NIGHT CIRCUS,THE (PAPERBACK)

u003cpu003eu003cbu003eu003ciu003eNEW YORK TIMESu003c/iu003e BESTSELLER u003c/bu003eu003cbru003eThe circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called u003ciu003eLe Cirque des Rêvesu003c/iu003e, and it is only open at night. u003cbru003eu003cbru003eBut behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eu003cbu003eAuthor Q&A with Erin Morgenstern u003cbru003eu003c/bu003eu003cbru003eu003cbu003eThis is a lovely and unique story. Why a circus? How did this story first come to you—through a character, a plotline, an emotion?u003cbru003eu003c/bu003eu003cbru003eThe story came as a location created out of desperation. I was working on a different story altogether, one that was becoming progressively more and more boring because nothing was happening. I needed something exciting to happen and I couldn't figure out how to do it with the locations I had so I sent the characters to the circus. That circus was immediately much more interesting and eventually I abandoned that other story and its characters entirely and focused on the circus instead. What eventually became u003ciu003eThe Night Circusu003c/iu003e started from exploring that spontaneously-created location, figuring out who created it and who performed in it and what its story was.u003cbru003e u003cbru003eu003cbu003eWhat was your inspiration for some of the amazing acts in this circus?u003cbru003eu003c/bu003eu003cbru003eSome of them were traditional circus acts or attractions made a bit more unique, like the acrobats performing directly overhead or the carousel that doesn't simply go in circles. The Cloud Maze is a play on a climbing maze I hazily recall from childhood visits to the Boston Children's Museum. Other tents were created based on color, or lack thereof. I had a lot of dark tents and wanted something lighter and white, the Ice Garden developed from that relatively simple starting point. u003cbru003e u003cbru003eu003cbu003eDo you have a favorite character?u003cbru003eu003c/bu003eu003cbru003eIt's impossible to pick a true favorite, though Poppet & Widget are very dear to my heart as they're the first of the characters to turn up in my imagination. They're also just plain fun, both individually and as a pair. u003cbru003e u003cbru003eu003cbu003eWhat was the most challenging aspect of developing this story?u003cbru003eu003c/bu003eu003cbru003eIt didn't have a plot for a very long time. Really, my biggest challenge was finding the actual story within all the atmosphere. I had the place and the characters and the feel of the book long before it had a proper story structure to tie everything together. The novel went through a great many revisions before it figured out what it wanted to be, I tried things that didn't work and then things that sort of worked and replaced old ideas with new ones until I got it right.u003cbru003e u003cbru003eu003cbu003eIs there an emotion that you had to spend a lot of time with that made you uncomfortable?u003cbru003eu003c/bu003eu003cbru003eI'm an emotional sort of person in general and I have a vivid imagination, so I feel the whole spectrum of emotion strongly when I write. It's something I'm used to, though, so nothing in particular made me uncomfortable. There is a lot of frustration felt by various characters, which is not the nicest emotion to be spending a lot of time with, but it helps to drive characters to actions which bring different emotions along.u003cbru003e u003cbru003eu003cbu003eTell me about your writing life. Do you have any rituals?u003cbru003eu003c/bu003eu003cbru003eI binge write. I think it's because I started seriously writing by participating in National Novel Writing Month, an online-based challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I don't have as tight a time limit anymore but