HisDarkMaterials.org

An Interview with Laurie Frost

Interview conducted by AryaAurora

First off, I’d like to thank Dr. Frost for her patience, time, and wonderful answers. She was very kind and helpful even when I was at a loss for questions. It has been an excellent experience that I feel honored to have been involved in.

Now, the interview!

When did you make the realization that you wanted to create a guide to His Dark Materials? Did you know from the beginning how long it would take or how thick it would be?

As soon as I began reading the trilogy for the first time in fall 2001 (I had listened to Golden Compass and Subtle Knife before I read them; Amber Spyglass had just been published that year, and I couldn’t get the audiobook at the library, so I read it), I thought someone is going to write a guide to these books and it might as well be me.

I wrote my dissertation on a 12-volume novel, A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell. There is a guide for it, Invitation to the Dance, by Hilary Spurling that I found immensely useful, and so in the beginning I modeled my book after Spurling’s.

When I began making notes for Elements in fall 2001, I had no idea I wouldn’t be finished until fall 06 but I can’t remember ever thinking about how long it would take other than vaguely worrying that someone else was probably writing a comparable book and might publish before I did, rendering my work redundant.

Or how thick it would be?

For easier handling, I kept my files by chapters; I never combined them altogether into one huge file. And I paginated each file or chapter separately. So I was amazed in July 2005 (when I first really thought I was finished) when I photocopied the whole document and it ran to over 570 8.5 x 11 pages.

Over the next year, deletions and additions were made. I added the chapter on epigraphs, the essay sidebars, the lists of characters and dæmons, and various other bits. “Food,” “Plants,” “Animals,” and “Language and Diction” were reduced from regular chapters with entries and page numbers for each individual element to lists.

The next shock came during the layout phase when the pictures were finally inserted. The book was coming in at over 600 pages, well over what was anticipated. So in the final days, some deep cuts were made. Two-thirds of “Allusions” was deleted as was half or more of “Philosophy.” Many Characters entries were shortened, and still the book is at 560 total pages (542 numbered).

So the simple answer (or how thick it would be?) is a definite no.

Was it your goal to get Elements published?

Definitely. Some forms of writing are rewarding to create knowing they will never be shared—journals and in some instances poetry are obvious examples. But an index or guide or reader’s companion, a reference book, in other words, is meant to be used. True, I could have just used it myself to write about His Dark Materials, but then it need never have progressed beyond notes nor included every character or place, but only the ones that I thought might be useful to me alone.

How long after you started did you really start to see progress?

In late September 2002 I sent some sample pages to Philip Pullman for the first time so I guess (4 years before the end), I must have believed myself to be well along the way with the project. Silly me.

Where did you work on Elements?

At home.

Was most of the work done by hand, computer, or another method?

Different stages and tasks required different methods.

1. To begin with, I had three different colored highlighters and the books, and until 2004 I worked with only the US editions, chapter by chapter. Each time I hit a character, place, or thing of interest, I’d highlight.
2. Then I’d go through the chapter and make three lists in spiral notebooks: character and pages, place and pages, and everything else and pages. I started out with index cards, and they might have saved time in the long run, but they were too difficult to keep track of.
3. And then I’d do another chapter.
4. Every few chapters I’d stop and type up the spiral bound notes and combine them – first straight typing, and then a lot of cutting and pasting.
5. And then, finally, it was time to write, which I did on the computer, going back through all the pages I had now indexed to find what I wanted for each entry. At first the entries were blocks of text.
6. Next came more cutting and pasting and shifting about.

The divisions in entries you see in the book, in “Characters,” for example (physical characteristics, background, behavior, role, etc.) came later. I always intended on keeping commentary out of the entries, but what is now “Notes,” “Facts,” and “Observations” was once just “Remarks,” as all the chapters like “Applied Sciences” and “Social Institutions,” etc. were once simply “Everything Else.”

And of course steps 1 to 3 had to be repeated with the UK editions.

What kept you motivated?

Knowing that Philip Pullman liked what he’d seen from the book’s earliest stages and again several times along the way was enormously encouraging.

Moreover, I think at some point, although I’m not sure when, I settled on the idea that if I were to quit, then all I had already invested in the book — time, hope — would come to naught, and to land myself in that situation would have been both stupid and depressing.

When you look at all the other reference guides to His Dark Materials in comparison to your own, what do you think or feel?

Relief that no one published a book comparable to Elements before I did. You see, it isn’t like a novel, a work that is new and unique and could have been written by only the person who wrote it. Someone was going to write this book. It happened to be me.

What was the hardest part of creating Elements?

Finding a publisher. I have scores of rejection letters. For reasons best known to themselves, major children’s/young adult publishers have long published books about cartoon characters, movie characters, Pokemon cards, and so on and on – but not books about books. Books read for pleasure, that is: there has long been a small list of books about assigned readings (The Twentieth Century Views Series from Prentice Hall [now updated as New Century Views] comes to mind). And publishing is a very conservative industry: if they haven’t had success with a type of book before, they are hesitant to take the risk.

But things are changing, and I think that the Harry Potter series and the appearance of internet fansites have made all the difference. And if you look at who published one of the first and best received of these books, The Ultimate Unofficial Guide to the Mysteries of Harry Potter and its successors, you’ll find that it is a very small press, Wizarding World Press, and The Fell Press, which published Elements, is an imprint of Wizarding World.

And the easiest?

Returning to His Dark Materials again and again. I’ve read it many times now, and always enjoy the books.

How long would you say each section took you?

I can’t get a grip on this because I worked on it in so many stages. What I mean is that I didn’t do chapter one, and then chapter two, and then three, etc. Instead, the first draft had some of what is now chapter one (2,3,4, etc.), the second draft had more, the third more, and so on.

At what point did you get recognized and when did other people start to help you?

I signed the publishing contract in summer 2004 and then I got a lot of help from my editor and her assistant in reformatting the entries and reorganizing the chapters. (This proved quite tricky in some cases. Take “trepanation” and “silver guillotine.” For a while I had them in a “Medicine and Surgical Procedures” section. But this wasn’t right. We talked and talked about this, and it was a great relief to me when I thought of “Applied Metaphysics” because it could also accommodate some other tough ones, like pre-emptive penance.) Her assistant gave me tons of help with the dreariest of tasks: double checking US page numbers, hunting the UK ones, and double checking these.

Which entries fascinated you the most?

I think I most enjoyed writing the “Places and Peoples” chapter because I liked visiting websites about the different locales and studying maps. Throughout the book I very much enjoyed the research that went into the sidebars and “Facts.”

Have you gotten everyone you know to read His Dark Materials?

No.

What did you do when you weren't writing?

Puttered about. Did an adequate job of caring for my family and a less acceptable job of caring for the house. Read novels.

Five years devoted to one project is a long time. If you hadn't written Elements, what would you probably have been doing?

I haven’t a clue. Perhaps today, had I not written Elements, I would have a well groomed dog and all my cats would be well-adjusted, my kids would be well trained, and my stuff organized and tidy. Perhaps not.

As it is, I’m not entirely sure what I’ve been doing since I finished Elements.

Did/do you ever have dreams about His Dark Materials or writing Elements?

Probably not like what you have in mind…

I remember during the most intensive page number hunting days having close-to-nightmares about doing that.

Mr. Pullman has said he's working on a sequel to His Dark Materials. Do you think you'll write another reference type book for it? Possibly go as far as to re-publish Elements with the new information?

Yes.

How well would you say you know the world of His Dark Materials? Would you say you now know it just as well as Philip Pullman himself? Better?

I know it as well as any reader, I expect. But as well or better than Pullman? Absolutely not.

First, novelists I think know more than they realize they do—I mean I think a lot of the magic of really good writing comes together on a preconscious level. So sometimes they’ll say they didn’t realize this or that about their own work until someone pointed it out to them. But you see there are different ways of knowing, and if the writing works, and there is something for the reader to appreciate, it is only because the writer knew what to do to make it work.

Secondly, if I knew His Dark Materials as well or better than Pullman, I could tell you what The Book of Dust is going to be about. And I can’t.

It's late 2003 or so and you are pretty involved with your project. You find yourself falling asleep one night at your desk. When you wake up the next morning you look up to find Mary Malone's Cave in place of your PC and Lyra's alethiometer sitting inches away. Which one will you communicate with first? What will you ask? Why?

Late 2003 I would have gone for the Cave, assuming it was already configured by Mary to use language, because I think more in verbal than in visual terms. I would have asked: Is there any point in going on with this book?

Let's say you were given the same opportunity now. Then what would you do?

Today I’d choose the alethiometer, not because I’ve turned into a visual rather than verbal thinker, but because there is no pressing question I’d like to know the answer to. Rather than getting an answer I would now prefer to play with thinking in images rather than words.

Think you'll ever write a story of your own so that I can write an Elements for it? :)

Very unlikely: I’m more analytical than I am imaginative.

Well, I hope this has been helpful to you! Feel free to PM me if you have any comments, concerns, or criticism.

---

Looking into Elements? Here are some helpful reviews written by fans:

Edd8990's Review

IanG's Review

JParry's Review

I can’t recommend it too highly to the reader who’s found anything interesting or enjoyable in this story of mine. I know I’ve returned to it frequently during the righting of the book I’m doing now, and I know I’ll continue to do so. It’s flattering, of course, to find one’s work the object of such care and attention; but how much more satisfying when the work of reference that results is so accurate, and so interesting, and so full. - Philip Pullman

Also, be sure to check out the official site!

I too can’t recommend it enough. Once you know how to use it, it is very simple. I’ve seen the other guides for His Dark Materials. This one’s the best by far.