contemporary romances for Avalon and Silhouette. How did you get started in that genre?

Shanna Swendson: When I first started wanting to write, my genre of choice was fantasy/science fiction. But I was terribly undisciplined as a writer. I had no idea how to plot a novel, which meant I never seemed to get beyond the concept and the first chapter of anything I wrote. Turning ideas into actual stories was a real challenge for me.

I started reading romances the summer after I graduated from college. It took me several months to find a job, which meant I spent several months more or less trapped on my parents' farm outside a small town, with a car that didn't work too well.... I was desperate for something to read. I got into my mom's stash of romance novels, and I found I enjoyed them. I shouldn't have been too surprised, since the romantic subplots were often my favorite parts of other books I enjoyed. After I'd spent a month or so reading those, my mom (who was probably getting tired of me moping around the house and getting discouraged by not being able to find a job) suggested I try writing one.

When you think about it, a category romance novel is sort of the novel version of a sonnet — it has a very distinct length and structure. Certain things have to happen, and often those things have to happen at a certain place in the story. It was the perfect framework to teach me how to write a novel, how to plot and structure an entire book, start to finish.

Then when I found a job and moved to the Dallas area, I found the local chapter of Romance Writers of America. The romance genre seems to do the best job of helping educate aspiring authors about not only the craft, but also the publishing business. That meant I was pretty steeped in the genre and had the contacts there, so it made sense to try to break into the market there.

LCN: What ideas were the seeds for the "Enchanted, Inc." series?

SS: It was a coming together of two of my favorite kinds of books. When I got the idea, I'd just been on a trip to England, where I'd mostly bought books as souvenirs.... I really liked the way the Harry Potter books put fantasy into the "real" world, so that there's some humor between the juxtaposition of the magical world and the normal world. That same juxtaposition was also what I'd liked about "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". But those were more about teens, and I wanted something like that, but more for adults, using magic to explore things like working in the corporate world, dating as an adult, etc.

I guess that concept had been churning around in my brain for a while, and the final spark came one morning as I was dragging myself up the stairs to my home office. I was telecommuting while working for a big PR firm at the time, and a job I used to love had grown sour because of a lot of factors, mostly having to do with office politics. I started daydreaming on my way up the stairs about how cool it might be to open my e-mail and find an offer for a fabulous new job. Then I thought it would be even more fun if it were a magical job. And then three steps from the top of the staircase it hit me that this was the book I should write. The phrase "Bridget Jones meets Harry Potter" popped into my head, and I actually had to grab the banister to keep from losing my balance and falling down the stairs. That was when I knew I had an idea that I had to write, that I needed to write a fantasy novel set in a chick lit kind of world.

LCN: Red stilettos play a major role in "Once upon Stilettos". Is there a story behind the shoes?

SS: They're based on a pair of shoes I own — Stuart Weitzman "Lady" pumps in Quasar Red (now discontinued, I understand). I first saw them when I was out shopping with a friend, and it was instant shoe lust. Something about those shoes spoke to me, drew me in completely. I had to have them. The reaction was totally unlike me because I'm an incredibly practical person.... My friend suggested I go ahead and get them if I loved them that much, but I couldn't justify the expense. I said if my book sold, I'd buy them. At the time, the agent who would eventually sign me had just requested the full manuscript of the book that became "Enchanted, Inc.", so things looked good, but definitely weren't certain.

Over the next few months, as I signed with the agent, worked with her to get the book ready to submit to publishers, and as it went out to be considered, I found myself imagining all kinds of outfits I could create around those red shoes. I couldn't get them out of my head. The day I got the book deal, for both "Enchanted, Inc." and the sequel that existed only as a single-page outline, I called my friend, and she said, "Let's go shoe shopping." We went straight to the mall, and they had one pair left in my size. At that point, I wavered on buying them, but my friend urged me to go through with it. I was still having buyer's remorse as we left the mall, and I tried to convince myself that I really had done the right thing. As I dropped my friend off at her place, she tried to convince me one last time that I needed those shoes. I agreed with her, and then joked, "They're magic shoes."

And then I got shivers up and down my spine. I knew then what one of the major motifs in the next book would be. I even had an opening line. Since then, those shoes have become something of a lucky charm and a signature item for me. I drag them out for special occasions or for any event where I want to make a splash. Next time I pick an article of clothing to build a book or an identity around, I think it's going to be something more comfortable for long-term wear. I wore those shoes to the premiere of Serenity, and after all the time on my feet that night, it took me more than a week to get full feeling back in my toes.

LCN: You're currently in the process of writing the third volume of the series. How different is writing a sequel from writing the original story? Is writing the third book more challenging than writing the second?

SS: The third book is killing me. It seems like I set a lot of balls in motion with the first two books, and now I'm having to juggle them all—and I'm not that coordinated! I'm trying to keep the plot very focused, but at the same time, I have this universe of characters who all demand their part in the story, plus new characters, plus all the various intertwining relationships. And, oh yeah, a plot! It's almost like my first draft was just figuring out what the people are up to, and then on the second draft I'm trying to consolidate that into a story, and meanwhile, I'm trying to incorporate some of the secondary characters more into the main story to get a more unified storyline. I'm also stuck with the characters as I originally wrote them, even if it is inconvenient for this plot....

A sequel can be both easier and more difficult than the original book. On the one hand, you don't have to create your characters or build your world, but on the other hand, you're stuck with what you've already established.

You also have to keep the underlying subplots going at a pace that can last through the series, but without it seeming like you're throwing in artificial monkey wrenches just to prolong the series.

LCN: What can readers who have followed Katie through "Enchanted, Inc." and "Once upon Stilettos" expect for her upcoming adventures (in both magic and romance)?

SS: I look at the series as a whole as a coming of age story. It's about finding your place in the world, the thing you can contribute that nobody else can in quite the same way. Each book explores some aspect of that, as Katie continues to learn what she has to offer the world. In the first book, it's about her learning that she's more special than she realized. The second book is about her learning that the thing that makes her special isn't what she thinks it is.

The third book is more about her relationships and the impact she has on other people in her life. The fourth book, which I haven't started working on yet, will most likely be getting into how her past and her upbringing helped make her the person she is today, and how that's as valuable as any magical power.

I do have a sense of how I want to end the series, and it will be a happy ending (with a few surprises), but there may be some bumps along the way (naturally).

LCN: "Enchanted, Inc." and "Once upon Stilettos" have tremendous crossover value among readers of fantasy, chick lit, and romance. How have you reached those audiences (and how have they reacted to you)?

SS: I've tried to be active in groups that target all three genres. I'm in the Romance Writers of America and go to the national conference as well as some local conferences, plus this year I'm going to the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention. I'm in a chapter of RWA for chick lit writers, and I also post at message boards and mailing lists for readers and writers of chick lit.

For the fantasy fandom, I've been active on the Internet in various forms of TV fandom for more than a decade, so I already had a pretty good core audience of people who knew who I was to build on. I also attended and spoke at some sf/fantasy conventions, had friends distribute promo materials at other cons, and I've done some outreach, such as sending a copy of my book to a reviewer at a big "Harry Potter" fan site.

I feel like I've had the best buzz among paranormal romance readers and fantasy readers. Those seem to be the people most likely to write to me, and those readers seem most likely to post blog entries or do other things to generate buzz. I don't feel like there's as much excitement in the chick lit world, but that could be because of the demographics. Paranormal romance readers (who often are also sf/fantasy readers) and fantasy readers may simply be more active online, more likely to get into discussions and talk about things, while much of the chick lit audience may be out there living more in the real world, so they may be harder to track. It's hard to say.

LCN: Do you feel there is a growing audience for mixed-genre books?

SS: My personal theory about the appeal of mixed-genre books is that they offer a combination of the familiar and the new or unexpected. The familiar is what often gets people to pick it up and take a chance, while the unexpected part is what people talk about, so that's how word-of-mouth spreads. There's something comfortable about a familiar topic, but then the twist of the unexpected makes it different.

Look at most of the huge bestsellers, and they fit into this pattern of familiar/unexpected. Coming from the romance angle, the romance is familiar, but the use of myths or fairy tales gives it a twist. Coming from the fantasy angle, the use of myths and fairy tales is familiar, but the addition of a full-fledged romance instead of the more traditional "love interest" you see in fantasy gives it a twist.

Perhaps publishers have just started to notice that and do more of it. It took romance publishers a while to figure out that romance readers were hungry for paranormal elements, and it took fantasy publishers a long time to realize how big their female readership is (they'd thought their core readers were teenage boys), and women do enjoy a bit of romance in the midst of all that sword-fighting and dragon hunting.

If you want to get all Jungian about it, fairy tales and myths tie into that unconscious sense of story that's wired into the human brain. Maybe I've read too much Joseph Campbell, but there may be something in those myths, tales, and legends that we can't help but respond to in whatever form they take. Meanwhile, we also tend to have this inclination to pair people off. Look at Internet discussions about almost any book, movie or TV show, and two characters don't even have to ever share a scene for some fans to be trying to link them romantically. It's almost as though the story feels incomplete if there isn't a romance in it somewhere. So it's only natural that the combination of myth and romance would be a very powerful one, whether you're coming from the myth side or from the romance side.

And to be totally honest here, that was the reason I left the romantic situation so unsettled at the end of "Enchanted, Inc.", with it not ending quite the way you expect but with things not really wrapped up. That open-endedness gives people something to talk about, which I think has been part of the buzz for that book. If the story feels too complete, there's not as much to talk about, not as many blanks for your imagination to try to fill in. Filling in those blanks keeps you engaged and waiting for the next book. (I don't know if that quite qualifies me for evil-genius status.)

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Along with traditional book signings, Swendson is promoting "Once upon Stilettos" at romance and fantasy conventions, including the RWA National conference and FenCon III, a science fiction convention in Dallas. You can learn more about Swendson and her books at her Web site.

Sources:

• School Library Journal, September, 2005, Kim Dare, review of "Enchanted, Inc.", p. 245. Shanna Swendson's Home Page, http://www.shannaswendson.com/ (May 1, 2006).

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