Erin Morgensternhas magic to make.
“I got to writeThe Night Circusin a bubble,” she explains.
“No one knew who I was and no one knew it was coming.
I wanted to be able to recreate that bubble, which of course was easier said than done.
I have a very long, messy writing process.
I’m not an outliner.
I don’t know how anyone writes a novel, and I’ve got two of them now.”
Morgenstern started with a relatively simple idea: writing a book about books.
“I’m not the sort of writer that always wanted to be a writer,” she says.
“I found it was easier to tell the story by making it more complicated.
By adding in more backstories and more books within books and more layers to it,” muses Morgenstern.
For her, it’s about crafting places she wishes she could visit.
“I write the spaces that I want to go to,” she says.
“Everyone wants their Hogwarts letter.
I don’t want to have to do homework.
I don’t want that school-set fantasy.
It’s more of an upper university free study [where] no one’s grading you.
You have all of the books and the stories and the resources to do whatever you want.
It’s my version of that ideal imaginary space.”
Zachary studies game theory, and the novel relies frequently on rules and tropes of video game design.
Playing games changed everything for the author.
“I got really into these games that had these branching narratives.
You make one choice and then it affects where the game goes from there,” she explains.
“I had the beginning of what becameThe Starless Seabefore I got really into video games.
Then I thought, ‘Oh, this would layer really nicely onto what I already have.’
Because I was already playing with stories, the way you have fairy-tale retellings or different variations on myths.
I wanted to combine that very modern video game sensibility with those very old stories.”
“I’m such a paper-book person.
“A thought I was leaning on was, ‘What happens if you just put something under glass?’
The books need to be read.
(Oh, right, and they might just hold the untold secrets of the universe.)
But, strangely, it’s not a personal experience Morgenstern was drawing on.
One thing Morgenstern doesn’t need to wish for is literary success.
Comparisons to the likes of Tolkien, Carroll, and C.S.
“I like the question asking more than finding the answer.
