The author of The Bone Season and The Mime Order was touted as the ‘next JK Rowling’ when her first novel was published when she was 21-years-old. It’s only now that she feels her books are being judged in their own right, she tells site member Eleanor Reads

There’s a very detailed clairvoyance system in The Bone Season and The Mime Order, have you always been interested in the idea or was it something that required a lot of research?

I wasn’t originally interested in clairvoyance, but I was fascinated by dreams, particularly lucid dreams and, by extension, astral projection. In my teens I tried to teach myself to lucid dream, but never succeeded. My interest increased when I discovered the dream-vision genre of poetry at university. The clairvoyance idea came later, in 2011, when I was working in Covent Garden, specifically in the little district of Seven Dials. There are a few shops in the area that sell crystal balls and tarot cards and the like and offer psychic readings, and I started to wonder what it would be like if clairvoyants lived in London with their own complex “magic” system. I researched various historical interpretations of divination and the spirit world, then drew similarities between them until I had seven groups, which became the Seven Orders of Clairvoyance.

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Have you ever visited a clairvoyant yourself?

There’s a tiny part of me that wants to, but I haven’t. I think it would play on my mind if somebody told me my future. Paige and I are similar in that respect – she isn’t keen on getting her palms or cards read.

Who is your favourite character in the series – and why?

Jaxon Hall, Paige’s boss, is a real pleasure to write. He’s theatrical and extravagant, and his love of language makes his dialogue a lot of fun. My favourite character overall, though, is Warden. He’s been with me longest, and I know him best.

Do you have any other passions besides writing?

I love to read. Two years after graduating, I’m only just getting back into the swing of reading for pleasure. Sometimes it’s difficult to find time alongside writing. I’m trying to read more UKYA books this year.

You got six figure book deal when you were really young (only 20 when you got the deal and 21 when the book was published) and called the next JK Rowling! Did/do you ever feel too much pressure?

I did for the first two years of my career. It was strange to know that I was never going to meet that public expectation of me and my work – I knew very well that The Bone Season wasn’t going to sell as well as Harry Potter. The “next JK Rowling” nickname became a mixed blessing. It followed me everywhere, which could be frustrating, but I suspect that there wouldn’t have been so much early interest in my work without it. For a long time I was afraid my books would never be judged in their own right, but now my second book is out, I don’t get the comparison nearly so often.

What advice would you give to help people deal with this kind of pressure and expectation?

Try not to worry about people’s expectations of you. You can’t change them. Set your own terms for success.

I heard that you have never read Philip Pullman so you could keep him “out of your head” when you are writing. But do you plan to eventually (and have you seen the films?)

I was aware that His Dark Materials was partly set in Oxford and I wanted be sure that my version wasn’t subconsciously influenced by Philip Pullman’s, so I thought the best thing to do was avoid the books until The Bone Season was finished. I’ve now read the first book and seen the film.

How much input do you get as an author into the covers of the books? Did they turn out like you pictured them?

My covers are designed by David Mann, Bloomsbury’s Art Director, who is a genius. He always runs them past me before they’re finalised. When they were first designing the cover for The Bone Season, I had no idea what to expect, but I remember being afraid that they were going to use real-life models. It’s always been important to me that there are no visible people on the book cover, as I don’t like the cover to interfere with the reader’s imagining of the characters. There’s a silhouetted Paige on the paperback cover of The Mime Order, but I was content with that, as her features can’t be made out.



What books had a big influence on you during you teen years? What book would you recommend to teenagers today?

I’m a 90s kid, so Harry Potter was naturally a huge part of my reading life. I read Tolkien and Asimov quite early, too. I didn’t get into dystopian fiction until I was 18, when I read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. That was what set off my love for that genre, along with John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids, and I quickly devoured Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go soon after.

Teenagers today have so much choice in books, especially within YA, which has exploded over the last decade. I’m not going to recommend a particular book – I’m going to recommend you read whatever you want to read. That applies to both adults and teenagers, by the way. Don’t let a label like YA or Adult or MG stop you. Labels like those are guidelines, not law.

When you came up with the concept for The Bone Season, did you start by imagining the world and then choose a protagonist or the other way round?

Both happened in quick succession. I conceived of an underground society of clairvoyants in London, inspired by shops selling crystal balls and offering psychic readings in Covent Garden. Soon after, I had a daydream about a young woman working in London, in a perfectly normal office environment – but this woman happened to be clairvoyant. The image of her was crystal-clear.



When I started writing, the first line was “I like to imagine there were more of us in the beginning”, which is still the opening line in The Bone Season. It surprised me that it came out in first-person, as I’d almost exclusively written in third before. I found that I immediately had some sense of the character behind the voice, who turned out to be Paige. Using first-person has worked well with her, as I was able to introduce slang into her speech and give her a strong voice.

The Bone Season and The Mime Order have been translated into so many different languages, has it widened your knowledge/interest in other languages?

A little! Certainly of other countries, if not the details of languages. I visited Bucharest as part of my book tour in 2013 and loved it so much I ended up including a Romanian song in a scene in The Mime Order.



I did Spanish for eight years at school, but I’m so rusty now that reading my Spanish translation is embarrassingly difficult. I’d like to brush up on it.

The film rights to The Bone Season are held by Imaginarium Studios – are you enjoying the process of adapting your books? And are you worried about changes that might have to be made?

Film can be a slow process, but I’ve really enjoyed working with the teams at Imaginarium, Chernin Entertainment and 20th Century Fox so far. We have a fantastic, double Oscar-nominated screenwriter on board, who I’ve met, and I think he really respects the source material. The rest of the team are great, too, and it’s a privilege to be working with Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish. I know some changes will have to be made – a film isn’t a novel. The way I see it, it’s an opportunity to examine and explore the world of The Bone Season through a new lens alongside incredibly talented people.

Who would be your dream actors and actress to play Paige, Jaxon and Warden? (And do you get any say in the matter?)

I believe I’ll be able to give my opinion – I have consultation rights – but I don’t have what’s called “right of veto”, where I get to say yes and no à la EL James. It’s no secret that I’d love Benedict Cumberbatch to play Jaxon, but I’m not so sure about Warden and Paige.

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What can we expect from the following books in the series? Do you have all of the plots planned already?

I have a good idea of the plots, and I know where I want the characters to be by the end of each book, but I don’t have every last detail set in stone. The next books in the series are going to be much larger in scale than the first two, both in terms of story and setting. Paige will finally be leaving London – her comfort zone – and stepping into the unknown.

How do you feel about the representation of female characters in YA? Do you make conscious decisions about Paige (and any other female characters) according to what you feel needs to be seen in YA?

I make a concerted effort to include women in all kinds of jobs in my books. At some point, I realised I was defaulting to male pronouns for a lot of background characters: police officers, drivers, guards, government officials – all the people who keep the gears turning in Paige’s version of London. It was an unsettling realisation, but now I’m aware of it, I’ve taken steps to amend it.



On a broader note, YA literature is populated by a plethora of complex, interesting female characters who have lives beyond finding a love interest, which is great – but it’s the way they’re viewed, mostly by the media, that still has catching up to do. My pet peeve is the phrase “strong female character”, which I mentally render as Strong Female Character™. First of all, the term “strong” has become very narrow. I feel it’s led to female characters being judged differently to their male counterparts, because they have to fit into the acceptable parameters of the Strong Female Character™.

Complicated women are still treated like they’re a curiosity. Joss Whedon spoke in 2006 about how often he was asked why he wrote strong women. His conclusion was “because you’re still asking me that question”. Almost a decade later, writers are still being asked the same thing. Philip Pullman tweeted that he was being asked 20 years ago. We don’t keep marvelling as “strong male characters” – when will women no longer surprise us with their strength?

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The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon is published by Bloomsbury in paperback and eBook and available from the Guardian bookshop.



Samantha Shannon is chairing a session at Book Trust’s YALC ’15 on the next generation in YA: Saturday 18 July 10.30-11.15am. Four young authors – Alice Oseman, Lucy Saxon, Helena Coggan and Taran Matharau will be talking to her about their experiences of writing for young people, and looking ahead to what’s next for YA. Sessions are free once you’re in. More information about how to book tickets can be found on the Book Trust website.