THE WORLDS OF DIANA WYNNE JONES:
AN INTERVIEW

HarperCollins: You have stated: “Things we are accustomed to regard as myth or fairy story are very much present in people’s lives.” How much of your stories do you create from the real world as we know it and how much comes from . . . elsewhere?

Diana Wynne Jones: I get a lot of things from the real world — people, particularly. If you annoy me, watch out! I shall put you in a book as a baddie and then make people laugh at you. But as soon as the story gets moving, it takes over. It does its own thing. I don’t feel as if I’m imagining it, or making it up, at all. It just sort of happens — in other worlds.

HC: While you write, do you become absorbed in these other worlds? How did you find these worlds originally?

DWJ: I wish I knew how I found the different worlds of Chrestomanci. They just jumped into my head. Caprona, for instance, appeared in my head just as it is in the book — complete with its magicians and its Duke — while I was listening to a piece of music. It may be real somewhere. A man wrote to me a couple of years ago and said he was the Count of Caprona. The world of the Goddess came into my head a long time before I wrote the book, so complete and so full of its own smells and sounds and feelings that I was positive it had to exist somewhere. Perhaps I did really look through into another set of dimensions for a short while. When I write about any of these places, it is like I am living there. Then I look up and it’s raining outside and I wonder where I am.

HC: The Chrestomanci novels are set in different places and at different times, introducing new characters and situations with each story. Yet they all exist in this parallel world. How would you recognise which world you are in?

DWJ: What you would notice first if you went to the world of Chrestomanci is that everything is about a hundred years behind ours in terms of look. There is electric light, but there are very few cars. People dress in an old-fashioned way — including Chrestomanci himself. In this world people are used to doing by magic what we do by science. Of course, you would notice the magic — it would sizzle on your skin. Witch Week takes place in a different world from the other three, but all worlds are parallel to this one of ours. Now, if you find yourself in the world of Witch Week, be careful. If you appear suddenly, they might arrest you as a witch. And they burn witches there.

HC: On that note, what advice — survival tips — would you give to someone who wound up in one of these worlds?

DWJ: If you suddenly find yourself in any of these other worlds, watch out for magic. All of them have much more magic than we do. If you want to pass for a native, don’t look surprised if witches on broomsticks sail across the moon, or a cat speaks to you. And never make an enchanter angry. He can turn you into a frog.

HC: Finding oneself the guest at Chrestomanci Castle must be a daunting experience. What is the best way to behave? How would you describe the great enchanter himself?

DWJ: Manners are much more stately in Chrestomanci Castle, so you have to be polite. Otherwise you can behave perfectly naturally. Chrestomanci knows that everyone is only human. He is only human himself, but you may not believe this when you see him in one of his dressing gowns. He looks as regal as any king, but he has this sarcastic way of speaking — which takes getting used to.

HC: What spell would you need if you were lost in one of the worlds of Chrestomanci?

DWJ: That would depend upon which world you were lost in. If you were in the world of Witch Week, the very first spell you’d need was one that made everyone sure you were no kind of a witch. If you were lost in Chrestomanci’s own world, I would advise an enhancement spell, so that you could do more magic yourself — because everyone has a bit of magic in them and an enhancement spell will make it just a bit bigger. Then you could do a clothes spell, like Nan Pilgrim did, and give yourself the correct clothes. This would stop people staring at you or calling the police.

HC: You say that magic is as common as mathematics in the world of Chrestomanci. Yet it sometimes goes wrong — in Witch Week it is actually forbidden but still seems to appear everywhere. What is the best way to control this magic?

DWJ: The best way to control magic on any world is to learn how to do it properly. Then you won’t make an accidental gesture and find your feet on backwards. As soon as you get to a magic world, find a wizard to teach you.

HC: Why do only some people possess the power of magic and not others? Is it a power that can be taught?

DWJ: There are several kinds of magic. Most is inborn, and this can be of various strengths. Just as, in our world, certain people have a strong talent for music or painting, while others can’t sing or draw to save their lives, so in magical worlds you get people who can or can’t do a lot of magic. But there is magic you can learn, too. This is mostly the kind that needs patterns chalked on the floor, candles, and spells. That is usually called magicians’ magic.

HC: You are said to be a connoisseur of witchcraft yourself — when did this interest occur?

DWJ: I have always found I sort of knew about witchcraft. It seemed innate. I understand how spells work and the ways that different kinds of magic are performed. It always seemed perfectly natural to write about these things.

HC: You’ve said that you had very few books as a child, and so instead you had to develop a vivid imagination. One assumes that this helped prepare you to be a writer.

DWJ: My sisters and I suffered from book-starvation. After we had read everything in the local library and begged and borrowed others wherever we could, I started writing books myself in dozens of school exercise books, and reading each bit as I finished it aloud to my sisters. This was a great help, because they kept nagging me for more, more, more. I was forced to imagine all sorts of things. But the exercise books themselves were very odd. I don’t to this day know where I got them or why they were all music manuscript books. This meant that you had a clump of little lines, and had to write close and small, and then you had a huge space, where your writing sprawled. These days I always write on paper with no lines at all. That is much less distracting.

HC: You’ve also mentioned that you were dyslexic. How did this affect your development as a writer?

DWJ: As a child, I was quite a fast reader, but a very, very slow writer. I kept mixing up b and d. I still do, but it doesn’t bother me. Then it did, not because I was slow — for some reason I knew I only had to practice to get quicker — but because my parents screamed with laughter when I told them I was going to be a writer. They said I would never make it. I suppose that made me defiant.

HC: We’re very glad you made it.

DWJ: Thank you! I am, too.