Hi, Shannon, how are you doing today? I'm doing great? How
are you doing? Absolutely fantastic. Hey, congratulations on this new graphic novel.
I mean, the cover itself says Keeper of the Lost Cities, the
graphic novel that to me says oh, even as an adult, I got
to check into this. Oh, thank you. I love that. I
have a zone now. You know, it's like the Morton's the Steakhouse,
and I'm like Keeper Veloci's phlographic novel. I love it. To put this
together, though, What was it like to get you know, the basically
the graphics and the story altogether, to keep that story alive and moving forward.
It was really fun to get to collaborate this time and really have like
kind of a whole team working on it. Because the novel was adapted by
Selina Friend, and then the art was done by Gabriella, and I was
involved both in selecting them and then also weighing in. I got to see
draft of the script for the adaptation and give notes, and then I got
to see the art at every stage, and then we made text changes sometimes
based on the art, and so it was really really fun to be having,
you know, all of these people with all of these takes on the
story contributing this time. Instead of it just being kind of me alone in
my little office writing what's in my head now, it was now, you
know, a group effort, and even though we rarely communicated with each other,
we all were putting our own fingerprints on the project. And it's kind
of magical that we came out with something that I feel like is very true
to Keeper, but also is something that would never have been what it is
without those other voices in there with me instead of it just being me.
And so I love that. I'm so glad that you talked about the collaboration
because I have seen so many beautiful, beautiful graphics from young adults and adults,
but they don't know what to do with him. And what you're sharing
with us is go out and form a team, get somebody who is an
author, get somebody who can have leadership here, and put those pictures to
work for you exactly. I mean. It was fun because it worked both
ways. Like definitely I was the captain steering the ship, but it was
also like I wanted to make sure that I stepped back and said, but
let the experts do what they do best. You know. I made it
very clear from the beginning that I didn't want to write the adaptation script because
I felt like I was too close to the book. The book was exactly
the way that I wanted to be. Every scene was exactly the way that
I felt that it needed to be in order to tell the story and to
then go back and change that. I wasn't sure that I could be objective
enough, and so I thought, I want somebody else who goes in and
makes the changes, and then I can look at it and go, I
don't know if that works. I think we probably wanted to do something else,
or yes, that works great. We totally capture that. Because each
format is different, there were things that we had to change because putting it
into the graphic novel format, all of a sudden it was like, Wow,
that joke isn't funny anymore, the scene is dragging. We need to
condense this, or oh no, we need to slow this moment down because
it's the emotions of what Sophie's feeling aren't reading through right now. And so
it was it was great to step back and let Selena do her thing.
And then I also, whenever I'm working with an artist on the series,
I try to give it, you know, both specifics as far as like
these are the markers that you have to hit in order for it to match
the descriptions of the book, but then also let them kind of have their
own space to draw what they are picturing, instead of me trying to be
like, no, no, it should be that the wall is this color,
and it's this tall, and it's you know, and the windows right
here, and you know it's I like to leave room for them to put
their own interpretation in because so often what they picture is even better than what
was in my head. And so we end up with this kind of fun,
you know, group project where everyone brought the best of themselves into it,
and I just was there to kind of make sure, okay, but
we have to stay true to what the original material was, otherwise fans of
the series won't appreciate it. And so that was kind of my job is
to say, okay, but how do we match what we here's the point
of this scene? Are we capturing that but turning it into a graphic novel.
Let's be honest here, there are some graphic novel novel fans that that
have never really picked up a regular book to read it because they like graphic
graphic novels. So so you're you're bringing new people to this story, and
so they're going to be going, well, who is Sophie? Why?
Why is she so important here? And you can't just explain it to them
because they now have pictures and they're going to have images of who they think
Sophie is exactly. Yeah, And that was that was really the thing was
that I a lot of times I was giving notes saying like, I feel
like we have to remember that this book in the going to just be read
by fans of the series, and so I do think we need to slow
this moment down and make sure that for someone who's coming into this scene having
not read it before, that they're understanding what is happening, what is being
felt, what isn't you know, these kinds of things. That's that's actually
why it ended up being just part one, because when we started doing the
initial like potential condensing of the four hundred and eighty four pages of Keeper down
to what would be, you know, a three hundred page graphic novel,
it was just like, we're cutting too much stuff out and we're we're losing
like the emotion of the book. We're just getting those plot beats and that's
it. And what I think a lot of readers connect with is feeling what
the characters are feeling in addition to, you know, watching what happens to
them. And so we kind of decided, all right, let's slow it
down and split it into two. Even though obviously it's not ideal having to
say wait for part two to come out. You know, it's for such
a better book to be able to split it into isn't it kind of retraining
the mind of your following that because now that you do have pictures, because
I find myself I know the story, but you sit there and you read,
you read what's in the bubble, and then you look at the picture,
and then you go to the next one and you look at the picture.
So and I have a feeling I'm going to be going through this book
two or three times so I can get the actual physical essence of this story
exactly. I mean, it's funny, that was something because I will admit
I've read graphic novels and everything, but I do read more prose novels than
graphic novels, and so I had not even thought about just even like the
placement of the text bubbles, how much thought has to go into that and
making sure that they get read in the right order, and that if it's
something where you do want readers looking at the art before they read the text,
that you put the text in the right spot so that that happens,
or if they need to read the text before they see the image to give
them that context, and you have to place the text there. And there
were just so many little tiny details that had to be just right in order
to make it work. And I was just like, wow, I have
I knew that graphic novels were, you know, a true labor of love
and just really kind of creative masterpieces on their own, but to really see
how much goes into it, it was just like, wow, these these
are amazing, and I'm so honored that I get to have one for my
series. Take me into the structure of those text bubbles, because is it
still about left to right reading when it comes to those bubbles? I mean
ideally yes. I mean it's funny with the page because sometimes you have a
page where there's only two or three panels on it, and so you're you
know, you're wanting them to or sometimes there's only one panel and you're wanting
to make sure that they really kind of step back and see the art,
and so then you're putting the text down at the bottom, or but yeah,
I mean obviously here in America we read left to right, and so
if there were times where that was the note that I was giving that,
like where they put the text bubble, It's like, yes, it makes
sense that that character's text bubble would be on top of the other one,
but it ended up making you read it weird and changing the meaning. So
let's move the text bubble over to the other side of the panel, or
things like that. It was it was interesting the way that it and I
would always say, I don't know, maybe I'm just being weird here and
I'm the only one that looked at the panel and read it that way.
Can we get some other opinions in house that my publisher and make sure that
it's not just Channon Messenger is weird. But usually it would come back and
say, no, you're right, we all read the text in that order,
and that is not quite the way that it should be. So we'd
make some tweaks wouldn't you say that one of the attractions of the book Keeper
of the Lost Cities is the is the fact that it talks about feeling like
you don't fit in because we're all in that position. It doesn't matter what
age you are, we all have that, And to me, that's an
attraction to a storyline. I mean, for me, that's what makes me
want to write the story. I just so much connected with Sophie and her
I call her a girl who's caught between two worlds, and she kind of
grows up around humans feeling very out of place, knowing that she's very,
very different, and that she doesn't know how to even talk to anyone about
how different she is, and really struggling. And then suddenly she finds out
that all of that is because she's not human, and she belongs to this
secret world within our world, and she kind of gets it in her mind
that like, Okay, finally I'm going to belong I'm going to fit in,
I'm not going to be different. And then she gets to the Last
Cities and realizes, no, she's still very different. She has a different
way of seeing the world because she was raised in a different world, and
she has abilities that are very unique, and she has, you know,
kind of these weird things that keep happening to her because she's actually part of
these you know, big conspiracies that are going on. And that's kind of
her arts throughout the whole series is you know, she's searching for that perfect
place to fit in because she's so tired of being different, and throughout the
course of the books, it's for realizing, no, I'm always going to
be different, and hey, maybe that's a good Maybe that's actually what makes
me valuable and important is because I'm different and because I'm me. And I
do think readers really appreciate that messaging, especially at the younger age, but
at any age, being told that it's okay to be you and that you
bring something unique to the table and it's okay if you're not one hundred percent
that you know what people think you should be, that you're just you.
I feel like that really resonates with readers of any age. Well, you
give me permission to live by my mantra, which is they think I'm weird,
so I'm about to prove it. And because it gives me the chance
to be weird and to be myself exactly. I mean, I'm very much
that way too. I have never been one hundred percent that I will fit
in anywhere, and I'm learning to be okay with that. Where can people
go to find out more about you and every one of your books in this
story, because like I said, this is going to open up the door
for so many new readers. I mean, I'm excited for that to happen.
When my website is Shannon Messenger dot com, there's also keeper Ofthelos Cities
dot com, and then I am on social media Instagram. I'm also on
uh well, I don't think they call it Twitter anymore. I'm on back.
I'm not on TikTok because boy, that seems like if I joined TikTok
I would never get any writing done ever. So I am not currently on
TikTok. But if that ever changes, all be a link on my website.
Well, please come back to this show anytime in the future, Shannon.
The door is always going to be open for you. I would love
to come back. Thank you so much fun. You'd be brilliant today.
Okay, I will try you too,