Conjuring fantasy with imagination

Conjuring fantasy with imagination

French actor-author-screenplay writer Olivier Lafont, who has been living in India for years, has launched his new fantasy adventure series for young adults, The Kumaon Secret Society, four years after his debut novel Warrior was released. The first book of the series, The Rise of the Midnight King, which is an edgy, action-packed tale, has been published by Speaking Tiger. 

A native French and English speaker, Lafont taught himself to read, write and speak fluent Hindi. Known for playing the role of Suhas in the blockbuster film 3 Idiots, he says that he has been into fantasy in various media. 

Excerpts from an interview:
- What was the inspiration behind the The Kumaon Secret Society?
I was invited to speak at the Kumaon Literary Festival when Warrior was published, and became reacquainted with the landscape and culture of Kumaon. I hadn’t been there since my childhood, and it brought back a flavour of that old-time innocence and adventure. I had also been toying with the idea of writing a children’s book for some time, about a larger gang of friends, and the right confluence of ideas came together around that time.

- Your debut novel Warrior was also a fantasy fiction. How would your describe your connection with the genre?
As far back as I can remember I’ve been into fantasy in various media, from age 5 or 6. So the connection has been there a long time. I think I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of the hero and having extraordinary powers. But going a little deeper it’s probably a universal question I was exploring as a child, ‘How to become the hero in your own life when so much of it is controlled by others’? Reading fantasy was certainly an outlet for a boy with a brimming imagination. Writing it was then a natural extension, it just happened and continued forever.

- You took four years after Warriors to launch this book...
Quite simply, I was busy, there’s been a lot of scriptwriting and acting going on in this time. I also repatriated to Paris that time, after 30 years in India. It was leaving one home for another, and that was a very eventful process. I ended up writing part of the book while in Mumbai, and finishing it later in Paris, with the hills of Kumaon in my mind’s eye.

- Who were your favourite fantasy fiction/thriller writers while growing up and how have they inspired you as a writer?
My earliest inspiring writers were Lloyd Alexander (The Chronicles of Prydain), Brian Jacques (Redwall) and Terry Brooks (The Shannara books). Alexander’s Prydain made the biggest impression on me while growing up: his writing was so light and evocative in the first novel, but over the course of five books, the young hero grows from a carefree, innocent farmboy into a wise king, and the writing became more serious and thoughtful by the end —you grow up as a reader with the hero. 

As a teenager, I was enthralled by Michael Moorcock’s oeuvre (Elric of Melniboné, Dorian Hawkmoon, etc). The complexity of his ideas and themes were sublimated by the clarity of his writing; and I’m still compelled by his use of colour.

- Writing a fantasy book means combining different elements. What were the challenges you faced?
I don’t know if I would qualify it as a challenge, but the main task in creating a fantasy story set in the real world is how to calibrate that intersection. What are the fantasy elements and characters? What is their scale and place in the world? What is the nature of the magic? All this is exciting to figure out. 

There’s also a balance to be achieved between creating something new and fresh while working in a range of familiar and known tropes. A lot of that depends on the personality of your thought. If you’re an authentic writer, your oeuvre will always carry the personality of your thought, and that will make the individuality of your writing.

- Can you also throw light on the process of writing a fantasy adventure/thriller?
I can only speak of my own process, which I would qualify broadly as organic. Writing is not an academic endeavour for me. The first step is ideation: as I go along in my life, ideas come to me, of plots, scenes, characters, dialogues, etc. I make sure to write them down as soon as possible so that they retain the fresh quality of how I originally thought them. 

Over time, some ideas remain in my mind and begin to come together, these tend to be the ones I will explore in some detail. Eventually some ideas begin to gain ‘weight’ and feel urgent, which is when I realise it’s probably time to get writing. 

Then is the pre-writing prep, which is a variable process based on how much I feel the need to develop and structure the story before writing. Since I like to discover what happens next as I write, almost like a reader myself, I don’t usually plot and plan the story too specifically. 

Then I get into writing. By this point, I’m usually quite impatient to get started. Then it’s just a matter of scheduling, and keeping writing as continually as possible.

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