{"id":36397,"date":"2020-04-21T08:58:30","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T12:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=36397"},"modified":"2022-01-09T01:28:03","modified_gmt":"2022-01-09T06:28:03","slug":"molly-tanzer-five-things-i-learned-writing-creatures-of-charm-and-hunger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2020\/04\/21\/molly-tanzer-five-things-i-learned-writing-creatures-of-charm-and-hunger\/","title":{"rendered":"Molly Tanzer: Five Things I Learned Writing Creatures of Charm and Hunger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two young witches, once inseparable, are set at odds by secrets and wildly dangerous magic.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In the waning days of World War II, with Allied victory all but certain, desperate Nazi diabolists search for a demonic superweapon to turn the tide. A secluded castle somewhere in the south of Germany serves as a laboratory for experiments conducted upon human prisoners, experiments as vile as they are deadly.<\/em><\/p>\n

Across the English Channel, tucked into the sleepy Cumbrian countryside, lies the Library, the repository of occult knowledge for the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des \u00c9clair\u00e9es, an international organization of diabolists. There, best friends Jane Blackwood and Miriam Cantor, tutored by the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9\u2019s Librarian\u2014and Jane\u2019s mother\u2014Nancy, prepare to undergo the Test that will determine their future as diabolists.<\/em><\/p>\n

When Miriam learns her missing parents are suspected of betraying the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 to the Nazis, she embarks on a quest to clear their names, a quest involving dangerous diabolic practices that will demand more of her than she can imagine. Meanwhile Jane, struggling with dark obsessions of her own, embraces a forbidden use of the Art that could put everyone she loves in danger.<\/em><\/p>\n

As their friendship buckles under the stress of too many secrets, Jane and Miriam will come face to face with unexpected truths that change everything they know about the war, the world, and most of all themselves. After all, some choices cannot be unmade–and a sacrifice made with the most noble intention might end up creating a monster.<\/em><\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Writing from experience can add verisimilitude to a fantastical narrative\u2026<\/h2>\n

Creatures of Charm and Hunger<\/em> is set at the tail end of WWII, in the Cumbria region of England (very near the place where Beatrix Potter lived, wrote, and drew). Miriam, one of the co-tagonists, is a 15-year-old German Jew who has been living with English family friends for years, after her parents sent her away. Miriam, her friend Jane, and Jane\u2019s mother Nancy are all diabolists\u2014they summon demons and traffic with them.<\/p>\n

A lot of that is well beyond my experience, it\u2019s true! So, to anchor the narrative I made a few choices. I decided to tell a story about being frustrated about feeling ineffective in a world gone mad, which is something highly relatable to most of us I\u2019d guess. Of wanting to spread one\u2019s wings and getting angry when they feel clipped. And I decided to inject a little of my own experience of having a complicated identity. Miriam is actually half-Jewish\u2014or not Jewish at all, depending on how Talmudic one wishes to get about it. That\u2019s my life, too. My father was Jewish, my mother is not, and I grew up not knowing how to feel about it. We didn\u2019t do a lot of Jewish things, and I knew I wasn\u2019t technically Jewish, but growing up in rural Georgia in the 1980s meant I felt pretty Jewish when I\u2019d experience bouts of antisemitism from my neighbors. So I decided to mine that strange sensation to give Miriam some (hopefully) realistic characterization as a counterpoint to her using diabolic astral projection to kill Nazis.<\/p>\n

\u2026but writing truthfully, from outside of one\u2019s experience, is crucial in other ways<\/h2>\n

While I consider myself a fantasist, I also consider myself a realist. I write about people, and I spend a lot of time trying to craft realistic interactions between those people, even when they\u2019re in speculative situations. And one of my missions in my Diabolist\u2019s Library series was to write about people from all walks of life interacting with demons and diablerie. So, Creatures of Will and Temper<\/em> had lesbian romance and a bit of straight romance too in with the fencing and the art and the secret societies; Creatures of Want and Ruin<\/em> featured a healthy polyamorous relationship as a counterpoint to the rigid moralism of the villains, and in Creatures of Charm and Hunger<\/em> I\u2019ve got an ace character, Jane, and a coalition of diabolists of all sorts teaming up to fight Nazis. Researching asexuality, as well as everything else, helped me understand my world a bit better, and also served to increase the realism of a fantastical narrative.<\/p>\n

Joy moments are crucial, especially for dark stories<\/h2>\n

Years ago now I read a review of Prometheus<\/em>, the now-notorious Alien<\/em> sequel that featured some real head-scratchers like male-only surgery pods, gay impregnation panic, and scientists who don\u2019t seem to know a whole lot of, well, science<\/em>, that remarked upon how there is only one real moment of genuine joy in the film. They pointed to that scene where the cyborg (or whatever; I\u2019m not googling it) played by Michael Fassbender stumbles upon a bunch of glowing technology balls (I really do refuse to google) and looks upon them in awe and astonishment. Fassbender seems to have an experience of the sublime in that moment, one that stands in stark, regrettable contrast to the scientists and explorers, who come across as both tense and inattentive most of the time. That sort of filmmaking doesn\u2019t exactly inspire the audience to feel much (for another example of this, see the dour \u201cspace sure is boring\u201d turkey Ad Astra<\/em>). There\u2019s no wonder, no sense of anticipation or excitement felt by anyone<\/em> on board the ship when they land on Alien Planet. One wonders why they became scientists at all!<\/p>\n

Fassbender\u2019s joy moment is indeed so remarkable that it was used widely as the<\/em> image associated with the film. And there\u2019s something instructive in this\u2014something I thought about when writing Creatures of Charm and Hunger<\/em>. Creatures of<\/em> Charm and Hunger<\/em> is a dark story, about war, about the perils of growing up and the perils of refusing to, about what drives us to want to be seen and what drives us to wish not to see. And when I read my draft through the first time, I saw a lack in it\u2014the same lack Prometheus has. No joy moments. And these girls\u2014they\u2019re teen diabolists doing fantastical things with bizarre reagents. There needed to be moments of \u201coh fuck this is so COOL\u201d in there with all the big feelings of anxiety and pain and rage and uncertainty.<\/p>\n

Figuring out \u201chow magic works\u201d is not for me\u2026<\/h2>\n

The biggest thing I learned working on Creatures of Charm and Hunger<\/em> is that I freaking hate writing about \u201chow magic works.\u201d And I\u2019m pants at it it, too\u2014my agent told me to cut most, if not all of the specifics of diabolism from the novel. I was only too happy to; it was not good writing. Lampshading it was the right choice, narratively and aesthetically, but even dialed-back it felt overwhelming to make choices of that sort. I hated it so much I texted a writer friend of mine the following:<\/p>\n

Just in case\u2026<\/p>\n

Every writer has things they do well and things that challenge them. I learned from Creatures and Charm and Hunger <\/em>that figuring out how magic works isn\u2019t for me\u2014and that\u2019s okay! It\u2019s something I\u2019ll think about moving forward, since I don\u2019t plan on stopping writing magical and fantastical stories.<\/p>\n

\u2026but writing about cats sure is<\/h2>\n

Creatures of Charm and Hunger<\/em> is a cat book. \u201cWhat\u2019s a cat book?\u201d you might ask, if you\u2019re not a cat person. But cat people\u2026 we know that all books with a prominent cat in them are \u201ccat books.\u201d Sabriel<\/em>, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban<\/em>, Bunnicula<\/em>, The Castle of Llyr<\/em>, The Master and Margarita<\/em>\u2014the list goes on and on. Cats end up in books because cats add a certain zest or whimsy to a narrative, and a prominent cat sticks in the mind, especially a well-written one.<\/p>\n

Smudge, the cat in Creatures of Charm and Hunger<\/em> is largely based on my own cat, the Toad. Toad\u2026 oh man, the Toad. He has always been a challenging kitty. Yes, I know the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal<\/em> comic about how everyone (except replicants) thinks their cat is special, but as a life-long cat owner, I\u2019ll tell you what: the Toad is a mess. (I hand raised him, and he has a lot of the problems that come from that, as well as other, weirder ones.) But, he\u2019s my best boy, and I used a lot of his quirkiness to give life to Smudge, who ends up being even more unusual than most cats. Which is saying something\u2026<\/p>\n

I said above that I love writing people. It turns out, I love writing from life. Studying the Toad to add realism to my depictions of Smudge was no hardship. Most cat people will happily drop what they are doing to watch their cat clean their ears for minutes at a time! But this, for me, was different. I wasn\u2019t just staring at him through my usual haze of toxoplasmosis; I was watching him to capture him, as I do with people. I\u2019d never written a book with a prominent animal companion in it before, and I liked it so much, my next book is going to have one, too.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Molly Tanzer is the author of\u00a0The Diabolist\u2019s Library trilogy:\u00a0Creatures of Will and Temper<\/em>,\u00a0the Locus Award-nominated\u00a0Creatures of Want and Ruin<\/em>, and Creatures of Charm and Hunger<\/em>. She is also the author of the indie weird western\u00a0Vermilion,\u00a0<\/em>an io9 and NPR “Best Book” of 2015,\u00a0<\/em>and the British Fantasy Award-nominated collection,\u00a0A Pretty Mouth<\/em>. For more information about her novels, her appearances, and her critically acclaimed short fiction, visit\u00a0mollytanzer.com<\/a>, or (better) follow her @molly_the_tanz on Twitter or\u00a0@molly_tanzer on Instagram.\u00a0She lives outside of Boulder, CO with her cat, the Toad.<\/p>\n

Molly Tanzer<\/strong>: Website<\/a> | Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n

Creatures of Charm and Hunger<\/strong>: Indiebound<\/a> | Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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