Victoria, Victor, and Victorious: An insight into the writing process and mind behind V.E. Schwab's newest book

Recently, I had the pleasure of seeing V.E. Schwab speak about her newest book at Unity Temple on the Plaza in an event facilitated by Rainy Day Books. Schwab’s newest book is titled Victorious and is the final book in the Villains trilogy. 

Upon arrival, attendees received their signed and embossed copies of Victorious. I’ve never owned an embossed book before, but owning this copy makes me feel like I need more. We then made our way into the nave and took our seats. A detail I loved inside the temple was the beautiful stained glass window that included a book.

Schwab writes under two pen names, denoting books written for an adult audience with the name V.E. Schwab and books written for a younger audience with the name Victoria Schwab, making Victorious geared toward her adult audience. Despite this, I saw a wide range of ages at the event. Schwab somehow managed to charm both audiences with her witty comments, and both the teens who were avid fans and the adults who had accompanied them were laughing at her jokes and appreciating her comments.

The majority of the event included a question-and-answer conversation between Schwab and a moderator, with both more in-depth questions and a short lighting round. At the end, audience members were given the chance to ask questions. While the event was centered on Victorious, the conversation was completely spoiler-free and spanned a wide range of topics.We got to learn about how characters within the universe gained their superpowers, the pros and cons of having autobiographical characters, the inspirations for some of Schwab’s stories, her favorite characters to write, what playlist she listened to while writing Victorious, how to write about experiences you haven’t lived and milestones you haven’t reached, coming out as queer, and her personal writing process. 

As a writer, I most enjoyed learning about Schwab’s writing process and hearing the advice she gave to other writers in the audience. She described how she thought of her books not as a beginning, middle, and end, but as a series of six to ten episodes. She also explained how she started all of her novels with the ending and then moved backwards from the end. She stated this helped keep her from getting stuck when figuring out the “middle” through having a finite end to work towards. She also advised perfectionists (like herself) to create an outline of the story instead of getting stuck on small details.

I was so grateful to be able to attend this event and enjoyed the experience so much. I only learned that Rainy Day Books even held large events with such notable authors this past month through TeenTix KC, and I plan on attending more in the future now that I know they exist.

At the end of the event, attendees could choose to write a note for Schwab that she could read after returning home to Scotland. These notes allowed for similar interactions to ones that would have taken place at an on-site signing without the tense and high-stress environment for both the attendees and the author. I thought these notes were such a clever idea and they were printed with a design inspired by the cover of Victorious. 

After showing off my new copy of Victorious to a few of my friends (fellow V.E. Schwab fans who were immensely jealous of my signed and embossed copy), I had the joy of placing it on my bookshelf with the rest of the Villains trilogy. Thank you to Rainy Day Books, TeenTix KC, and everyone else who set up the event for making this possible!