Fireborn by Aisling Fowler
We are so thrilled to welcome Aisling Fowler to the blog today. She shares some insight into writing her main character. With book three coming soon, it is an ideal time to get to know this series better!
Writing a Main Character Across a Fantasy Series
As I watch the publication day of Fireborn: Starling and the Cavern of Light creep closer – the final book in the Fireborn series – it is with a complex array of emotions. I’m delighted to see this book journeying out into the world and am so excited to hear what fans of the series think of its ending, but it feels a little bittersweet too. I have been writing in the Fireborn world for six years now and saying goodbye to something I love so much is hard. This is particularly true for my main character, Phoenix (who is also known as Twelve and Starling at different points through the series). She was the very first spark of the story to come to me and it was really from her that the rest of the world grew. We have been on an incredible journey together – one that has changed us both irrevocably.
Phoenix was inspired in part by my deep love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a television series I adored when I was teenager. In Buffy, I found a hugely positive role model, a girl with agency who used her strength, resilience and resourcefulness to protect others. She was a fierce, inspiring heroine to me and I drew on some of her most admirable traits in the creation of my own main character. When Phoenix popped into my head several years ago, clutching her pair of axes, she immediately felt strong, but there was an anger in her and a thread of darkness that surprised me too. Where had that come from? It was the exploration of this that birthed the Fireborn series with all of its magic and monsters and fearsome, heroic Hunters.
Over the course of three books, it has been a joy and a privilege to write Phoenix’s emotional journey alongside her epic adventures. We meet her in the first book as Twelve, a girl with a dark past, who has cut herself off from everyone around her and very intentionally pushes people away. Across the series, we see her break down the walls she has built around herself and step into her power, both as a warrior, a leader and a friend. In writing Phoenix, I set out to create someone whose bravery is of the most extraordinary, inspiring kind. Not only does she face the monsters in her world resolutely, but as she deals with her grief and heals, she realises that the past doesn’t have to define her and that she can be the person she wants to be. Slowly she begins to trust again, opening her heart to the people around her and loving them without restraint. There is no braver act for someone who knows the pain of loss.
I am hugely proud of Phoenix. In writing her, I have grown to love her, and I hope readers of the series will too. This last journey of hers is her most epic yet and this final book in the series is the one I am most proud of. Although our paths will diverge from here, I know that Phoenix will stay with me, reminding me to take risks, to be brave and to strive for the extraordinary. I hope that she will stay with you too.
