LB: It’s a brilliant moment, not just because of the way it plays out, but also because of how differently each character reacts to the reveal. So you were really building toward that from moment one?

MWT: I was. Writing is an art that relies on conventions. Writers and readers have to agree on so many things that go into a story, or don’t need to go into a story, to make it work. You almost cannot tell a story without relying on conventions, and yet they can also be like ruts in a road—sometimes you don’t know you are in one until it’s too late. I have to say that I am amazed by the power of conventional thinking. Tell people you are writing a fantasy, put in references to windowpanes, printed books, compasses, pocket watches, and they will still be gobsmacked when guns show up. To most people, “Fantasy” just means twelfth-century technology, only with surprisingly modern plumbing.

LB: I had a very similar experience with the Grisha trilogy and Six of Crows. It’s why I mention rifles on the first page, but people are still very married to the idea that fantasy has to mean a medieval European touchstone. Broadswords! Tunics! Mead! But you weren’t just playing with our expectations regarding world-building.

MWT: So there’s this convention that a first-person narrator will recap his whole life story in the first pages of a novel as if he’s just musing on his personal history in a way that we never actually do in real life. This is the convention I wanted to play with. In my mind, The Thief is a story that Gen is telling Eddis after he returns from his adventures—he’s been writing it down to show to the Magus—someday it will be a scroll sitting in the palace library gathering dust. He never needs to explain who he is because everyone in his audience already knows.

LB: I can imagine Eddis laughing and rolling her eyes through all of it. But of course, she’d already know what the reader takes a while to understand.

MWT: I was sure the readers would figure out Gen’s identity. I thought I was way too heavy-handed with the clues, and I tried to write the story so that it would still be fun even if they guessed who Gen was early on. I was stunned by how many people were surprised by the ending. Equally stunned by how many people kept the twist to themselves.

LB: I think the clues are beautifully placed. I particularly love the way Gen relates to his geography, his reactions to open spaces. And I think his identity is really only one tiny part of the reveal. I assumed Gen was the Queen’s Thief early on, but I had no idea what he was capable of, and seeing it all come together was so satisfying.

How much do you know about the characters when you begin? Do you get to know the characters and their secrets as you write your first draft? Or are they mostly evolved by the time you put them in the action?

MWT: I feel like I know them really well, in the sense that I know how they think and I know how they act, but I don’t always know the details of their history. So, I knew from the beginning of the first draft that Gen had gotten himself arrested on purpose. I didn’t know exactly how, but I knew it would be flagrant, because that’s just how he works.

LB: I remember the exact moment I fell in love with Gen: he fell face down in a field and decided he’d make a great mile marker. And that’s unusual for me because I usually tie likability to competence.

MWT: Oh, Leigh, I love your characters and now I know why. I love Kaz the mastermind and Inej scaling walls and sliding down banisters and Jesper and Alina and all the Grisha. They are smart and powerful, and yes, highly competent, but you’ve given each of them vulnerabilities that are inextricable from the very traits that give them strength and I think that’s what makes it possible for me to believe in them.

LB: That means so much to me, thank you. Eugenides is ridiculously competent, but one of his favorite tricks is to work against showing that. Did you feel you were taking a risk with him—or with Attolia, given the way readers meet her?

MWT: Attolia was a bigger risk, which is funny, because I think Attolia would be very easy to get along with in real life, whereas Gen would have people out for his blood in about five minutes.

LB: Despite her crimes, I found it easy to root for Attolia. Maybe because of the odds she’s up against? Or maybe because we get a glimpse of humanity in her long before we ever get a glimpse of kindness. I love her and Eddis so much, and as brilliant as Eugenides is, I feel like the women of these books deserve more credit. They’re a force to be reckoned with and present such different models of strength. Were they inspired by real-world leaders? Are you a brilliant strategist in your daily life? A benevolent dictator? A tyrant in the making?

MWT: Indeed, Byzantine empresses, French queens, Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I, Eleanor of Aquitaine, they and quite a few others who were never heads of state are cut and pasted together to make Attolia and Eddis. I don’t see much of myself in them. They are more aspirational figures. I’d like to be a brilliant strategist, a benevolent dictator—some days I’d settle for successful tyrant.

LB: Some days, I’d settle for getting out of my pajamas. Let’s touch a little on process. I’m an outliner. I need to know the end of a story or I can’t draft with any kind of confidence. How do you build a book?

MWT: I like to think of my first draft as a preliminary sketch I draw on, the canvas before I start adding paint. The draft is usually about a third the length of the finished manuscript. I like this metaphor—and it’s oil paint, not watercolors—because sometimes you just have to paint over that whole disaster in the lower-right-hand corner and start again.

LB: I’m stealing this metaphor. It’s so much more accurate than “outline.” I’ve been told we’re getting more Queen’s Thief books. When you started all this, did you know how big the story would get? When you drew that first sketch, were you laying out the series as a whole?

MWT: I thought The Thief would be a stand-alone book. I even chopped out some stuff that I later wished I’d left in because I thought I’d only ever be telling a part of the story I had in my head. Then I got an entirely unanticipated call from the Newbery committee and my editor, Susan Hirschman, called to congratulate me. She handed the phone to a librarian, Barbara Barstow, who asked if I was working on the sequel. Just like that, the manuscript I’d been slaving over for a year went into a drawer and it’s never come back out. I started The Queen of Attolia that day.

LB: I’m so grateful you got that call. Not that The Thief doesn’t work as a stand-alone, but I think the series feels inevitable in the way of truly great fantasy. It’s impossible for me to imagine Gen captive to just one book.

Finally, without asking for spoilers, can you give us a hint about what comes next?

MWT: That would be telling.

LB: You can’t blame me for trying.

Credits

Jacket art © 2017 by Joel Tippie

Jacket design by Joel Tippie

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