Hey, everybody! Welcome back to Through a New Wardrobe, where we sit down and chat with some of today’s hottest writers who have been influenced by CS Lewis and the Land of Narnia. Today, we will be catching up with our old friend, CS Lakin, author of The Gates of Heaven Series, and talking about her upcoming release The Gates of Heaven Series: Book 4: The Unraveling of Wentwater.
NarniaFans: What have you been up to since we last spoke with you?
CS Lakin: I’ve been doing a little bit of writing, but since I launched my new blog for writers in January, and I’m editing mostly full-time, I fit writing in when I can. My blog Live Write Thrive is aimed at helping writers hone their craft of writing as well as get insights into new publishing trends and optional ways of publishing aside from traditional publishing. You can check it out here: http://www.livewritethrive.com/
NF: What has been the overall reception of The Gates of Heaven Series?
Lakin: As far as I can tell, it’s being very well received. The comments and reviews the books have been getting have been very positive and insightful, and it’s a joy to write a deep, engaging set of new fairy tales for those who love the genre.
NF: So far four of the books in your series have been published. Do you have a favorite book in your series thus far?
Lakin: The Map Across Time is my favorite book of all the novels I’ve written, including my six contemporary ones.
NF: Why?
Lakin: It resonates most in my heart, has amazing plot twists, and is a beautiful story about loyalty and honor. If that was the only book I’d ever written, I would be happy.
NF: Do you have a favorite character? What made that character your favorite?
Lakin: Wow, that’s hard to say as I have a lot of favorite characters. Each protagonist in my books has a piece of me in them, well—also some of the secondary characters too. I feel Adin and Aletha in Map Across Time are my two sides—the parts of me that are both confident and unsure, assertive and hesitant. I am quite fond of Winston the pig in that book as well. But I do love Ruyah the wolf in Wolf of Tebron, as he represents God’s faithful love to me, and I also love Teralyn for her love of music and desire to live a true, honest life.
NF: So you’d have to agree with many authors who say that question is like asking a parent “who’s your favorite child?”
Lakin:Um, probably not. Since we’re not as attached to our characters as we are to our children. I certainly like some of my characters more than others–evil and good. I think part of it is their personality and depth too. I love a great character that is conflicted, the way I am almost all the time! Sometimes secondary characters are the ones that steal the show, like my pig, Winston, in Map Across Time.
NF: One thing I love about your books is that you draw inspiration from other sources of literature. Which books inspired this story?
Lakin :As noted in the discussion at the end of the book, this story was inspired by Les Miserables and Sleeping Beauty. I always use themes in my books, and I wanted to contrast mercy and justice, since Jesus made a strong point about the two, and harshly criticized those who abandoned mercy to preserve justice. Book five coming out this winter—The Crystal Scepter—is based on the Greek legend of Perseus and Medusa, and the book I’m writing now, which doesn’t have a title yet, is centered around a famous epic Christian poem called “The Hound of Heaven” by Francis Thompson.
NF: Do you feel these stories( that influenced you) still have relevance to readers today? After all how can a book like Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables that is set in the French Revolution appeal to kids of 2012?
Lakin: Timeless classic stories are usually such because they have universal themes that people of all eras can relate to. I try in all my novels to bring out themes that readers understand and issues all people struggle with—like honor and integrity, loyalty, faithful love, forgiveness, hope, faith.
NF: One thing I appreciate is how well read you are, especially in regards to the classics. Do you have any advice for parents out there on how to get their kids into reading the classics?
Lakin :I feel like I haven’t read barely any of the great books and have a ton on my list I still want to get to. I think it helps to find lists of great books—such as those high school English teachers give students for recommended reading. Encouraging kids to read a few each year is great, and sometimes watching some old classic movies based on classic books helps a lot. For instance PBS has at least one great series of the most famous Shakespeare plays. We took our kids to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for twenty years, and although my kids are now in their twenties, we still all go from time to time to see great plays together.
NF: Obviously there have been fairy tales and fantasy stories for centuries. Why do you feel these types of stories are still so popular?
Lakin: Fairy tales are filled with universal concepts and archetypal themes. There are always lessons about life in fairy tales, and usually a path is shown where one choice will lead to heartache and the other choice will lead to happiness, but like the classic hero’s journey, the right choice is not always the easy one, and there will be many important lessons learned along the way.
NF: One neat part of your books is the rotating cast of characters. Each one I’ve meet is as different as the ones in the previous book. How important do you think it is to develop characters as individuals?
Lakin: Characters are everything to me, in all my books. Without great deep, complex characters, you really only have a shell of a story. The characters are the story—their choices, needs, dreams, hopes, fears, and goals. I spend the most time on the characters, and the plot works with and around them. What I’m doing in my series takes a lot of thought because I have not only so many new characters for each tale, I also have a new locale/setting that has to have a whole history and culture to it.
NF: How do you get inside your character’s heads?
Lakin: That’s a good question. For me, I spend a lot of time freewriting about them, and just let them become real to me as I work out the plot and story. Sometimes as I write their little quirks and deeper qualities just pop out. Writers will often tell you that their characters have a mind of their own and will go off in directions you don’t plan. That’s very true. Often I have all my scenes worked out, but my characters start doing and saying things that surprise me and I usually let them go off and do what they will, since they seem to be telling me something about themselves and the plot. I think subconsciously writers bring these things up from deep hidden places, and this is where strong inspiration and creativity come from.
NF: This is one of your first fantasy books to feature a love triangle. Are you expecting legions of fans to form team “Justyn” or team “Fromer”?
Lakin: Not really. I wanted to love triangle to be the impetus to press Justyn to go to the witch to make a spell. My daughter wanted me to write something a bit more romantic, so I did so.
NF: I also love the unique names you give your characters. Would it be fair to assume they do not just come from Baby Name websites?
Lakin: Many of my names come from my Who’s Who in the Bible. I often pick names with meanings that fit the character, like Adin means delicate, and Ebed means servant. I try to keep the names simple and short and easy to say, as I feel many fantasy books have complicated names that are so weird I just have to blip over them every time I see them.
NF: How do you come up with the names for some of your characters? For example, in this book Fromer, Justyn, Teralyn and Ursell.
Lakin: With these names, I wanted Justyn to be related to justice, of course. Fromer I needed because of the letters in his name. Odd, but I didn’t do that with Teralyn—I want something like Terra for earth. Yet when the witch started reassembling the letters of her name to decide what she represented, I was stunned by how many words came out of the name Teralyn, and how each one was perfect for her character and what she represented, so that was just amazing to me.
NF: Was Ursell named after Ursella the Sea Witch from The Little Mermaid?
Lakin: I think I did get influenced by Ursella in The Little Mermaid to come up with Ursell. I sometimes take a part or variation of a name to imply a feeling. Like in The Crystal Scepter I have an evil king who is like a snake to me and his name is Pythius (like python) and Vitra (Lady Vitrella) reminded me of the adjective vitriolic (look that one up if you don’t know what it means 🙂 .)
NF: One thing I appreciated in your book was the fact that Justyn was actually a sympathetic character. Yes he did some bad things but you could see where he came from .How do you find the balance in making a character likable even if he does a bad thing?
Lakin: One very important thing I’ve learned over the years and which I teach my writing students is that bad guys can’t be all bad. Too many writers create an evil character and they are so stereotypic, they end up flat and corny. Great “bad guys” are really human, and they should have inklings of goodness somewhere underneath. After all, we are all sinners, and God can see the potential for anyone to become good no matter how bad we might be. So we too should look for something redeeming in our characters—every one of them. Conversely, every good character should have the potential to do bad, hurtful things, as we all slip, and showing flaws in a hero is very important too.
NF: So you would say it’s a matter of actions not intentions for Justyn?
Lakin: He was really under a spell and that’s why he acted so awfully. But I did feel sorry for him too, for he reminds me of those who are so ambitious they don’t know how to enjoy the journey. They feel if they can put a list of accomplishments next to their name, they will have some worth. Teralyn tried to tell him we all have worth regardless of our achievements, and I think we all fall into that trap of our society at times, so we need to be reminded that God is the one who loves us and assigns value to us due to no works on our part.
NF: Your book deals with the topic of justice and mercy. One point that was rather eerie was the angry mob that forms when crime is revealed and how blood thirsty they become. How much did public reactions to certain current events in the USA ( i.e., the Casey Anthony Trial) influence your story?
Lakin: I didn’t have any current events in mind but rather wanted to envision what people or society would look like if they could not feel any mercy at all in their hearts. Jesus emphasized so strongly the need for us to be merciful—to realize that we are all sinners given mercy by God and so had to show mercy to others.
NF: At the same time, Ursell was not very likable. Any reason for that? Any bigger plans for her in later books?
Lakin: Oooh good question. Actually the marsh witch makes a very important small appearance in book five, The Crystal Scepter. I will say no more. . . However, I actually think she’s kind of likeable. She’s a crusty crazy gal, but she knows the Bible, and she has a lot of wisdom. You might be a bit eccentric too if you lived in a swamp and had a ton of noisy cats in a small space.
NF: One thing that struck me about the villagers was how almost Medieval their mind-set was, they were so superstitious, I expected them to adhere to a flat Earth-Geocentric view of the system. Were they based at all on the Dark Ages?
Lakin: Since most old fairy tales were written centuries ago, many seem to feel like they’re set in the Middle Ages. I did a kind of weird thing having scholars and a university and an almost modern feel to the heights, while having the village be more medieval, as you say.
NF: Another key theme of your story is the importance of words and how so many have lost their meaning. Do you feel our society has lost a love and appreciation for words?
Lakin: I love words and love writing, so I thought it fitting to explore the idea of words and their impact on us. I don’t know about society, but I know writers love wielding words. However, the overarching message in The Unraveling of Wentwater is that words have consequences, and we can do great damage with few words, so we need to use care in handling them.
NF: Music was another major part of your story. Would it be reasonable to assume you are a music lover?
Lakin: I’ve been a musician all my life, and my husband and daughters are musicians. I feel beautiful music is such a gift from God and as Lewis noted, one of the ways we get close to heaven. There is something almost magical about how music transcends our hearts and souls to places where we can only worship God. Music is so highly praised in the Bible and those worshiping God are always singing to him. And there is even a verse that speaks of God singing over us.
NF: Is there a specific type you like to listen to while writing?
Lakin: I actually don’t like to have any noise or music at all when I’m writing. However, sometimes to get in a certain mood, I will listen to something. When I wrote Wolf of Tebron, I was just fixated on the beautiful song in :Fly Away Home—10,000 Miles” sung by Mary Chapin Carpenter (which I mention in the back of the book). That felt like the book’s theme song to me. It would be great fun to write a complete score to each of my books so that as the reader reads one on an iPad, the music would shift and change to go with the page of the story they are on. That’s been my vision for a while and I hope technology will move in that direction so I could actually create music for each whole book, just like the score of a movie. I bet we will see this in the not-too-distant future
NF: How many books are left in your series?
Lakin: The Crystal Scepter comes out maybe next February (book five). I was reading George Martin a lot (Game of Thrones, etc. ) during the writing, so got really into epic kingdom histories and such. It’s a very different book for me, and the hero doesn’t even appear until about 120 pages in. I have a main character who is really evil, but there are some rich moments in the story. And my husband had a great time helping me come up with troll jokes. The trolls are the comic relief. I am still getting troll bits from my husband even though the book is done and turned in. I told him, no more trolls—I’m done. I’m writing book six right now, which is going back to the first sacred site and has some intense plot building up to the final book seven, coming out sometime later in 2013. I want to bring back YES all the main characters from all six books for a rousing final battle of good against evil as the seventh book is all about the seventh and final sacred site, and I’m not telling you the secret of where it is. But The Destroyer, who is mentioned in Map Across Time and who Ruyah (book one) has been fighting through the eons of time, is a main character in book six, and by book seven he will be out destroying all the sites to bring the world under his full control. So it’s a war of heaven against evil, and I think I know who will win. . .
NF: Another thing I happen to enjoy about your series is how self-contained each book is. I feel like I can read any of the books out of sequence and not be confused.
Lakin: I did that deliberately. You can read any book in any order. Except. . . I am going to break this with the last book, which will be building off of book six for the final curtain. I think book six and seven are going to be more of a set, but since I don’t know what book seven is really going to be like, I’ll just have to figure that out when I get there.
NF: Any chance future books in your series will include a map of your world?
Lakin: lol I don’t do maps. Everyone does them and I really wanted to write it so people would imagine it all themselves. Maybe some fan will make one and pass it around!
NF: How many more books are left in your series?
Lakin: I’m writing book six now, which is set in Ethryn and tells the story of the first Keeper five thousand years ago, although half the book is told in the “present” age. It is a crazy story that was inspired (sorry) by one of my favorite Star Trek episodes. I won’t say which one, but every time I watch it, I am so moved and blown away by it, I just had to bring some of it into this story. If you press me, I may reveal . . .
NF: Sweet! Influenced by Star Trek! Can you give a hint which episode it may be? Or at least which series?
Lakin: Haha. The Next Generation. And it has to do with a probe. You can have fun figuring it out lol.
NF: In some of my on-line chats with you mentioned you want a movie made of book 2. Why that one first?
Lakin: As I mentioned, The Map Across Time is my favorite book and I’ve also had many say it would make the greatest fantasy movie ever. I truly believe that and I pray year in and year out someone will make that book into a film. There are just so many great elements in it, with the time travel, the epic battle pending, the dramatic action. Well, that’s my greatest wish of my heart, so I hope someone out there with vision and the right connections will take the time to read it and contact me!
NF: While you are writing fantasy books, any one who reads them can clearly see that your books are your own unique vision and not just a simple “Cash-in on the success of Narnia attempt” that others may try. How do you honor the legacy of writers who came before you like Lewis, Tolkien or the Grimm Brothers, but at the same time create your own story?
Lakin: I am not interested in rehashing stories that have already been told. Although I draw elements from some famous stories, I want to create something brand-new and fresh. I just delve into my imagination and pray a lot about what to write and slowly the ideas form and the story emerges. I truly believe these are stories God puts in my heart to tell, and they become so real to me, and the characters so real, that they become part of my soul and who I am. I am so grateful to God for giving me this gift of creativity and I hope to honor him in all I write. I hope readers are moved and changed by what they read, and I would love to hear from you all!
NF: Thank you again for your time!
Lakin: Thanks so much for the interview!!
That’s it for today, folks. Be back next week for our review of Unraveling of Wentwater and look for it in stores everywhere.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this author, but now I really want to read her books!