Since starting out in 2019 with her Beauty and the Beast retelling, Katherine Macdonald has now published a spectacular nineteen books, each one bringing to life swoon-worthy heroes and heroines across a plethora of enchanting fantasy landscapes. Reviewers of Katherine’s books, time and time again, praise her relatable characters, believable (and utterly breath-taking) romances, and consistently witty banter. Having worked with Katherine on two of her books this year, I have been blown away by her world building, her characterisation, and her perspective on the fairy tales we know and love.
The Interview
Amy:
"Sick of damsels in distress and the toxic relationships that peppered the stories of her youth, she writes for the girl she was, crafting stories of strong women and gentle boys, with powerful, complex and respectful relationships amidst fantasy backdrops." This is a fantastic author bio. Could you tell us more about what drives you to write in the way that you do?
Katherine:
I’m not meaning to sound controversial, but girls and women and lovers of romance in general deserve better. They deserve better books, and they deserve better partners who are thoughtful and kind and know the meaning of consent. I can’t ask every poor partner in the world to step up, but I can write the sort of men that heterosexual women should demand to be with. Raise your standards, and don’t accept any less than a (metaphorical) prince. It’s better to be yourself by yourself than be somebody else with somebody else.
Amy:
Since I started planning this interview, Katherine’s had some exciting news. Would you like to talk about a certain recent review?
Katherine:
“Reads With Rachel” (who hates romance and is very picky in general) read my book and gave it FOUR POINT FIVE STARS. I am so flippin’ chuffed.
Amy:
4.5 stars is high praise indeed! I had a look at the review on Goodreads. ‘If you were disappointed by The Cruel Prince, read this instead.’ Would you say that Holly Black has been a particular influence in your writing?
Katherine:
I absolutely love Holly Black’s dark worlds, her otherworldly description, and her flawed, beautiful characters. No one is perfect in Holly Black’s tales, which only serves to make the characters far more interesting. She doesn’t spoon feed her readers, and she’s a true master of “show don’t tell.”
Amy:
I’m sure you can’t wait for the YouTube review! (Since we did this interview, Reads with Rachel has now posted a video where she talks about FODAW, so you can check that out here). Readers, if you haven’t read Forest of Dreams and Whispers yet, you absolutely must! If you’ve already read it and you’re wondering what to do with yourself now that Hawthorn and Jules are no longer a part of your life, there is still hope! Do you want to tell us about Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight?
Katherine:
I don’t want to spoil FODAW too much, but Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight takes place fifty years later and deals with the next generation. This time, the story is a gender-swapped Snow White retelling, where a prince is taken in by seven female dwarves, who go to extreme lengths to keep him safe from his evil stepfather…
Amy:
One thing that I am always struck by when reading Katherine's work is the depth of her characters and their relationships. Writing relatable characters and believable relationships isn’t easy. How do you go about creating your characters and plotting out their relationships?
Katherine:
I think I’m quite lucky in that I’ve been writing for so long now that a lot of the characters (once I’ve established the bare bones) write themselves. I used to write pages and pages of backstory on each character and their dynamics with others, but nowadays I write maybe a paragraph. I’ll write something like, “prone to bouts of hot-tempered behaviour when angered, but can be diplomatic when the occasion calls” and let the story show this and develop it further. It’s important to know the character’s motivations—what drives them, what do they want, and what’s stopping them from achieving it. The character should have some flaw or something to work on in the story.
I also like my characters to feel well-rounded, so I’ll note something they’re good at (like gardening) and this then alters how they perceive the world and describe it to the readers. A scientist isn’t likely to use flowery language, but an artist would pay particular attention to colour.
I’ve got a whole blog on how to write believable relationships, but the gist of it is ensuring that the reader has the answer to these 3 questions:
1. How does the other character make them feel?
2. What do they connect over?
3. Why should we root for them?
We can have a convincing romance within the timeline of a day, as long as the audience feels all of these questions have been answered.
Amy:
Excellent advice. So whilst we are talking shop, I want to come back to something that has become a strangely controversial maxim: Show don’t tell. I’m not going to open debate on whether we should be adhering to it, I think that we’ve established that each mode of writing has its place, but I think that something new writers often struggle with is how to show things. What are your top tips for writing dynamic and engaging scenes?
Katherine:
I think the key thing that new writers or those honing their craft need to ask themselves is 1) what do I want from this scene? And 2) how am I going to create that effect? If I’m wanting to write a spooky introduction to a gothic house, I’m first off not going to use that word—spooky—but I’m going to use words that create that feeling in the reader. I might find an image to help me, or watch the intro to a spooky film. Watching a scene that is like the one you want to describe can be a great tool for accurate description. Films can’t tell—they can only show. So look at what is being done on a screen to convey the emotion or feeling you want to produce in your audience.
Amy:
Now I’ve talked about it in the introduction, but I know there will be readers who are going to ask. Nineteen books, another soon to be released. How do you do it?
Katherine:
Stubbornness, determination, excellent time management skills, and a complete and utter lack of a social life! I always remind people that my first book took 6 years, and now I write a draft every 3 months, because you get better. I write in a lot of sprints at the moment—I can write 200-300 in ten minutes if I’m focused, so I will do ten minutes whilst my child is watching television, or distracted with lunch, or playing in the garden whilst I watch safely from the inside. Before I know it, I’ve written 1k a day, which is all that is needed to keep my work on a 3-month track.
Amy:
What advice would you give to aspiring authors who feel that they just don’t have the time to get their ideas on paper?
Katherine:
“You can have excuses or results, but not both.” With the exception of very few professions, there’s always ten minutes. You can give yourself that much to make your dreams come true. If it’s truly a struggle, set yourself this goal: you only need to write 500 words. As soon as you write 500 words, you can stop. OR you can stop once you’ve been trying for an hour, but you have to really try. Give yourself a reward once you’ve achieved that, and come back again tomorrow. Slow but steady wins the race, but pretty soon, you’ll be sprinting and you won’t even feel it.
Amy:
Of course, time isn’t the only issue. A lot of effort goes into getting a book ready for publication, self-publishing is a whole career in itself. Do you have any advice, or lessons learned, for those who are just starting out?
Katherine:
GET A BETA READER. I would say preferably three, and LISTEN TO THEIR ADVICE. It’s easy to be defensive, but I’d implore you to take it under advisement; they are there to try and make your book as great as it can be. Don’t fall into the trap of saying “they just don’t understand my theme/book/characters” because, while they might not, it may be that your work isn’t quite there YET. Traditionally published writers will go through dozens of edits. Good books take a team. Sure, perhaps one of your beta readers doesn’t like Zed because they just don’t get his motivation, or perhaps there need to be a few more hints showing his goals earlier on in the story.
Amy:
I second this advice. Listen to feedback. I really do feel that if you aren't ready to be receptive to feedback, you are unlikely to be ready for publishing. It seems like a particularly tough time for people just starting out. I think that with recent technological developments, writers and artists have a lot more to contend with than we did a few years ago. I know this is going to bring a lot of controversy to my door, but I have to ask, how do you feel about the rise of AI in writing and the arts in general?
Katherine:
I feel like we have a long way to go until a computer can write an entire book for an author, let alone craft depth and nuance, and I think there’s always going to be a market for “real” art—in the same way I have paintings in my house from real local artists, alongside framed holiday shots, cheap postcards, and a printed canvas I bought in Wilko for a fiver. I can completely understand the fear of people worried that their profession is going to become obsolete, but I don’t see that happening. AI can imitate and recreate; it can’t actually do something new or unique. It can’t take the next step forward without human intervention.
Amy:
To end on a high note, what do you have in the works? Aside from continuing to make us swoon and cry, as you are wont to do, what are your plans?
Katherine:
I’m currently working on edits for a new trilogy, A Throne of Pearls and Bones. The first one is due out in September, with the second not long after. I’d describe it as “King Arthur meets Miraculous Ladybug”. Set in a fantasy world where humans rule and the fey are outlawed, the human princess, Brianna, takes on the mantle of Celeste, a legendary hero, in order to fight against the Blight—a demonic infection that plagues the land. She teams up with a local thief, a charming Robin Hood type of character, who seems head over heels for her… but who she rejects due to her infatuation with Prince Aidan… who is the same person! It’s full of witty banter and hijinks and many a tear-jerking scene. I’m very excited to have it out in the world!
If you’d like to learn more of Katherine Macdonald, or find more fantastic writing advice, her blog is absolutely excellent! For even more conversation about beautiful broken fey boys and writing discourse, follow us on twitter! We look forward to seeing you there. You can grab both Fae of the Forest books on Amazon now, and the first in the the A Throne of Pearls and Bones series, The Soul in the Sword, will be released on the 1st of September, and is available for pre-order now (ad).
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