This July, YA author Nicki Pau Preto follows up her Crown of Feathers trilogy with Bonesmith—a duology-opening dark fantasy introducing Wren Graven, a bonesmith who is able to psychically sense and move bone. After Wren fails her trial to become to become a ghost-battling Valkyr, her family exiles her to the Border Wall, where a series of unexpected events forces Wren to venture into a revenant-infested wasteland with enemy ironsmith Julian Knight to rescue goldsmith prince Leo Valorian. PW spoke with Pau Preto about Bonesmith’s origins, her genesis as a writer, and the ways her visual arts background influences her writing style.

What character, scene, setting, or concept served as the initial seed for Bonesmith?

For a lot of my books, I’ll have bits of ideas floating around my head or written in notes, but it never really feels like a book until those items cross paths. With Bonesmith, it started like I was plotting a different book. I was thinking about this person being forced to team up with an enemy to rescue someone. And then I was thinking, why are they enemies? Maybe it has something to do with their magic. I was tinkering with an elemental magic system, something sort of like Avatar: The Last Airbender. I played with metals and different ideas, but it wasn’t until I thought of using bone as a material that suddenly I was like, “Ohhh!” And then the book went in a completely different direction in terms of the world. Suddenly there were ghosts and the undead, and that wasn’t at all a part of my original concept. So, I guess the spark was using bone as a magical material. That’s when I was like, “Now I know what this book is.” It just took off from there.

Did you have your core cast of characters in mind from the start?

I had the main trio in mind, even though they were very nebulous at that point. From early on, I liked the idea of making my main character rescue a prince. You know, sort of a subversion of the princess trope. And then I assumed, OK, she’s going to team up with an enemy, and of course there’s going to be a romance there. So, I guess that trio was solidified pretty early on, but who they were changed once I had a better grasp on the world and what I was doing. Then suddenly the characters, instead of just being archetypes, started to be real.

There are two male characters with whom your heroine, Wren, spends a lot of time, but only one of them is a potential love interest; the other, though handsome and flirty, is decidedly comic relief. Were you ever tempted to write a love triangle, or was this always the dynamic you had in mind?

I know when I first gave my friend this book to read she thought that the comic relief character—the prince—was going to be the love interest, and she was like, “Ooo!” But then she met the ironsmith, and was like, “Oh, now I get it!” [Wren and the prince] just felt like a fun friendship, and knowing who they are as people, it seemed natural that they would flirt with each other. It never really felt to me like it was going to go that way, but I didn’t feel like I needed to shut that down, or make it extremely clear that it would never happen, because who knows? I’m still working on the sequel. But for this part of their journey, it just didn’t feel right.

Your worldbuilding and underlying mythology are very complex, both in the Crown of Feathers trilogy and in Bonesmith. Do you take time to build out all of that before you start writing?

I do a lot of work up front. I feel like I can’t help myself, even when I try really hard. Because Crown of Feathers was so sprawling and so long, I told myself, “I’m going to make this next book really simple.” But I don’t think I’m capable of that. I love to come up with a concept and explore it to its end: “Where can I take this? How could this work?” But I also do a lot while I’m writing, because things need to change and grow with the story. I find as I’m writing that I like surprises, I like to subvert the rules that I made for myself; I like to keep things flexible. As much as I love worldbuilding and all of that, it needs to serve the story and not the other way around.

How do you know when it’s time to stop worldbuilding and start writing? Do you set a hard-stop date?

I don’t, really—more like, “Oh God, my deadline’s coming, I need to get it in gear!” Because in the up-front stage everything is very abstract, I’m eventually like, “OK, I need to write the story now, because I don’t know the answers to everything yet.” You discover things as you write, so as much as I like to lay out a map and figure out where people are, what things do, some things I just can’t know until I’m in the story. So, I think I kind of hit a wall on my own. Like, “OK, I’ve done enough. I’ve got a theoretical plot—let’s see if it actually makes sense when I write it. Does this work, does it feel silly, or does it just not come across the way I hoped?” And then I have to adjust.

Did you draw on any other cultures or mythologies in creating the universe in which Bonesmith is set?

No, I didn’t—you know, besides the melting pot that is my brain. I studied a lot of history—art history, actually, which is what I went to school for. So, I have a lot of stuff in my head, but nothing that I’m like, “OK, I’m basing this on this, and this on that.” I wanted to use known facts, or known concepts, about ghosts, and kind of fiddle and tweak what I’m interested in. Most of my familiarity with ghosts is, like, our world—contemporary stuff. I think I’m more inspired by fiction I’ve read than real-world stuff.

Did you learn anything in writing the Crown of Feathers trilogy that has informed or changed your approach to this new series? Were there any decisions you vowed not to repeat, or things you wished you’d done that you’re going to implement this time around?

Oh God, yes, but did I listen to myself? No! I knew I didn’t want these books to be as long as the Crown of Feathers books, because that was exhausting and really hard to do. The Crown of Feathers books were also multi-POV, which I swore I wouldn’t do. I added in a few extra points of view in Bonesmith despite telling myself I didn’t want to, but there’s much less [hopping around] than there was in Crown of Feathers. I wanted this to be a more streamlined story, so those decisions definitely informed what I was doing.

Do you prefer writing series over standalones?

I think my ideas tend toward fantasy series. Series are obviously popular in fantasy, and it’s what I like to read. I love big, long, sprawling stories, and it’s so satisfying when arcs come together—things that have been brewing for many books. But after having written a couple series back to back, I can’t deny that I am daydreaming about writing a standalone book.

You have multiple degrees in art and art history and worked as a graphic designer before becoming a writer full-time. What prompted the switch in artistic mediums?

I was a really late bloomer. I didn’t read my first novel until I was 17. I was always an artistic kid and really creative, but I wasn’t into reading when I was young. I think I wasn’t being given the right books. No one’s fault, necessarily, but I was never able to get into the classics; I could never read the kinds of books assigned in school. It wasn’t until someone handed me the right book—The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. It rocked my world. I was like, “Oh, my God! This is incredible.” I love that series. So I decided in my late teens, “I want to try writing a book.” But I knew I was really far behind, and I knew that I had to do a lot of reading, and I had to catch up. So I turned to art, with the intention of maybe being a teacher or a professor one day—that’s why I did my masters. But I really didn’t enjoy academia at that level, so that’s when I pivoted to graphic design, and I started pursuing my writing more seriously then. I knew enough about the industry to realize it would be hard, that you don’t make a living just walking into it, and that it takes time, so I started by trying to have a two-career path. It’s hilarious that I went for art, as though it’s some kind of guaranteed job. Writing was on the back burner then, but once I switched to graphic design, writing really came to the forefront for me.

Do you think having a background in visual arts influences the way you write?

I think it probably does. It’s part of why I love worldbuilding so much, because when I’m studying art and art history, it’s all about the context of each creation—the world in which they were made, from ancient art to more contemporary. Who made it and why, where they fit in the global context. I studied a lot of classics in relation to art history, and so much of what we know about these cultures comes through the art and the architecture. I think that’s why it all interests me—I’m into the visuals, I’m into the society, the culture. I’m a fairly visual writer, so that’s probably just part of who I am, too—someone with an artist’s eye.

What drew you to writing for teens?

I guess it’s what I was reading at the time that I decided I wanted to be a writer. I went quickly from Philip Pullman to adult fantasy, but I found adult fantasy sometimes hard to connect with. I was struggling to find female-led fantasy stories. Tamora Pierce was probably the first author I found—she was writing YA before YA was really a thing, and I just loved her female-led approach. Epic fantasy, but with girls—she just had a hold on me.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on my middle grade novel, which comes out next fall. It’s called The Last Hope School for Magical Delinquents, and it’s just a super fun, contemporary fantasy magic school story. It’s basically about the kids who get expelled from regular magic school and wind up at The Last Hope School. They’ve all got very wacky, uncontrollable magic, and are sort of outcasts. My main character is just trying to find her way to fitting in with all these other outcasts. It’s been a great counterpoint to writing this very dark YA epic fantasy, as I’m also working on the sequel to Bonesmith—kind of hopping between the two. They’re a nice break from each other.

Bonesmith by Nicki Pau Preto. McElderry, $21.99 July 25 ISBN 978-1-66591-059-0