2014 Debut Authors Bash : Skylar Dorset

 

Guest Post on Why Fae ? over other supernatural/paranormal creatures.

For a long time, I wasn’t even sure I was going to write a fantasy novel, I confess. I’d always been a huge reader of fantasy, but I’d just never exactly written one myself. My writing generally tended to be in the direction of contemporary.

But then one day my head created Selkie. And Selkie kept talking. And the world she lived in was full of a ton of supernatural creatures, and the ones that kept floating up to the forefront were all faeries. And once I got the idea, I fell totally in love with it. Faeries tend to be written slightly differently by everyone who tackles them, but they tend to generally be a bit capricious and whimsical and also casually cruel. I loved the idea that, by emphasizing some of those traits over others, you could--much like with people--populate an entire universe where some faeries are just a bit odd but have hearts in the right places (see Ben and Safford) while others are just downright dangerous (see the entire Seelie Court). I liked how I feel like you can see where they all fall on the spectrum, how they’re all the same creature. I liked how well that mimicked real life, because I wanted the entire book to feel like the fantastical version of real life, e.g., subways with goblins, and gnomes as household pests. And I owe an inevitable debt of gratitude to sources as varied as Shakespeare and “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell” for helping to give me a background in how faeries can be interpreted.  

At the same time, while I gave the fae a starring role, I also incorporated other supernatural creatures, from wizards to ogres, and I have honestly loved all of them. Why pick one when you can have them all? is my motto. :-)