Catherine Fisher talks to Cyncoed Library at Cardiff Metropolitan University

Popular fantasy and young adult novelist, Catherine Fisher visited Cyncoed Library for World Book Day.  She gave an absorbing talk about her imagined worlds and the creative process involved in developing them.  She has written many critically acclaimed books and has a devoted fan base of readers held in thrall to her fantasy series.  Her latest book (and last one in the Chronoptika series), Speed of Darkness has just been published.

Catherine Fisher talking about her work in Cyncoed Library

Catherine talked briefly about how she got into writing – through reading, libraries and books and then looked at the process of writing.

When writing, the characters and plot become alive for her – it’s actually happening.  When the book has been completed, it becomes a thing of the past.  She expressed wonder at how a reader continues to make the book alive by re-imagining the characters and situations she has created.

Quoting from Alan Garner, Catherine highlights the writer’s role in telling the story.

“What is the story? The story is the medium through which the writer interprets reality; but it is not reality itself. The story is a symbol, which makes a unity of the elements, hitherto seen as separate, that combine uniquely in the writer’s vision.

What words can tell it? The words are the language: the medium through which the story is made plain; and, unless the language is apt, the story will not translate; for the final translator is not the writer but the reader. To read also is to create.”

What drives her stories?  Catherine listed them as the three Xs – Exploration, Excitement and Ecstasy

Catherine pushes the boundaries of the real and unreal to explore what she can use in her fiction.  Also what can she do in her fiction? What strange worlds can she create?  Excitement is something that makes writing fun – things that get her excited when writing are weird situations and transformations that don’t have any explanation.  And the final one: ecstasy – is the joy felt when the story works.

This led on to a discussion of her work and the construction of her imagined worlds or realities – focusing on Incarceron, Corbenic and the Obsidian Mirror. Incarceron is set on alternative dystopian world.  Corbenic starts off as an issues-based story with a protagonist trying to cope with an alcoholic mother before finding himself thrust into a completely different world.  And The Obsidian Mirror is about time-travel and supernatural forces in which several characters – not all human – try to find a magic time travelling mirror to change the past & future.

Catherine’s advice for aspiring writers

• Read everything that interests you – not just fiction. Catherine also reads a lot of history, space and archaeology books
• Start in the middle of the action
• Don’t write down to the reader
• Cut out what you don’t need
• Make it cinematic – only slight hints rather than detailed descriptions of actions like doors opening and closing, etc. Children and young adults are much more visually aware now.

It was a brilliant talk from a superb writer.  As a non-fantasy reader, I have been inspired to dip into the genre again with The Obsidian Mirror, intriguingly summarised as being about “time travel and scary fairies”.

If you would like us to host more library-based author events or have some suggestions for any library-based activities that we could run, get in touch with educationlibrarian@cardiffmet.ac.uk

© Photograph by Catherine Finch