Frances Hardinge and Garth Nix have written some of my favourite characters (Mosca and Sabriel) and are insta-reads for me. I have been struck by similarities between their works numerous times over the years: not in content so much as tone and approach. And so, this conversation.
I would classify you both primarily as fantasy authors, and much of your collective work has been aimed at (or at least marketed at) a young adult audience. Did a desire to write for a young adult audience come first, and then the decision to write fantasy, or vice versa? (Or is this a nonsensical question and the two aspects naturally went together?)
Garth: The first novel I wrote, THE RAGWITCH, was specifically a children’s fantasy. I started writing it when I was 21 and I wanted to reproduce the reading experience of the children’s fantasies I loved (and still love) by people like Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, C.S. Lewis and others. Later on, writing SABRIEL, I didn’t really think about who it was for, but it was not intended as a children’s book, nor YA, which was not as fully formed as a category as it later became, back in 1995. In fact, I initially submitted it to fantasy publishers before it ended up being published as YA.
Later editions of SABRIEL have been published as adult (and as YA) and most of my later fantasy novels have been published as YA in some territories and just Fantasy in others, demonstrating that the distinction is more about marketing rather than anything else. They’re all “crossover” books, and the publishers position them either to start in YA and expand to capture older adult readers, or to start in genre Fantasy and hope to extend to younger readers. I personally think of myself as an author who mainly writes fantasy, SF and horror, some of which is explicitly for children, and the rest is for adults, both young and old.
Frances: I’ve always written fantasy, even when I was very young and scribbling down stories I was too shy to show to anyone. It just appears to be the way my imagination works – the story ideas that come to me and grip me are nearly always fantastical. (Like Garth, I absolutely loved Susan Cooper and Alan Garner. The Dark is Rising series in particular gave me a lasting sense of the mythic, and left big, shadowy footprints all over my imagination.)
The short stories I submitted in my teens and twenties were nearly all SFF aimed at adults. The turning point came when I was sharing a book concept with my friend Rhiannon Lassiter, who was already a published author. She asked me whether I’d noticed that my story was a book for younger readers.
It hadn’t even crossed my mind. As soon as I realised that my main character was twelve, however, the whole book came to life in my head. I suddenly had a better grasp on my protagonist, her arc, the tone of the story and the feel of the setting. It turns out that I really enjoy writing heroes that are teens or tweens, going through the traumatic process of shattering old identities, becoming disillusioned with everything they used to accept, and unlocking their own potential.
As for whether I’m primarily a fantasy writer or a YA writer, I’m both - a fantasy writer by compulsion, and a YA writer through conversion.
Some of your works can also be classified as horror, or have horror overtones. Do you think horror and a YA audience are a natural fit?
Garth: I think horror is something that can be employed in any kind of fiction, for anyone. But like anything else, it has to be appropriate for the story, which in turn will probably decide its core audience.
Frances: I absolutely agree with Garth that horror has its place with readers of any age. It’s often an expression of buried dread, though, and the sort of fears that gnaw at your unconscious may differ depending on your age. Adolescence is a time when both your body and emotions start behaving in unfamiliar and sometimes unpredictable ways, which is classic horror material. There’s also a dark appeal in horror’s rule-breaking and excess, which can be weirdly satisfying when you’re looking for an outlet.
Are you mindful of particular considerations when constructing protagonists for a YA novel?
Frances: Yes and no. My main characters are young, and that affects the way I write them to some extent. They have a bit less experience, they usually have less physical strength and social status, they’re frequently underestimated and they’re more likely to be swayed by parental figures. On the other hand, most of my protagonists have had to grow up fast. Some are working for a living, surviving through their wits, facing danger or acting as carers. I don’t shield my heroes or my readers from the harsh realities of my fictional worlds.
The youth of my characters does affect the way I write endings. I don’t want to tie up every loose end, or set in stone what the protagonists will be doing for the rest of their lives, because that feels rather bleak and oppressive. I want endings to feel like an unlocking of potential, with more unknown adventures and challenges to come.
Garth: Not really, because I don’t think “this is going to be a YA novel” when I start something, and I also don’t “construct” protagonists beforehand, I typically know very little about my characters when I begin a story and I discover more about them as I go on. That said, by the time I’m halfway through or so, it will become apparent if the book is leaning more toward YA or older adult, and though I don’t actively think about it, I guess I would subconsciously or instinctively work on the characterisation (and everything else) accordingly.
Do you think there are notable freedoms (or restrictions!) in intentionally writing for a YA audience that differentiate it from stories aimed deliberately at adults?
Garth: This is a complex question not easily answered in short form. There are both freedoms and restrictions, as there are for every kind of writing, boundaries drawn by the book industry, by gatekeepers, by readers’ expectations, by public perception of morality, and more. Some of these boundaries are soft ones, which can be creatively stepped over or stretched, and some are hard borders which have serious consequences if transgressed. They’re also perceived differently by different audiences at different times, just to confuse the issue. (Much of this goes to people thinking YA is a subset of children’s fiction, whereas I think it is a subset of adult, the clue being in the name “Young Adult”, not “Old Children”. But that said, YA is a category of its own, with its own varied expectations.)
At its most simplistic, you can put anything in an adult novel, but even then your choices may impact how it can be published and how it will be received. In a YA novel, the execution becomes paramount, any controversial subject matter will need to be very carefully considered and written very well, in context, to withstand the forces that will be arrayed against it. So the question arises “does this story need this content?” If the answer is yes, then perhaps it needs to be an adult novel.
Frances: Garth is right – this is a big and foggy subject! It’s also complicated by the fact that many YA authors know their work will also be read by adults.
Personally, I do find writing YA liberating. This is a really sweeping generalisation, but I think with adult fiction there is a little more pressure to observe genre boundaries and give the reader what they are expecting. When I’m writing YA, nobody minds me cheerfully mixing genres together, inventing outrageous worlds and experimenting.
Writing for a YA audience certainly isn’t preventing me from telling the stories that I want to tell. I don’t feel compelled to dumb things down for my younger readers, nor do I soften or simplify. That would be rather insulting. I have faith in their ability to handle complexity, dark themes and uncomfortable psychological territory. It’s true that I don’t tend to include sex or really graphic violence, but that’s really a matter of personal style. I probably wouldn’t do so if I was writing for adults either.
Do you have a favourite character that you’ve written? (If so, why that one?)
Frances: While I’m writing a book, I tend to have an intense and rocky relationship with my protagonist. I subject them to countless ordeals, and lay bare the darkest, rawest parts of their psyche - and they retaliate by trying to kick holes in my plot. None of my main characters are me, but deep inside them I suspect you might find different splinters of my personality.
If I have a favourite, I think it might still be Mosca Mye of Fly by Night and Twilight Robbery. She’s a lot of fun to write (and she has a pet homicidal goose).
Garth: No.
I’m tempted to leave it at that, but to expand, I really don’t. There are characters who are easier to write, and characters who are fun to write, but that doesn’t make them my favourite. They are part of the story, serving their purpose in the story, and once I’ve written them they feel separate to me, they’ve gone off in their world, and I have moved on. I only come back to the character when I have a story that needs them, not the other way around.
Frances Hardinge spent her childhood in a sequence of small, sinister villages, then went on to study English at Oxford. She has now written twelve dark, mystery-laden fantasy books for children and the YA readership.
Her first book Fly by Night won the Branford Boase Award for best debut novel. Three of her novels (Cuckoo Song, The Lie Tree and A Skinful of Shadows) have been shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. In January 2016, Hardinge’s novel The Lie Tree won the coveted Costa Book of the Year Award. It then went on to win the 2016 Hornbook/Boston Globe Fiction Award, the LA Times Book Award for YA literature and the 12-16 years category of the UK Literacy Association Book Awards. In 2018, Frances Hardinge became a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her novel Unraveller won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for YA Literature and Best Book for Young Readers at the British Science Fiction Awards.
Her two most recent books, Island of Whispers and The Forest of a Thousand Eyes, are collaborations with award-winning illustrator Emily Gravett.
Frances is seldom seen without her hat and is addicted to volcanoes.
Garth Nix OAM has been a full-time writer since 2001, but has also worked as a literary agent, marketing consultant, book editor, book publicist, book sales representative, bookseller, and as a part-time soldier in the Australian Army Reserve.
Garth’s books include the Old Kingdom fantasy series: Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen, Clariel, Goldenhand, and Terciel and Elinor; SF novels Shade’s Children and A Confusion of Princes; fantasy novels Angel Mage; The Left-Handed Booksellers of London; The Sinister Booksellers of Bath; and the forthcoming The Even-Handed Booksellers of Edinburgh; and a Regency romantasy, Newt’s Emerald.
His novels for children include The Ragwitch; the six books of The Seventh Tower sequence; Frogkisser! and The Keys to the Kingdom series; plus, co-written with Sean Williams, the Troubletwisters and Have Sword Will Travel series and Spirit Animals: Blood Ties. He is also the author of more than sixty published short stories, some of them collected in Across the Wall and To Hold The Bridge.
Garth’s most recent books are Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz: Stories of the Witch Knight and the Puppet Sorcerer, which collects all nine stories of the godslaying duo; and the children’s novel We Do Not Welcome Our Ten-Year-Old Overlord. His next book is the science fiction novel Massif, out September 2026.
More than seven million copies of Garth’s books have been sold around the world, they have appeared on the bestseller lists of The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, The Bookseller and others; and his work has been translated into 42 languages. He has won multiple Aurealis Awards, the ABIA Award, Ditmar Award, the Mythopoeic Award, CBCA Honour Book, and has been shortlisted for the Lodestar Award, the Locus Awards, the Shirley Jackson Award and others. In 2025, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for “services to literature”.