Fantasy author Andrea Stewart tells us about writing The Bone Shard War

The final entry in fantasy author Andrea Stewart’s The Drowning Empire trilogy is out now, bringing the epic story of fantasy warfare, myth, and magic on the drifting islands of the Sukai Dynasty to a close. The Bone Shard War marks a high point for the series, tying together mysteries which have pervaded the entire trilogy while juggling an expansive cast of characters and a multitude of plotlines. The result is a powerful conclusion to an excellent series; you can read our full review of The Bone Shard War here.

To mark the release of The Bone Shard War, Stewart dropped by Winter Is Coming to tell us more about the triumphs and challenges of writing the ending of the series, crafting compelling animal companions, favorite books and shows, the next project she’s working on and more! (We even got to talking about The Dragonriders of Pern!) Keep reading for some highlights, or watch the full interview on our YouTube channel:

Andrea Stewart on the triumphs and challenges of writing The Bone Shard War

DANIEL ROMAN: Andrea, thank you so much for taking time to chat about The Bone Shard War, I’m so excited to talk to you about it! How does it feel to have the trilogy finished?

ANDREA STEWART: You know it’s funny because I just finished writing a whole blog post about it, and how it feels kind of surreal and not really like it’s happening to me at this moment in time…it feels as though it’s happened already…you know I finished the book, I’ve left these characters behind, and quite some time ago. And so having the book come out…it is different. It’s strange, and it’s exciting to know that people are going to be actually reading the end of it, because it doesn’t quite feel real to me until other people have read it.

DR: You had an interesting writing process for this book in particular. When last we spoke around the release of The Bone Shard Emperor, you mentioned that you had writing the first book in a series down to a science, but learned a lot about writing sequels working on book 2. For The Bone Shard War, in the author’s note at the end of the novel you talk a little bit about how you actually had to scrap an entire draft of this latest book. I’m so curious, what was that process like?

AS: I thought I had the whole process down after writing The Bone Shard Daughter, but I had never written a book two and a book three [in a series]. I had written a lot of book ones. So, kind of figuring out the structure of a trilogy and how I was going to end it.

There was also, I think just trying to figure things out through the process of drafting, which unfortunately seems to be part of the way that I work. So I’ll be figuring things out while I’m drafting, and sometimes it becomes apparent to me that I’m so far off the course that I need to just start over. Fortunately, when I do start over, it tends to feel more correct and it goes a lot smoother. [Laughs] And also fortunately I tend to write quite quickly, so I can afford to just scrap a bunch of words.

But I do have to say it is definitely painful. I don’t think there’s anything that is easy about that.

DR: Were there any particular signs for you that when you did go back to do that draft again, the book had arrived at the version it wanted to be?

AS: Specifically, I felt that the characters and their actions were matching up more with who they were as people. I think that the biggest thing that tipped me off to a draft not being right is that the way the characters are behaving feels like it’s serving the plot, rather than the other way around. I’m thinking, “Well the characters need to go here and they need to do this because this is how the plot works,” and it doesn’t seem to fit with who they are as people. So I have to go back and re-plot things to make sure that it lines up with who they are and who they are as far as the character development goes.

DR: The Bone Shard War features a bit of a time jump at the beginning of the novel. Knowing the process you went through with the book, I was really curious if you actually wrote any of the material set during that time jump? Was that a factor in the changing drafts?

AS: I did, yeah. I had written material before the time jump, and I was realizing that it wasn’t the best place to start off. So I had basically started writing from where The Bone Shard Emperor had left off. But I felt like structurally it just wasn’t going to work, especially given what some of the characters have been going through and have been through in that two-year time jump. I felt like they had to be at a point where they had experienced these things for a length of time. So I definitely tossed material from that period of time.

For the character arcs that I had planned for this last book, [the time jump is] kind of where things had to start off. Where things have been bad for a while, but they are just starting to get worse, and that’s kind of that tipping point.

DR: I have to ask about animal companions, because obviously Mephi — the otter-like animal companion poster child for your series — has an enormous fan base. I think for a lot of people who have pets, Mephi’s mannerisms are so relatable. I was wondering if there are any specific things from your own pet parenting life that helped inform creating those characters?

AS: Oh yeah…so, I had a cat before that I based some of his mannerisms on, and now I have another cat that’s very similar, but just that kind of overwhelming enthusiasm for everything, even if it’s getting into trouble. Like that, I definitely drew on my own experiences because my previous cat, he would steal food from my desk, and he would unroll the toilet paper and drag it down the hall. Just a lot of silly little things that he would get into, but also, in addition to being enthusiastically mischievous, he was just enthusiastically affectionate. And I think that’s a lot of how I think of Mephi, where you know he’s just got this joy for life, and he just wants everything be okay and he wants his person to be okay. And that doesn’t mean that he’s going to do everything Jovis wants him to, but you know overall they just have this like really close and loving bond.

DR: Moving away from The Drowning Empire, I want to ask you just a little bit about what you’re working on now. The Gods Below is the working title for this new series, right?

AS: Yes, that is the working title for the series, we have not agreed on a title for the first book yet, but…after discarding about 60,000 words… [Laughs] Like I said, I’m trying to accept that this is part of my process, I’m not quite gone to acceptance yet. But now I’m about halfway through my new draft, which I suppose the first one was a zero draft so perhaps this is the first draft.

I’m very excited about it. I’m very excited to be playing in a new world with new characters, again I am just throwing a bunch of ideas in there that I find really fun and interesting. Like I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of a hollow world, although I know scientifically that doesn’t make sense. But I’m like you know what? It’s fantasy, there’s magic, so let’s do this! That’s the reason why it’s called The Gods Below, because the gods actually live in that hollow in the center of the Earth. And that’s where magic is concentrated, so I also have this concept where magic is in the air…and the concentration gets heavier and heavier the deeper you go into the Earth. And it is unfortunately toxic to most people

So the world starts out where it’s basically undergone this magical apocalypse, so it’s an apocalyptic kind of landscape, and the world has been shattered into different realms, and these realms are one by one being “restored” by a god who has made a bargain with a mortal who said “Hey, we really need you guys to fix things up here.” And it centers around two sisters who have been separated by a cataclysmic event at the beginning of the book, and they’re trying to find their way back to one another. There are obviously more characters than that, because it’s me, I write epic fantasy. [Laughs]

DR: Ending with a few fun lightning round questions, what is the last book and the last TV show that you really loved?

AS: Oh gosh. Last TV show, that’s easy, that’s Andor. I scream at everybody about it. It was funny because…when I saw it was coming out I thought to myself, “oh, another Star Wars show,” I don’t know if I’m gonna be into it. And I started watching it and I was just entranced, because it’s so much better than it has any right to be. Every episode is just fantastic writing, I recommend it to everybody.

The last book that I read that I really loved…I’ve been reading a lot of books, I’m trying to remember…I think I’m just gonna throw out there The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty. I was just raving about it to my husband the other day, that it’s got these tropes that you really love; it’s got that ‘one last job’ kind of trope where these middle-aged characters are just kind of thrown back into the fray where they may or may not want to be. But it’s also got a character at its center who is a mother and she’s also trying to balance that with wanting that glory and wondering if she should even want it. So that’s an extremely relatable theme for me, so I just devoured that book.

DR: If you could choose any animal companion from another fantasy or sci-fi series — so no Mephi allowed — what one would you choose?

AS: Okay, I want one of the dragons from Pern! I want to go fly around and have an amazing dragon, that I can speak to telepathically and who loves me, yes.

DR: So I wasn’t planning on asking this, but now I need to because I’m literally sitting next to all my Pern books. Do you have a favorite Pern book?

AS: Oh god, yes I do! It’s…Dragonsong, was that the name? The first Menolly book, with her fire lizards. I related so hard to that as a kid because, you know I wanted to get into the arts and everything and my parents were like “science, math!” And she’s this very lonely kid and kind of sad, and I was a very lonely kid and I was bullied and everything. And she gets these fire lizards, and she gets to have her dream come true. You can’t ask for more than that, it’s just wish fulfillment at its best. It’s amazing.

A huge thank you to Andrea Stewart for stopping by the site! The Bone Shard War is out now from Orbit Books, wherever books are sold.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can watch the full conversation here.

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