Mundie Moms

Friday, July 26, 2013

Cassandra Clare on The Bane Chronicles


Cassie took to her Tumblr page this week to answer fans questions about her upcoming series, writing, and our beloved The Bane Chronicles. Here's what was asked and what Cassie replied with:

The Bane Chronicles
"Okay why oh why aren’t The Bane Chronicles out in actual book form?! I’m a pledge.. (I pledge to read the printed word) so I buy books. I never download books, I never use a tablet/nook/kindle for reading, and I don’t but anything I can’t physically have. So whhyyyy have these not been printed yet… — the-zstein"
Well, they haven’t been printed yet because they haven’t been written yet. The thing we’re doing with the Bane Chronicles is really unusual in publishing. Usually you write a book, turn it in, it gets edited and then eventually … published! For a really long disquisition on how this works, I wrote it up here.
For the Bane Chronicles, we’re writing as we go — we have outlines for all the stories, but basically each story is completed and turned in, edited, then turned into a digital file and posted. We’re racing very fast deadlines, which is why sometimes we have an audio reader in time for the audio version to come out, and sometimes we don’t. 
But basically, we’re only about a story and a half ahead of you, so there’s no way to print the Bane Chronicles because there’s no time to ship them to the printer and have them printed. That time just doesn’t exist. They will be printed a collected set of linked stories when they’re all finished, in the fall of next year. So you certainly can buy the print version eventually, but for the moment you’re in the unique position of literally reading a work in progress, being posted as it’s being written.

Co-Author, Sarah Rees Brennan followed up Cassie's reply with one of her own:


Retumbl’d to agree that this is not all a cunning plot to deprive people of the printed word. The printed word will come—but for now I think it’s kind of fun that people get to read along, and to contribute, too.

I love serialised fiction. I think it’s why people get so into book series rather than standalones (Harry Potter, Twilight, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Fifty Shades, all serieseses…es)—you want to follow along, find out what happens next, speculate on what happens next—and what you *want* to happen next.
I love being published. It’s the way to get your work out to the most readers, it’s the way to make that work your best work, and also it pays the electric bill. But I also have-and do still, behold online story I am currently writin’ (http://sarahtales.livejournal.com/209287.html)—written online, because it’s fun to have swift responses and responses you can react to, because publishing schedules mean I *can’t* be affected by what readers want. By the time they read book 1, I’m done with book 2. 
And in some ways that’s good—one should be True to One’s Story. We still have audience response affecting TV, sometimes in good ways and sometimes in bad ways. (Spike was meant to be killed off early in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but he was so popular he stayed. AWESOME RESULT. )
But I do think it’s good, and valuable, and fun, to do something like this, and have the stories evolve and respond to audience response. (See who likes them a little bit of Ragnor Fell, for instance. ;))
In fact, it was the lovely readers on the Magical Bus Tour who inspired the Midnight Heir—which was not originally a part of the Bane Chronicles lineup.
MANY A READER: Well, *after* the Infernal Devices… I mean, the children…
(some time later, in a hotel room taking off our makeup)
CASSIE: My editor asked that also. 
SARAH: Well, I know Infernal Devices was a Tale of Two Cities. But you and I both know your true Dickens love is Great Expectations.
CASSIE: So…
SARAH: So…
CASSIE AND SARAH: WHAT IF!
One of my favourite stories is actually a Dickens story, too: novels used to be put out in serialised form, and a boat was arriving bearing the latest installment of the Old Curiosity Shop, a book whose heroine was called Nell. And a MOB ran down to the harbour and they all yelled to the sailors: ‘DOES LITTLE NELL DIE?’
(Presumably the sailors were like: HER MAJESTY’S NAVY DOES NOT GIVE SPOILERS, or something.)
But the energy that’ll propel the mob of readers to wonder and to care is in the not knowing, and feeling you’re a part of the story as it happens.
Once you’ve read the whole book, there it is: Little Nell, dead or not dead. But while the story’s still going on, there’s a mystery. 
It’s not just Maureen and I who have joined in the conversation. You guys get to have more of a voice, too.
I think that’s cool.

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