Samantha Shannon, Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish Discuss Adapting The Bone Season

This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.

By Amanda Keats

Author Samantha Shannon and the Directors of The Imaginarium Studios, Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish, attended an insightful and fascinating Q&A session about The Bone Season last week at Waterstones, Piccadilly, in which they discussed the book, performance capture and what they have in mind for the exciting adaptation.

Shannon discussed the use of language in The Bone Season and the powerful influence Tolkien had on her from a young age when she first started reading his work. "Lord of the Rings is just an incredible feat of world building," she said, adding, "I wish I could create a language like Elvish, but I'm not a linguist".

Andy Serkis, who is already very familiar with Tolkien's work, having starred as Gollum in the book's adaptations, went on to explain the appeal of Shannon's work. "The thing about Samantha," he began, '"is that it is an ever-expanding universe that she's created and the level of forensic detail, the level of attention to not just the characters but the detail of the environment, the detail of the political system, the hierarchy, the levels of all the clairvoyants – I mean it just goes on and on." He went on to explain that there were incredible parallels between Shannon's writing and that of Tolkien. "It's like an onion. There are just layers and layers and layers – much like Tolkien – that you just have to keep on peeling back and peeling back. That's what attracted me to being involved with Lord of the Rings and that's what certainly attracted both of us to Samantha's work when we were lucky enough to come across it."

Fellow founder of The Imaginarium Studios, Jonathan Cavendish, went on to say that "one of the things that is absolutely extraordinary about [The Bone Season] is that Samantha has created a new world, a new history, a new social system – a world that's in parallel to our own, totally believable and credible and with some extraordinary aspects of it." Cavendish continued by explaining that they are privy to some aspects, which cannot be shared as yet from future stories "because you're going to read it in books two, three, four, five, six and seven and watch in the majestic motion pictures".

The relationship between Warden and Paige is a very central one to the story and one, it seems, Shannon greatly enjoyed writing. "I just found that they bounced off each other wonderfully whenever I wrote dialogue and I love how he peeled away layers of Paige and she peeled away layers of him – and they're doing that just by talking to each other."

Shannon says that Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre somehow bled into the work without her even realising it. She also says that one of her greatest influences is Margaret Atwood. "When I read The Handmaid's Tale for the first time," she says, "it was just an incredible experience."

Shannon spoke a little about the second book in the series, The Mime Order, due out in October, which she says will be set in London. She was also good enough to read us a sneak peek! 

This adaptation is certainly incredibly exciting and has massive scope and potential in both the book and film worlds. As Cavendish himself explained, we have "the great world builder of her generation alongside the great character creator of his generation". 

What's not to love?