Barnes & Noble in Huntington Beach held a signing/discussion event with author Victoria Schwab to promote the final book in her Shades Of Magic Series, A Conjuring Of Light on February 25th!
The event began at 2 p.m. and well before the event started (at least an hour before), the seating area was already full!
Even people arriving 10–20 minutes before, could only stand or sit around the signing area!
The event itself consisted of an hour-long discussion with Schwab giving background to her writing career and then answering audience questions for the remaining 40+ minutes.
The series itself centers around Kell and his magical ability to travel between alternate versions of London (Red, Grey, White & Black). He lives in Red London and serves as a messenger to the royal family of that world. However, a darkness is looming and could potentially put all the worlds in danger!
She mentioned that she plays with lines in her stories a lot, for instance the lines between good/evil, life/death, and hero/villain.
With her Shades Of Magic Series, Schwab said that she built the world for it at least six months before she even started writing the plot or characters.
Schwab said she is what she would call a “Window Author” which means she will provide a window in the world of her stories. While she won’t provide everything, she mentioned “I’m going to give you enough information to infer the rest of the world from what you see and don’t see.”
This leads her to create her worlds in “broad strokes” and add detail as she writes.
“…There is no right way to write. You do whatever inspires you and whatever stokes the fires of your creativity, whatever that is.”
When asked what changes between first and last drafts she noted “You have a perfect idea in your head…then you put it on paper and its broken and awful. The reason for that is because there’s a massive gap between the story in your head and the story on the page. And what revision is, in my mind, is stitching those two ideas closer together.”
Especially with first drafts she mentioned that as she writes more books she reminds herself that the “revision is where you get the story in your head that’s on the page…”
Attendees asked questions revolving around her writing, writing process, the Shades Of Magic Series as a whole, and her future projects!
She mentioned her advice to aspiring writers was “if you find yourself hating an early version of your work, that’s how you know your doing it right…if you love the early version you won’t feel pushed to make it better…”
Once the Q&A was finished, the signing began and went until 4:30 p.m.
She took the time to speak with every single one of her readers and take pictures.
When asked about her thoughts on the event, Amanda, college student, mentioned “It was a really nice event. She had a really fun personality…I liked seeing how everyone was passionate about the stories…”
“I loved it so much…I enjoyed the questions & answers that she was doing and how she left it up to the audience…and how thoroughly she answered the questions,” said Raneem, college student.
