Writers of fantasy stories are often inspired and influenced by, well, other fantasy stories.
But in the following email interview, author Lynn Buchanan says she was inspired to write her fairy tale-esque adventure fantasy story The Dollmakers (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) by a painting, and influenced in how she wrote it by watching a certain Japanese animation studio’s iconic movies.
To start, what is The Dollmakers about, and what kind of a world is it set in?
The Dollmakers is about Shean, a woman whose spent her whole life learning to make magical dolls to fight the monsters that terrorize her country. But when the time comes for her dolls to be assessed, she’s told they’re took delicate and beautiful to fight.
Infuriated by that, Shean sets out to test her dolls against the monsters herself, determined to do whatever it takes to prove that her dolls are meant to be warriors, not toys or decorative bobbles; a conviction that spreads confusion and chaos in her wake.
At its core, The Dollmakers is a coming of age story, focused on a woman as ambitious as she is self-delusional, and featuring a world full of creepy-cute dolls, monsters that weep as they kill you, and a beautiful traveling linguist who thinks he knows a lot less than he actually does. Mix in more than a few spiders, a village of grouchy silk-weavers, and a shattered mentor figure, and we’re in for a pretty fun ride, if I do say so myself.
Where did you get the idea for The Dollmakers?
The initial idea for The Dollmakers came from stumbling across this art piece by Zeen Chin — the minute I saw this illustration, I knew I wanted to write a story about women who make creepy, living dolls.
It took a few years for that idea to solidify into something a bit more complex, moving from a general concept to a narrative with an actual plot and fleshed-out characters. The single dollmaker became two dollmakers, one who makes beautiful dolls (my main character, Shean), and another who makes horrifying / scary dolls (Shean’s foil, Ikiisa). After I came up with Shean and Ikiisa, the rest of the setting naturally (albeit gradually) fell into place.
You kind of just answered this, but is there a reason why you made this about dolls and the people who make them as opposed to, say, magical creatures and the people who conjure them?
Well, the simple answer here is my answer to the last question: I saw a piece of artwork featuring a woman making a living doll, and I wanted to write a story about women who make living dolls.
But to dig a bit deeper into why that idea was so appealing to me, I really wanted to write a craft-based magic system that involved making something physically, with your own two hands, to use it — a magic system where creativity is important, where magic-wielders are as much artists as they are magicians or witches. So, dolls; carved and painted by hand, carefully planned and meticulously executed, believed to be the most functional when they are as well-made as their crafters can make them.
Framing magic as an art form also let me delve a bit into my own experiences as an artist, imbuing my characters with some of the thoughts and feelings I have on art creation, which I hope lends a level of authenticity to their desires and motivations as they strive to be the best artists they can be, in the hopes of helping the people in their country stand against the monsters that plague them.
It sounds like The Dollmakers is a fantasy tale, though not an epic fantasy like The Lord Of The Rings or an urban fantasy like Harry Potter. How do you describe it, genre-wise?
Adventure fantasy would probably be the best label to slap on The Dollmakers. It’s a bit fairy tale-esque, a bit whimsical, and a bit horrific (like a Studio Ghibli movie), but at its core it’s a story about a woman coming to realize how skewed her view of herself and the world really is, a revelation that comes via traveling across the country and battling monsters.
Really, if there was a genre that was simply “whatever the Ghibli movies Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Howl’s Moving Castle are,” that’s what The Dollmakers would be, too.
The Dollmakers is your first novel. What writers and stories do you feel had the biggest influence on The Dollmakers, both of in terms of what you wrote and how you wrote it?
The books that immediately come to mind are The Emperor’s Soul and Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson, Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales, the Ender’s Game Quartet by Orson Scott Card, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and the Chrestomanci books by Diana Wynne Jones. I’ve learned pretty much everything I know about worldbuilding from Brandon Sanderson, a lot of my writing style was influenced by Suzanne Collins and Orson Scott Card, and the edge of whimsy (and horror) that stays nice and sharp in all of my work can be traced back to my love of Anderson’s fairy tales and Jones’s imaginative novels.
What about non-literary influences; was The Dollmakers influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games? You mentioned Studio Ghibli a moment ago.
Studio Ghibli’s films have had a massive impact on me and my writing; I’ve wanted to write books that make readers feel the way I feel when I watch Ghibli movies for as long as I can remember.
To be more particular to The Dollmakers, though, Princess Mononoke inspired many of the aesthetics and overall feel I was going for with the book. I’d also list the anime series Mushi-shi (a delightfully folkloric and horrific show that is as uncanny as it is calming to watch) and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (my favorite story of all time, full of ridiculously well-written characters and a stellar plot) as influences, as well as the films of Mamoru Hosoda (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Wolf Children, The Boy And The Beast, etc.), Satoshi Kon (Millennium Actress), and Makoto Shinkai (Your Name).
I could honestly go on, but suffice it to say, I’m a giant fan of anime, and many of the stories that resonate with me the most (and, thus, influence my own work the most) come from that particular subset of media.
Now, the cover of The Dollmakers says it’s “A Novel From The Fallen Peaks.” Does that mean this is the beginning of a series?
The Dollmakers is a stand-alone in the sense that I don’t plan on writing a direct sequel featuring the main cast of the book, but I have several more books written and / or planned set in the same world, in different countries, with new casts of characters interacting with the magic system of the world in different ways. There’s one character who’ll be in all the books (he’s quite easy to spot), and in general my plan for the series is to write it as a sequence of stand-alones, similar to the structure of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, with each novel capable of being read independently, but with an overarching story / narrative laced throughout the series.
I decided to structure things this way for a couple reasons: the first being I really like writing stand-alone books. I enjoy starting from scratch, in a sense, with a fresh set of characters, in lands that haven’t yet been explored, grappling with issues that I haven’t yet tackled from a storytelling standpoint. The second reason is that — as much as I love stand-alones — I also love larger narratives, particularly ones that explore a complex, nuanced magic system. By writing a series of stand-alones, I get to explore new characters and countries while also fleshing out a world-wide magic system; the best of both worlds, really.
So how many books will there be?
I have a certain number of books planned (I’m scared to tell you how many) — let’s just say I have many adventures planned for the world of The Fallen Peaks, tales that explore nearly every country within its borders and several of its seas. I’ve already plotted out the entire, over-arching narrative of the series, and I feel good about the [redacted number of] books I intend to write to accomplish what I’m going for.
And do you know what the other books will be called or when they’ll be out?
I have a few working titles for the other books in the series, but nothing concrete I can share at the moment; the same goes for release dates. Fingers crossed I’ll have more news on both those fronts soon.
Earlier I asked if The Dollmakers was influenced by any movies, TV shows, or games. But to flip things around, do you think The Dollmakers could work as a movie, a show, or a game?
I think The Dollmakers would make a wonderful movie or TV miniseries. I’ve been told I have a rather cinematic style of storytelling, and I’m inclined to agree. Given that, I think the story of The Dollmakers could potentially work well on the big or small screen.
So, if someone wanted to make The Dollmakers into a movie or a show, who would you want them to cast as Shean and the other main characters?
For Shean, I think either Auli’i Cravalho [Moana] or Courtney Eaton [Yellowjackets] would be great. For Ikiisa, I think Keisha Castle-Hughes [Game Of Thrones] would be a stellar casting choice. Gemma Chan [The Eternals] would make a great Licensor Maton, and Manish Dayal [The Resident] or Sendhil Ramamurthy [Doom Patrol] would fit how I picture Roque well.
Also, would you want it to be live action or animated like a Studio Ghibli movie?
Honestly, I think The Dollmakers would work best as an animated feature film or miniseries. Anime (and animation in general) has such a large influence on me, in some ways I feel like my writing emulates the style of stories told in that medium; given that, I think my work would be the most easily translated to the screen via animation.
Does that change your casting choices?
I’d probably want to try and get voice actors who aren’t live-action stars / see what an open audition or voice-actor specific audition would bring to the project.
So, is there anything else someone might need to know about The Dollmakers?
You’re supposed to dislike Shean! At least at the beginning. The Dollmakers is a redemption story, and I hope that readers come away from it remembering that it’s never too late to notice, and correct, one’s mistakes and missteps.
Finally, if someone enjoys The Dollmakers, what similar kind of fantasy novel or novella that someone else wrote would you suggest they check out next?
If you enjoyed The Dollmakers and would like to read more in the same vein, I’d recommend Nettle And Bone by T. Kingfisher (similar dark-fairy tale feel), the Penric And Desdemona series by Lois McMaster Bujold (similar writing styles / narrative choices), and The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson (art based magic system).
