Q&A: Kate Elliott, author of “Servant Mage”
At Kate Elliott’s Servant Mage, a lowly fire mage finds herself entangled in an empire-wide conspiracy on her way to discovering her true power.
We chat with author Kate Elliott about her new short story, Servant Mage, plus writing, book recommendations, and more!
Hi kate! OWelcome to 2022! What are you hoping for in the new year and have you set any goals?
More peace, more justice, and I very much hope that the transition from a pandemic to a more manageable endemic situation will continue, as I think is happening slowly right now. On a personal level, I set goals because I love a list. My goal is to write write write write write, finish at least one new project and continue to work on the development of several projects on the back burner because it takes me a few years to build a new world for a new saga. The big project for 2021 is of course the third book of the invincible sun trilogy “Alexander the Great in space, gendered”. Wish me good luck.
When did you discover your love for writing?
I’ve been writing since I was ten – maybe before that, but when I was ten I remember writing a story about a pirate dragon, so I call that my genesis as an author. Pirates and Dragons: What’s Not to Love?
Quick Lightning Ride! Tell us about the first book you remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author and the one you can’t stop thinking about!
The first book I remember reading is Old Mother’s West Wind by Thornton Burgess, an awesome collection of related stories about anthropomorphic animals.
The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien, really blew me away when I was 13 and made me want to write a great epic fantasy set in an incredibly detailed world.
I can’t stop thinking about God’s Pieces of Wood by Ousmane Sembène, a novel about the 1947-1948 railway strike in colonial Senegal because it completely upended my expectations of what the thematic core of the novel would be. A masterpiece.
your new novel, Servant Mage, out January 18and! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
The indentured mage cannot trust anyone.
What can readers expect?
An escape from bondage to an unknown destination. A young fire mage who, torn from her family, has retained her fundamental integrity despite years of indentured service. An elaborate magic system. The dangerous political consequences of a civil war that is not quite over. Demons – or what some call demons even though the truth is more complicated because usually the truth IS more complicated, and the key is whether or not people are allowed to learn.
Where does the inspiration come from? Servant Mage comes from?
Many years ago I watched a historic BBC series called By the divided sword. Set during the English Civil War (1642 – 1651), it followed three aristocratic siblings who find themselves on opposite sides of the war between Royalists and Parliamentarians. The costumes and hats were gorgeous, as expected, but later I couldn’t remember anything from the plot except for a subplot that involved a servant in the family.
If I remember correctly, the young servant returns his coat to his master, who supports the royalists, and joins the new model army of the parliamentarians. While training and fighting, he became more and more radicalized and joined a movement within the military called the Levellers. Eventually, he and other Levelers are shot on their side because their political demands for equality are seen as too extreme and dangerous, even for people claiming to be reformers.
When I started taking notes for a fantasy with an elaborate magic system, I decided to set the story in a country torn apart by a civil war between two factions, the Monarchists and the Liberationists. With Servant Mage, I wanted to tell the story of workers, peasants and servants who live their lives in the shadows, silent on the roads, trying not to be trampled by events, desperate not to be killed. Their lives would not be changed no matter who ruled. That’s how I met an indentured servant mage named Fellian while she was cleaning the toilets at an inn. She keeps her head down, determined to survive the aftermath of a violent revolution. However, she is not an opportunist. She knows who she is, where she comes from and what she believes in, and she holds this precious knowledge close to her heart like a lamp to light her way.
Can you tell us a bit about the challenges you faced while writing and how you managed to overcome them?
I’ve been writing for so long that unfortunately I know my usual writing challenge well. This is the point in the first draft where I’m sure the story is horrible, the writing is terrible, and I’ve completely lost any skill I ever had to compose a narrative. Over the years I’ve learned to accept that this chasm of doubt is part of the process, and that my best bet is to just hear the negative talk, let it go like the wind, and keep writing even if I think every word is terrible. My mantra becomes, “These are just words; revision is where the book is made. At some point, the doubt subsides enough that I no longer have to constantly struggle with negative self-talk. When I get to the end of the novel, I feel a real sense of accomplishment, and then I can revise, which is my favorite part of writing, when the story in my head starts to fully take shape on the page.
Are there any favorite moments or characters that you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I feel like I knew very little about Fellian when I started. Understanding what my subconscious wanted to tell me about her journey, who she was and where she came from was the best part of the story. That, and allowing me to design an elaborate magic system, which was just plain fun. I even made a painting!
Do you have any writing tips for those immersing themselves in the fantasy genre?
I could write an entire book of fantasy genre writing tips, but I’ll summarize in three points that I think are crucial.
- Write what is in you to write. In other words, ignore this advice unless it is useful to you.
- When I write in a secondary fantasy world (i.e. not our world), I work very hard to write the world from the character’s point of view, not from my own point of view. How do they see the world? What relationship do they have with their society? How do they understand the cosmos? My goal as a writer is to write from their insider’s perspective on their world, not my outsider’s perspective on their world. My experience and skills will obviously influence everything I do, for better or for worse, but if I do my job well, my characters see the world through their own eyes, not mine.
- No one is required to read everything that has been published in the genre to write fantasy. There are no “classics” to read before trying it. Read as much or as little of the genre as you want. Be careful, however, in thinking that a perspective or angle has never been done before just because you haven’t read it. A version of this subgenre or perspective probably exists, perhaps written by a lesser-known writer twenty years ago. Fantasy (and science fiction) is a rich field with a long and varied history, some unpleasant and ugly and some amazing and beautiful. We’re blessed to be in the midst of a new golden age of sff, and I’m excited about all the wonderful new work recently published, coming up, and being written right now.
What’s next for you?
I submitted a revised (and very long) draft of furious sky, book two of Chronicles of the Sun (book one is invincible sun, published in 2020). My other completed novel, this one quite short, is called The goalkeeper’s six. It’s a contemporary fantasy about a multiverse, dragons, business cartels, a labor union, a lost poet, a kidnapping, and a very pissed off mom, and is slated for release in January 2023.
See also
My current major writing project is, of course, Lady of Chaos, volume 3 of the Sun trilogy. I also work on and off on a side project because I find it helps my creative process to be able to take a brief “vacation” from the main project once in a while. And there are many more on my list to write. Never enough time!
Finally, do you have any 2022 book recommendations for our readers?
My recommendation is always to catch up on unread books. I plan to read John Le Carré’s famous The spy from the cold in 2022 because I’ve never read it, and I think reading older books matters. As for books released in 2022 – also important to read! – I am currently reading an ARC by Ken Liu talking bones, the fourth and final book in his silk-punk Dandelion Dynasty saga, perhaps my favorite epic fantasy of the last ten years. It comes out in June 2022, and the first three volumes (starting with The Grace of Kings) are all currently available.
