Cressida Cowell

The Wizards of Once: Book 1
Cressida Cowell

About Author

Cressida Cowell grew up mostly in Central London. She has a B.A. in English Literature from Oxford, a BA in Graphic Design from St Martin's and an MA in Narrative Illustration from Brighton.

Cressida wrote and illustrated her first picture book, LITTLE BO PEEP'S LIBRARY BOOK for Hodder Children's Books in 1998. This was followed by DON'T DO THAT KITTY KILROY!, HICCUP, THE VIKING WHO WAS SEASICK, CLAYDON WAS A CLINGY CHILD and ONE TOO MANY TIGERS, all published by Hodder.

Hodder Children's Books published her first novel for eight to twelve year olds, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON, in March 2003 to popular and critical acclaim. Rights have been sold in more than thirty languages.

How to Fight a Dragon's Fury, the 12th book in the series, was published in 2015 and completed the series.

DreamWorks released the first of three planned animated films of How to Train Your Dragon in March 2010.

Hiccup's adventures were inspired by Cressida's memories of her family holidays on an island in the Inner Hebrides. Cressida and her family were taken off to camp on an island that was so small that you could see the sea all round from the highest point and it was cut off from the outside world but surrounded by an archipelago of other tiny, uninhabited islands.

She realised as a child that she 'might be a different species' from her adored father when she was holding him by the ankles as he hung upside down from a cliff to spy on a nest of buzzards!

Cressida finds illustrating her own work satisfying but she also loves writing books for other people to illustrate as the end result can be so unexpected and inspiring.

Cressida Cowell lives in West London with her husband and three children. She has never met a real dragon, but would rather like one as a pet!

Photograph Copyright: Sam Jones

Author link

www.CressidaCowell.co.uk;

Interview

THE WIZARDS OF ONCE

HODDER CHILDREN'S BOOKS

SEPTEMBER 2017


CRESSIDA COWELL knew that her bestselling How to Train Your Dragon series would be a hard act to follow but her new series, beginning with the powerful and richly-layered THE WIZARDS OF ONCE - handsomely illustrated by Cowell and packed with adventure and magic, is every bit as appealing and enchanting as Hiccup's quest. Indeed film rights to the new series have already been snapped up by Dreamworks, which is behind the How to Train Your Dragon film animations.

For Cowell personally, it was important that her new series would engage her as a writer as much as her Hiccup adventures had. "I loved How to Train Your Dragon and, like a parent, you do wonder how can you love another child as much as you have loved the first one? So I was aware that it would be difficult for me, and for How to Train Your Dragon fans, to make that transition to a new world." To help with that transition, she started working behind the scenes on the first book some five years ago.

"I spent a lot of time working my way into it. I wanted it to feel as rich a world as Hiccup's because that's what I loved to read as a child, books like Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea books or Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. I did character sketches and started to write them so I would feel for them in the same way as I had Hiccup."

Unlike the Vikings and dragons of Hiccup's world, The Wizards of Once is laden with magic and she describes it as "kind of a love letter to all the books about magic that I loved as a child". "I think it's often things that I read as a child or experienced as a child that have inspired me as a writer," she explains.

Just as inspiring as the books she read were the landscapes she grew up in. "The dragons and setting in How to Train Your Dragon were inspired by Scotland, while The Wizards of Once is very much inspired by West Sussex, near to where my grandmother grew up," she explains. Behind the house where they stayed as children was an Iron Age hill fort called The Trundle. "There was no sign saying 'this is a 3,000 year old hill fort' - we used to toboggan down it - but it's huge and you can see how the landscape could have inspired legends that giants once possessed this land. Who else could have created these massive hills, and monuments like Stonehenge, but giants?"

Another nearby hill, called Levin Down (meaning 'Leave-Alone Hill', because the land was too steep to plough), is an uncultivated area that rises up from the landscape. "As children we thought it was called 'Leave-Alone Hill' because of the fairies. There were little mounds all over it that I thought were the fairies' hill forts. That was my personal response but this kind of landscape has inspired fairy tales for millennia."

The setting for The Wizards of Once, a land of twisted, dark forests where powerful wizards rub shoulders with sprites, giants and snowcats, draws on this landscape. Into this mysterious world Cowell introduces an invading warrior tribe that ushers in the Iron Age. The warriors set about killing all the witches (which no one minds, since they are so evil) using their weapons of iron but, having done so, then sets about destroying any remaining magic, good or bad, from the safety of their iron-bound hill fort.

The story is driven by two children from the opposing sides - Wish, the daughter of the Warrior Queen Sychorax, and Xar, the youngest son of Encanzo the Enchanter and King of the Wizards. When the two meet, instead of killing each other - which all their histories say they should do - they start to discover more about each other and adventures follow as Wish is caught up in Xar's bid to catch a witch.

Drawing on history, Cowell says, "There was a lot of thinking that the fairies in stories of the time were really the indigenous people who were displaced by the invading tribes; the indigenous people were smaller and disappeared into the forests. In my story, the invadors bring iron with them and, because it is something so new, I thought that the indigenous people would be allergic to it."

Cowell says she did "buckets and buckets of research" into this period to get a feel for it in her writing, including visits to some of the more spectacular hill forts like Old Oswestry Hill Fort in Shropshire and reading about their beliefs and traditions. "I often ignored the research while I was writing because facts can get in the way of fantasy but discovering all these things gives you wonderful ideas to use in the stories " She worked Iron Age traditions like face tattoos and body painting into her illustrations and unearthed vocabulary from the time, words like 'Wortcunning', 'starcraft' and 'leechdoms'; the names (and curses!) in The Wizards of Once are rich with invention.

The magical creatures in the stories - the sprites, giants and witches - are drawn from traditional tales but there are also echoes of Shakespeare's The Tempest in the wizard Encanzo, the sprite Ariel and Caliburn, the raven tasked with looking after the unpredictable Xar.

The children Xar and Wish have much to learn about themselves and about taking responsibility for their actions. It is this time in children's lives, when they are still children but on the cusp of becoming teenagers, that interests Cowell the most, she says. "This is a time of transformation, the caterpillar stage just before metamorphosis, and that's what's interesting to me, how they go from child to teenager. Hiccup, Wish and Xar are all about 12 or 13, which is that bridge between childhood and adulthood."

Xar is an incredibly endearing character who will always act first and then think later. "I loved characters like Tom Sawyer, this kind of kid who means so well but who is always getting into terrible trouble," says Cowell. "It's so easy to get in the wrong direction, as Xar does, and I think it's nice for children to see characters in books who are like this."

Wish, on the other hand, has very little confidence. "She is one of my characters who is most like me," admits Cowell, "although I also had a lot of Kamikaze from How to Train Your Dragon in me too...." Wish has still to learn how much she has to offer. "I was often in trouble at school for not doing things in the right sort of way and Wish has to realise that her way is fine." Cowell adds, "She's not a weak character, she's a very strong character, but she struggles to fit in and I think it's interesting for girls to see a character like that. I think very few of us feel we are always effortlessly popular!"

Like Hiccup, each of these characters is on a journey of discovery. "I like to explore that time when children go from it being all about them, to the beginnings of political awareness and relationships with their peers, then becoming a grown-up human being and having a sense of social responsibility." But Cowell is also interested in what adults have to learn from children and in this story the adults are very flawed, especially Wish's mother, Queen Sychorax.

Bringing adults into the story also makes it more attractive for parents to share with their children, and shared storytime is something that Cowell campaigns for as part of the drive to encourage children to read for pleasure. "I'm writing for eight to 12 year olds because I want to get children reading and at that age, you can still have books read aloud to you. One of the things I loved about the How to Train Your Dragon books was hearing from whole families who had enjoyed reading the books together. Hearing stories being read is so important for children and if parents can read aloud to their children for just ten minutes a day, it makes such a difference!"

This is another reason why Cowell has illustrated the book, just as she has done for How to Train Your Dragon. "Children are so visual because of the wonderful things they can find on their screens so an illustrated book can be a bridge between picture books and books without illustrations." But she adds, "The pictures are also a huge part of the story and very much something that I want to do."

Cowell's background is in both illustration and writing, having studied English before going on to do five years of art classes. "If you take the Sprites in the story as an example, I wanted them to have a link to humans but also to be very individual, something like Rackham's sprites, or Shakespeare's Moth and Mustardseed, but I was also thinking of Alexander McQueen and Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake; something that would feel ancient but also like something you had never seen before. So I will create those characters in a visual way but also non-visually," she explains. "For me, the whole process involves visual and non-visual inspiration and it would feel wrong if I couldn't do one or the other, the writing or the illustration."

Cowell is already in the process of writing the second book in the series, but is still trying to decide how many books to write - three, four or possibly more. "There is such a balancing act to bring in the humour and the epic journey for the character, the character appeal and the messages, introducing different tones - I want it all but it's a tricky balancing act to keep the stories short and to have all this included in the book."

No doubt readers engaged with the characters, humour and magical setting in The Wizards of Once will be hoping for as many books as possible....

 

 

HOW TO FIGHT A DRAGON'S FURY

HODDER CHILDREN'S BOOKS

MAY 2016


How to Fight a Dragon's Fury, the magnificent finale to the epic adventures of the young Viking hero Hiccup and his dragon, Toothless, comes packed with fire, dragons and peril!

Readers who have followed the How to Train Your Dragon series over the last decade have seen Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third complete each of his impossible tasks and on the way, finding the ten Lost Things hidden by Grimbeard the Ghastly a century before.

Hiccup's hardest quest, however, is to come. In this final adventure, Hiccup must be crowned the true King of the Wilderwest if he is to prevent a devastating battle between humans and dragon, but enemies in the shape of the Witch and Alvin the Treacherous, as well as the implacable enmity of Dragon Furious, stand in the way of a happy ending. And what will become of the dragons, if we live now in a world where they no longer exist?

In this final story, Cowell brings Hiccup's quest to become a king to an end, deftly answering all the remaining questions that the books have raised and drawing Hiccup's epic quest to a conclusion that befits the hero he has become.

We asked author Cressida Cowell to tell us more about writing the bestselling books and the final How to Fight a Dragon's Fury!


Q: How does it feel to have come to the end of Hiccup's adventures?

A: I'm feeling quite emotional about it. It's been wonderful. This world is a pleasure to write about because it carries so many things that are personal to me, but also so universal.

I started writing this series when I had just had a baby. You arrive home from the hospital with this tiny baby that you're suddenly responsible for, and I started to think about how I was brought up and that was the genesis of the How to Train Your Dragon books that explore the relationship between children and parents and growing up.

Now the 'baby' I brought home that day is 17 years old and about to leave home, so the books have been about my relationship with my own childhood but also about being a parent and my own children growing up.

On a more general level, the books say so much about how we look after our environment, how we run our communities, what kinds of leaders humans deserve, and I had to think how I could deliver these weighty messages with a light touch without being preachy.

While I was writing the last book, I felt I had to get everything right. You have to get the tone right and you have to make a satisfying conclusion; there were so many ends that I wanted to tie up in a really satisfying knot. I also wanted to find a balance between humour and being true to the story, and sending out the messages in the story without being two weighty. So it was a tough book to write but also hugely enjoyable.


Q: How much of the ending to the series did you know from the start of writing these books?

A: There were a few surprises along the way but from the start, I knew Hiccup would be going on a journey without realising it and that in each book, he would find a different attribute. He would be finding the king's Lost Things and although I might not have known what each of the things would be, I had the overarching structure for the stories and I knew that a huge amount of it would not be revealed until the ending. I also knew that it would be about the education of a king rather than about the things themselves.

I wrote parts of the ending as I went along because you can't plant the clues unless you know where the story is going. The actual ending of the book I wrote four or five books ago, and while I re-wrote it, it was pretty much there. You need to know where you're going or you can't create a surprise for the reader.


Q: Given the number of plot twists and red herrings in the final books, did you need to re-read all the previous books before starting to write this one?

A: I have re-read all the previous books before I have started writing each new story and I make sketchbooks full of notes.

In the final story, I wanted to give the sense that sometimes there's a pattern to things without you really realising that pattern is there. That's something I've been trying to do throughout the series, to give almost a spiritual element to the books with the sense that there's a pattern or structure to things that we don't really realise at the time. It's really satisfying for readers to discover that the thing that seemed like an accident in book one wasn't an accident at all.

That's very much the feeling I wanted to get across in this final book, which made it hard to write because there was so much information to present and because I wanted the last book to have a real sense of impact.


Q: At the start of How to Fight a Dragon's Fury, there is a section explaining 'The Story So Far' but Would you suggest that children read the earlier books before embarking on the final story?

A: I wanted each book to be able to be read on its own but the reader who has read the whole series and who has gone back and re-read it and who knows it inside out, they are the ones who will get the real reward when they read the final book.

They are the ones who will remember the red herring at the top of the map in book ten and go 'aha!'. The books are funny but it's also been an emotional series and as an author, you want the last book to have a really satisfying emotional touch at the end.


Q: How important was it for you that the final book delivered a sense of hope for the future?

A: It's immensely important to be hopeful. The world has always been in a very complicated place and it staggers on from one complicated place to another, but we must realise that there are things we have done to make things better. We have made so many things better but the next generation also needs to realise that they can't be complacent about that. They have to keep fighting to make things better or, if things are in a bad place, to try to improve them.

We have a responsibility to make children realise the importance of having their say, so that they do vote and get involved in the way society operates. We need to remind them that they are part of a 'tribe' or a whole world and they need to get engaged in that. That is a big message that the books are trying to convey; keep trying to make things better. That's the message of the books.


Q: Has the success of the How to Train Your Dragon books come as a surprise, and has it been hard to manage?

A: It's extraordinary how far the series has come, but it's also happened over a long time, which has been a good thing as I have had time to adjust to it. If that had all happened overnight, it would have been very difficult to deal with, but as it's happened over 12 or 15 years, it's been easier to manage.

Obviously when the first film came out that was an adjustment but I love the films and they have taken the story in a different direction. Film can also bring in unexpected readers who might not otherwise have come across the books.

It's not how I thought it would all happen, but it's been wonderful. I particularly like how the film has focused on the unlikely hero, that has been fantastic for children who might, for example, need to use a wheelchair and now can see themselves represented on the big screen.


Q: What do you feel the books offer that it's hard to achieve through film?

A: Through the books, during his quests to find the ten Lost Things, we watch Hiccup grow as a leader; to be a king, you first have to know what it is to be a slave, for example. When he stood up for Fishlegs against the bullies in his tribe, Hiccup was learning how to stand up for people later in the book.

He is becoming a leader and his ability to empathise is an important quality that a leader has. I love film and television but I think that books are a medium that is particularly able to teach about empathy. When you're watching something, it happens on the screen but when you're reading a book, it happens inside your head, so I think reading is really important for helping develop empathy.


Q: You have created the illustrations for the series yourself. How have the illustrations developed as the series has progressed and which are your favourite spreads in the final book?

A: I've been gradually making the illustrations more epic and giving them more detail as the series has progressed. The first few books were lighter in feel but to carry the more epic message, the illustrations needed to become more complicated. Small, scrawled illustrations can still carry emotions as well but I wanted a grandeur and an epic sweep to the illustrations so that they would carry the more serious messages in the books.

There are a lot more spreads in the final book and each one is trying to do something different. I love the scene where Hiccup is flying across Dragon Furious's eye, and also the joyful scene when Hiccup is flying across the moon and he and Toothless have that sense of joy in flying and freedom.

But it's the more emotional pictures that I love, the scary ones like when Hiccup is fighting his father and holding up his hand and the caption is, 'Time cannot be fought'. Also that image in the final book of Fishlegs holding up Alvin's hook and eye patch and the caption is, 'Love just happens'. I love that pictures can sometimes say something that is beyond what the author can explain, that is too complicated for words.


Q: Will you ever go back to write more about Hiccup and this world?

A: This is very much a final book but I could see myself going back into the world in a different way. It's a generous world to write about and I have always felt that it has more stories to tell. It is such an exciting world to explore and there are so many questions to answer about the world, the environment and our relationship with the wild.

Of course there's also the idea of flying through the air on the back of a dragon and the tantalising suggestion that dragons might exist, which has a spiritual value; the idea that there may be more to this world than we can see.

I think it's quite possible I would write more from that world, perhaps some short stories. My son, for example, made up a particular dragon which I was supposed to include in a book and I forgot! So I would never say 'never' and I might decide to write more books set in this world.

For now, I'm still caught up with the last book and there's a tour coming up so I won't be able to dive into the next project until after that but I am excited about the next project because I can do anything! I have to embrace the next thing and to remember that endings aren't just endings; they are beginnings, too.

 

 

HOW TO BETRAY A DRAGON'S HERO (HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON)

HODDER CHILDREN'S BOOKS

SEPTEMBER 2013


The battles are mounting for the young Viking hero Hiccup in the penultimate story in the How to Train Your Dragon series. How to Betray a Dragon's Hero begins with the young Viking warrior Hiccup in hiding and in possession of just one of the seven 'lost things' - his young dragon, Toothless - that he needs to be crowned the new King of the Wilderwest. In his search for the remaining six 'lost things', he will confront formidable foes including the Dragon Furious and Alvin the Treacherous, who are in turn hunting Hiccup.

Through the adventures that began eight books ago with our introduction to Hiccup, the son of a Viking chieftain, we have watched the boy grow as he has grappled reluctantly with his destiny as a leader. The story has grown with him and now has an epic quality where the stakes are huge, the enemies ferocious and the battles grand.

The growing popularity of the series can be measured to some extent by a live streamed event organised by publisher Hodder Children's Books as part of the latest book launch. Some 650 schools registered to watch Cressida Cowell streamed live and when she offered to sign named book plates for the children who took part, demand was so great that she spent 20 hours during the weekend signing 6,000 book plates....

With the filming of a second animated Hiccup film underway (due to be released in 2014), and with a demanding fan base, there is enormous pressure on Cressida Cowell to deliver a fantastic finale and the penultimate book, How to Betray a Dragon's Hero, meets every expectation.

Cowell's vision is that "the books are growing up alongside the child reader". As such, she says, "I'm trying to keep these books very accessible but to also write with panache and verve as well as dealing with questions about morality."

The latest book hits some dark notes, including the death of a significant figure in the series. "The books are about growing up and am exploring real emotions through these characters, with sadness as well as laughter," says Cowell. "I remember reading books about death as a child, things like Charlotte's Web and Bess dying in Little Women, so it's not unchartered territory for children's books. If you're dealing with death, you have to deal with it seriously. You're writing about war and it has terrible consequences, and understanding that is part of growing up"

Humour, though, is never very far away in these stories, either through the wonderfully energetic illustrations, the sharp asides or the arrival of characters like the relentlessly cheery but enormously stupid Hogfly dragon. "Without humour, you're not lifting a mirror to life," says Cowell. "Even in the darkest times, humour is there, it's part of the human condition and while I may be writing a book about dragons, I still want it to be lifelike and I want that mixture of laughing and crying and adventure in my books. I want to move and move my readers, be it to laughter or to tears."

The challenges in writing the last few Hiccup books have grown as the sweep of characters caught up in Hiccup's journey has swelled. "There's now a vast cast of characters and logistically, it has made the last couple of books very hard to write," admits Cowell. "I'm even bringing in new 'dead' characters to explain what happened in the past and how the history of the islands has affected the present."

Cowell has added to these challenges by taking on the books' illustrations herself; these have become a more significant element in each successive title to the point where the latest book is awash with wonderful sketches of dragons, evil characters and moody or dangerous landscapes. In the last couple of books, Cowell has also begun to illustrate the characters a bit more naturally. "It's subtle, but you can see there is more emotion in their faces and they are less caricatured", she says. All this means that she now needs three months to illustrate the book, once the writing is completed, and that's before sitting down with the design team to work out how the text and illustrations will hang together.

While we will have to wait a while for the final book in the series, Cowell has been busy writing a new book about dragons which will sit alongside the Hiccup series. The new title explores all the different Viking dragon species and Cowell describes it as "a fantasy reference book that treats dragons as if they are real". So it explains things like how to find and look after a dragon's egg, dragon riding, tips about dragon's hibernation and so on.

The book will also include more about her favourite dragon, the Seadragon, which lives for one thousand years. Cowell says, "I loved the idea of a dragon that could live for that long and which has such a different life cycle from humans - it starts small, grows to an enormous size, and then shrinks again when it gets old. And I like that the older Seadragon, Wodensfang, has this amazing perspective on history because he has lived it."

The 'dragon book' will be published in June, after which she will begin writing the last Hiccup book. Cowell says she already has "a good idea" where the final book is going to go and has written parts of the ending. "I have a real mixture of feelings because I will be very sad to end it. These books are a bit of a gift to write about with Vikings, dragons, heroism, growing up....

"For me, the material in the Hiccup books is so rich because they include all the things I read and loved as a child from Peter Pan to Treasure Island and Lord of the Rings. All these things echo in my story, plus I get to explore the theme of growing up, being a parent and what makes a good parent.

"So getting to the end of it will be quite emotional and I'll need to think about what I will do next that will be as exciting for me as for the reader...."

 

 

HOW TO STEAL A DRAGON'S SWORD

HODDER CHILDREN'S BOOKS

SEPTEMBER 2011


Cressida Cowell's How to Train Your Dragon books, about a young Viking warrior who has a special affinity with dragons, have been enthralling readers aged eight years plus for years, but it has taken longer for the adults to find out about these books.

The release of the first books as a 3D film earlier this year, How to Train Your Dragon, changed that and Cressida Cowell is becoming a household name. Cowell says her latest novel, How to Steal a Dragon's Sword, is "a little bit different" from the others, because it is heading towards the conclusion about Hiccup (who is growing up) and because the series is now developing more as an epic, as well as a funny, story. She explains, "The hero, Hiccup, has made a journey and the story has had to go to a more serious place otherwise it wouldn't feel like he'd progressed."

Although children may not have read the earlier Hiccup books, Cowell says that should not matter. "I try to get new readers involved with the story even if they've not read the earlier books," she explains. "I've done that with each book but by the time you get to the ninth in the series, it does get harder." Because of this, it has taken her longer to write this book than previous books, 18 months rather than a year.

The series began with a picture book Cowell had written and illustrated called Hiccup the Viking Who Was Seasick. She says, "I'd never written fiction before, I was a picture book writer, but I liked the character and the relationship between him and his father and inspired me."

Cowell was also very familiar with the world in which Hiccup is set and which she has based on a place she used to visit as a child, a tiny Scottish island off the west coast, although she is not divulging its name; even the locals don't know it is the setting for a series of books, she says. "I take my kids up there, it's a very special place, and when you stand on the top, you can see the sea all around. It's also linked with the Vikings as it was one of the earliest places they populated and one of the last places they left. There's an old fortress there that was probably built by the Vikings."

The Viking influence is also felt in the Clan stories that Cowell's father used to retell to her as a child. "There's a local story that my dad told us about a dragon in a cave and I used to imagine that there were dragons on the island living in the caves. There's a Viking belief that dragons can live in all four elements, earth, air, water and fire. For me that represented the possibility that they might exist - we just might not know everything, there may be something out there that we've not discovered.

"I started to think, if it was like this, a time when there were dragons and humans living together, what would their relationship be like? I thought that there may have been a time when humans lived with dragons in a more equal way but the human need to dominate lead to this more unequal way of being together and humans attempting to train dragons."

Cowell has made the main character, Hiccup, an unexpected hero as he is not physically attractive and "not the kind of hero you might expect to see" and says, "My message is that you can still be an excellent sword fighter and king, no matter what you look like."

The author also illustrates the books herself. "I like to think that the illustrations in the Hiccup books are done by somebody of his age. Children respond to them because they look almost like the graffiti you do in your school book, they feel childlike. And then they feel they can send me their own drawings of dragons etc. If the drawings were perfect, they wouldn't do that." She chuckles when she reports that one reviewer said the drawings "look like they've been done by a 'slightly backward ten year old'. "It's partly intentional and partly just the way I draw," says Cowell. "I like that scribbled look, like Quentin Blake. I like the energy of line drawings."

The How to Train Your Dragon series cover Hiccup aged 11 to 13 years and in this novel, it becomes clear that the heart of the story is about growing up. The series begins with Hiccup as a grown man looking back on his childhood. Cowell says, "You get that bitter sweet sense of the story being told from the perspective of a boy growing up and moving into a new world, but also of the old man who sees himself growing up and leaving something behind.

"In this story, Hiccup is growing up and the world he is living in is trying to grow up as well. I wanted there to be a big moment in the story when we see this happening. I didn't feel the books could take a Stoick death (Stoick is the father of Hiccup) because the stories are too humorous and you'd feel cheated as a child, but there has to be a moment where Hiccup has to grow up." How this happens is a pivotal point in the story.

Cowell says she is "in two minds" about bringing the series to an end. "I have been writing these books for nine years but the characters have been around for longer than that; I have been writing stories about dragons since I was a child. So the books are very personal to me and it's bitter sweet to see them coming to an end. I love writing the books, so I don't really want to stop writing at all, but it needs to come to some sort of completion."

Cowell may look at writing about this world in another way. "It would be great to write about some of the other characters, like Camakazi, in more detail so if people want it, there's a way back into this world."

She is delighted, though, to see the series taking shape as a film. "I absolutely loved the film How to Train Your Dragon, it was an extremely positive experience and I really liked the people making it." The same people will be making the sequel, including the same producer, writer, director and designers, which is quite unusual in the film world.

While the film is quite different from the books, Cowell says, "I don't compare it to the books because it's in a completely different medium and because it's so obviously different, it's almost easier for me to see it as separate from the books. There are also things they do in the film that you can't do in a book - in the film they can show you what it looks like to be flying on the back of a dragon.

"I went into the film part with a spirit of adventure, wondering whats going to happen; I wasn't trying to say that it can only be done in one way. But I also felt, from the beginning, that they got the books and wanted to do something funny and epic and moving at the same time.

"They are making a trilogy, following how Hiccup gets older so it's about growing up, like the books, but they won't be following each book. But they will be asking the same kinds of questions as I did: What if dragons really existed, what would they be like and what happened to them? What happened to the dragons, where are they now? Where did they disappear to?

"That was the question I asked myself at the beginning. Often writing books is to answer those kinds of questions."


February 2010

Cressida Cowell talks to ReadingZone about the filming of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON.


The first book in Cressida Cowell's brilliant Hiccup series, How to Train Your Dragon, has hit the big screen - and it is fabulous; Dragons, Viking warriors and a school for dragon training.

Q: Were you happy to have your book turned into a movie?

A: The film will always be different from the book and I feel open about that. I saw the movie How to Train Your Dragon at several different stages and I was one of many people giving the producer feedback.

Making a film is an enormously collaborative process and things will change. A book, however, is just a combination of what the writer writes and the reader's imagination. That's why the film is often very different from what people expect - but I am open to that.

Q: In the film the dragon Toothless is big and fierce, while in the book he is small and mouthy. What did you make of that?

A: The character evolved as they made the film. At the beginning, the film Toothless was the character we later see as the Terrible Terror.

The Terrible Terror is very small and, when you saw it with Hiccup, the film looked quite young.

Another big change is that in the books, the dragons and Hiccup speak Dragonese. That just wouldn't have worked on screen, you couldn't translate it, so they left it out.

Q: Do you think they got Toothless right in the end?

A: I think the film Toothless is very endearing and cute - but also very cool. If I was still a kid, I'd want him as my dragon! In the book, Toothless is 'uncool' - but he may end up being cooler than we expect....

Q: What do you like best about the film?

A: I think it's visually stunning and I love the dragon scenes. In the film, Hiccup gets to ride dragons quite early on. In the books, he doesn't ride a dragon until the seventh story. In books, a dragon-flying session doesn't really work because you just get lots of descriptions and I wanted lots of action.

Of course in the film, the dragon-flying scenes are spectacular. They have also made the island where Hiccup lives stunning.

Q: What's your favourite scene in the film?

A: There are several but the scene where Stoic, Hiccup's father, says, 'I don't want to call you my son', is very strong and powerful and I love those moments.

The studio was interested in the book not just because it had dragons in it but because of the relationship between Hiccup and his father. Hiccup feels his father is hard to live up to and the father finds it hard to understand his son.

I also love the scene in the film when the dad and the son are trying to have a conversation but simply can't do it.

Q: Do you feel a bit like a film star now?

A: I did a big 'junket' in Los Angeles where I was interviewed by about 100 journalists in a day! The studio took over a hotel and the journalists were lined up in a very long corridor and they each got six minutes with me. It was very surreal.

Q: Will they make other Hiccup books into films?

A: They have bought the film rights for all the books but we will have to wait to see how the first film does. This film took six years to make and needed huge budgets.

Q: Will you use anything they have done in the film in your books?

A: I see the books as my world, so no, the things in the movie wouldn't fit.

Q: How many more Hiccup books do you plan to write?

A: I have written an ending for the series. The initial idea for the books was, 'What if dragons existed?', and so the obvious question for these books is, what happens to the dragons?

Hiccup is also getting older - when I started off he was ten or 11 years and now he is 12, and he is also becoming a hero - so what happens then?

It would be nice to keep writing them forever but I have already written eight books and I think things come to a natural end. I can say that there will be at least two more Hiccup books to come, though..

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