Sabine Thomas, also known as FickleFriction, is the writer of The Manipulation of Magic, our featured book of the month. In this interview conducted by MeiSummer, we talk about her stint as a comics graphic artist, her love for magical realism, and the themes surrounding her work.
To read our review of Sabine's story, click here.
Meixia (MX): To start, imagine yourself as an Oscar awardee. How will the hosts introduce you before you're called on stage?
Sabine Thomas (ST): From Northern California, here's The Manipulation of Magic author Sabine Thomas. (I rarely watch award shows)
MX: While browsing through your profile, I noticed that dominance and control are prevalent themes in your works. The same can be said in The Manipulation of Magic, which is the featured book on the Adult Fiction profile for September. Is there any reason you often dwell on these topics?
ST: Probably because I hate other people having control of me or my affairs. Sometimes even falling asleep frightens me not because of bad dreams but because of the loss of control. According to my grandmother, I always fought sleep as a baby.
Dominance is something people are always trying to exert over others. I hate dealing with it in the real world but in fiction, I think it stresses what a person wants or needs. I have family members who are domineering and manipulative, and I always hated that. It's like being a pawn or simply an object that exists solely for their use. I do my best to avoid them.
I suppose writing is an indirect way of managing my feelings towards people who try to control others.
MX: I'm a fan of Magical Realism. That's why I was drawn to your work The Manipulation of Magic. What about magical realism do you like best and why did you choose to write stories under this genre?
ST: What I like best about Magical Realism is the feeling that magic could be there, hiding beneath the veneer of everyday life. While I'm a firm believer in science, I've always since I can remember had this desire or maybe suspicion that there was something more. The first book I ever read on my own was Alice In Wonderland so maybe it springs from that. I don't actually choose the genre when I write. The stories just develop that way. It must be an unconscious leaning towards the unusual and the magical.
MX: Do you have authors you look up to? What book or piece of art has greatly inspired the way you write?
ST: My favorite authors change with the years but three have stuck with me and no doubt influenced me. One of them is Martha Grimes. She writes mysteries but it's her characters that make me buy her books. They play off each other really well. There always seems to be a bit of smartass to their personalities, which I love. And her detective, Richard Jury, certainly has a dark, reflective personality which never fails to draw me to him.
I love Thomas Ligotti's stories. I don't think he writes much anymore but his work is so strange in its outlook and it always implies that there is more to life than what we see. His work can be disquieting but I like the style in which he writes as well as the darkness of his worlds.
Joyce Carol Oates is another favorite and an inspiration since, although she's considered literary, she's published a lot of just plain weird fiction. I especially love her short stories.
Aside from them, I think I've been influenced a lot by films and TV. I like the unusual stuff and often watch foreign films and TV that fit that bill. Netflix has been a godsend. There's a Japanese film about spirals taking over the world which isn't the best film but it got me thinking in different directions. That's one of the things I love about foreign films, they give me a different perspective.
MX: Delving deeper into the subject of inspiration, I noticed on your profile that you used to work with comics. Can you tell us more about this job? What caused you to switch from comics to writing stories?
ST: I was hired by Malibu Comics in 1993 and then later, because they'd bought Malibu, Marvel Comics as a computer colorist. I worked in an office with other colorists, editors, letterers, etc. Sometimes, when I was still on the night shift, we'd go into the conference room and watch Animaniacs on the TV during our break.
I loved the Malibu work. Although it is cool to say that I colored Spiderman and X-Men. When I came onboard, Malibu Comics was in a warehouse and it was kind of crazy. But it was a great job and I got to be around lots of fascinating, creative people. They taught me the basics of Photoshop and the style of coloring they used in order for me to do my job and, in fact, I still use Photoshop to create digital paintings and photo manipulations. I'd interviewed with a portfolio of watercolors and couldn't believe it when I got the job considering it was in the LA area with big-name art schools nearby. In 1997, Marvel Comics filed bankruptcy and by then we'd all been laid off.
After that, I spent a couple of years helping my, at that point, almost blind grandmother. After she passed away, I went to school in San Francisco to learn Maya but failed miserably.
I probably wasn't making the best decisions back then. I had lost a lot of money after 9/11 happened so I went to work as a caregiver. I don't have a lot of skills but I seem to be good at interacting with people on an individual level.
I always wanted to write but art was easier for me to focus on due to problems I didn't understand at the time. I had ideas but I couldn't put together an actual story. It wasn't until later that I started to take classes in writing. Also, I discovered that I have ADHD and once I got on some meds I was able to do a better job of completing stories. I'm not saying it's become easy, not by a long shot, but with the meds I was able to learn the mechanics of writing a story.
MX: Now, let's talk about your work The Manipulation of Magic. What prompted you to start writing that story? Can you walk us through your thought process?
ST: I was taking a two-week class with Richard Thomas on LitReactor and he had us begin with hooks for five different stories. So, MoM originated with "Lida and Quinn had come over to the flat uninvited, however, Brian and Walt were being rude, reading a newspaper, passing the pages back and forth, ignoring the girls entirely so Lida turned them into foxes, but then Jim walked in."
Richard liked that hook the best so I went with it.
After that, I explored the theme which is Temptation. I began to think about what the characters would find tempting. Brian was the most difficult since he's so reserved. "Quinn lusted after Jim before Lida ever met him. She sensed danger which excited her but, being neither reckless nor brave, she kept her distance. Plus, Jim only looked at her in a does this dog know how to do any tricks kind of way. He did look at Lida. But it wasn't her long dark hair or sultry skin that attracted him. Jim liked smart, he appreciated the complicated games and conversations waiting to be unlocked. Lida would be fun. She recognized the power in his eyes, the arrogance in his demeanor. Simply by being standoffish, Jim seduced her."
I thought of creating some tension between the girls but given the personalities, I decided that a triangle with two men and one woman would work best. And Lida seemed more exciting than Quinn so I started to think about her as a main character.
Then I worked on the mood of the story (Dark).
"While working at his laptop Brian kept sneaking glances at Jim, making sure he didn't palm anything or leave something unwelcome behind a book or plant."
"Lida hated walking alone on the city streets at night. This little side street would shave off a good ten minutes of her journey but the street lights weren't reliable and sometimes there were sounds she couldn't identify."
Most of the theme and mood bits didn't make it to the story but they helped me understand the characters.
Then I started to work on scenes and dialog. Actually, some of the dialog had already surfaced in my mind. I like banter and I felt these characters were perfect for it so I sort of let them loose in my head. I allowed them to say things that real people might think but not say out loud. This is when the ambiguous sexuality thing came up. Jim messing with Brian's mind. Sometimes it worked well to just sit back and let the characters interact with each other but other times I needed to actively figure things out. The relationship between Jim and Brian involved both of those methods. By this time, I'd removed the less important characters, because it's a short work and they weren't adding to the story.
In reference to the foxes, there's this film by Akira Kurosawa where a young boy witnesses a wedding procession of fox people. It's haunting and scary and it stuck in my mind. I think that's where my whole fox people (kitsune) idea came from because I'd seen it not long before I wrote the story.
From there, I wrote an outline of sorts and worked on things like setting and description (I have a difficult time with those) and trying to add to the mood of the story. It took me much longer than two weeks to write and do the rewrites but I'm happy with the end product. In regards to the relationships and subject matter, I've always liked these kinds of unusual personalities and the antics, so to speak, that they might get up to in their lives. Throw them together and see what happens.
MX: Among Jim, Lida, and Brian, who can you most relate to and why?
ST: Probably Brian. I'm not as adventurous or cold-blooded as Lida or Jim. I'm more cerebral like Brian. I have a curious streak but not to the point of seeking out and eating a suspicious substance.
MX: Just for fun, if you can use magic to turn yourself into any creature, what creature would that be and why?
ST: A cat. I love cats. They're independent and can sneak into places a person couldn't. They can blend in with the outdoors so they can observe without being noticed. And they purr.
MX: Now, let's go to something more serious. Do you think magic truly exists in this world? If so, do you think everyone deserves to possess it?
ST: No, I don't believe magic exists. Not real Harry Potter type magic. I could be wrong, I don't know everything. There could be those who've over time learned to hide it like in The Magicians. Does everyone deserve it? God no! I suppose if it was part of our evolution, society would have found ways to keep things from getting too crazy. But I wouldn't trust myself with magic. And I do believe it would change most people. It's too tempting. To me, mixing magic with emotions and desires doesn't seem like a good idea except in fiction.
MX: To end, in one short sentence, can you tell potential readers why they should check out The Manipulation of Magic?
ST: The Manipulation of Magic is a story about power; those who have it and those who take it so if you like psychological tension and a touch of the fantastical you just might like The Manipulation of Magic.