What are some of the biggest challenges in evolving and changing the conflict from volume to volume? Nrama: With each volume, you're exploring a new world, and creating different levels of conflict - the external invasion in the first volume, the corrupted monarchy in the second, the flawed political/business system in the third, and now the religious conflict and media manipulation in this fourth volume. All throughout, I'm keeping an InDesign layout file, where the linked artwork is being updated at every stage. Practically speaking, the steps of making 5 Worlds are: 1) Alexis and I script, 2) I do the first thumbnail/storyboard from the script, 3) Matt, Boya and Xanthe split up the scenes between themselves and pencil them out, 4) Matt does all the linework, 5) Xanthe designs key colors and scene palettes, and 6) Boya and Xanthe clean up the final color and add final touches.
The 5 Worlds creative team (Image credit: Penguin Random House) There's lots of that happening now, and also a sense of every one of us bringing their best game, their best attitude to each new book. In the best creative teams, a kind of clairvoyance can grow whereby teammates find a shorthand to communicate, and magical moments happen when a new idea drops in for several of us at the same time. At first, they were like hired guns, joining "our" project - but it really has become our project, as we all generate into these characters and these worlds, with a shared sense of mission and passion. With Matt and Boya and Xanthe, our relationships have grown in the creative process. Siegel: Alexis and I had never written together, so we've been learning how each of us enjoys different challenges, or how we can team up to tackle a scene. Nrama: What is your collaborative process like with Alexis and with your artistic team? How has it changed, or at least evolved, since you started the series? They have their deeper nature, which we've come to know and love.
And yet, throughout the changes, there are core features we've come to know about Oona, An Tzu and Jax, just like in real people. What's been interesting is our main characters are in constant transformation, physically, mentally, emotionally - and their worlds are also in transformation. What does Oona do next? How does Jax respond to that? It tells us. For all five of us on the creative team, it's become almost more about listening, rather than contriving it. As we're working on the fifth and final book now, the story lets us know things it likes and doesn't like.
(Image credit: Penguin Random House) (opens in new tab)ĥ Worlds has grown and surprised us more with every new volume.
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