The author talks to StarWars.com about her new Young Adult novel, continuing the Star Wars: The High Republic saga.
The Republic and Jedi are scrambling after the Nihil’s brutal attack on the Republic Fair. With the Nihil asserting their dominance over the Frontier and proving they’re more than just a band of reckless marauders, sands are shifting in the galaxy. The new Young Adult novel Star Wars: The High Republic: Out of the Shadows, available now, picks up after the tragic events of the Republic Fair. To celebrate its release, StarWars.com called author Justina Ireland to discuss why she wanted a “regular civilian” character, why some Jedi may feel conflicted about taking on the Nihil, and how Out of the Shadows will impact The High Republic going forward.
StarWars.com: Let’s set the stage for readers looking to jump into Out of the Shadows. This book is part of phase 1, wave 2 of The High Republic publishing initiative. It’s been about a year since the Great Hyperspace Disaster, which we saw in Charles Soule’s Light of the Jedi, and a few months since the Republic Fair, which we saw in Cavan Scott’s The Rising Storm and Daniel Jose Older’s Race to Crashpoint Tower. Can you tell readers about writing this installment? What were your priorities in terms of the storyline, picking up where Cav and DJO left off?
Justina Ireland: We get to the end of The Rising Storm and Race to Crashpoint Tower, and then there’s still a lot of questions about what comes next because the Republic is at a point where they know the Nihil are bad news and are willing to go to great lengths to make sure everyone knows they’re important. So I definitely think that was one of the storytelling priorities I had going into this. What would be the logical next step in the storytelling? What are the questions I have or I would have as a reader? What is the Republic doing? What’re the Jedi doing? How are individual people being affected by these changes in the galaxy? And so that was really where I wanted to dig in.
When we look at Light of the Jedi and The Rising Storm, there’s so much happening and we don’t necessarily get a lot of time to spend with characters. For me, I’ve always really liked those character moments. Even in the original trilogy and those moments when the characters have 30 seconds to exchange that look. The nuance to me always builds a character more than big bombastic things. And so when it came to Out of the Shadows, YA [format] is really well suited for digging into characters in a way that I’ve always loved as a writer. I started my career in YA and still write YA books.
So I really wanted to say, who are the people we want to have [in Out of the Shadows]? We had to have Vernestra. What’s she doing? She’s come a long way; it’s been a really busy year for her. [Laughs] A lot has happened. And she has a Padawan who’s only a few years younger than her, which is always interesting when you’re trying to have someone be in charge of another who’s almost the same age.
But then I was also like, “What about Nan?” We haven’t done a lot of that low-level worker bee of the Nihil perspective. Why would you go and join the Nihil at this point? You know they’re bad. It’s not like, “Oh no, I thought we were just here for fun!” [Laughs] And so, I wanted to check in with that.
But also, I really wanted just a regular civilian. That’s one of my favorite things about Star Wars. In a lot of fantastical storytelling, everyone’s somebody really important. But Star Wars starts off with Luke the farm boy. And I know that’s part of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, but even with stuff that follows the Hero’s Journey, our heroes are always people that are above reproach, and they have no flaws. But I really love characters who are like, “I’m just trying to make the best decisions with the information I have.” And so that’s why I really wanted that point of view and brought in Sylvestri.
And then, of course, we couldn’t just leave Reath out. Reath was in the first YA book [Into the Dark], and readers are going be asking, “What happened to Reath? What happened to Cohmac? What’re they doing?” And that’s how we end up with that main crew of the storytelling. And then asking, “What came next? What was the response after Valo?”
That’s where the storytelling came from by having this all on a plate and asking, “What can I make with this? Is it a salad? Is it a pasta? Is it a lasagna?” I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out. And that’s how Out of the Shadows came along.
StarWars.com: So you talked a lot about the characters that are in this story. How do you and the other authors decide what characters are going to be featured where? Is everyone up for grabs, or is there a plan? How does that work?
Justina Ireland: I think we all have our pet favorites. We have the shared characters that everyone’s going to use at some point like Stellan, Elzar, and Avar. But then we all have our own personal favorites. And for me, Vernestra, of course, is my Jedi. Everybody knows that if I’m going to write a book, Vernestra’s going to be there. Same thing with Cav, he’s been writing Avar, but he also has Keeve and Sskeer. They’re his characters. That doesn’t mean they won’t pop up in other media, it’s more like, “Hey Cav, what’re those two characters doing at this point in time and can I bring them over to this, or are they busy?” And he’s like, “Well, they’re fighting the Drengir.” [Laughs] “Okay, not them. Who else you got?” And that’s how it comes about.
You see Vernestra pops up in Race to Crashpoint Tower because DJ’s the same way, where he’s like, “I think we want Vern in this book. What’s she doing right now?” And I’m like, “What do you want her to be doing? ‘Cause I don’t have anything for her until later.” It’s a lot of those conversations. And I think that’s why everything feels like it works together, because we talk back and forth all the time. To the point where sometimes when we get notes back and we’re like, “Hey, I got notes back that you did this, this, and this. Is that right?” And we’ll be like, “Well, no, that was an earlier draft. We’ve changed that by now.” And so, we’ll go back and say, “[The authors] got this worked out and this is what we’re doing.” And usually [Lucasfilm Publishing creative director] Mike [Siglain] or Story Group or [editor] Jen [Heddle] will be like, “Okay cool, got it.” And that makes the storytelling coherent and, hopefully, free of plot holes.
It’s really a lot of sharing and having conversation about that. This isn’t like the original trilogy where you really only have three or four or five main characters. We have so many cool characters, and that’s really one of the nice things about this initiative, [which] is that we’ve been able to build out the galaxy in a way that feels big. Even though we’re still following, for the most part, a handful of characters, we’ve been able to bring other characters in and out, and weave them through the storytelling, so it does feel like a big storytelling initiative. Which is what I love. I like things that, even if we’re only following one character through a story, I want the world to feel like a real world, not like a small town. [Laughs]
StarWars.com: [Laughs] Absolutely.
Justina Ireland: It’s not just a backdrop. Like in the 1930s where you’d see something that’s obviously not a town. That’s a movie set. I want an actual town, not a movie set.
StarWars.com: Totally. So, speaking of characters, Out of the Shadows has such a great cast. There are all-new characters like Sylvestri Yarrow. There are people we’ve seen before in the High Republic like Vernestra Rwoh and Imri Cantaros. And then there are scions of families known to the galaxy like the Grafs, the San Tekkas, and the Starros. I want to talk about all of them but let’s start with Sylvestri because she’s the newest addition to the High Republic. Can you tell readers what you were looking for in Sylvestri, or what inspired you for the character?
Justina Ireland: I always love the regular people in Star Wars. Like, at the end of The Last Jedi when that kid is just sweeping up the stables and he’s using the Force. I’m like, “I want to know about that kid!” He’s got this cool crew, he works at the stables, he’s got these cool little riding critters. Like, what’s their deal? I don’t care about the kings and the queens and the people in power. I want to know about the regular person who just owns, like, a noodle cart. Who’s the person that owns a noodle cart on Coruscant? What’s that like? Like, “Yeah it was great, but then they built another level and now my noodle cart’s in the basement.” I want to know about those average personal struggles because I feel like that makes the galaxy feel realer.
Sometimes we forget that the Jedi are space wizards. That’s pretty badass, but there are a lot of people in the galaxy who are just farmers, or haulers, or work behind the bar at a tavern or cantina. I really wanted to bring in more regular people as main characters. The first wave of books is so Jedi-heavy. It kind of feels like everyone in the galaxy is a Jedi. Or you walk outside to grab your newspaper and there’s a Jedi next door. But the reality is that, even at this time where there are a lot of Jedi, the galaxy is a really big place and they’re really spread out and they can’t be everywhere at once. And so, I really wanted to show what that average perspective of the Jedi is like. How do most people feel? It’s not usual [in the galaxy] that you see certain kinds of people. I wanted to make that clear through Sylvestri’s point of view that the Jedi, even though we’re following them, for most people in the galaxy, they’re still considered like a strange type of people who do these amazing things. Most people have probably never met a Jedi, or they’ve run into one only once in a blue moon. For Sylvestri, I really wanted to have just an average teenager who’s like, “bad stuff keeps happening.” Sometimes you just have a bad year. We’re all coming out of a pandemic, we’ve all come out of a bad year. And it’s like, what does it mean when things just keep getting worse and you’re in this downward spiral? That’s where I came to with Sylvestri.
My initial concept for Sylvestri was Han Solo with worse luck. [Laughs] The Han Solo who can never get a break. There’s something really intriguing and endearing about someone who’s trying to pursue that entrepreneurial spirit but they keep getting road blocks thrown up left and right. Or I guess hyperspace blocks. [Laughs] And so that was where I started with Sylvestri. Regular person. Doesn’t know any Jedi. Doesn’t really care about what’s happening at the high political levels. Just wants to live day to day but bad things keep happening.