Several years ago, I had the distinct pleasure of stumbling upon Teresa Edgerton’s fourth novel of Celydonn, The Castle of the Silver Wheel. The book made me an instant convert, and I have harrowed used bookstores for Mrs. Edgerton’s oeuvre ever since.

This year, Mrs. Edgerton sallies forth in print again, with the adventurous The Queen’s Necklace. Set in a para-world of 18^th-19^th century lavishness, against an ancient backdrop of the once-Imperial Goblin Maglore race, The Queen’s Necklace follows the quests of Captain Wilrowan Blackheart and his estranged wife, Lili, as they race to recover the "philosophical engines" the conniving Maglore scions have stolen.

In this in-depth interview, Teresa Edgerton discusses her theories on worldbuilding, "Fantasy of Manners," the writing process, and herself.

• Tell us a little bit about yourself. What are your hobbies? How did you get into writing?

I am the mother of four children, now mercifully grown to adulthood. I keep hoping this will mean that I have more time for writing, but so far that hasn't been true. My husband, John, and I have been married for almost thirty years; we met at our local Renaissance Faire. I love old houses, and old furniture, and old teapots. If I could afford it, my house would be full of antiques and collectibles.

My hobbies have changed over the years. At one time, my big interest was in historical recreations; as a very active member of the Society for Creative Anahronism, I illuminated scrolls, put together medieval feasts, made costumes for my family, wrote sonnets, played medieval board-games, danced, embroidered, made wreaths -- I kept very busy. I became interested in alchemy and haunted libraries looking for translations of the original medieval texts. For several years, I sold hand puppets at the Renaissance Faire. Most recently, I've become passionate about gardening. (You are not to suppose, however, that I will be rewriting any of my early books to include gardening themes.) My own private garden at the back of the yard is cool and shady, gothick in inspiration, with statues of gargoyles and angels.

I became a writer for the same reason most people write, I suppose -- the stories were there anyway. They followed me around, were quite determined to claim my attention. It seemed natural, at an early age, to start writing them down. Much, much later on, I became serious about writing for a living, in part because I wanted to stay home with the children and still be able to contribute something to the family finances. As it turned out, it took much longer than I could ever have imagined -- six years! -- before I finally produced something I thought was good enough to submit to a publisher.

• "The Queen's Necklace," some argue, is one of your most complex worlds. What is your approach to world-building, both in TQN and in your other series?

It has been different each time. For the "Green Lion" books, I didn't have to do much world-building initially, because I set the books in our world and in a specific historical era -- though in a purely imaginary country. Basically, what I did was add on another island to the British Isles (if you look at the map, you will see that the west coast resembles Wales, and the east coast Ireland), and located it far enough to the west to be somewhat isolated, though still near enough to experience early influences from the Celtic cultures in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany. I came up with a history based on this premise, a history that was also influenced by the Irish and Welsh stories that I loved.

With "Goblin Moon" and "The Gnome's Engine," I started out with a question that was more science-fictional: If the moon had an elliptical orbit -- if it actually came closer to the earth at times, if it grew visibly larger as it grew rounder -- what effects would that have on the earth, and how would it change people psychologically? I realized that the rising tides and the increased seismic activity would make for a very unstable situation, and from that came the idea that -- with the world around them in a frequent state of dangerous flux -- society would become extremely fatalistic, they would be fascinated by things that we regard as morbid. The setting was meant to be reminiscent of the eighteenth century -- decadent, extravagant, grotesque. Because it was a different world, a different time-line, I felt more freedom to make it be whatever I wanted it to be, but I still kept my eye on my eighteenth century model.

With "The Queen's Necklace," I started with the premise of a world once ruled by wicked fairies. Later on, they became Goblins, and not quite so unremittingly evil. I wanted to really explore my imaginary world, and to take my readers to some remarkable places. At the same time, I wanted that world to have depth and texture, and a genuine feeling of age and history. I dislike fantasies which give the impression that the world was created fifteen minutes (at most) before the story begins, and that everything will disappear the moment the story ends -- or that it's all just cardboard sets that get trundled on and off when the hero arrives and departs. Of course, the funny thing is, I ended up inventing a society that was re-created in something of a rush by the survivors after a bloody revolution -- although fifteen hundred years before my story began, not fifteen minutes. So there is a sense that the world and the various races are very, very old, but that the current civilization is relatively new and exceedingly artificial. I hope that it makes for an interesting contrast.

As it turned out, the period when I was writing TQN was a difficult time in my life. I was often too ill to write, but not too ill to read, so I ended up doing an amazing amount of research on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I even took books with me when I was in the hospital. Gradually, the great cities of Hawkesbridge, Tarnburgh, and Luden took shape in my mind.

• In all of your novels, the element of religion ties in intimately with the characters and the plot. How do these belief systems form themselves during the world-building process?

In the kind of fantasy I was just talking about, the kind where the world-building lacks depth and texture, religion is one of the things that tends to get skimmed over, or treated in a very superficial, cynical way. This doesn't seem realistic to me, not in terms of human nature (and if a fantasy is not true to human nature -- whatever else it may be fabricating -- then what is the point?), and it is certainly not realistic historically. It's a very provincial, if you will, late twentieth-century attitude that religion is not very important. In most times and places, religion is at the very core of society. So it seems important to me to understand something about the religious beliefs of all my characters, and to get an idea of how they view the world based on their religious experience.

For the "Green Lion" books and the later Celydonn books, being set when and where they were, it seemed obvious that the people would mostly be Catholic -- though with a significant pagan underground survival -- and that the details of everyday life would be very much informed by that Catholic religion -- as in fact was true during the middle ages. So the references to the canonical hours and to the various feast days, the spiritual aspects of the knighting ceremony -- all these things were necessary, not only for the reasons I mentioned above, but in terms of capturing the flavor of the period. As quite a bit is known about the Catholic religion in Celtic countries during the medieval period, I didn't have to make anything up, just try to be accurate in reflecting the spirit of that religion at that time. For the pagan elements, I did have to do more extrapolating and inventing.

For "Goblin Moon" and "The Gnome's Engine," I wanted a religion that seemed alien in many ways -- to reflect the fantastical setting -- but also vaguely familiar -- to reflect my eighteenth century European model. The Nine Seasons and the Seven Fates are supposed to represent the blending of two different religions: elements of an earlier religion based on nature, grafted on to a more sophisticated later religion. Both are monotheistic, however, and the Fates and the Seasons are both meant to represent different orders of angels. The Fates are also what eighteenth century magicians would call "planetary intelligences," which white magicians equated with angels. It's more Neo-Platonic and Kabbalistic than pantheistic -- different sorts of messengers of God, rather than a pantheon of different deities. In terms of the churches and the rituals -- the little that I show of them -- that was the part that was supposed to seem familiar, so I chose to make them feel sort of High-Church Anglican, because that is what I know best.

In writing "The Queen's Necklace," I realized that the society I had invented would be hostile to large-scale organized religion -- to anything, in fact, that crossed national boundaries, and united people in different countries -- but yet I couldn't imagine an entire world where the religious impulse would not be very much present. So I thought there would be many different religions, with countless cults and denominations endlessly splitting off, because the moment any religious movement became too large, too influential, people would begin to feel uncomfortable and start falling away -- or else the local government would send in covert agents to create a schism and divide the movement. For most people there would be many different faiths during a single lifetime. Some conversions would be the result of an authentic spiritual crisis, others would result because people were responding to social pressures, those who had little faith to begin with simply following along with the crowd. The one notable exception would be the Anti-demonists, or Levellers -- a little like Puritans, a little like Quakers and Methodists -- who would prove remarkably impervious to these outside influences.

If the character Raith had not proved to be such a strong voice for the Levellers, I doubt I would have ever "known" enough about them to make them as complex and as sympathetic as (I hope) they ended up being. If I had only seen them from outside, through the eyes of the other characters, they might have been colder and sterner, more puritanical. But almost from the beginning, Raith spoke very clearly in my mind. I think he became not only a voice for the Levellers, but the moral center of the book and the conscience of the other characters.

• You have described your Goblin Moon/Gnome's Engine duology as an example of "Fantasy of Manners." Can you expound on this phrase? What other books (your own, or another's) also fall into this subgenre?

Several years ago, when discussion of "Fantasy of Manners" (FoM) was rather popular, most of us assumed that the term was meant to describe the fantasy equivalent of "Comedy of Manners" (CoM). Society -- in this case an imaginary society in an invented world -- would, in a sense, become one of the characters, it's manner, morals, and mores would be revealed and examined, just as the personal quirks and other qualities of the various characters would be revealed, through the action of the plot. The author might comment on these things -- sometimes overtly, as CoM and FoM can both be extremely self-referential -- sometimes in the subtext -- with a certain amount of ironic humor. The parallels with authors like Georgette Heyer and P. G. Wodehouse are obvious. But this turned out not to be what the gentleman who first coined the phrase really had in mind. I've read his original essay, as have friends of mine, and we have never been quite able to figure out what he was trying to say. However, the term has since taken on a life of its own, and most people seem to use it in approximately the way that I have above.

Going by that definition, I would have to say that both "Goblin Moon" and its sequel, "The Gnome's Engine," are very much in the Fantasy of Manners mode. The same could be said of "The Queen's Necklace" -- perhaps even more so. Some other books by other authors that ought to be included: "Mairelon the Magician," by Patricia C. Wrede, "The Serpent's Egg," by Caroline Stevermer, "Sorcery and Cecilia," by Wrede and Stevermer in collaboration, "The Labyrinth Gate," by Alis A. Rasmussen, "The Moon and the Sun," by Vonda N. McIntyre, "Death of the Necromancer," by Martha Wells, "Swordspoint," by Ellen Kushner, and "Illusion," by Paula Volsky. Of all these, I would say that "Swordspoint" is the most highly regarded, in large part because the language is so exquisite, and that "Illusion" was the most successful. If you know these books, you will perhaps notice that they are all set in approximately the same period -- the seventeenth through the first half of the nineteenth century.

But if you compare my books only with those of the authors originally singled out -- Kushner and Delia Sherman are the two that I can remember, and I believe the "Borderlands" books were included -- there are some important differences. These other books, what you might all the "core" Fantasy of Manners books, seem to concentrate on the highest and the lowest orders of society -- the middle class is either left out of equation entirely, or treated with a certain amount of contempt. There seems to be an idea that poverty can be as liberating as great wealth -- because it "frees" you from the constraints of ordinary society -- and a fascination with the romantic outcast. There is a general level of cynicism which is not present in my books, or in the books of Wrede and Stevermer and Rasmussen that I mentioned above. Another element that many of the FoM books share is cross-dressing -- usually a woman disguising herself as a man, for protection in a dangerous situation (very Shakespearian!). So far, this hasn't turned up in anything that I have written, or in anything that I plan to write, though goodness knows my characters never shy away from disguises, secret identities, or assumed names. Also, the "official" FoM books are not confined to any one era -- they can even be modern, or set in the near future.

So are my books Fantasy of Manners or are they not? -- I've never been able to quite make up my mind.

• Goblins seem to pop up frequently in your books. What is the major difference between those in your duology, and the five varieties in TQN (beyond the purely physical)?

I would say that the biggest difference is that the hobgoblins in the earlier books are only semi-sentient. Even the New World hobs, who are somewhat further along in their development than their Continental cousins, and certainly more self-aware, are still very primitive socially and intellectually -- they tend to mimic what they have seen others do, rather than invent anything new of their own -- and still very innocent. The Goblins in "The Queen's Necklace" are fully sentient, and the Maglore, in particular, are an ancient race, very sophisticated, and very, very far from innocent. The hobgoblins in the duology are on their way up, in a sense, and the Goblins in TQN are very much diminished from what they once were, not only in worldly power, but also in an certain inability to envision the future and invent new things.

But the physical differences are not insignificant. There is no reason to suppose that the internal organization of the hobgoblins is essentially different from that of humans or animals. The Goblins in TQN, on the other hand, despite outward similarities, are made very, very differently. This changes them -- emotionally, morally, and socially.

• Many authors focus on romance until the marriage bond. Yet in both TQN and the "Castle of the Silver Wheel" trilogy, you opt to explore the romances within marriage. How did this come about?

That is an interesting question -- I don't believe that anyone has ever asked me that before. I suppose I owe this in large part to authors like Dorothy L. Sayers and Georgette Heyer, who proved that the romance doesn't have to end with marriage. And, of course, there is my interest in history. At many times in the past, when marriages were arranged, when the bride and groom might not even be acquainted before the wedding, obviously the real courtship would have to begin after the vows were taken. It's an intriguing situation, and one with many mythic resonances -- stories like "Cupid and Psyche," "Beauty and the Beast," and "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," all explore the theme of marriage between virtual strangers. Even though Beauty and her Beast don't actually marry until the end of the story, she is bound to him before they meet by her father's trangression and her sacrifice, just as surely as though they were married. In the other two tales -- and in all the "animal bridegroom" fairy tales -- the hero and heroine are married and one of them is in disguise. The process of discovery, of getting behind that disguise, fascinates me.

Of course, in the case of Gwenlliant and Tryffin, in "The Castle of the Silver Wheel" and its sequels, they have known each other for years when they marry. What divides them -- even when they are nominally united -- is the age difference, and her terrible early experiences. In a sense, Tryffin is in love with a woman who doesn't even exist yet -- the Gwenlliant of several years in his future -- and he has to reconcile his vision of that woman with the reality of who and what she is at the time he marries her. So, in that way, there is a disguise to be penetrated.

• Several authors talk about characters having wills of their own, having opinions on how a story should be done, et cetera. Do you find this to be so in your own writing process?

In the beginning, my characters were obliging little puppets who did everything I told them to do. There was no reason for them to do otherwise, having very little in the way of personality. Fflergant and Tryffin, for instance, were so interchangable, they literally took turns speaking. But somewhere between the first and the third drafts of what would later become "The Green Lion" trilogy, things began to change. Ceilyn and Teleri would say things that I had never expected, bits of dialogue that might or might not find their way into the finished story, but which were important because they told me important things about them, which I had never anticipated. After that, I would think of clever or interesting things for them to say or do, and then realize that it was not going to happen, because it was out of character. And I remember that one day, when it was Fflergant's turn to speak, I said to myself, "No, no, no, that's something that Tryffin would say. Tryffin is the practical one, the one who notices things." After that, I always knew which brother would speak up in any given situation, and what he would say.

When a character refuses to do something, I never force the issue. I have seen what happens when other writers do this, and it is not very pretty! But I have learned that when a character Absolutely Will Not do something, it is sometimes only because I don't know enough about them. That is, it's not the action that is wrong but the motivation. The right motivation might be there all along, right there in the back story, but I am unable to see it as yet. So, when I am unable to go forward, I go back instead -- either to fix something that went wrong earlier, or to learn something about a character or his or her situation that I have so far been missing. I never invent motivations to suit actions, though. If the motivation can't be found somewhere in the story or the background already, I will change the action.

Some characters just seem to write themselves. Francis Skelbrooke, in "Goblin Moon," was always doing things that startled me. "He can't do that," I would think. "A hero would never-- oops, it looks like he just did." In "The Queen's Necklace," there were several characters who wrote all their own dialogue with very little conscious input from me, Luke and Raith, in particular. Since the two of them had so many scenes together, and there was never any trouble getting the conversation going, the problem was getting them to stop. Roderic was intended to be a very minor character, more of a spear-carrier than anything, but he insisted on developing a personality instead. And Wilrowan's grandmother, Lady Krogan, sat down one day and told me her life story, without my ever asking.

• Many of our readers are young authors. Have you any words of wisdom for them about the world of publishing?

The world of publishing is in a constant state of change. Almost any advice I might give now would be worthless in a few months' or years' time. The only thing that I could say that would still be true is about the presentation of the manuscript, and it is purely mechanical: When it comes time to submit something, make sure that your manuscript looks clean and professional, that your cover letter is brief and to the point. Stay away from gimmicks. Check your spelling and punctuation. There are two things that count for more individually than everything else combined. One of them is luck, which unfortunately you can't control, and the other is the kind of first impression you make, which you can and must if you want an editor to give your writing so much as a second glance.

About writing -- as opposed to publishing -- I would say: Write as often as you can, read voraciously, revise and revise again. Those three things are the key to everything. And see what I said previously about motivations.

• For that matter, have you any comment to make on the e-publishing "revolution" and its effect on traditional print?

Unfortunately, I have very little to offer on this subject, as I know very little. I am always the last one to know when it comes to technical things. E-books, and print-on-demand books seem most promising in terms of (possibly) reviving out-of-print books and keeping everyone's back-list alive. I most devoutly hope that books as we know them now will be with us for a long, long time: they are sturdy, they are portable, they are aesthetically pleasing. Also, of course, they don't lend themselves to pirated editions quite so easily as e-books do. Ultimately, I believe this last will carry great weight with publishers.

• What can your devoted fans expect to read from you next?

I wish I knew the answer to that question, but at the moment I don't have a contract. I am exploring various ideas: a sequel (or sequels) to "The Queen's Necklace," a big medieval epic, a retelling of the Cinderella story. There are some projects I put aside several years back, that I might revive. There are ideas for short stories -- some with familiar characters. I can write whatever I want, of course, but what the rest of you actually see depends on my publishers and on market forces. Just at the moment, the market is ... rather mysterious in the way it is working. So your guess is as good as mine which book will actually be written. Right now, I am working on the TQN sequel, but this is subject to change without notice.

• Many thanks to Teresa Edgerton for this interview - and best wishes!

Mrs. Edgerton can be reached via the web, at her site: www.teresaedgerton.com.

A synopsis of The Queen's Necklace can be found at her site.

Her other novels include:

The Celydonn Series

The Child of Saturn

The Moon in Hiding

The Work of the Sun

The Castle of the Silver Wheel

The Grail and the Ring

The Moon and the Thorn

The Goblin Moon Duology

Goblin Moon

The Gnome's Engine

The Christian Guide to Fantasy

SFSite

Amazon

(c) 2001
By Emily C. A. Snyder
All Rights Reserved
E. Snyder's Website: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam!
Biography