PHOTO: R.J. Vickers amidst the landscapes that propel her imaginative fantasy settings, evoking the essence of adventure and wonder.
Author Interview On World-Building, Strong Women, And Writing Discipline
Bestselling fantasy author R.J. Vickers shares insights into her creative process, inspirations from global landscapes, and the role of strong female protagonists in her epic narratives.
R.J. Vickers is a storyteller of rare distinction, conjuring realms of magic and mystery with a touch as deft as it is evocative. Her fantasy sagas—The Natural Order, Forbidden Queen, and Empire of Ash—are not merely tales spun for enjoyment; they are intricately woven explorations of humanity, resilience, and the delicate balance of power and compassion. It takes a bold imagination to breathe life into characters as complex and compelling as Queen Kalleah, whose forbidden magic and moral struggles define the heartbeat of six magnificently crafted books.
Born in America but now calling the rugged landscapes of New Zealand her muse, Vickers has mastered the art of turning the natural world into the fantastic. By borrowing inspiration from rainforests clinging to cliffsides or glacier-carved fjords, she creates settings that are as vivid and untamed as the protagonists navigating them. Her ability to blend such diverse, real-world terrains with fantastical elements heightens the immersive quality of her novels, rendering them unforgettable experiences for readers.
For nearly two decades, Vickers has transformed November into a crucible of creativity, participating in NaNoWriMo with unrelenting dedication. This annual ritual has shaped her discipline, cementing a philosophy that passion can overcome every obstacle—as long as one shows up to the blank page, ready to write. Equally inspiring are her female heroes, whose strength is celebrated in ways both subtle and grand, reminding us of all the ways courage can manifest. Bound by a love of adventure and storytelling, R.J. Vickers creates worlds that invite us not just to escape, but to dream more boldly.
In Forbidden Queen, Kalleah’s forbidden magic shapes her destiny—how did you develop her character arc across the six-book series?
As both a reader and a writer, I have always been drawn to complex characters. I adore characters who are not black and white, characters who wrestle with things, who surprise us as readers, who struggle and yearn and grow.
Before I wrote the Forbidden Queen series, I imagined I would write dozens of standalone novels set in the same fantasy world, similar to what Terry Pratchett did. But after following Queen Kalleah for six books, I discovered how much deeper you can dive into character arcs, and how much more complexity you can introduce, when you have a larger series arc to play with. And I love that.
There is both the story-by-story arc, the development that happens one book at a time as your characters face the obstacles thrown at them, and then there is the larger growth that happens over the course of the full series.
Throughout the series, Kalleah is unchanging in her devotion to her kingdom and the vision she has of restoring the peace and tolerance it was formerly known for. In the earlier books, she is finding her place at court and grappling with the prejudice and distrust that comes with her forbidden magic, so it’s more of a personal arc at that point. Later in the series, as the fight for her kingdom moves onto the battlefield, Kalleah is growing into her role as queen and wrestling with the moral implications of her choices, deciding how far she is willing to go to save her people.
How did your travels to places like New Zealand influence the world-building in The Fall of Lostport?
I like to base my fantasy landscapes on real-world settings, especially those I have spent time in, because I want my world to feel immersive and fully realised. Also, it’s amazing what diversity and strangeness our world holds when you move beyond the stereotypical European fantasy setting.
I was inspired to write The Fall of Lostport while hiking on the West Coast of New Zealand, through lush temperate rainforest that clings to near-vertical mountainsides. I loved the idea of a remote outpost valued for its precious minerals but very challenging to settle both because of its distance from civilisation and the extreme nature of the terrain.
The kingdom of Lostport is based very closely on New Zealand’s Fiordland National Park, from the dense rainforest and the mountain parrots to the massive annual rainfall and the glaciers that survive despite the mild climate. The funny thing is, that landscape is so foreign to most of us that I’ve had more than one reader question whether parrots and fjords can coexist in the same region!
Other landscapes that have inspired my books include the peatlands of Ireland, the remote northern reaches of Finland, the karst mountains of southern China and Southeast Asia, and the Great Plains of North America.
How did participating in NaNoWriMo shape your writing discipline and approach to drafting novels?
I started doing NaNoWriMo when I was sixteen, as part of a creative writing class at school, and adored the experience so much that I never looked back. I have hit the 50,000-word target every year since—except when I was doing a long-distance hike and attempting to novel by hand!
Ever since I completed that first November novel, I have treated the month as something of a retreat from real life where I focus solely on writing. Emails go unanswered, other obligations get pushed back as much as possible, and I fit in as many café writing sessions as I can manage.
This annual tradition has carried me through university, through my early years of work, through travelling the world, and now through the challenges of finding writing time with young children at home.
These are the two biggest ways that NaNoWriMo has shaped my writing discipline:
1. I learned that novels don’t always have to take a lot of time to write. Many of my earliest (unpublished) November novels were completely different genres from what I usually write—including a historic pirate adventure, a futuristic dystopian, a romance, and a psychological thriller—and they gave me the space to play around with concepts and stylistic choices that I normally wouldn’t attempt. If I’d had to commit a year to writing those stories, I don’t think I would have done it. But within the confines of November, they were the perfect opportunity to learn and grow without the pressure to produce something that deserved to be published.
2. NaNoWriMo teaches you to show up and write no matter how tired or uninspired you are. I think that’s the most important lesson of all—that writing engenders more writing, and there’s no time for writer’s block when you have a daily word-count goal to achieve. It turns writing into a discipline, something you commit to doing every day, rather than something that happens only when the muse appears. And despite the occasional drudgery of it, I always do my most immersive, inspired writing in November, because you never have a deeper connection with your story than when you’re putting in the time day after day.
Your books often feature strong female protagonists—what draws you to centre women in your fantasy narratives?
I grew up reading about strong female characters like Alanna (The Song of the Lioness by Tamora Pierce), Lyra Belacqua (His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman), and Mary “Jacky” Faber (Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer), so I was forever dreaming of dressing up as a boy and going off on adventures and learning to swordfight.
When it came time to create a fantasy world of my own, I wanted one where women were able to do everything that men did, whether that meant ruling, fighting, studying, adventuring, or owning businesses.
I enjoy writing strong female protagonists because we need more of them, because male heroes are still the default, because there are so many ways to be “strong” as a woman and very few authors portray female heroes in all the nuanced splendour they deserve.
How do you balance writing across multiple series, such as The Natural Order and The Forbidden Queen?
Typically I need to see a series through to completion before moving on to something else in order to keep the characters and subplots and stylistic choices at the forefront of my mind.
However, this has changed with the Empire of Ash series. Since each book is so long and takes so many months to write, I find that I need to take a break and write something shorter between each volume.
I outline each book in this series extensively before writing; as soon as I finish writing one volume, I jump straight into outlining the next. Then I can set that aside and work on other projects for a while before returning to the Empire of Ash series. Because the outline is so detailed, I don’t have any trouble jumping right back in.
What advice would you offer to aspiring authors embarking on their first fantasy novel?
Even though the official NaNoWriMo non-profit no longer exists, offshoots of that have sprung up both online and in the real world, and I always recommend aspiring novelists sign up to an event like this—one with deadlines and a supportive community—because it removes some of the intimidation of taking on such a massive project.
There are countless would-be novelists who get stuck along the way and never actually finish a novel, whether because they are hung up on getting every sentence right or they never find the time to work on it. Participating in an event like NaNoWriMo removes those barriers, and if you manage to hit the word-count goal, that achievement stays with you forever, pushing away the doubts of whether you’re even capable of such a feat.
Beyond that, I think it is hugely valuable for first-time novelists to see a full story arc through to completion, because there are so many details that only emerge when you can step back and look at a novel as a whole. Until you reach the end, you’ll never understand what it takes to create a satisfying character arc or a jaw-dropping plot twist. I think removing the pressure to write something perfect in the first draft and focusing instead on completion teaches aspiring novelists so much more about craft in the long run.
