Sarah J. Maas Talks "A Court of Wings and Ruin"
If you know anyone who’s a fan of author Sarah J. Maas, you better make sure you’re not planning to speak to them on May 2. On that fateful Tuesday, A Court of Wings and Ruin will hit shelves, thus rendering all her fans incapacitated for at least 24 hours, and probably longer - the quantity of feelings will be infinite. ACOWAR is the third book in the Court of Thorns and Roses trilogy, which tells the story of Feyre, a human-turned-faerie learning to cope with new powers, new friendships, and a new relationship, all while trying to save the world from an evil king hell-bent on destroying everything she holds dear. It’s a lot to deal with, especially now that she’s - spoiler alert, but if you’re reading this you probably already know - back in the Spring Court spying on her evil ex-boyfriend.
Maas is looking forward to finally being able to talk about what happens in ACOWAR, but even after Tuesday, she’ll still have a few secrets to keep. She’s currently working on three more books set in the same universe, though she can’t say when they’re set or who’ll be narrating. “Some of the books might take place after the series, some of them might take place before,” she says, “but those will have different points of view.” Here, Maas talks about the way she sketches out her books, which heroines she loved growing up, and why the sex scenes in this series are so important.
This series is so full of little details that a reader might skip over that later end up being super important. How do you sketch those out as you're writing?
I like to know how I want each book to end and how I want the series overall to end, and some of the middle details, like the scenes that excite me, whether it’s an action scene or a really sexy, hot scene. When I’m filling in those gaps between those scenes I’ve planned out in advance, I usually wind up learning tons of little details about the characters. Sometimes just adding in a little detail can wind up opening up an entire pocket of the world. It’s a long process, but adding in those details is really one of my favorite parts of it. When it comes to the big reveals and all the stuff that happens in book three, a lot of that I’ll plan far in advance so that I can plant the seeds pretty early on in book one or two. I grew up with Harry Potter, and I feel like J.K. Rowling is the queen of little details that are on the page in book one and then in book six they come back in a huge way. That definitely left its mark on me when I was growing up as a reader and a writer.
I’m just thinking about how much there is in the first book about Feyre loving to paint and you’re like, "OK, that’s cool, whatever," and then it turns out Rhys was putting the night stars in her head and you’re like, "OH MY GOD!" That did remind me a lot of Harry Potter.
One of the hardest things was when the first book came out, I had already written book two, so I knew exactly what was gonna happen with Feyre and Rhys. So having to keep all those little secrets and details to myself during events when readers would come up and be like “I love Tamlin!” and I’d be like, "Weeell." I would just kind of smile at them and be like, "Yeah, sure, me too, I guess." When Mist and Fury finally came out a year later it was such a relief to finally be [able to] gush about my love for Rhys. Book three has a bunch of that stuff, so it’ll be exciting to have these events and have readers maybe get to freak out with me a little bit, because it’s been just me and my editor and a couple critique partners who know all these secrets.
One thing I love about Feyre is that she's not a virgin when the events of the first book start, which is kind of unusual for young heroines, even in romance that's more definitively for adults. Why did you include that detail?
With the sex in my books, I try to make it a positive thing. It’s OK for women to be virgins, it’s OK for them to have had as many sexual partners as they want. With Feyre, it just felt like it was part of her character. I wanted her to have a sexual history that wasn’t something to be ashamed of, that was something that she was in charge of; I wanted her to be in charge of her body, her passions and desires. It’s important for women to realize it's your body, it’s your choices, and if anyone tries to shame you about that stuff, then that’s on them.
On another level, it also allowed me to avoid the initial losing-her-virginity sex scene with Tamlin, which I didn’t really want to write. I wanted to get right to the fun stuff. This makes me sound like such a pervert. I wanted her to be on relatively equal footing with him. The power dynamic between her and Tamlin is so unequal at times that I wanted her to at least have some control in the bedroom and know what to expect. Getting to write these sexy-times scenes has definitely been one of the fun elements [of writing these books]. When I wrote the first one in ACOTAR, I definitely had to have a glass of wine, because I was like, "Oh my god, my family is gonna be reading this book and we’ll never be able to have Thanksgiving dinner ever again." Thankfully my family’s been pretty cool about it. We just don’t discuss it, which is fine by me.
I know my mom has read these and when we talk about them I’ll be like, "Let’s just not talk about the sex parts."
What’s funny is that my family is pretty chill about that kind of stuff, but it’s still just one of those things where I’m like, "Ehhh." It’s weird for me to have my family read my books in general, but then add in the relatively steamy scenes and it’s just a whole different ballgame. But beyond that, I love that at my events I have women of all ages coming up to me, glad to have a heroine who’s not slut-shamed. Slut-shaming really sets my blood boiling and it’s important for me to have sex-positive books. I learned so much about sex and relationships from the books I read when I was growing up. I never would have been the kid in sex ed who raised my hand, like, "What does this part do?" I would have rather thrown myself down the stairs than ask a question in sex ed. But then I read tons of romantic fantasy books when I was growing up, and I learned a lot about sex and good relationships from those books. I hope that maybe it’s come full circle, and maybe someone’s reading my books now and it’s doing the same thing now that [those other books] did for me.
In my Throne of Glass books I had that [virginity] moment, but with this one I wanted to bypass [that], especially in book two. Mist and Fury has, like, a three-day sex marathon, which was actually really fun for me to write. I don’t throw in the sex just to have it in there, even though I’m a huge fan of erotic romance. I tried to make the sex tied to the plot and the characters, and make it feel like it is a real result of what’s happening in the world and these characters’ lives. [The marathon] was the culmination of not just Rhys and Feyre’s romantic relationship, but a lot of the plot points that have come out, and it was a big moment of healing for both of them. It was a very emotional thing for me to write. There’s definitely more of that in book three!
When you look around online at ACOTAR fan art and blogs, fans obviously respond to how hot Rhys is, but they're equally attracted to the fact that he's so intent on making sure he's respectful of Feyre, that he treats her as an equal. Is that something you think young women are more attuned to now?
Definitely. I think things are changing in terms of what readers or fandoms expect from love interests, especially male ones. Rhys has his own history that allows him to have some perspective on how Feyre might be feeling. It’s not like I actively planned for them to be feminist, but in thinking about them that’s who they were and those are the characters that I’m interested in. I have no interest in writing about the super-controlling alpha-hole, unless there’s an interesting twist on it. Sometimes I’ll think back on the books or movies or TV shows that I was into when I was growing up, and it was a different type of love interest then. I’m more interested in exploring relationships between equals. Guys who treat women like human beings, I find that to be very attractive.
It also presents some interesting [contrasts] with Tamlin’s character, who is that super-controlling, alpha-hole type. I don’t want to get into spoilers, but I think there are still some interesting things to explore with Tamlin and how that character fits into this world. Even in the world of ACOTAR, his behavior is not really OK by any means. I had to pull apart that alpha male type, and see what makes them tick and where that comes from and explore that really dark, controlling side of someone. I’m so glad that it’s all changing in pop culture now, where we want love interests, male and female, that are more partners and equals in things. I find that to be very sexy.
I also think readers, especially adult readers, can sometimes be a little too forgiving in fantasy and sci-fi when relationships aren’t quite equal, like, “Oh, that’s just how it is in this genre.” I found myself doing that with book one.
That’s how I wanted to write the series. I wanted readers to experience book one with Tamlin and his controlling, alpha-male behavior and be like, "Oh, it’s kind of the norm," and fall in love with him the way Feyre does - not blindly, but accepting that that’s how things are. So then in book two when Rhys comes along and Feyre has her own journey, they can look back at book one and see all those moments where things that kind of got brushed over by Feyre weren’t exactly OK.
Who were some of your favorite fictional heroines growing up?
Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer was probably my favorite and one of the most life-changing heroines. I felt a lot like Buffy in high school. I was OK at classes, I wasn’t the best student in my class, I wasn’t the worst. Buffy couldn’t be put into any kind of box, in the way that society likes to make us squeeze into these boxes. She wasn’t just a girly girl, she wasn’t a tomboy. She was the Slayer who was destined to save the world and fight these horrible creatures, but she was also a girly girl who loved clothes and what society deemed to be very feminine things. I felt like that growing up, like there were all these bits and pieces of me. Buffy started airing at a very crucial time in me figuring out my identity.
When I got the idea for my Throne of Glass series, Celaena was very much in the vein of Buffy, where she’s this young assassin who loves clothes and dancing and "feminine" things, but she also loves to beat the crap out of people and murder them. I had no interest in writing heroines who had to be squeezed into these very narrow definitions. Buffy also showed me that there were so many different types of female strength as well. Buffy definitely has that kick-ass, cliché strong heroine type of strength, but then there was also quiet strength that the series showed as well. Like Willow was a wallflower who was painfully shy, and yet she’s like the smartest person in the entire town, and has her own amazing journey and becomes one of the most powerful people in Sunnydale.
You can see those parts of Buffy in Feyre as well - she likes to wear pants and be practical and hunt, but when it’s Starfall, she’s down to get dressed up and have her hair fixed.
You’re totally right. You can wear pants in the morning or afternoon and then change into a fancy dress and have your hair done, and it doesn’t change who you are. You can be so many different things and never have to apologize for it. With the female characters in the ACOTAR series, there are several different kinds [of women] and some more are coming in book three. Buffy made me realize that there didn’t have to be one female character who was the star of everything. There could be so many different ones who have their own journeys and are just as important as the main character. I also love writing about the dynamics between these female characters and the bonds that they form together, because they’re just as crucial as the romantic bonds. My friendships with other women have been as defining for me as my romantic relationships.
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