The Big Idea: Alethea Kontis

Posted on October 2, 2013    Posted by John Scalzi      11 Comments

As any author will tell you, second novels are often even more challenging than first ones — they have special challenges, particularly in the production stage. Alethea Kontis is here to tell you her about her second novel experience with Hero, and it’s definitely an interesting one. The good news is: Second novels still happen!

ALETHEA KONTIS:

My Big Idea for Hero was originally called “Saturday.” (Because Enchanted was originally entitled “Sunday.”)  It was a giant, 20-chapter outline on poster board, with notes. After we sold Enchanted, I typed it up, sent it to my editor, and waited for the money trucks to arrive. All that came back was an email.

They didn’t like the idea. In fact, they didn’t like the idea so much that they saw Enchanted as a stand-alone novel, and I should really just stop trying to pitch them books for the rest of the Woodcutter sisters.

I didn’t want to stop, but why would I write a book that had no hope of being published? So I didn’t. And then Enchanted came along.

Two weeks after the launch and about four days into my fan-funded book tour, I got another email. “Hey, remember how you were going to write books about all the other sisters? You should really do that. BTW, we know you won’t be home until mid-June, but Book 2 is due in October. And we still hate the outline. Have a nice day!”

Every author wonders if they’ll be able to hack it in a trial by fire. Well, this author knows she’s got what it takes. I wrote that manuscript in three months, and when they didn’t like that, I took the fourth month to rewrite the whole thing. But I did it, against all odds, and what came out was magic.

Ironically, this is exactly what Hero is all about.

There’s a fairy tale I grew up with–a picture book by Jay Williams and Friso Henstra called Petronella. It’s a feminist retelling of the Grimms’ tale “Master Maid,” which just so happens to be one of my editor’s favorite stories.

Petronella is the daughter of King Peter and Queen Blossom, youngest of three boys. Even though she isn’t a boy she’s still raised as one, and she is expected to seek her own fortune. She finds out about a prince that’s been captured by a wizard and sets out to save him. She completes all the tasks the wizard gives her and escapes with the prince. The wizard follows. She tries to thwart him, but still he gives chase. When she finally captures him and asks why, the wizard says, “Because you’re clever and I’m in love with you.” In the end (spoiler), Petronella ditches the lazy prince and marries the wizard.

Needless to say, that not exactly how the Grimms’ story ends…but many of the elements remain the same.

Where Sunday Woodcutter was a slightly agoraphobic introvert writer who fell in love with a frog, her older sister Saturday is a tall girl with bright eyes, a magic ax, and a strong work ethic, who can’t tell a story to save her life. She’s annoyed that all of her other siblings possess fey magic, and thinks that because she doesn’t, she’ll never have an adventure of her own.

Fate, of course, proves her wrong. A blind witch mistakes her for her infamous brother Jack, kidnaps her, and traps her in an icy cave at the Top of the World. The witch’s daughter lives there too…only it’s really a man named Peregrine cursed by the real witch’s daughter into taking her place.

Yup — this is a book where the girl wears trousers and the boy wears a skirt, there’s an evil witch and a scary dragon and everyone’s a hero.

I only wish they’d put Peregrine on the cover.

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Hero: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Powell’s

Read an excerpt (via Google Preview). Visit the author’s site. Follow her on Twitter.