Malinda Lo: Five Foundations of Worldbuilding

Malinda Lo is the award-winning author of several YA novels, ASH, HUNTRESS, ADAPTATION, INHERITANCE, and A LINE IN THE DARK. She writes mainly fantasy and science fiction, but acknowledged that even contemporary fiction requires world building.

She defined world building as "the imagine process of creating settings, cultural practices, and magical or scientific structures of a fantasy or science fiction novel."

You as the author have a lot of control over your fantasy world: who has the power, who discriminates. You don't have to reproduce real-world prejudices. (Doesn't mean your world can't include prejudices! But become aware of these things when you create your world so you do it deliberately.)

Something that frustrates Malinda: You watch a TV show set in San Francisco or New York and everyone is white. "This is completely unrealistic," she says.

She has five issues she focus on (and I'll share a couple with this blog post):

• Rules
• Rituals
• Power
• Place
• Food

She referenced Holly Black's rules of magic as being useful for establishing the rules of your world. 

• Who has it
• What does it do?
• How do you make it happen? 
• How is a user affected? 
• How is the world affected? 
• How are magic users grouped & perceived? 

Rituals is her second area of worldbuilding she considers. 

In Harry Potter, the Sorting Hat is a ritual/rite of passage every year. Prom is another sort of ritual. There's a dance, photographs, a vote for king and queen (which means popularity/power/status). If you don't go, you're on the outside. You might not have gotten invited. You may be low-status. 

"There's a lot of meaning attached to something like prom," Malinda said.

And consider birthday cakes. In our culture, birthdays involve people standing in a circle around a baked good that they set on fire. One person makes a secret wish. They sing a ritual song. It's all so commonplace that we don't even think about it, but as authors, this is exactly the sort of thing we need to think about. 

THE HUNGER GAMES is another book that has a powerful ritual—the reaping ceremony. 

Katniss messes up the ritual by volunteering. In this way, she takes back some of her own power. This is more than if she had been volunteered against her will.

The ritual also reveals the nature of the government, and that the public is powerless. The ritual is messed up, and that it's been turned into a celebration is even more messed up.

Follow Malinda Lo on Twitter

Panel: Culture, Identity, and Writing: Malinda Lo

Malinda Lo is the author of several young adult novels, including most recently A Line in the Dark. Her novel Ash, a lesbian retelling of Cinderella, was a finalist for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award, the Andre Norton Award for YA Science Fiction and Fantasy, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and was a Kirkus Best Book for Children and Teens. She has been a three-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Malinda’s nonfiction has been published by The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Huffington Post, The Toast, The Horn Book, and AfterEllen. Her website is www.malindalo.com.

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Malinda shares how dialog in one scene of her YA novel, "A Line in the Dark" was pulled from her own life, and how sometimes writing truth isn't joyful, but a catharsis.

Speaking of Arthur's prompt of a quote from Alexander Chee's How to Write an Autobiographical Novel regarding transforming Gay and Asian stereotypes, via drag, to power, Malinda tells us about her current novel being about drag. The book is about a queer Chinese American girl and Drag Kings, and performance, and twisting and subverting gender. How Chinese Americans in that time faced casual everyday racism. And Queer people faced many homophobic stereotypes, but her character discovers that in this drag nightclub, those challenges are subverted.

"The point is to center the Chinese-ness of these characters and to show their world. When it comes to whether outsiders can understand it...? I used to be more concerned with that."

That's a profound comment. That we don't have to explain things to people outside the culture. Those readers can jump in and figure it out. We can center the culture and stories we need to tell.

When Malinda wrote her debut Ash, she imagined the characters as Asian (it's a fantasy lesbian re-telling of Cinderella), yet she explains that while writing it,

"I thought the gay part was big enough problem." She felt that this book was going to get a difficult reception, so she did not include any clear signs of Asian-ness. She tells us how she imagined them in her head, but decided to not put them in the book, saying, "I thought it would be too much."

Malinda then explains how in writing the follow-up novel, Huntress (a prequel), she set out to make it very specifically a Chinese-inspired fantasy world.

Malinda speaks of much more, including the "double othering" she faces as a Chinese American: the othering from "Mythical China" (telling us a story of visiting China when she was in college, and how it was so clear to the people she met there that she wasn't Chinese), and at the same time how to some of her fellow Americans she's perceived as a perpetual foreigner.

It's a brilliant panel that goes so much deeper than the surface discussion of 'yes, diversity is good.' Diversity is real. Diversity is complex. Diversity is intersectional.

A final impassioned thought from Malinda:

"Too often race is seen only as skin color..." Race is a cultural construct. "Race is an experience. You have to go inside."

Panel: Culture, Identity, and Writing: Where Do They Intersect? - The Panel Begins!

Moderated by Arthur A. Levine (far left), the panelists are (continuing left to right): Dashka Slater, Malinda Lo, Aida Salazar, and Ibi Zoboi.

GLBTQ Poolside Lunch Chat

I had a great time covering the GLBTQ (Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Queer/Questioning) Poolside Lunch Chat about the craft of writing children's books, YA novels, as well as the politics behind the GLBTQ label - some topics included having realistic characters that aren't "fake" (i.e. too perfect), how to market GLBTQ YA novels to the widest audience possible, the special challenges to writing and illustrating picture books featuring GLBTQ characters, etc.

Author Emily Wing-Smith participated in the conversation. She is the author of "The Way He Lived." Also present was author Malinda Lo, whose YA novel, "Ash," a re-telling of the Cinderella fairy tale with a twist (Prince Charming is a girl) debuts this September. (She's pictured above in the green shirt).

Scholastic Inc. VP Arthur Levine emphasized that all characters, gay or straight, should be realistic and authentic. "Imperfections are what make characters feel real," he said. "An idealized character doesn't feel real to anyone. You want your reader to believe in your character and for your character to be fully real."

Lee Wind discussed whether GLBTQ YA books are starting to move away from focusing solely on the "coming out" identity theme. He mentioned that transgender books are still focusing still on coming out but GLB YA may focus on other issues. For example, Levine edited Lisa Yee's ABSOLUTELY MAYBE in which one character may or may not be gay (I don't want to give away the spoiler) but his identity is NOT the main point of the story. Malinda Lo felt there are newer ways to tell the "coming out" story that can still make this theme timeless and fresh to new audiences. 

Overall, it was an illuminating conversation about these issues and more among both aspiring and published picture book and YA/mid grade novel writers. It was clear everyone appreciated this open, candid and very supportive environment to discuss these issues along with craft of writing issues. 

Plus, it was really sunny and we were all sitting by the pool. What more could you ask for a beautiful day! :)

Posted by Paula Yoo