Is there a word for the excitement you feel when you're about to interview someone you admire? I mean, I googled it, but to no avail. It's the twisting knots in your stomach, the slightly sweaty palms and the notebook full of carefully thought-out questions. I'm such a nerd! But it was what I felt during the ride to the hotel where I was to meet Cassandra Clare. Cassandra Clare, whose humble beginnings in fan fiction have led to a multi-million dollar franchise, countless books and a fan base like no other. The woman who releases books like others write weekly columns. I was curious to find out exactly how she'd achieved all this. How does one shoot to fame in such little time? And does it come with a cost?
The first thing I realise, upon walking into the boutique hotel where the interview is to take place, is that Cassandra, or at least her publishing company, is part of the new brand of YA fiction authors. These are the people who tweet every five minutes, who do their market research, who are on every possible social media site, and, most of all, believe in hardcore publicity. Fan meet and greets, pre-book release videos, it's all packed into Cassandra's schedule. She reminds me in some ways of John Green (a close friend of hers), in how actively she engages with her fans and her style of interacting with them, which is very open, very friendly. It may seem a little forced at times, maybe a little generic, but her book sales and eager fans show just how successful she's been.
However, I've gone off on on a tangent already. Back to the hotel. When I walk into the room reserved for Cassandra's interviews, she's already spent all morning shooting short videos and helping her publicists add to the hype about her hotly anticipated new book, the last in the Mortal Instruments series, City of Heavenly Fire.
Her makeup artist is touching her up, her publicists are calling orders into their earphones, and in the midst of all this, Cassandra is seated on a sofa, calmly waiting for her next interview. With a strict time limit, and a general atmosphere of gentle panic, I begin our interview.
Of course, my first question is about her latest book.
'What can we expect from it? Do you think it's the ending your fans want to read?'
Although Cassandra spent her early years traveling frequently with her family, she lived in Los Angeles for high school, and now lives in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her strong American accent comes through as she answers without hesitation, 'Yes, I mean, I hope so. I wouldn't like to think I've written the kind of ending they wouldn't want to read! I think that City of Heavenly Fire is definitely a book where all the characters are tested to their limits, and they have to make really significant choices about who they are, and who they wanna be. And I think that, hopefully, the readers are invested enough in the characters to wanna go with them, all the way through this journey and see how it will turn out for them. You know, hopefully they'll find the ending to be a bright ending, for all the characters.'
Clare reels off the first answer with the practiced ease of one who has learned exactly what to say and how to say it, and looks at me expectantly. Thrown off-guard a little, I stumble slightly, as I ask her about how interactive she is on her social media sites, and what makes her engage with her fans on such a personal level. Although, as her sales have surged, the Infernal Devices author's social media sites have become a little less intimate, she's still one of the most tuned in YA authors out there.
Cassandra smiles widely at the the mention of her fans and says, "I mean I think I enjoy it, you know, I like hearing their questions and kind of being able to be responsive, I feel like it gives them another way of interacting with the book. You know, I always try to make them feel like hopefully, whatever their reading of the book is and it's valid, and is just as important as mine. But if they're interested in what I think, then I'm very happy to tell them. You know, hopefully it's an exchange of creativity."
She goes on to talk about how much she adores the fan fiction and fan art she receives, enthusing about the incredible quality and how they're "Just really good, you know! As a former fan fiction writer myself, I know it's a big gesture of love". If anyone knows what they're talking about then it comes to fan fiction, it's Clare. Back when she was working a desk job, Clare become famous for her incredibly intricate, intense fan fiction, the most famous of which is The Draco Trilogy, written, as is fairly obvious, about the world of Harry Potter and his classmates. The Draco Trilogy was a fan fic phenomenon back in the early noughties and although Clare has since deleted it, salvaged copies are still available online.
Every celebrity has a hidden past and Clare's is just as dark and thrilling as the fan fiction she used to post online. As her online stories began to gain fame, people began to notice that her work contained several pop culture quotes and references-ones that weren't cited anywhere. Dipping casually into the scripts of shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other infamous fantasy series, and sprinkling then through her own work, Clare had written a hugely successful fan fiction series, and had landed herself with a number of plagiarism accusations. Plagued by these when trying to get The Mortal Instruments, she dropped the "i" in her pen name "Cassandra Claire" and deleted all traces of her work from the Internet. Clare was never formally charged, as plagiarism laws don't apply to fan fiction in the same way as they do to other fictional work, though her past life often comes back to haunt her, in the form of other writers and readers of her old work, bitter about how she's risen to fame despite her methods.
When asked, though, about how she responds to criticism online and around her, she quickly brushes the question off, telling me that it's best to try and ignore those who want to insult her and to remember that it's her work they don't like, not her, to not take it personally.
Slightly disappointed by the lack of detail in this, I move on, to talk about the racial and sexual representation in her books. There is no denying, this is one area where Clare excels. She knows her books are read by many teenagers, all over the world, and she does her best to reach out to them through her writing, something which may seem obvious, but is still not common enough in young adult fiction. Talking about the openly gay characters in her books, she says, "I've had my books banned in some libraries and schools, which is a really weird feeling, and angry letters from people but you know, I think that just is a reminder about how important it is to have that kind of representation in a book. Especially a book that's a genre book because there are a lot of teenagers who are LGBTQA and want to see themselves in their books and the kind of books they want to read. You want to provide that in a way that normalises it and makes people used to it. You hope there comes a point where people aren't banning books for something like that."
Cassandra then talks about racial representation as something she does purposely, and discusses how she wants to represent the ethnic make up of a modern city she's setting her story in like it is reality, and not just have an all white, minority-less cast of characters. She speaks passionately and earnestly, and there is a glimmer of determination in her eyes, making me realise this is something she really does feel very strongly about, something which will always be present in her writing.
I follow up with some questions about her book covers (which she doesn't have much say in, but she always loves), the differences between her British fans and American fans (mostly misunderstanding cultural references), her favourite YA authors (Laini Taylor, John Green) and what she's working on right now (The Last Days is the sequel to the Infernal Devices, The Dark Artifices will follow on from The Mortal Instruments and she's writing the Magesterium series, which will be different from her other books and will not be set in the Shadowhunter world).
We're running out of time, but I can't leave without asking about the film. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones was released in 2013 and flopped big time. The cast was studded with young stars (Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower) but was rated 12% on Rotten Tomatoes and grossed $32.1M. Cassandra talks about it slightly hesitantly, emphasising that it was made with a lot of love, and although it didn't stick to the story, it was an interpretation of the book.
"I think the actors who portrayed the characters were really into it, they had read the book, they were fans of the book so they did a great job. And it's interesting to see somebody else's interpretation of your work!"
Clare tells me that she got to spend a lot of time with the actors when waiting for publicity events and raves about Lily Collins when I mention her: "She's just really, really sweet and nice and funny".
With about a minute to spare (her publicist reminded me of the time), I ask the cliched but quintessential question for a teenager interviewer to ask if she has any advice for aspiring young authors: "They should read as much as possible and read out of their comfort zone, because it's in combining these genres that you will make your own, sort of imaginative type of world". Then a publicist steps forward, my recording device is disconnected, and my audience with Cassandra Clare is over.
Watch the full interview here!
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