Dhonielle Clayton hosted a virtual Shannon Messenger appearance on December 1st that was sponsored by Barnes & Noble. I have transcribed a portion of the interview.
The first takeaway is how to pronounce Elysian. Shannon says "eh-LEE-see-an." An example of her saying the name can be found at about 1:25 in a podcast on YouTube.
Shannon spoke about the movie still being in progress. They are working on a script, and the project will move forward eventually if the script is greenlit for production.
Shannon also spoke about the excitement of seeing her book come to life in the second graphic novel and about how the graphic novel allows the Keeper series to reach a new audience.
I was most interested in the part where Shannon spoke about Book 10.
Many fans complain about how long it's taking for Shannon to get the next book done. She spoke about this.
Later books in the series... they are so hard... so, so so hard... I am writing as fast as I can, but... I've got to stick the landing, otherwise, what did we do here... I'm trying to stick the landing and it's a tedious painstaking... It's not something that I can just sit down and power through... I want to give them a book that is worth the wait, and that takes time... I really thought that it would get easier with each book in the series. I really thought—the plot exists, the characters exist, the world exists—so by the time we're late in the series, it's basically like Mad Libs. You know, it's like you've got the sentence already there, you just plop in the character's name, and go! So, I could do that in my sleep! Oh, no, no... [shaking head]
Some fans have been a bit nasty about the delays between books. They act like Shannon is negligent in some fashion. Writing a complicated story like Keeper is an incredible amount of work.
I think about the effort I put into my blog posts. People have no idea. I have another post written about Forgotten Secret #4, the one with Fintan in it. I started working on it during the summer. It has been finished for some time, but I haven't published it. I feel that it will be too confusing in its original form. I have decided to reformat it, and I am now working on that. It's a lot of work, more than my readers can possibly understand. I think about how many hours (and I really don't know how many) I have spent in writing that one post about just a small portion of Shannon's body of work. Shannon's entire body of work has taken up an incalculable amount of time.
Shannon talks about what she learned in her film school classes.
"They taught us to leave breadcrumbs... like little things that you leave in there, that maybe you go back and you turn it into something significant, maybe not, but you have it there. You have yourself this option, you know, to play with and it's like... but now I have around... probably close to 10,000 pages at this point that I've woven all these little tiny breadcrumbs through, and I don't remember where they all are. I don't remember what they all were... trying to tie everything up when there's so many different threads... I've got to find a way to braid all of this into this... It's not something that I can just sit down and power through... I want to give them a book that is worth the wait and that takes time.
I thought about what the breadcrumbs are, since these are things mentioned that might or might not get followed up later. Some of the breadcrumbs are clues, but others are things that might never mean anything if Shannon never ties them to something. A big one is in Book 5, and it could just as easily have never meant anything.
Book 5, page 301 "I went to that stall," Biana said. "My dad took me when I was little—I still have the combs he bought."
We finally learn the significance of the visit to Cyrah's stall near the end of Book 9. This same scene from Book 5 also has a breadcrumb about Marella's mom, saying that Caprise Redek was present when Cyrah died. That breadcrumb hasn't paid off yet, but I expect it will.
Shannon also spoke about writing the ending of the series.
You're shooting for an ending that is somehow, somehow... both expected but also surprising. If it's completely expected, like if you just follow all of the clues that you've planted... Those [readers], who have read it 50 times and know it better than you do, have caught all your clues and know exactly what you're gaming. They'll like it, but they won't love it because it will be exactly what they predicted. But, if you go too far out in left field and introduce a bunch of new stuff that wasn't there before, everyone will be like, well she just threw that in there. It's not an earned surprise; it's just a cheap surprise. Somehow, I have to stay truly consistent to every breadcrumb that I've planted. Everything that I've led up to and yet surprise you and have it not feel like I cheated. So yeah, it's a big task.
There are two takeaways from this part of the interview. First, Shannon says that those readers most familiar with the books will know exactly what she's planning. Indeed. That's why we analyze the books and figure things out.
Second, Shannon is definitely working on the conclusion of the series. We just don't know for sure if it will be only one book or two books. Reading between the lines, Shannon is technically writing the last book. I do know from comments she's made before that it's possible that this could end up being more than one book. If the book ends up way too long, it could very well become two books.
Nothing was said about when the tenth book will be released. However, publication will most likely be near the end of next year. I expect that we'll know by spring when the release date is and whether the tenth book will be the final book.
All of my past Keeper posts are linked from this page:
Keeper of the Lost Cities Summaries, Reviews, and Theories
