PHOTO: Victoria Hanley pictured amidst the serene foothills of Colorado, where imagination is an integral part of her daily life.
A Journey Of Fantasy, Authenticity, And Resilience
Victoria Hanley shares her wisdom on writing fantasy, inspiring young voices, tackling creative challenges, and infusing storytelling with authenticity as she reflects on her career and teaching legacy.
Victoria Hanley is a writer of expansive imagination and profound empathy, blending her love for philosophy, literature, and adventure into a distinct artistic voice heard across twelve languages. Her ability to craft worlds rich in fantasy and human truth has connected deeply with readers of all ages, particularly with teens navigating the labyrinth of growing up. Perhaps it’s her fascination with the shaping of individual voices—part of her own story—that allows her books to resonate long after their covers are closed. A storyteller at heart and a teacher by vocation, Victoria has offered her wisdom to thousands of aspiring writers, empowering them to meet the blank page as both a challenge and an invitation.
The path of a novelist frequently winds through other landscapes, and for Victoria, those landscapes include the foothills of Colorado, the intricacies of anatomy and physiology, the principles of Montessori teaching, and even the art of Feng Shui. Each experience has left its imprint on her creative work, whether informing her characters with an anatomy of human complexity or evoking settings that pulse with life, emotion, and meaning. Her books, from The Seer and the Sword to Indigo Magic, are testimonies to how writers draw sustenance from diverse roots, growing narratives that feel alive and universal.
Above all, Victoria Hanley embodies persistence. Her belief in the stories she creates—whether for teens or adults—stands as an admirable lesson for any writer. As with her soon-to-be-released adult fantasy novel, The Golden Pearl, Victoria reminds us that writing is a journey as much as an act of creation, one forged through revision, resilience, and the courage to explore the untamed terrain of imagination. For writers and readers alike, her work is an open invitation to dive for pearls, unearth magic, and embrace the sense of wonder literature has to offer.
As someone who’s written YA books with enduring appeal, what key advice would you offer aspiring authors aiming to write compelling young adult fantasy?
The best piece of writing advice I’ve ever heard comes from Robert Frost: “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.” This applies to all emotions whether love, hate, inspiration, disgust, anger, forgiveness, fear, courage—you name it. If you don’t feel it yourself as you write, the reader won’t feel it either. You can’t fake it; you’ve got to write the stories that matter to you. Teenagers respond to authenticity and passion. Draw upon the most stirring experiences of your life and don’t worry about trying to be on pace with what’s trendy right now. (Those things will soon be carried away in the fast-moving river of time anyway.) Writing fantasy gives you a wide-open opportunity to create other worlds where you can make up your own slang if you like (e.g. in the Violet Wings trilogy I invented the word “trog” as an epithet); worlds where time and space can have different rules; worlds where the history you create supports a fantastical premise. This brings you the freedom to dive deep into your story without interference from worries about generational relevance.
Next, respect your readers. Treat them as the smart, curious and adventurous people they are. And if you want them to receive a certain message, write it into the story rather than spelling it out or using a moralistic tone.
Lastly, find insightful critique. The right feedback from the right person at the right time will help you more than anything else you may study. Conversely, the wrong feedback from the wrong person at the wrong time will set you back worse than anything else. How do you tell the difference between someone who offers helpful critique and someone who doesn’t? Lay down your defenses and be alert for what I call “the thud of truth” that will hit you when you hear accurate points of critique. And if someone is just bashing you or your writing in the name of being helpful, walk away.
You’ve taught writing for many years. What is the most consistent mistake you’ve seen among aspiring writers, something that would save people loads of anguish if they knew ahead of time?
Rewriting the beginning over and over is something I’ve seen a lot. Many people get stuck revising and polishing the beginning and thus take forever getting to the middle, let alone the end. The beginning is an arrow aimed at the ending, so if you haven’t written the ending, you don’t actually know what the beginning needs to be. Often, once the full novel is written, that initial beginning should be jettisoned for the sake of the story, but when writers have spent oodles of time on that beginning, they don’t want to let it go.
Another thing I’ve often come across is over-explaining. Instead, I recommend that you believe in your subtext, knowing that young readers will absorb it without the writer butting in to tell them what it means or how to feel about it.
You’ve also written the nonfiction book, Seize the Story: A Handbook for Teens Who Like to Write. What are the differences between writing fiction and nonfiction, and what tips would you give nonfiction writers?
Differences: Fiction requires a plot, memorable characters, and frequent dialogue. Because of that, it is far more involved than writing nonfiction, which relies on knowledge of a subject and the ability to put that knowledge into words.
And my main tip for nonfiction writers: Bring in your own unique voice rather than reverting to a dry, clinical style. What’s an example of voice in nonfiction? In Seize the Story I wrote, “For me , writing a first draft is like clawing my way through solid rock using only my fingernails.” I could have written, “Writing first drafts is difficult for me,” which would have fulfilled the rules of grammar and been accurate. However, what a snooze-fest! So, infuse your subject with your personal voice, the way Pam Saylor did in Braving the World, a nonfiction book about travelling with diabetes that I had the pleasure of editing.
How has your background in Feng Shui consulting influenced your storytelling or character development?
I appreciate the role of scene-setting, which establishes place, era, culture, and mood. What do you want your readers to feel? A lot depends on sensory writing. The same scene will be experienced differently if the setting is changed or if the writer conveys only one sense. To me, the basis of Feng Shui is to recognise how the environment is influencing our state of being. What’s around us is always speaking to us whether we’re aware of it or not, and powerful life changes can come about through the artful placement of the things within our personal setting.
With the 20th-anniversary edition of The Seer and the Sword, what reflections do you have about it?
I’m glad I believed in the story enough to go ahead and write Seer and the Sword and submit it. It takes gumption and perseverance to write that first novel. And I’m super happy that it’s now an audio book too. My next novel is soon to be released. It’s my first for adults, called The Golden Pearl.
