Elbakin.net Prize 2024: Interview with Siècle Vaëlban

We liked his book so much that we awarded it our association’s prize… After the presentation of the Elbakin.net prize for the best French-speaking youth fantasy novel to Siècle Vaëlban for his superb novel Full Skywe asked her to tell us a little about herself and her work. We thank her for her time and hope to make you want to discover them even more with this short interview about the Elbakin.net 2024 prize!

Discuss Full Sky on the forum

The interview

Full Sky is the second novel that you have published, but not the second that you have written… Could you tell us about your journey into writing?

Long before writing, I read a lot and everything. From adolescence, I composed a little poetry, participated in writing workshops, but I only started writing intensely (by which I mean finishing long stories with the aim of sharing them). ‘from 2011. It was also during this year that I registered on the CoCyclics forum, specialized in imaginative literature and devoted to the practice of beta-reading – that is to say the critical and sympathetic rereading of the texts. I have learned and progressed a lot on this forum. I worked on it in parallel, and successively, on different stories. In 2017, I signed with my agent, Roxane Édouard, and we began long-term work together on my number two project, a fantasy-wonderful-zany trilogy (a project still in the process of being rewritten at the time I respond to this interview). I completed other stories that were sent for editorial research in 2021/2022. Each project has its specificities and finds, in due time, its home and the publishers who wish to support it in the world; this is why my stories are not published in the order they were written. My first novel, The Evening Starpublished in September 2023 by Albin Michel Jeunesse, happens to be the third novel that I have written. And Full Skypublished in February 2024 by Bragelonne in the BigBang collection, is the fourth of my projects.

What gave you the idea to write this book? Do you have any inspirations or references that have helped you?

Writing a story, basically, is a bit like weaving a ribbon: you have to carefully intertwine the different threads that tickle our mind, our heart and our creative muscle. For Full Skythe first of these threads was my experience of the world of opera. I had the chance, between the ages of ten and fifteen, to be part of the Children’s Choir of the Paris Opera, and I was deeply marked by the world of spectacle, its magic, its incredible petulance , and through music, a vector of immense emotions which paint and lastingly shape our interiority.
My second thread certainly comes from my fascination with creativity and creative mechanisms; I wanted to tell a story where the creators and artisans, often behind the scenes, would be at the heart of the action, and where creative passion would be in the spotlight. I could name many other sons who participated in the ribbon of Full Sky. Here are some of them: reflection on freedom (what it costs to give up being free, what it costs to decide to be free, and what, ultimately, is being free?); journeys of resilience and forgiveness through adversity; a compelling desire to translate my obsession with names and colors into extravagant characters and settings; the relationships that weave us together, their multiple forms, riches, nuances, etc.
Concerning my inspirations, they are multiple. I was inspired by the wonderful world of director Hayao Miyazaki (I am thinking in particular, for this novel, of Howl’s Moving Castle and to Chihiro), by operas like The Magic Flute by Mozart or Turandot by Puccini, through the musical The Phantom of the Operad’Andrew Lloyd Webber, par The Mirror Pass by Christelle Dabos, and by the epic and poetic verve of the Canadian writer Guy Gavriel Kay (Tigane, The Lions of Al-Rassan).

How would you introduce this novel to someone who hasn’t had the chance to read it yet?

Short version: Full Sky is a rococo-baroque fantasy opera with a revolutionary background!
Less short version: This story takes place on the island of Nebula, at the top of which sits a gigantic opera house – the Opéra Plein-Ciel. Every evening, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., the Opera gives performances. If the show is less than excellent, disasters (explosions, famine, epidemics) occur the next day on the island. Therefore, all the inhabitants of the Nebula are in the priority service of the Opera. Ivoire is a ribbon tamer at Atelier-Des-Mesures on the outskirts of the capital. With a wild and introverted temperament, she loves nothing more than her job as a seamstress, her boss with an incredible character, and her little house overlooking the rice fields. But now she is spotted by the Opera who recruits her for its service. Ivoire then finds herself plunged into the backstage which is bubbling with plots, comical or frightening alliances, and is always prey to the most total effervescence (let’s not forget that it is necessary at all costs that the evening performance be a success!). It doesn’t take long for her to discover mysterious poems that flourish in the corridors and promise to those who are willing to listen another possible world. And, of course, otherwise there would be no story, she listens…

The novel intertwines many narrative threads, themes and characters. How did you work on writing the book? Did you have a plan set in advance or did you let the story lead you and then return to the text?

I worked on this novel for over five years. I wrote several versions, four or five, it seems to me, and gradually modified, removed or added certain narrative threads, plots or characters. What I call version corresponds to a phase of in-depth rewriting (and not correction, I no longer count my correction passes on a novel the size of Full Sky). As is often the case, with my stories, before starting to write the first draft, I have an overall plan of how it will unfold, some precise plots, themes, notable characters, and I always know the ending and the direction in which it is going. directs the story. As the writing progresses, new adventures, characters, twists and turns (sometimes surprising) appear and mingle with the initial ideas… but always in the same direction. There are unavoidable points in the story which constitute the crux of its identity and which I know should not be touched. Conversely, certain plot threads should be deleted because they drown out the main point, or added, because without them the subject lacks depth. It is all the work and practice of the writer (accompanied by his precious beta readers and his editors) to distinguish what to rework and how to do it, until arriving at a final version.

Among the varied themes mentioned in Full Sky (rebellion or obedience to an authority, exclusion or integration into a community, resignation or despair, etc.), were there any that you were particularly keen to address?

Certainly hope (and even hope) more than despair! Many themes were close to my heart in Full Sky (freedom, rebellion, singularity, identity, forgiveness). Beyond these subjects, what interested me the most was observing the way in which each character took hold of them, questioned them, experimented in their own way. The gallery of characters forms a skein of journeys and multiple choices, nuanced, violent, delicate, moving… Let us therefore say that it is the theme of choice, of the richness of possibilities, of metamorphoses and the affirmation of one’s own path that he was most important to me to explore with this novel.

Can we hope for other texts in the Nebula universe? What are your current or planned projects, your publications to look forward to?

Full Sky is an opera in substance as well as in form. It has a first Act, a second Act, and finally a third, then… the curtain falls, the performance is over. This is a one-shot and I have no plans for a sequel or prequel. On the other hand, I happily imagine adaptations that could arise, perhaps one day, from this story… like a musical, for example!
I have a lot of projects working behind the scenes or in the making. The next two that will see the light of day are four-handed projects, concocted with the talented illustrator (and author) Anouck Faure. First of all, an illustrated novel on the border of a philosophical tale and an imaginary story: The Residence of the Mah-Haut-Relspublished by Le Lotus and L’Éléphant. And finally, an oracle on creativity in fifty-two cards, entitled The Creative Pactwhich will be released in 2025.

Would you like to send a message to our readers who are not yet convinced to discover Full Sky ? Or to those who would have read and loved it?

To those who have not read Full Sky : If you go behind the scenes of the Opera, I promise that you will encounter, in the disorder, a pink bichon with silky hair, raspberry tarts to roll on the floor, puddles of blood that shine like mirrors, a cane with the head of an ostrich and a Bird with sparkling courage, and, of course, the rustle of a green and gold ribbon as attentive as its tamer.
To those who read and loved Full Sky : THANKS ! May the most daring ribbons lead you along the path where the Birds sing! And remember: sometimes life is just like an opera!

Thank you for answering our questions!

Comments collected by Izareyael