Exploring New Perspectives

14 K CURIOSITALES

Lu is a fighter, Vex is a pirate, and Ben is a prince. In a world of magic and betrayal, it is up to them to discover the truth as they seek to bring peace to their world. But what will their journeys, and hope for peace, cost them?

Sara Raasch, New York Times bestselling author of the Snow Like Ashes series is back with a duology, a new world, and amazing new characters. Her new fantasy novel, These Rebel Waves, follows the story of three people all seeking peace in a world that is still in disarray after a war.

“It’s always been the genre that I liked the most,” Raasch said when asked what drew her to fantasy. The series that first really drew her into this genre was Twelve Houses by Sharon Shinn. Part of what made her love it so much was “seeing what could be done with really expansive, deep world building.”

“It made me fall in love with the possibilities of being able to create entire cultures, and entire peoples, and the way they speak and dress and eat,” Raasch said. Creating an expansive world is no easy task; it involves a lot of research. But knowing when you have done enough research can be difficult. “I’m struggling with that right now as I’m trying to develop a couple of new ideas. I’m still at the point where I’m like, ‘But if I just spend a couple more months poking around with things…’”

So what is the solution? “That’s a hard question to answer because you kind of have to get to a point where you just force yourself to,” Raasch said, “and you force yourself to start writing the first draft knowing it’s wrong. And that’s the hardest thing because it feels like a waste of time, but it isn’t. Even though you’ll probably end up deleting most of that stuff, it’s just feeling out the world and playing with it.”

“Creating a world is so expansive; you can’t possibly get all of the details down before you start writing it because there are things you won’t think about or things you’ll encounter and be like, ‘Oh, that actually needs to be this way.’ So it really just comes down to forcing yourself to do it. So much of this industry, especially because it’s very self-contained, requires you to be really on yourself with things,” Raasch said. “It’s hard, man, being your own boss,” she added with a laugh.

“With These Rebel Waves, I hope people come away with more of a sense of questioning what you believe in. Because as somebody who had a very pivotal belief

shift, I know how important it is to question things. And even if you are completely certain in what your side believes that is right, that’s even more reason to question things and just to be informed. Back things up with facts. Never just take things at surface value.”

She knows what it is like to question your beliefs. She had a conservative upbringing, and writing this book helped her process how that affected her, although that is not the only way she processes it.

“I think processing it, for me at least, is kind of a daily thing. Growing up with beliefs like that, they really shape who you turn into unless you get out of it. I still find myself doing or not doing things based on various things that they told me back when I was younger. So it’s just a constant battle of reaffirming what I believe now, and what the right thing to do, for me, is,” Raasch said.

She went on to talk about how religion is incorporated in These Rebel Waves and how her real-life experiences influenced that. “Putting in the Argridian church that runs Ben’s country was just really cathartic, in a way, to kind of delve back into a lot of

the things that they would say. Especially when Ben’s father and the various priests in his country talk. I always would have to sit back and kind of pull into my brain the different things that I heard the leaders of my church talk about. Which was cathartic in a way but also really uncomfortable in a lot of other ways.”

Besides the message, being inclusive was also very important to Raasch. One of the main characters, Ben, is openly gay. “One of the challenges I set forth for myself after I finished the Snow Like Ashes trilogy, and kind of took stock of my career and what I wanted to do next, was to be more inclusive and have more diversity because Snow Like Ashes was pretty white and pretty straight,” she said. “It was one of the things that I deeply regret now looking back. I was in a different place when I wrote it and was less woke, I guess.”

“So going forward the personal goal I’ve set for myself is to never have somebody’s sexuality or preferences be a source of tension in a plot, especially in These Rebel Waves. There’s a very oppressive church that runs Ben’s country, and it would have been very easy to have the church be homophobic

because that seems to go hand in hand in really oppressive religions. So especially because there was a really heavy religious presence, I wanted Ben’s country to be very accepting of sexuality.”

But there are plenty of other ways to create tension. “Ben is openly gay, and he’s in a relationship with one of his guards at the beginning of the book. And that’s where the tension comes from- he’s a prince, and he’s in love with a commoner. It’s really frowned upon that he’s reaching below a social class, especially being an heir to the kingdom,” Raasch said.

She also talked about how in today’s culture, it can be easy for people to read something online and automatically assume that what they read is true without doing any research of their own. “So I hope people come away from [These Rebel Waves] questioning things a little more and widening their own belief system.”

These Rebel Waves includes many different beliefs, which means Raasch had to see things from several different viewpoints and then argue for them. The most difficult character to do this for was Ben.

“There were a couple of different ways his story started. I had one version of him where he started the book and he was super devoted to the religion and super believed in it and everything and then slowly changed as he went on. So it was kind of similar to Lu. And then in one version, he was kind of questioning it in secret and was kind of like a rebel and had his own little resistance going.”

But finally, Raasch figured out his story. “After all he’s seen and all he’s grown up with, there’s a really pivotal moment where his uncle and his cousin were burned at the stake for harboring magic plants and for aiding the rebels on Grace Loray and her revolution. And that moment has made him start to question everything. Once you start questioning things it all falls apart. You can’t stop questioning. You can’t stop seeing the answers even if people don’t get them.”

“So when Ben starts the story, he’s unraveled. He’s spent years trying not to let his father and the rest of Argrid know that he’s been questioning and doesn’t believe anymore. So he’s drunk a lot and is constantly acting out in small ways to

kind of keep people from seeing his bigger weaknesses. When he starts the book he’s kind of floundering and really lost. So it took a long time to nail down where he was at because there are so many options for him. But he’s one of my favorite characters just because he put me through so much stress trying to figure him out.”

And of course, stress is something that comes along with writing a book. Even though Raasch has written a trilogy and These Rebel Waves will be her fourth book, she still struggles like every other author.

“It’s hard. It’s really hard. I think people have this idea that once you’ve written a book, it’s just easy after that. But every book is like starting from scratch. So it’s hard just to learn your process, though I think that’s the one thing that experience gives you is to figure out, or to be able to recognize, that it sucks right now but it will get better. And then it’ll suck again, and then it’ll get better. So it’s just knowing what’s coming.”

Another thing that has helped Raasch during the writing and publishing process is her author friends. “It’s a very solitary job for sure,” she said. Luckily, even when she is not able to meet with friends like Kristen Simmons in person, they can still communicate online. In fact, she and Claire Legrand have been helping each other out via text by making sure the other is actually doing their work. “It’s nice having everything online because you do get to connect with people and help this industry not feel quite so alone.”

But even with support, writing a book is still a daunting task that takes time. In

fact, the ideas for Raasch’s books were ideas that she has had for as long as fifteen years. “It helps when you’re contractually obligated to finish it,” Raasch said with a laugh. “It also helps having an editor and an agent who are kind of in on it with you where you don’t feel quite so alone.”

But despite how long the publishing process is, it is easy to feel like you have to reach a certain point by a certain age. Raasch insisted that is not the case.

“Oh no, there’s no age requirement in this industry at all. We all write books for teenagers, but we don’t have to be close to being teenagers. I have really good writer friends who were in their 50s and some that were in their 60s [when they published their first book.] Really the only thing that silences worries like that is being in the industry and chugging along. You keep moving forward and keep doing everything you can to get towards that goal. That way you know that you’re doing everything you can.”

If fans of her previous work are wondering how similar These Rebel Waves is to Snow Like Ashes, according to Raasch it is darker and deals with heavier themes. She also compared two lead female characters from each series.

When it comes to Lu in These Rebel Waves, she said, “She’s a lot what Meira would have been like without Meira’s sense of humor. Lu’s a lot more serious; a lot of worse things have happened to her than Meira. Meira was kind of sheltered when we first met her in Snow Like Ashes – obviously terrible things had happened but not directly relating to her.”

On the contrary, Lu has been through a lot. “We start the book with the revolution having recently ended, and her parents were pivotal in the reason that it ended in victory. So she grew up with her mom who was one of the generals and her dad was basically a spy. And she kind of took on a lot of roles for them and followed in their footsteps and did a lot of things that over the course of the duology come back to haunt her. So she’s a lot darker than Meira.”

At the end of the interview, Raasch had one last thing to say to readers. “If you read These Rebel Waves, let me know. I always like to talk to people online on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and everywhere. Like, too much. I just like to talk to people.”

If you want to go on this dark, magical, and exciting journey with Lu, Vex, and Ben, then you should go to Epic Reads to see a list of all the places where you can buy These Rebel Waves. And of course, do not forget to say hello to Raasch!

TWITTER: @seesarawrite TUMBLR: sararaasch.tumblr.com/ INSTAGRAM: @sara_raasch