Shadow and Bone author talks fandom, diversity and adaptation

Leigh Bardugo is someone to watch. Though her Shadow and Bone series arrived on book shelves in 2012, it’s the newest YA fantasy series to hit Netflix, and Bardugo sees the universe she built expanding into something bigger than she ever could have imagined. In a new interview with The Guardian, Bardugo opens up about diversity, the challenges of adapting work and dealing with fans.

Like the Netflix regency romance adaptation Bridgerton, Shadow and Bone differs from the original book in that the cast is much more diverse. Bardugo’s first book, she says, was “laden with tropes” and needed to reflect the world at large. The more she wrote, the easier it was to introduce more elements into the world she’d built.

Adding diversity to her series was achieved in part by merging two of Bardugo’s books, Shadow and Bone and her the follow-up series Six of Crows. “My world is not straight, white and homogenous. I don’t want to be. So why should my fiction look that way?”

Shadow and Bone author Leigh Bardugo “got lucky” with Netflix

Bardugo warns that allowing your books to be adapted into series or movies isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Though it might seem like authors would be lining up to have their books and series adapted by Netflix or Hulu, letting go of creative control is actually terrifying if the work falls into the wrong hands. “Adaptation is scary. I don’t begrudge any author the right to say that they don’t want to do it, because we’ve all seen it go wrong.”

She says she “got lucky” with the team that brought her work to life, “because the people I collaborated with cared deeply – not just about the material, but the people who love it.”

Speaking of those people, Bardugo says that she used to interact with fans all the time, but in recent years isn’t as active on social media because of a fandom that “has its own life.” Early on she engaged all of the time with readers who supported her initial trilogy. “But, unfortunately, as my readership has grown, it’s become less possible to be that engaged. That feels like a tremendous loss. I used to be very active on Twitter and, quite honestly, I don’t feel comfortable interacting there any more, so I stopped.”

Social media has been a boon to authors, who can promote and build a fanbase easier than ever before. But it’s also a minefield as books become popular and fans have their own thoughts about what should or should not be happening. Bardugo is one of many authors who either uses social media sparingly or has stopped altogether.

Now that the first season of Shadow and Bone has been released on Netflix, she’s excited about the possibility of bringing all of her books to life in some way or another. “Our plan is it will be quite different from the books,” she teased.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels