Sarah J. Maas – the “J” stands for Janet, you’re welcome – is an experienced world builder. Not only has she single-handedly created universes for her three best-selling fantasy series (including the Throne of Glass juggernaut, which has just entered the children’s series list for its 50th week), Maas also develops Court of Thorns and Roses for Hulu and has co-founded a human family in real life. The youngest members and an articulate dog could be heard in the background of a telephone interview in which the author talked about what it’s like to work in a writer’s room after years of toiling alone.
“I decided I wanted to be deeply involved in the TV show’s adaptation process because it just seemed like a new creative mountain for me to climb,” Maas said. “It’s a very different way of telling stories, bringing them to life and a very different way of seeing my characters.”
The logistics sound grueling. Four hours a day (including a short 10-minute break), Maas meets several writers, a showrunner and Ron Moore, the creator of “Outlander” – “I’ve finally reached the point where I no longer call him Mr. Moore,” she laughed. — on Zoom. Then she turns to the edits for her third Crescent City novel. At 6:30 p.m., she puts her kids to bed. At 7 p.m., Maas said, “I’m wearing my pajamas.” (Can you blame her) ?)
Although Maas still writes her books in Microsoft Word, she is stunned by the “cool, intense” Disney technology that allows her team to digitally format story maps and character arcs. “It was a crash course,” she says. “My 90-year-old grandmother is actually more tech-savvy than I am.” In addition to the virtual whiteboard she uses with her team, Maas said, “I actually bought myself a physical whiteboard that I keep next to my desk so I can write things down and see everything in person, right in front of me. Which I’m sure of. that it makes me a bit of a dinosaur.”
So what’s it like to welcome outsiders to a realm born in her imagination? Maas likes to see her story through different eyes and focus on characters and storylines that weren’t necessarily the ones she had paid attention to in the past. When asked about the weirdest thing that happened in the writer’s room, Maas didn’t miss a beat: “Except my 4-year-old son is running naked in the background?”
Elisabeth Egan is an editor at the Book Review and the author of ‘A Window Opens’.