>> From the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.
[ Silence ]
>> By her own description Cassandra Clare spent her childhood
at many points around the globe, Iran, France, England, Switzerland,
with a trunk of fantasy books providing a form of constancy
as her scenery kept changing.
Ms. Clare went to high school in Los Angeles,
and eventually became an entertainer reporter in L.A. and in New York,
but ultimately by becoming a fiction writer, she created her own escape
from some scary nonfiction creatures, who were at the height
of their dominion in the middle of last decade, Paris Hilton,
Britney Spears, Brangelina,
subsequently her Mortal Instruments Trilogy offer fantastic departures
for contemporary young minds,
and despite their disturbing settings, some form of belonging.
Her trips -- books are not trips to any rainbow hued candy land,
it's really a dystopic vision, they explore darker possibilities
as suggested by their redemption through destruction titles.
City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass, City of Fallen Angels,
next City of Lost Souls, and after that, City of Heavenly Fire.
In her Infernal Devices Series, they will feature,
when all three are published when complete, Clockwork Angel,
next Clockwork Prince, and Clockwork Princess.
You'll have to ask her why she left New York
for the less menacing landscape of Massachusetts, maybe it's just
as hanted as the morbid Edward Gorey once suggested.
She's here with us today, and she wanted us to know that she --
her signing has already been completed,
that was earlier this afternoon, but she'll be back on December 8
at the Bethesda Library, sponsored by Politics and Pros,
but without further adieu, please welcome Cassandra Clare.
[ Applause ]
>> Cassandra Clare: Got to angle these down 'cause I'm short.
All right.
So, thank you guys all for coming out,
that's great to see such a big crowd.
I was going to read a little bit from Clockwork Prince,
which hasn't been released yet.
And then, talk a little bit the inspiration for the books,
and then I was hoping that you guys would have questions for me.
There is a microphone right there, and a microphone right over there,
and so I'll give [inaudible] signal and then you should start lining
up at the microphones and that's where you're going
to be asking the questions from.
Shoot. Clockwork Prince is the sequel to Clockwork Angel.
The part that I'm going to read shouldn't spoil Clockwork Angel
for you if you haven't read it.
Clockwork Angel, for me, was a lot of fun to write,
and set in my favorite city, London.
I got to do a lot of exciting research and I'll get to that
in a minute, but first, I'm going to read from the prologue,
which is called The Outcast Dead.
The fog was thick, muffling sound and sight.
Where it parted, William Herondale could see the street,
rising ahead of him, slick and wet and black with rain,
and he could hear the voices of the dead.
Not all shadow hunters could hear ghosts, unless the ghosts chose
to be heard, but Will was one of those who could.
As he approached the old cemetery, their voices rose
in a ragged chorus, wails and pleading, cries and snarls.
This was not a peaceful burial ground, but Will knew that.
It was not his first visit
to the Crossbones Graveyard near London Bridge.
He did his best to block out the noises, hunching his shoulders
so that his collar covered his ears, head down,
a fine mist of rain dampening his black hair.
The entrance to the cemetery was halfway down the block,
a pair of rod iron gates set into a high stone wall.
Any mundane passing by would have observed nothing but a plot
of overgrown land, part of an unnamed builder's yard.
As Will neared the gate, something else no mundane would have seen
materialized out of the fog, a great bronze knocker in the shape
of a hand, the fingers bony and skeletal.
With a grimace, Will reached out of his own hands
and lifted the knocker letting it fall once, twice, three times,
the hollow clank resounding through the night.
Beyond the gates, mist rose like steam from the ground,
obscuring the gleam of bone.
Slowly the mist began to coalesce, taking on an eerie blue glow.
Will put his hands to the bars of the gate.
The cold of the metal seeped through his gloves
into his bones and he shivered.
It was a more than ordinary cold.
When ghosts rose, they drew energy from their surroundings,
depriving the air around them of heat.
The hairs on the back of Will's neck prickled and stood
up as the blue mist formed in a shape of an old woman
in a ragged dress and a white apron.
Hello, Molly, said Will.
You're looking particularly fine this evening if I do say so.
The ghost raised her head.
Old Molly was a strong spirit, even as moonlight speared through a gap
in the clouds, she hardly looked transparent.
Her body was solid, her hair twisted back
in a thick yellow gray coil over one shoulder.
Her rough, red hands braced on her hips.
Only her eyes were hollow, twin blue flames flickering in their depths.
William Herondale, she said, back again so soon?
She moved toward the gate with that gliding motion peculiar to ghosts.
Her feet were bare and filthy, despite the fact
that they never touched the ground.
Will leaned against the gate, you know I missed your pretty face.
She grinned, her eyes flickering, and he caught a glimpse
of the skull beneath the half transparent skin.
Overhead, the clouds has closed
in on one another again, blocking out the moon.
Idly, Will wondered what old Molly had done to get herself buried here,
far from consecrated ground.
Most of the wailing voices of the dead belonged to suicides,
those outcast dead who could not be buried in a churchyard.
Although Molly had managed to make the situation profitable
for herself, so perhaps she didn't mind.
She chortled, what do you want young shadow hunter?
I have the -- sorry -- Malphas venom?
I have the talon of a Morax demon, polished very fine.
No, Will said.
That's not what I need.
I need Foraii demon powders, ground fine.
Molly turned her head to the side and spat a tendril of blue fire.
Now what's a fine young man like you want with stuff like that?
Will just sighed inwardly, Molly's protests were part
of the bargaining process.
Magnus had already sent Will to Molly several times now,
once for black candles that stuck to his skin like tar,
once for the bones of an unborn child, and once for a bag
of fairy eyes which that dripped blood on his shirt.
You think I'm a fool, Molly went on.
This is a trap, isn't it?
You Nephilim catch me selling this stuff, and it's the stick for me.
You're already dead, Will said,
I don't know what you think the Clave could do to you now.
Pah, her hollow eyes flamed.
The prisons of the Silent Brothers, beneath the earth,
can hold either the living or the dead.
Will held his hands up, there are no tricks here.
Surely you must have heard the rumors running about Downworld.
The Clave has other things on its mind than tracking down ghosts
who traffic in demon powders and fairy blood.
He leaned forward, I'll give you a good price.
He drew a bag from his pocket it clinked
like coins rattling together, they all fit your description, Molly.
An eager look came over her dead face, and she solidified enough
to take the bag from him.
She plunged one hand into it and brought her palm out full of rings,
gold wedding rings, each tied in a lover's knot at the top.
Old Molly, like many ghosts, was always looking for that talisman,
than lost piece of her past that would finally allow her to die.
In her case, it was her wedding ring.
She dropped the rings back in the bag, which vanished somewhere
on her undead person, and handed him a folded sachet of powder in return.
He slipped it into his jacket pocket just
as she began to shimmer and fade.
Hold up, there, Molly, that isn't all I have come for, tonight.
The spirit flickered while greed warred with impatience
and the effort of remaining visible.
Finally, she grunted, very well, what else do you want?
Will hesitated.
This was not something Magnus had sent him for,
it was something he wanted to know for himself, love potions.
Old Molly screamed with laughter.
Love potions?
For you? It's not my way to turn down payment, but any man who looks
like you has got no need of love potions, and that's a fact.
No, Will said, I was looking for the opposite,
something that might put an end to being in love.
A hatred potion?
I was hoping for something more like indifference, or tolerance.
She made a snorting noise, I hardly like to tell you this, Nephilim,
but if you want a girl to hate you,
there's easy enough ways of making it happen.
You, you don't need my help with the poor thing.
And with that, she vanished,
spinning away into the mists among the graves.
Will, looking after her, sighed, not for her, he said, under his breath,
though there was no one to hear him, for me, and he leaned his head
against the cold iron gate.
[ Applause ]
>> So, that was from Clockwork Prince, which is coming
out this December, I'm actually also here to talk about City
of Fallen Angels, which is the fourth book in the series
of six books about the Shadow Hunters, or Nephilim,
a secret society of warriors who live in New York
and bottle demons, both inner and outer.
And [inaudible] is a girl named Clary Fray, who joins them
and gets caught up in their battles as she discovers she comes
from a Shadow Hunter family.
She also falls in love with a Shadow Hunter who's past is
as complex as hers.
The companion series, Infernal Devices,
which is the one I just read from, is about the ancestors
of the characters in the Mortal Instruments and ties together some
of the mysteries from the two books.
I often get asked where my inspiration comes from.
I was inspired to write both series by my love
of old school urban fantasy that mixes the real and unreal,
so you have motorcycle riding fairies, and werewolf bars,
as opposed to separating the two into a world of things
that are not magic, and a world of things that are.
And I was also inspired by my overwhelming love
of cities, especially New York.
I believe all cities have a shadow self that I love to explore,
and forgotten building, places that nobody goes,
cemeteries that have been moved or closed off, ruined, old hotels,
things like that sort of have their own spirit still exist.
We don't use them, but I like the idea of a secret society
that could see them differently than we do, and did you use them.
So, I love to explore cities, I'm, I've been enjoying exploring London
and New York for both the Infernal Devices, and the Mortal Instruments,
and I'm going to start researching Los Angeles soon for another project
that I'm not allowed to talk about yet.
I'd been living in New York for two years when I started writing City
of Bones, part of me thought it would be great if I, you know,
if I set the book where I live, then I won't have to do any research,
but I couldn't have been more wrong.
There's all sorts of secret corners of cities that even
if you pass them every day, you don't know about them,
you don't really look at them or stop to think about them,
and so I started digging up things about the history of New York
and looking -- reading books like Forgotten New York and that sort
of thing, and I'll tell you,
researching a city can be a little bit dangerous.
One of the things that really caught my attention was this old small pox
hospital that's on a island between New York and Queens,
and if you drive up the FDR, which goes --
takes you up the east side of Manhattan,
you can see it usually lit up at night, this big,
old Gothic building, it's clear that the roof has fallen
in and no one's using it.
So why is it still there?
So I convinced my good friend, Holly Black,
who wrote the Spiderwick Chronicles, to help me out
and she had earlier made me put her in the trunk of my car and drive her
around so she would know what it was like to be driven
around in the trunk of a car, 'cause she was writing,
writing a mobster book, and I just spent the whole time worried
that I was going to get pulled over because if you get pulled over
and they look in your trunk, and they're like, there's a person
in your trunk, you can't really be like, she wants to be there.
So, I figured she owed me.
And she was like also one of the only people I knew who had a, like,
you know, who was, who would be willing to do this.
So she came down and she drove me over to Roosevelt Island,
which is where the small pox hospital turned
out to be the very southern end of Roosevelt Island,
which is now mostly hospitals and, and a few apartment buildings.
And so, we drove down to these big gates that said keep out,
no trespassing, but Holly said, they don't really mean that.
And so we, we sneaked on through, and so I got up close
to the building and started taking pictures of it, and I wandered away
so I could get some pictures from a distance, and when I came back,
there were the police and they were talking to Holly,
who is terrible with the police.
So, she was looking like she was going to run, and I came up
and said, what's the problem.
And they said, well, you're not supposed to be here,
and they were looking at us 'cause I think mostly who breaks
in there are, is, you know, kids who want to, you know,
set off fireworks and drink.
And they were like, what are you, you two ladies doing, you know,
hanging around this broken down building.
And so I said, well, you see, officers,
I'm doing a research project, I'm writing a novel, and I really needed
to get some photos, and they looked a little interested,
and they were like, are you writing some, like a history of New York?
And I said, no, it's about demons.
So they kicked us out.
But, you know, all in the name of research,
and then more recently I was researching in London,
and I was with a friend of mine, [inaudible] who --
also a writer, and a mature historian
and she was taking me around, the area around Westminster Abbey,
which used to be a very bad, rundown neighborhood in the,
in the time period that I'm writing in, and we were trying to pick a,
pick a kind of a bad looking house in a bad neighborhood
that we might be able to use,
and she was showing me all these details, you know, isn't this great,
you know, these are really Victorian era gutters,
and these Victorian era chimneys, and I was taking lots of pictures,
you know, and we got to a courtyard and she said,
this courtyard is really Victorian, so we went into the courtyard.
Holly, who was also there, was waiting for us outside,
and so we went in and she start pointing out, you know,
more things that I should take pictures of.
And she said, that window over there really Victorian,
so I took a picture of it and only
as the flash went off did I realize there was somebody inside,
so of course, it's an apartment building, and it was a man
who was stark naked and making eggs.
So, he looked at us, and we looked at him,
and then he went like this...
[ Laughter ]
>> [inaudible] and I ran away.
We went running by Holly at the entrance to the courtyard.
She said, I don't even want to know what you've been doing.
So, I just wanted to share a few stories about the fearless sort
of research that goes into researching for these kind of books,
and if you guys -- could line up at the microphones,
I'm going to start doing questions.
So, you're welcome to ask about the books, writing, the --
anything you particularly want to know that you think I might know.
I might or might not know the answer.
All right.
That was my bad.
Okay. Start there.
>> Hi. I just want to say thank you for being here so much.
I was wondering, like how big of a part you had
in like the movie [inaudible]
>> I guess I would say medium, I mean usually from what I've observed
with my friends who've had movies made out of their books,
the role of the author is pretty minimal.
The buy your -- the rights to make a movie out of your book,
and then they pretty much don't need to hear from you again.
Sony, who bought the rights
for my book have been pretty good about wanting my input.
Whoops. And there goes my water.
And, you know, asking me questions, calling up for details, thank you.
I didn't know that they had cast Clary
until after they had already done it.
They had -- they sent me the info on here, fortunately I like here,
Lilly Collins, I thought she was really a good combination of Clary,
sort of vulnerability and strength, so I was happy,
which lucky because it could have been anybody.
And then the Jinx audition thing took much longer,
it was like [inaudible] and like 140 people and I saw,
and they would send me -- every time they were pleased
with an audition they would send it to me,
so there's probably 100 auditions I didn't see that they didn't like,
and about 40 that they did like.
And they all had to go around -- the problem is like I, I certainly --
I don't get the last say on anything, so I can say,
I like that audition and that counts,
I think, in favor of that person.
They say, the author likes him, and they'll kind of pass it on,
it will go higher up the chain, food chain.
But the person who gets the sign off
on everything is the President of Sony.
So, everybody had to like the actual last --
the person who actually got picked, which was Jamie Campbell Bower.
He did do -- he had to audition twice, both times he had to fly back
and forth from London, and they had to pull Lilly off the set
of what she was doing, and bring them together and get them
to audition, but they really -- the second time really knocked it
out of the park, did a great job, everybody loved it,
so I'm pretty confident that they got the right guy.
It took months to find him, so, so I was happy about that and I felt
like I had gotten, like I mean they did call me and they did want
to know, you know, what I thought, and, and I was happy about that,
and now they're -- I mean both, both Clary and Jamie were cast off
of fragments of the script, 'cause the script wasn't complete,
so now they're, they're completing the script before they do anything
else, and they've been, they've been in contact
with me asking me questions about, you know, Nephilim,
what can they do, demons, what are their powers, you know,
what about this specific thing, what about this thing, you know,
down the road, is this important, or can we cut it,
so they've been pretty, pretty good about being in touch.
>> Thank you.
>> Sure.
>> What is the City of Lost Souls going to be about?
>> Well. Okay.
Well, I don't want to give any major spoilers,
but City of Fallen Angels ends on kind of a brutal cliffhanger
for those who have read it.
Yeah, I know.
Everyone's like, thanks a lot.
So it does, it does resolve that cliffhanger pretty quickly,
and you find out what happened and what's going on with Jace,
and it's mostly a -- I guess the, the --
thematically, the books are sort of about temptation, fall,
and redemption, so this is the fall part.
Everybody gets tempted in the first book to do bad things.
This is the book where they all deal with the repercussions,
and it gets pretty dark, we go all over the world with,
with the characters, Paris, Prague, Amsterdam, Venice, New York,
you know, travel around a lot with them as they search
for different magical objects, and --
I don't know [inaudible] see if evil triumphs over good, or,
or what happens this time.
Oh.
>> Hi. I wanted to know who inspired your bad guys,
like were you ever picked on as a kid?
>> Who inspired the...
>> Bad guys.
>> The bad guys.
Phew! Well, the identity of the bad guy in Clockwork Angels is sort
of a mystery, so it's hard to think too much about him except
that I specifically didn't want him to be a supernatural creature.
I wanted them to have to face a normal human being
for one, for a change.
And Valentine, who we all know from, from Mortal Instruments was inspired
by Hitler, a lot of his stuff is, a lot of his speeches are sort
of taken from Hitler's speeches, and a lot of his, the, the loyalty oaths
and the circle and how it developed and stuff is sort of taken
from that part of history.
So, not really, not really people that picked
on me, larger evil than that.
>> Thank you.
>> I just have to ask where in the world did you get the idea
from Magnus Bane's character, and if it's someone
that you know who was it?
>> It is someone that I know.
Not sure he really would want to be identified.
Maybe. I mean I think he's pleased about it.
But it's a friend of mine, we'll call him John,
and we used to go dancing in New York together and he would like,
he was like the only person I knew who could basically cover himself
in glitter and none of it would ever come off,
it was like his superpower, and so we were
down at the place called The Bank,
which is basically what Pandemonium [inaudible] was based on,
was once a bank, now it's a, you know [inaudible] Goth club.
And we're dancing, and it got late and we were tired and we left,
and we were thirsty, and John is still covered head to toe
in glitter, he's wearing like bubble wrap or something and glitter,
and I was used to this so I didn't really notice by that point.
And he would stick up his hair with rainbow glitter.
And unlike Magnus, he wore glasses, so it was extra funny.
And we wanted to go to [inaudible] I think, which is --
if you don't know it, not a very great Italian chain, we were really,
really thirsty and he really wanted pizza,
so we went over to [inaudible] and as we walked in we, you know,
I went up to the counter with John
who also actually has a thick British accent, and he said that,
you know, we wanted two cokes, please.
And the woman behind the counter turned around and looked at him
and she dropped everything she was holding and she just stared.
And she said, never in my life have I seen a man so shiny.
And I said, I'm going to put you in a book one day.
So, that was, that was Magnus.
I mean the thing I like about Magnus is despite his crazy outfits
and his penchant for putting glitter all over himself, he's really a --
actually stable, really smart, really balanced guy,
probably the least neurotic of every single one of the characters, so,
you know, it's not what you wear.
It's what you're like.
>> Hi. First thing I'm going to say is
that as I was getting my book signed [inaudible] said hi.
And second was one of my favorite quotes from your book is from Jace,
and he says, I'm not, I'm a man, and men do not consume pink drinks,
get thee gone, woman, and bring me something brown, how do you come
up with those amazing responses?
>> Oh, God, I can't even remember the pink drink saying
where it came from, but I think I was at a wedding, and it was one
of those weddings where they have signature beverages,
which I think is really weird,
like why now at weddings must we have a signature cocktail?
But, they did and it was pink, and so I heard some guy muttering about,
you know, they went up to get the drink, of course it was pink,
you know, pink's the color of love or whatever,
but I heard some guy muttering in line as he went up there
that he isn't -- wasn't going to drink anything pink.
'Cause pink was no a manly color, so it stuck in my head, and then,
you know, many years down the line, you know, creating this party
and as a, my memory of this guy objecting
to drinking anything pink bumped into my head.
I think it's just a matter of like, remembering, like, you know,
remembering the funny things you hear or see, adapting them, and,
you know, having also a unique [inaudible] character,
I mean Simon's funny, Jace is funny, Magnus is funny,
they're not all funny the same way, you know.
Something Magnus says is not going to be something Jace says,
so I think, you know, giving each character a unique voice
and a viewpoint on the world is fun because it's, it becomes fun
for the, it's funny to read in the same way that it's funny
to hear friends say things because you think, oh yeah,
that's such a John thing to say.
And that's the same way with characters.
>> Just to add on that, I always quote Jace at the weirdest times,
but do -- are -- do you ever like -- okay, this is really weird,
I don't like hearing myself.
Did you ever have to write like if you feel something or, you know,
you see something and you just feel like you have to write?
>> Well, I mean, sure, in the sense of feeling like,
I'm having an experience and feeling compelled to write about it?
>> Yeah, like -- but like, do you ever like see something
and you know that, like, that can means so much to so many people,
and it can mean so much to the character?
>> Oh, I mean, I mean I do think about my readers when I'm writing,
but I never think about it that way, I think about, you know,
I think about the characters, they pop into my head as real people all
of the time, so if I overhear something or see something,
you know, that reminds me of one of them,
I think about how they would experience, you know,
that thing and, you know, sometimes it will pop up in the book,
sometimes it won't, but, but it's,
but it's fun to think about it that way.
And there is definitely things I've experienced in my life,
or even just dynamics that I've noticed between friends and things
like that, that have fascinated me.
And I thought, well, I want to write about a relationship like that,
or I want to write about, you know, a conversation like that, and,
and those things that worm themselves into your,
into your subconscious and then out onto the page.
>> Will Magnus ever [inaudible] Will Magnus ever have a makeup line?
>> Will Magnus ever have a makeup line, if some makeup company wants
to produce one and buy the rights,
I'm sure that [inaudible] Magnus nor I would care.
I would just need to think of a name for it, maybe Magnificent.
All right.
>> I'm curious about your use of prologues,
you did it in Clockwork Angel,
and a couple of the first Mortal Instrument theories,
but I just started City of Glass and there was no prologue,
it caught me off guard, I was like, whoa.
So, I mean, I'm wondering whether you feel a prologue adds
to a book, or would it detract?
I mean, I mean I write and I was wondering, you know,
do I leave this prologue in here?
Do I dun, dun, dun to get people reading, or do you like throw it out
and you put that stuff in later?
I mean, how do you decide?
>> A prologue is necessary if it can give the reader
if it can give the reader a piece of information
that they can't get any other way.
There's a prologue in the City of Ashes because if you don't see
that prologue, you don't know what Valentine's doing
because there's nobody else in a narrative position to tell you.
And ditto, there's a prologue in Clockwork Angel because the,
the things that happen
in the prologue take place months before the action of the book.
So, again, unless you wanted to stick in a giant flashback,
which is awkward, there's no other way to get that information,
so I would say that in most cases, you know, and you have to --
if you're going to put in a prologue, and I'm pro prologue,
I know some people don't like them, but I really do.
I love prologues, I love epilogues, I like the way they bookend a book,
but, but you don't need them unless they're,
unless they're giving you information
that there's no other way that you can get.
>> Thank you.
>> I have some questions.
One, what is [inaudible] and two in City of Fallen Angels,
what made you kind of think that -- well, what made you [inaudible]
[ Inaudible ]
>> All right.
Well, the first question was what was the inspiration
for each character, and we don't want to run down the line
of every single one of them because that would take a long time,
but usually characters are a composite of people I know, people,
you know, pure imagination, people I've read about, people --
characters I've loved and books and movies and television
and historical figures, usually all so mashed up that by the time
that the character hits the page,
even the person it was originally based on,
doesn't recognize themselves anymore.
Or you get awkward things like my best friend's mother edged
up to me once and said, is Valentine based on my ex-husband?
And I was like, I don't even know him.
No. Weird, though.
So, yeah, they're never going to --
people are never going to pick up on the characters that are based
on them, so don't worry about that.
And -- oh, the other question was why make Simon a vampire.
So, sorry for those of you who have not read book two,
but I made Simon a vampire because, I mean I always knew he was going
to be, there's a lot of hinting that that's what's going to happen to him
in book one because there was no way
of showing how dangerous Downworld is, how, how --
why the Shadow Hunters keep it so secret,
so safe from ordinary mundanes, why they expend so much energy
on making sure the world stays separate unless we show what happens
to an ordinary mundane if they wander into Downworld
and that is bad things, you know, this world is far too dangerous,
far too powerful, far too complicated for them to cope with,
and [inaudible] it's too much for Simon, he becomes a Downworlder.
So. Sorry.
So, it was a of showing that, because otherwise I felt like,
you know, what are the Downworlders really hiding, you know -- sorry --
what are the Shadow Hunters really hiding?
I mean, are they really doing this for, for, for people's good
and I think that kind of shows that they are.
>> When you heard that they were going to make the movie
and they were casting people,
did you ever have any specific actors you thought would be good
for playing certain parts?
>> They optioned the rights to the movie about a year,
year and half before they even started with the production
and the casting, and, and I used to -- as my kind introducer said,
work in the entertainment industry, so I tried not to get attached
to any particular actors because I knew that there was a very,
very low percent chance that anybody that I really, really like was going
to get cast because it just normally just doesn't work out that way.
It's sort of like letting a balloon go and then being like I really,
really, really hope it lands in South Dakota.
It might, but, you know, it also might not and it's not a good idea
to get way attached to the idea that it will.
So, I'm pretty happy with the cast they've picked so far,
and I also think I'm glad that I never fastened
on any particular actors and wanted them really,
really badly because I would have been sad if it didn't work out.
>> Thank you.
>> Okay. First of all, my friend Christina says hi.
>> Hi.
>> And second, a lot of your chapter titles have --
are the titles of poems or like some poems, and I was wondering
if reading them before reading the chapter would give hints
to what was happening, or you just like the way that it sounded.
>> I think I try, I really try to make them thematically tied
into the contents of the chapter.
I, I try not to just, you know, think,
I like this phrase, I'm going to toss it in.
Sometimes you need to know the larger context of the poem,
you know, it, it helps, but in general, I mean I love poetry,
and for my whole life I've been writing down poems that I liked
or lines from poems that I liked in books, now I,
now I do it on my computer, so I can go and do a helpful search
if I need to, but I try to keep the, to keep the title
of the chapters tied into the events of the chapters,
even if they are a line from a poem, I'm trying to think
of something specific, like, like the chapter this Guilty Blood in,
in, in City of Glass was all about Jace finding out this thing
about himself that made him, him feel that his --
that his blood was cursed and that he was cursed, and so I felt like,
you know, thematically it worked together even though it's a line
from a poem.
>> Thank you.
>> Sure.
>> Hi. When I first started reading City
of Bones I was exactly Clary's age so I thought that was pretty cool,
and I just wanted to thank you for growing up with
such great characters throughout high school,
and I was just wondering which ones,
which character is your favorite character to write about.
>> Oh, it's really tough to pick a favorite character to write about,
'cause I love writing about them all in different ways,
and I love Clary 'cause she's, you know, she's a strong girl
and it's great to write about that.
I love Tessa 'cause she's also, she's strong in a different way,
and I love her 'cause she loves books and so do I.
I guess I would say that Magnus is probably the most fun, like he's --
I'm always happy when there's a scene with him it it
because it's sort of -- I know it's going to be fun to be write
about him, and I would say that, that Simon and Tessa are the ones
who are the most like me.
>> Hi. I used to -- I heard that you used to write fanfiction,
would you say that helped start your career?
>> I think that any kind of writing that you do is helpful,
no matter what to writing fiction.
I think if you write fanfiction, if you write nonfiction,
if you write technical writing, if you did what I did
and write journalism for six or seven years, it's all helpful
because it's all writing and honestly, the best thing
that you can do for yourself to get your --
to yourself to a point that will kick off, you know,
a professional career in, in writing is make writing part
of your daily life because I think a lot of people sit
around going, when will I be inspired.
You know, when will I feel like, you know,
I'm waiting for the great white light of inspiration to hit me,
and then I'll write something, but that will never happen if you wait.
You have to write first and the writing will make you inspired,
rather than being inspired to write.
>> Oh, one more thing,
I was wondering how you started writing fanfiction.
>> My friends made me watch the Lord of the Rings movie like 11 times
and by the eleventh time, I was about ready to kill myself,
so I decided that it was a good idea to do a project instead,
so I started, I [inaudible] I went home and I wrote a series
of spoof diary entries of the Lord of the Rings characters written
as if Bridget Jones had written them.
Believe the first one was Aragorn's diary, walked 40 miles,
skinned a squirrel and ate it, hate these hobbits, still not king.
>> Hi. I was just wondering when in the Infernal Devices,
why did you go back to like 1865 to like Jace's like great,
great, great grandfather?
>> Well, it could be his great, great,
great grand uncle, we don't know yet.
When I first pitched the idea, my, my editor also was equally puzzled
about why I wanted to do that, and partly it's
because that's my absolute favorite period in history,
that mid to later Victorian age in London, and partly it's because one
of the, the themes of the books I've always felt is
that the past comes forward to influence the future,
and I felt like if I was going to do a prequel, I wanted to set it
in the past and I wanted to bury all this stuff in it that would,
as you read it, you -- so that you could read the books
in either order.
You could either read the, the Infernal Devices first and have
that stuff explained later in Mortal Instruments.
Or you could Mortal Instruments first and go back
and as you're reading Infernal Devices, be like, oh,
that's where Church of the Cat comes from,
that's how Isabel got her ruby necklace,
oh that's what Magnus was talking about,
and I really love creating the connections between the two books,
and so that's why I wanted to do that.
>> Hi. I just want to say that I'm a huge, huge fantasy fan
and I loved Mortal Instruments, but I was just wondering what you,
what was your inspiration to write Mortal Instruments, like in general?
>> I mean, like I, sort of like I was saying before, there's no,
like big, white light moment.
I'd, I'd been sort of fiddling around with the idea
of writing a book set in New York that was contemporary fantasy
and thinking about settings and thinking about characters
and then I was in a tattoo shop with a friend of mine
down in the East Village, and she showed me a set of tattoos
that she had designed that were based on ruins, she started talking
to me about how the development of tattoos
and how they had originally been put, you know,
on the bodies of warriors in ancient times because they believed
that they would protect them from injuries in battles
and that this was cross cultural, the Norths did it,
the Pictish [assumed spelling] did it, the Maori did it,
and so I'm always fascinated when something like that,
a myth like that, like crosses culture
and time barriers 'cause it seems to me that it must have some truth
at its center and it really speaks to us as people.
And so I thought, what about a series about a, you know,
a group of modern day demon hunters, and they use these tattoos
and they really work and so that was the, I guess that was the one,
the spark idea and I went home and started trying
to develop the magic system.
>> Hi. Yes.
So, I'm a writer myself, and I cannot stand outlines,
and I know that there's other authors out there who write
as they go along, and I wanted to know if that's what you do, too.
>> Right. We call them planners pantsers.
You are a pantser, you write by the seat of your pants.
I admire that.
I, I, I am not a risk taker like that.
I do a general outline plot first, and think about it for a while,
and then I generally gather a group of my friends together
and we do what we call a micro plot, which means every chapter is planned
out ahead of time, every, everything that happens in the chapter,
everything that happens in the next chapter,
so that the whole story is told and like the general kinks are worked
out ahead of time before I start writing and I know,
I pretty much know where the story is going to go.
And I mean, there is no one perfect way to write a book,
so that's the way that works for me, but, you know, I also have friends
who just do what you do and just write, no outline and it works
for them, so you just have to find the system
that works the best for you.
>> Thank you.
>> Hi. I just wanted to say I really like your hair,
and did you always know where you wanted the books to end with?
>> I always know where I want the, the series to end.
With City of -- with the City of books it's kind of interesting
because I knew I wanted them to end with City of Glass,
and then I was going to do a spinoff series as a graphic novel,
and for long business related reasons that didn't work out,
and so I wound up turning the spinoff series into a second series,
so I think the, the TMI books is two trilogies,
like there's one complete arc that ends with City of Glass,
and then there's a second complete arc about the same characters,
and City of Fallen Angels is kind of reset button, now everybody's happy,
you hit that reset button [noise] and nobody's happy.
And, you know, we have a whole new story, a whole new arc, new villain,
new developments, but with, with both series, all through --
I guess I would say all three trilogies, I've always known
where I wanted them to end.
>> Thank you.
>> 'Kay. We've got five more minutes.
So, lightning round.
Okay. Go.
>> One of my favorite parts about City of Fallen Angels,
I absolutely loved your character, Jordan Kyle, and the interactions
between him and Simon and Jace were just absolutely fantastic.
Did you always know that you were going to bring him into the story,
kind of he's mentioned, but never explored, and then he's there.
>> Yeah, he was supposed to be a big character in the graphic novel,
he was supposed to like, 'cause the spinoff graphic novel's more
about Simon, and he was supposed to basically show up as,
as Simon's roommate in a total, in a totally different city,
not even New York and Simon was going to figure out who we was,
but -- so he was always supposed to have his own part,
but since I recast that whole story and brought it back to New York,
it was fun to bring him in, in that context with all the people
who knew him, and kind of developed this, like bromance with him and,
and Simon and Jace where they all spend their arguing
over who's going to use the WII.
So, I really, you know,
he's a really fun character to write about too.
>> Thank you.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. I was just wondering when you started writing the first book,
did you already have the entire plan for the City of Glass,
or did you like get halfway through it and then were like, oh,
inspiration, and then like it just started to build up on it?
>> I had the whole three books planned out in advance,
and I knew what was going to happen at the end of City of Glass,
there are definitely things that changed along the way,
but I would say that while the way to the end changed,
the actual destination end didn't change at all.
>> I was wondering if there's ever been a book you,
like a character you've ever written for
but never really developed into the story?
>> You mean like had an idea for a character
but never actually put them into the story?
I'm trying to think.
The only [inaudible] I can think of is [inaudible] Tessa's aunt,
who like was a much bigger character in the original outline
and then finally the book actually starts after she's dead now,
so we don't really get to know her all that well.
But she was a big character of her own
at one point, I was sad to see her go.
>> My friend would like to know if you still [inaudible] Hermione
and Harry Potter [inaudible]
>> I haven't seen any of the Harry Potter movies since the third one.
I haven't read any of the books since the last one,
I think I am unqualified to vote.
Okay.
>> So, I'm a writer too, and I know you have people
that when you're writing a book, you have push 'cause of a deadline.
I have like 12 novels in the writing and I just get one chapter
and do [inaudible] think of another idea and I just stop,
how do you keep yourself going writing?
>> Oh. I mean, that's, that's, that's actually the trick,
that's the hard part of writing, I mean and that's why I do an outline
because if I know what's happening next, then I don't have that moment
where I stop I'm like I don't know what's happening next.
I can't go on.
So, for -- I mean, you may be somebody who would really benefit
from doing an outline, and there's [inaudible] of links on my site
to how to do outlines and even people who run courses in outlining,
so you might want to look at those.
>> Hi. So, I'd like to say, first of all, love your series.
Absolutely brilliant, and I know that for authors, a lot of times
if you're writing a book, sometimes you have these great ideas
for scenes or characters that for whatever reason just never make it
onto the printed page, are there any particular scenes or ideas
that you love in the series,
but for whatever reason just didn't end up in the books?
>> There was a whole subplot in City of Ashes that got cut
about Valentine murdering children in New York,
and it was extremely gruesome.
I really like it, but my editor was like, [noise] so, you know,
that all went, and I, I did kind of enjoy it.
It also in fact involved a [inaudible] Valentine appearing
on TV at one point, so I'm kind of sad that that had to go
because it was truly bizarre, but my editor was like,
nobody wants to read about this many kids being killed.
And I was like, all right.
>> Thank you.
>> All right.
One minute, so -- okay.
Go.
>> Who do you think was like the scariest,
creepiest character you ever wrote about?
>> The scariest, freakiest character that I ever wrote about,
I think Sebastian was pretty, was scary, like Valentine I think
of as a -- the kind of guy who is -- really believes in what he's doing
and thinks he's doing the right thing, and everything he does is
in service of this goal and even though it's incredibly misguided,
he has a generalized sense of right and wrong, whereas Sebastian,
I mean, bashes in a 9-year-old's head with a hammer, has no feelings,
has no emotions, totally without empathy for other human beings,
and I don't think there's anything that he wouldn't do,
so to me, that's more frightening.
>> Oh, okay.
>> Thanks.
>> All right.
Well, thank you guys very much.
Oh, wait, you do have a question?
>> Yeah.
>> All right.
I think you, I think you have time.
>> Well, I was wondering what you felt like as an author
about [inaudible] that I've been hearing a lot about?
>> I...
>> That people [inaudible] gone to libraries,
or [inaudible] parents I think saying,
I don't think my child should be reading this,
this should not be in the library.
>> I think that is up to every parent to be comfortable
with what their own children read, but I don't think that it is
up to them to decide what other people's children should read.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you very much for having me, it was great.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.