TRANSCRIPT
Noè
Welcome to Why Write, a super short podcast that asks writers just that, why they write. Hi, I’m Noè Harsel, a writer and Chair of Writers Victoria, and I’m excited to chat to a diverse group of writers and simply ask, why write? I’m glad you’re here with me.
Today we have CS Pacat. CS Pacat is a New York Times bestselling author of Dark Rise, the Captive Prince trilogy and the GLAAD-nominated graphic novels Fence. Born in Australia and educated at the University of Melbourne, CS Pacat has since lived in a number of cities, including Tokyo, and Perugia, and currently resides and writes in Melbourne.
So welcome to Why Write, Cat as the writers of the hugely best selling adult series Captive Prince as well as the YA fantasy novel Dark Rise and graphic series Fence. You really have forged new ground for many: in reading their sense of self, and also in publishing. I am so happy to have you here. But let’s get right to the big question. The reason why we are here, tell us Cat, why do you write?
CS
I grew up loving escapist fiction, which served a vitally important purpose for me as a kid growing up in, I guess, a tough home environment. But despite how much I love the books, when I was reading that I was reading when I was growing up, I didn’t often see myself among their pages. And I got to the point where if I wanted to read the stories that I really, you know, craved, the stories that contained queer characters or female characters, I wasn’t finding them on commercial shelves. Sometimes, I was finding them on the internet. But at that time, I was not really finding them in published works. So I write, because I write the stories that I want to read: and I want the younger me to have read. I suppose at the end of it all, I have something to say.
Noè
I think that makes a lot of sense. And I love that idea of being able, and wanting to write so you can see yourself, both the present you, the future you in the past you, on that page. And that sort of brings me to the question I’ve always had about how do your stories come to you I mean, thematically or through your characters? I mean, I guess what I’m trying to say is, like, do you, or did you, consciously want to write a story like, say, with your first books and the Captive Prince, that represented this level of diversity, or it’s just is that just how the characters themselves presented themselves to you?
CS
I think it’s a little bit of both. I’m not a natural storyteller, in fact, I’m not. I’ve got a lot of friends who their minds just constantly bubbling up with ideas, and they’re often in the flow state where stories pour out of them. And that’s not me, I have to work very hard to find ideas, and then to get them on the page. It’s very effortful. So how ideas come to me, is I sometimes, I actually start literally thinking about the book I want to read. I imagine myself walking into a bookshop or a library. There’s always a book that we’re looking for, you know, and never quite finding, and will have some sense of it. And so I write down everything I know about that book. And that works as my starting place. I have noticed that if I myself and and sometimes other people that I have worked with, you know, don’t make an effort to expand who it is they’re including in their books, then you can just default to writing a lot of characters that are somewhat like you, maybe the same ethnic background as you, you just write what you know. But, yeah, so then I will look at my work once I’m done, and, and sort of think, ‘Have I made any lazy choices here?’ So it’s partly unconscious and then partly conscious.
Noè
And so do you think then, you think about it thematically as well? You have some main themes that underlie your work. Do you go into your work with themes in general, or they come out for you as well? Is that something you layer back into it?
CS
It’s changed from series to series. So my first series I think, that came straight out of the Id. And as a result, I was not in control of the themes in that book. But I think that, you know, if you write out of the self, often you’re writing coherent themes without really realising what you’re doing. My second series Dark Rise, I approached that book, just with something to say about those English pastoral fantasies that I read when I was growing up. the books that have always had a villainous, in a certain mold, you know, a very straight slash straightforward English loud, eating hot, buttery toast and wandering over the, you know, green and pleasant lands and, often with a queer villain. And so when I set out to write that book, I was thinking very consciously about queerness and villainy, about the way that the English have, kind of, colonized, not only literally colonized all the countries that used to be pink on the map, but also colonized us in terms of story. While heroes of all our fantasy novels are always called Will or Harry, because they’re the names of these great English kings, you know, their heroes have now become our heroes too. So yeah, there I went in with a conscious purpose. And I tried to control my themes a lot more directly.
Noè
I’m interested in how your writing process may have changed now, because, you know, having read about you and heard that you’re, I mean, you’re resilience, sounds amazing, this ability to self-publish, and come up with community that way and go, you know, what, I hear that this publishing, you are being narrow minded, you’re not seeing what I see in terms of my work, so you know, stuff that, I’m going to put it up online, myself, like, that resilience is so powerful and palpable. And then through that, this incredible success that you have, and had been, you know, rightly vindicated in. I mean, as your practice and your writing changed as a result of all of that?
CS
I think when I first started to write, what I was writing, you know, just didn’t really exist on commercial shelves. But it did exist online. And so I was able to connect to a community of readers online. But one thing that experience gave me was the absolute artistic freedom that comes with writing anonymously, or at least pseudonymously. When your name is not attached, and you’re not thinking about earning money from your book, so there’s no stakes, you’re willing to risk things artistically, you might not be willing to, with your face next to your work.
And so I think when I moved into a more commercial model, I was really pleased to have had that experience because it gave me something to try and hold on to, try to hold myself open in the way that I had been when I was writing in a more chaotic and free environment of the internet. And you know, those moments where you feel vulnerable, or you’re, you’re worried like, is this embarrassing? Is this revealing too much? Is this cringe? But yeah, I would find on when I was publishing online, that those were often the moments that the readers would light up when they read because you’re revealing something true from the self, it makes you feel kind of wriggly and ashamed, but people will connect to your authenticity. And so yeah, so I think that’s been the journey for me is like, how do I carry forward what was so wonderful artistically about that free internet space into the constraints of the commercially published world?
Noè
And how important has been maintaining those community connections for you, and have you been able to do it? That level of constant dialogue and connection?
CS
That has been one of the most wonderful things about my career is like, I was lucky enough to be writing a story that had huge levels of engagement, almost from the start. And when I was serialising, online, that engagement was very immediate. But I think I learned a lot really about writing in communication with an audience from that. And, you know, I came up, I actually had studied writing at Melbourne University, and it’s very good for a certain type of writer. But it’s very often teaching you how to write a literary short story. And you can see people, I could see people in those workshops, producing these stories that they themselves would never read in a million years. Whereas I was lucky to be in an environment where people were only there because they wanted to read the thing. And so I guess I learned about what can engage a community. And that does give a wonderful excitement and enthusiasm to the process of writing, for me, it feels communal, like I’m writing in a way, I’m hopefully, I hope to be writing a world that people want to leap into and engage with. And I’ve been lucky enough that that has been the case.
Noè
Perfect. That is perfect. Thank you so much, Cat. Those are the most beautiful answers. Thank you for your time.
CS
Thank you so much, Noè, that has been a wonderful conversation.
Noè
Thanks for listening. We would love to hear why you write, tell me at whywrite.com.au
Why Write is a Writers Victoria podcast. All programs and information about becoming a member with us at Writers Victoria is available at writersvictoria.org.au
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Why Write was recorded at Brand Music and engineered by Michael Burrows.
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