Crafting in The Fantasy Genre: Interview with M.L. Wang

By Destini Baylis Adams

M.L. Wang is an author making digital waves in the fantasy book community. Her self-published book “The Sword of Kaigen” has become one of the most well-regarded fantasy novels of the last few years, garnering exceptional praise from fantasy booktubers such as Merphy Napier, Elliot Brooks, and Daniel Green. On the ever more influential bookstagram, Tristan from @paperbackboy and Jessica from @the.french.bibliophile also speak highly of this novel and recommend it often to their numerous followers. At the time of writing this interview with author M.L. Wang, “The Sword Of Kaigen” has over 11,000 ratings on the popular review site Goodreads. Thanks to this online adoration from readers, Wang has also won Mark Lawerence’s 2019 Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off award in recognition of her recent but indelible mark on the genre. Being a busy writer, M.L. Wang agreed to a written interview that transpired via email on November 19, 2022. 

The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

 

What are the main inspirations behind your work?

M.L.W.: I’m not sure how to answer this. I’ve written stories since I could get a full sentence on paper, so almost every piece of media I’ve enjoyed has inspired me somewhere along the way. My first inspirations were the stories that captivated me as a tiny kid. These were mostly folktales with mythic elements, usually rendered in vivid picture books. “The Magic Brush” was big for me. So were “Raven” and “The Monkey King.” Trickster myths, I guess. Those were the catalysts for my love of storytelling.

What draws you to write? Is there a particular reason you are drawn to the fantasy genre? 

M.L.W.: Writing is my way of releasing tension and keeping my mind healthy. If I have ideas I can’t parse, feelings I can’t express, or frustrations keeping me up at night, those come out in my writing. Sci-fi and fantasy are the best for this kind of release because the fantastical lets me see my issues through a new lens and pushes them to their most dramatic extremes. Blowing a fiddly problem up to the size of a dragon can help me get not just a new perspective on the problem but a clearer one. I find that, with non-fiction, I write what is, and then I feel stuck there in the current state of affairs. But a demand of most genre fiction is that it resolves. So, putting my angst into a story forces me past what is toward what could be. And in the end, I have something new. Maybe not always a solution, but something new. And maybe that’s why tricksters—shapeshifters, gods of crossroads, and change—are often gods of storytelling. A lie has the power to transform what is into what could be.

What is your writing process like? Do you plan your stories ahead of time or write and see what happens?

M.L.W.: Calling the way I write a “process” is charitable. The last few books I’ve completed are projects I accidentally started writing one day (probably because I was supposed to be working on something else) to scratch an itch. The stories I end up writing to completion are the ones like that—that build like water against a dam until they break free. After I’ve started a story with enough momentum that I don’t see it stopping, I usually draw up an outline, which I then disregard as I go. Usually, my books outgrow their initial outline and intended word count, but I’m trying to break that habit in favor of creating more streamlined stories.

What were the biggest challenges you faced when writing “The Sword of Kaigen”?

M.L.W.: It was the first time I had written an adult protagonist. As a relatively new adult at the time, I had to dig deep into my anxieties about the future—specifically, the consequences of passively letting adulthood happen to you against your own misgivings. That kind of introspection is harrowing but makes for the best character work.

“The Sword of Kaigen” is a phenomenal book. One of the themes is propaganda and abuse of power from the government. What inspired you to write about these themes and what research did you have to do for this plot arc?

M.L.W.: I didn’t do any research specifically for “The Sword of Kaigen” except to squeeze in an extra weapons course at the martial arts school where I was employed at the time. I got my undergraduate degree in history, so I have a strong feel for the narratives people create around power and the purpose those narratives serve. As a Chinese-American who spent parts of my teenage years in China and Japan, I’m familiar with East Asian patterns of propaganda, mythology, and general narrative construction. Consequently, I had a much easier time writing the propaganda of “The Sword of Kaigen” than many other story elements.

“The Sword of Kaigen” takes place in an interesting world. What is your process with world-building in The Theonite series?

M.L.W.: The premise of the Theonite Universe is something I came up with when I was in my early teens, and, for the record, I don’t stand by it anymore. The premise: on a parallel Earth where most humans have superpowers determined by their nation of origin (think “Avatar: The Last Airbender”), a superpowered West African empire has colonized most of the globe, and a bunch of other racial hierarchies from our own Earth are reversed. This was my clumsy attempt to examine the racism I experienced and witnessed as a kid “through a new lens,” as we discussed earlier. But, as a more mature writer, I have a lot of problems with this premise. To name just one: the magic system of hereditary superpowers assigns biological importance to race that doesn’t exist in the real world. Consequently, on a storytelling level, it hampers any attempt to honestly examine racial prejudice. For this, among many reasons, I’ve stopped writing in the Theonite Universe and won’t be returning to it.

My new projects don’t contain hereditary magic systems and, I hope, do a much better job examining their intended social issues.

The fight scenes and action scenes were well articulated and somehow helped me learn more about the characters in the story notably Misaki. Your website says that you’re a martial artist. What martial arts do you practice? Do you think your training in martial arts helped you when crafting scenes and if so, how?

M.L.W.: To answer your first question first, I have a black belt in traditional taekwondo and karate, but I’ll dabble in anything. Applying realistic martial arts directly to fictional combat can make for very brief, very boring action scenes. Because, in most cases, real-life combat is messy and over quickly. Fist, face. Face, floor. Not riveting drama. However, practicing a range of martial arts has been incredibly helpful when choreographing action scenes that walk the line between spectacle and believability.

Regarding the connection between fight scenes and character development, my rule for writing martial arts sequences is that they should function like dialogue exchanges. Every move should provide new information, reveal or reinforce a character trait, diffuse or escalate tension, force a decision or introspection, or shift the balance of power between characters. Every move should justify its place on the page, just like a line of dialogue.

The novel centers around family dynamics, unlike most fantasy books that focus on a group of friends. Was this choice intentional and if so, why? What drew you to write about family dynamics?

M.L.W.: I wrote friend-group-centric YA stories—a lot of them—for years before I started “The Sword of Kaigen.” As I got into my early twenties, those friendship adventure stories no longer preoccupied me the way they once had because they no longer spoke to my experiences and emotional needs. When I started “Kaigen,” I needed to write a story about what happens to a member of that tight-knit group of friends after she succumbs to societal pressures and settles into a life that doesn’t suit her. That’s where I was psychologically; those were the demons I was grappling with, so that was the story I needed to write.

What are books and television shows that influence your writing?

M.L.W.: I honestly read very little for an author, and these days, I don’t watch that much TV either. When I was younger, Shounen anime was a huge influence on my writing, and I think you can still feel that energy in most of my stories. If I had to pick a single influential book out of all the titles I’ve loved and folded into my style, that would have to be Suzanne Collins’s “Gregor the Overland” (and the next few books in her “Underland Chronicles,” if that’s not cheating). The  “Underland Chronicles,” with their vivid, pacey prose, were pivotal in my understanding the power of simplicity. After reading the series in middle school, I started stripping the bells and whistles from my own prose and letting the story speak for itself.

Your book “Blood Over Bright Haven” will be released on July 1, 2023. Can you tell me about this book? What’s your next project?

M.L.W.: “Blood Over Bright Haven” is a dark academia following the first woman ever admitted into the highest order of mages in her city. Like “The Sword of Kaigen,” it goes to dark places and does its darndest to deal with the demons there. Unlike “The Sword of Kaigen,” the characters in “Bright Haven” don’t fight with swords. The battles are mostly intellectual, and the action happens in the gears of magical machines. This drastic shift in genre from my East Asian martial artsy comfort zone to steampunk academia has been a challenge but a rewarding one.

Before “Bright Haven” launches, I’ll also be releasing a sapphic YA portal fantasy called “Girl Squad Volta” under the pen name Maya Lin Wang. Remember when I said that in my early twenties the urge to write friendship-centric adventure stories wore off? Well, in my late twenties, it came back swinging. “Girl Squad” is a project I started for fun to offset the emotional toll of working on “Bright Haven,” and it features all the things that appeal to the child in me: martial arts action, sparkly magical girl transformations, and the power of friendship. Right now, I’m billing it as Sailor Moon meets Cobra Kai. Whether I can come up with a better tagline before launch remains to be seen.

 

M.L Wang’s new novel “Blood Over Bright Haven” will be released on July 1, 2023. 

To keep up with this and other releases see her website.