So, Cassie Clare and Maureen Johnson are great friends of mine. I could say I don’t know how I got so lucky, but I remember quite clearly: I met Cassie at a party where… let’s just say someone died… and I met Maureen by assaulting her with a cupcake.
Crime’s paid off for me.
Not really for them, all I do is play Taylor Swift at Cassie until she is brainwashed. I did bring my box set of MISFITS to a writing retreat in Mexico, thus introducing Cassie to a certain actor: that contribution of mine worked out okay.
My poor Americans spent their time watching MISFITS going ‘British TV is FILTHY! And that Irish boy is the FILTHIEST OF THEM ALL!’ I was proud for my country.
It was at another writing retreat, this summer in France, where we had THE IDEA. We had adopted a kitten and were sitting around on sofas petting the kitten and plotting who would die in our future novels (answer: LOTS OF PEOPLE).
MAUREEN: You know who I love?
EVERYONE: Simon.
MAUREEN: YES. But also, Magnus.
We all agreed that we loved Magnus, and that we were super excited about seeing Magnus in the movie.
I recall watching The Magnus Audition. I confess, watching The Magnus Audition enhanced my love for Magnus extremely. I clawed at Cassie’s shoulder as I watched it. I maybe bit her. I don’t recall. ‘HE’S SO HANDSOME,’ I kept saying.
‘OW’ said Cassie.
I’m deep. I like characters to have facets, okay? And one of Magnus’s facets is that he is super hot.
Back to the French sofas: I talked about how another thing that had cemented my love for Magnus was reading the Infernal Devices, because he was younger in the 1800s, at least one heartbreak back, a bit more vulnerable, still hilarious and a snappy dresser, and still so kind.
(As I am PARTICULARLY fond of the Infernal Devices, I suggested that perhaps Magnus was acquainted with a certain Mr Herondale’s father…)
We all got to talking about the adventures Magnus must have had over the centuries, the people he’d met, the wacky hijinx he’d got up to, the costumes through the ages. Maureen mimed an escape in a hot air balloon and fell off the sofa. (The kitten was very alarmed.) And we got to a point where we were writing a lot of it down, all together, because that is kind of our thing: we get together and write stuff and laugh our heads off about imaginary people. It was all going really well, and we were like, Wait. Could these be REAL stories? Could we do this?
Maureen and I had to ask ourselves, could we pull off Magnus’s voice? (Cassie thought she probably could, you know…)
Maureen said to herself: Yes, for I am hilarious. (Or at least that’s what she should have said, because she IS.)
And I remembered that I had done Magnus’s voice before, in a way…
In Clockwork Princess, Magnus, seeing how much fun Will and Jem are having (aside from all the blood and curses and romantic complications) gets a bromance of his OWN. We were thinking about how these two characters would speak to each other, and Cassie’s husband Josh and I started bantering back and forth, me playing Magnus, Josh playing Magnus’s NEW BRO.
SARAH AND JOSH: *mad laughter* *some interpretative dance*
CASSIE: KEEP GOING I AM TYPING EVERYTHING YOU ARE SAYING.
… So I decided I could perhaps pull off Magnus’s voice as well.
We all got a bit more serious about the stories, and now this is a REAL THING.
We bring to you THE BANE CHRONICLES, chronicling (you see what we did there) Magnus’s adventures through the ages.
Have you ever wondered about Magnus’s past loves and lies? Magnus and Alec’s first date? How Magnus and Camille got together? What happened in Peru? Starting in February 2013, in the run-up to City of Handsome Magnus: the Movie (Also Starring Some Other People Who Are Pretty Good-Looking) we will put out a Magnus Short Story every month.
There will be ten of Magnus’s magnificent adventures all in all. Some of them Cassie and I are writing, some of them Cassie and Maureen are writing, some Cassie is writing herself as we cruelly abandon her! All of them, we think, are lots of fun.
The NEWS is emblazoned here:
http://shelf-life.ew.com/2012/12/10/cassandra-clare-the-bane-chronicles-sarah-rees-brennan-maureen-johnson/#more-17820
We just hope you will have as much fun reading the stories as we are having writing them!
