LOCAL AUTHOR Diane Magras in her hometown of Freeport, where she has lived for the past 12 years.
Growing up loving adventure novels, Freeport author Diane Magras felt she needed to read about a hero her own age who also happened to be a girl, but not a damsel in distress. Today, Magras has written that character she always wanted to find.
“A fast-paced battle story with a strong feminist message” is how 43-year-old Magras described her debut novel, “The Mad Wolf ’s Daughter,” released this week on the young adult and middle-grade imprint Kathy Dawson Books, part of the Penguin Publishing Group.
At the heart of “The Mad Wolf ’s Daughter” is Drest, the daughter of a medieval Scottish warlord who only has a few days to travel from the only home she’s known to a heavily-guarded castle. Once there, she must rescue her father and brothers before their execution.
Drest was created to be a hero who happens to be a girl, said Magras.
“In so much fiction, girls are the damsel in distress, even when they’re marketed as the great warrior maiden, they need help,” Magras said. “They cannot succeed. They’re not the ones rescuing people on their own.
“I wanted to depict a girl for both boys and girls to read about who was defying that role. … I wanted to depict someone very comfortable in their skin. Not a masculine girl, not a feminine girl, but just herself. She’s the kind of kid I really needed to read about when I was a kid, especially in middle-grade.”
Also important is “the girl with the sword being supported by boys and men,” Magras said.
“In a lot of books, the girl with the sword who is trying to be tough, trying to be comfortable in her own skin, has to fight sexism. Drest doesn’t,” Magras continued. “I had given her this very unusual life, surrounded by men and boys who unquestioningly support her, and I just love that. While girls and women can achieve a lot, we need men to be there with us, to unconditionally support us as we support them.”
Drest is not molded on any particular character, but comes straight from Magras’ imagination.
Magras grew up at Hull’s Cove in Bar Harbor, a five-minute walk from the ocean and a five-minute drive to Acadia National Park. She said that the “natural beauty of Maine” had a big influence on her writing.
For example, some scenes in “The Mad Wolf ’s Daughter” based on the Scottish coast are also based on areas of Acadia. “The granite boulders of Otter Cliffs, Cadillac Mountain — I spent my childhood running all over the mountain,” Magras said.
In Freeport, the Harraseeket Trail, dotted with fern and moss, also served as inspiration.
Magras has been writing novels since she was 14.
“Not editing,” she said, making an important distinction in the writing process. “Just writing, just spitting them out.”
She said she was encouraged to begin writing in sixth grade, thanks to encouragement from a teacher. “She was the one who told me, ‘there are people your age writing novels.’ I thought, ‘then I will too.’ And I did. I’ve been writing novels ever since.”
Magras said she is always compelled to create, but that it wasn’t until 2009 that Magras said she made a more serious effort to get her work published. With that, she honed her skill in editing and revision.
“Rewriting, to me, is more of an art than the writing itself. I write a first draft, and I rewrite it about five times,” Magras said. “It’s a matter of knowing the full potential of my characters, and cutting, changing characters, drawing in new ones.”
Magras focused on adult literary fiction until her son was born. As he grew older, “I saw how powerful middle-grade (fiction) is, and what it can do to for kids at this time in their life.”
“That’s when they’re starting to define who they are, separate from their parents,” Magras said. “It’s a tough time for kids. … That’s when books started meaning a lot to me.”
Magras — who calls herself “an inner 12-year-old at heart” — found her voice in writing for young adults.
She has been influenced by works such as Susan Cooper’s “The Dark is Rising” young adult fantasy series, and Philip Reeve’s “Here Lies Arthur,” a young adult historical novel that tackles the origin of the King Arthur myth.
Magras also described Scotland and its history as her obsession.
“Scotland has always been the neighbor of a very, very wealthy nation, but always stood up for itself,” she said. “It’s also a pretty cool, progressive place right now.”
She chose to set the “The Mad Wolf ’s Daughter” in the year 1210 in the feudal era, focusing on fictional characters and their place in that world.
“I don’t like writing about Robert the Bruce and William Wallace,” Magras said. “I like writing about the people nobody writes about.”
“The Mad Wolf ’s Daughter” was heavily researched using history and cultural books, as well as input from Medievalists, to make the setting as historically accurate as possible.
“I went to Scotland twice to do on-the-ground research, which was wonderfully inspiring,” she said.
The exact locals in “The Mad Wolf ’s Daughter” are fictional, and the novel is considered “historical fantasy genre,” but the plot is grounded. Magras said she decided to eschew magic as a plot device because “it hobbled me.”
“It made things too easy for my characters. When you write this kind of book you give your character challenge after challenge. When they think they’ve succeeded, you pull the rug out from under them again and again. Magic was too easy. It allowed them to solve problems without using ingenuity, without thinking. When I took it out, my characters’ adventure was much more dire. Their skills, their thoughts their words had to save them.”
The book takes the familiar beats of the hero’s journey, but is in equal measure a journey of self-discovery for Drest, who begins to see the shades of gray between the black and white strokes with which villains and heroes are painted.
“I wanted her to have a loving family whom everybody else hated, who were nasty, nasty villains, according to everyone else. … I wanted her to learn what all kids learn: That your parents aren’t the perfect people you think they are … but also learn that nothing is,” Magras said. “Those gray shades are what life is about. You have to find yourself and try to be a good person in the end.”
A sequel to “The Mad Wolf ’s Daughter,” “Return to Faintree Castle,” will be published Spring 2019.
For more information, including appearances, visit dianemagras.com.
jswinconeck@timesrecord.com
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