By Kate Kotler
Charlaine Harris is just sweet and lovely and everything you would hope that the author of one of the most popular vampire book series of all time would be. Geek Girl on the Street was lucky enough to be on an intimate press round table who chatted with the Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Series author this afternoon. Here is part of that conversation, my questions are in purple:
How do you know you’re born to be a writer?
Oh boy, I’ve wrestled with this inside myself, because people do ask me for writing advice. I think that if you want to write from the time that you start reading, you are born a writer. That’s not all there is to it, the desire is not enough, you have to be able to have the discipline. It’s like being a great singer, but not going through the classes or the training to make your voice as good as it can be – if you really want to write, you’ve got to read everything you can, everything-everything. You’ve got to put in your ground work and then you can start to write. You have to accept that fact that what you write for the first few years is going to be crap, you’re going to have to throw it out. It’s just getting the basics down, like if you wanted to be a singer, you wouldn’t be able to do Wagner if you hadn’t done your training. You can’t go for the big stuff until you’ve put in your work.
Is this your first Comic Con and how was your experience being on the panel yesterday?
It’s my third Comic Con and it’s my third appearance with the panel. And, every year it just gets weirder and weirder. This year we didn’t have, since Alexsander wasn’t there yesterday, except in the cardboard cutout sense, we didn’t have the ladies in the viking helmets, this year.
That amused Alexsander last year, endlessly. He is really a nice, down to earth fellow. For me, it’s a little tense being with the cast because security has to ratchet up so much when I’m with them. I’m always, they do such an excellent job, when I first met actors as actors I was just stunned by the fact that they’re ordinary people. You know, who have to make car payments and worry about their swimming pool lining, they just have ordinary concerns. They were equally puzzled by me. So we had a time of when we got to know each other a little bit better and now I think we get along quite well together. It’s been a big learning experience.
Why is your cover art so different from other books in that genre?
Because I’m super lucky.
Lisa Desimini is a fantastic artist, I’m proud to have her covers and I think they really distinguish the books. Of course when I first started writing these books, there wasn’t the others, I don’t ever want to have the standard “kick-ass chick” cover, because I think that just says “this is another kick-ass chick book, there’s nothing special about it.” I love the distinction of having Lisa’s covers, in fact, let me put in this plug you can purchase posters of the covers from her website without the print on them. She has been a huge asset to my career.
What were some of the books when you were just starting off that you drew inspiration from?
I really don’t trust the word inspiration, but I think that the earliest influences and things that formed my opinions when I approached writing were Edgar Allen Poe, Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austin – make of that what you will. I realize that is a confused jumble of influences, but they’re all building blocks. And, the late great Shirley Jackson, who is such a fantastic writer. I think anyone who has only read The Lottery has only dipped their toes into her depths and I wish all her works were taught in schools today.
I just read an interesting story in Blood Lite about a group of shapeshifters who eat their political enemies, it’s such a facinating concept, do you have plans to develop that into a series?
That was so fun to write! I thought it was fascinating, too! You know, it would be a very short one because they’d all be dead. That’s An Evening with Al Gore, my ecological warewolf story, and vampire story. That was so much fun because it was completely different from anything I’d written before, I worked with the idea for a while before I got it all ironed out. And, I’d just watched Al Gore’s movie, of course he’s absolutely right. He’s been proven right, he was right before anyone believed it, he’s right now that everyone believes it and they’re not doing anything about it. I just thought, what if people really acted on Al Gore’s suggestions? This is the supernatural reaction to Al Gore saying we should green up…
Is there a group or type of person that you’re just waiting to figure out how to work them into [the series].
You know, I do observe people a lot, maybe sometimes in a disconcerting way. Because, writers are all great easvedroppers. There are people I’m kind of tracking mentally, wondering how I can work them in. I don’t ever want to sound as if I feel I’m superior or as if I’m making fun, but you know there are some groups that just kind of lend themselves to being made fun of.
You mentioned in the panel that Sookie will never be a vampire, but you said in the next book Eric is going to ask her to consider it. Some of the fans are wondering, how do those two co-exist?
Well there are other developments that will kind of avoid a direct confrontation of the two camps. Sookie, her sunbathing is really important to her. She and Eric are in love right now, but you know she’s been in love before. I don’t know what to tell you, there’s a lot of information coming in the next book that Sookie didn’t know. I know, I’m so mean to her. Jim Butcher and I have kind of a contest to see who can be the meanest to their protagonist. I think Jim is winning, but I’m giving it the best try I’ve got.
Do you have the next book outlined, do you know how the series will end?
I’ve signed for 13 books. I know how the series will end, I’ve known for years how the series was going to end. So many things have happened along the way, I’m not a very organized writer, but I’m making huge efforts to try to be so that my copyeditor doesn’t have to bang her head against a wall. There are so many fun by-ways to explore, I know there will be 13 books because I signed a contract saying so, there might be more, but I may end at 13. I’m going to see how I feel when I start the next book, that’s going to be the acid test.
So it’s not that you have an outline, you just know how you want it to end?
Right, right – it’s just all in the journey.
Is there a hope of a side series which will be in Texas or Mississippi?
Wow, that’s very specific.
Is that a new question?
Sure, I might do a side trip into Sookie’s world. And, I’m considering several other side project, including writing a graphic novel with my friend Chris Seldon. The comic book series (by IDW), I don’t have anything to do with that other than saying “Oh yeah, that looks good.” The Harper Collins comic books should be out later this next year and there are some pretty exciting, but unfortunately secret, things from my other series.
Has there been anything along the way that has surprised you as a writer as you got further into the plot or developed the characters more?
Everyday is a surprise for me. Because I keep a hauling in new characters, even though I think honestly, I have as many characters as The Passage now. I always need new people to do things, so I haul them in and I create them and I play with them. Because, that’s a lot of fun for me, to write the secondary characters. I’m working towards a point, but I keep taking the scenic route.
Sookie is such a clever counterpart to the concept of the dark vampire. She’s so bright and bubbly and so very Southern. Is there any woman in popular culture who you modeled her on? Where did Sookie come from?
I made her an older fashioned girl than I had intended at the beginning. That’s why she has such an old fashioned Southern name. I made her raised by her grandmother because I wanted to contrast the values – I’m almost as old as Sookie’s grandmother – with the vampire values and the way that Sookie is being confronted by life in ways her grandmother could never have anticipated. I was contrasting different versions of the South and life in it, from the way that I grew up, to the South my children face.
Well, I lived in Louisiana, so I get it.
Okay, you got it. So that’s what I’m really doing. I didn’t really draw on one figure, but on my vision of the South.
I have to tell you that she reminds me a lot of M’lynn from Steel Magnolias. She reminds me of that quite a bit, from the play, you know that “iron fist in a velvet glove.”
I’ll accept that!
What departure from your books are you the most pleased about in True Blood?
Oh Jessica! Oh my god, is she not great? I love Jessica and her scene with the chainsaw… And, the actress who plays her, Deborah Ann Woll, she’s one of those people who are actually prettier the closer you get. She is lovely and sweet and I just think her Jessica is a fantastic addition. When I first saw Bill convert her, then when she popped up and she was such a terrible vampire, I thought “Why didn’t I think of that?” It really works wonderfully in terms of the show.
Who brings out the fangirl in you?
Oh my gosh, I got to meet Naomi Novick this weekend and I was just like “Oh my gosh, Naomi Novick!!” I got to meet Justin Cronin… I have had a very exciting weekend, I am such a reader, such a fangirl of other writers that’s what really excites me.
