when SAPPHIC LOVE & SELF-ACCEPTANCE MEET FANTASY FICTION
A conversation wtih MOLLY O’Dowd
Molly O’Dowd’s fantasy novel, The In-Between, bridges the gap between the fantastical and mortal realms with lucid creativity and depth.
Its layered worlds form a magical backdrop for a young adult story of emotional formation, where hardship, self worth, and sapphic love unfold across both real and imagined spaces. A novel for anyone who’s felt unworthy of love, Molly has crafted a narrative which demonstrates the power of letting go, trusting love, and receiving the love that you choose and deserve.
G: How did you come up with this magical world? Did you draw inspiration? Is there something it was based on?
M: I started writing it from about the three-quarter mark. I wanted a specific chapter first and then I built the world and the story around it. I liked the idea of a character not quite in the world, not quite out of it, and how that would work.
I wanted to write a sapphic love story that wasn’t just one person in the closet and one person not. That genre is very much needed and relatable for a lot of people. I just wanted to do something different.
I always pictured this book being an anime. Aletheia’s character draws on certain qualities of a series called Darling in the Franxx, and there’s a character called Zero Two who always calls the person she loves “darling,” and she’s quite whimsical.
G: Which was that formational chapter that helped you start the book?
M: It was drawn from a personal experience of rejection but I wanted it to go differently for the character. Obviously in my experience, the immortal, other-worldly Aletheia character never arrived.
G: So you built this fantasy from your real experiences. How did you balance the two? How do you decide to which degree it’s fantastical and real?
M: With it being my first published book, it was easier to start it on Earth where people could relate and touch on topics that maybe aren’t as talked about and then add a little escapism. The alternate universes are Tenaya’s escape and a way to show the character of Aletheia and what elements are important to her. The balance came from the flow of the story.
G: Aletheia is a very special and complex character. How did you develop her character?
M: I wanted her to be this ethereal, well spoken, almost stupidly well spoken, but also whimsically silly at the same time. She needed to have a child-like joy in her. She knows English and mortal languages, but she doesn’t know how to use them properly. She chooses the word that she thinks will work best, which is usually a fancy word because she’s trying her hardest to get it right. I learned a lot of words writing this book.
G: Is Aletheia good or evil?
M: I think she’s just chaotic. She’s not this crusader trying to do good, but she’s also not this maniacal vain trying to do evil. She’s morally gray.
Writing book two and trying to make it work for book three has been interesting and you will see another side of her in those ones.
G: Queer relationships and sapphic love are pivotal for the plot of the novel. How did you treat the exploration of LGBTQ relationships? Was there an intended message or feeling to your reader that they could potentially find in this book?
M: The part that I think relates most is that secrecy can sometimes be more damaging than being honest with the people around you. There are situations where that’s not the case and it can be a very scary time for a lot of people in the LGBTQ community. I wanted to show a version of events where rejection wasn’t part of Tenaya’s story, even though she feared it was.
G: One of your subjects you portray is domestic violence and what that looks like in the home. Was it difficult to write?
M: The domestic abuse aspect was difficult to write because I felt as though she would simply remove herself from the situation. But when I put myself in the actual character shoes, she feels like she can’t, and that must be such a terrifying situation to be in, where you’re not in control of your own home life and the situation you live in.
The one which was a bit more difficult personally to write was the workplace misconduct. I think it does happen more than we’d like to admit, where women are made to feel very uncomfortable in the workplace. Sometimes it escalates, and sometimes it’s just a continuous state of shit. But it is a continuous state of uncomfortability and being made to feel less than.
I don’t want to censor my writing but I hope people read the trigger warnings so they can be prepared and choose whether they want to enter into that space.
G: Drugs and alcohol become increasingly prevalent to the plot and the lives of these young adults. What did this narrative open up for you?
M: Tenaya has never let her inhibitions down and I wondered what her character would do in that situation. She’s concerned about Rylan because of his family history and scared about her relationship with Aletheia in that setting. It was a way to expose the tensions that were kept in by the characters.
G: Your dedication is ‘to anyone who’s ever felt unworthy of love’. Was this your ‘why’ for writing?
M: I think it even started with that first scene that I wrote. It came at a point in my life where I really wanted something to work and I ended up feeling as though I was unworthy of the love that I wanted. I wanted a version of events that showed that you are worthy of the love that you choose or want.
A quote that I really liked from The Perks of being a Wallflower is: ‘we accept the love we think we deserve’. And I wanted a story to show that you are worthy of the loves that you want and the love that you chose. You are just worthy of love. Everyone is worthy of love.
G: Did you find it healing writing this parallel to something that you felt?
M: I think there were a lot of healing moments in it. At any point in the book where there is turbulence and then there is resolution, it helps heal something. Any of the turning points helps reinforce the idea for Tenaya that she is worthy of love, because all these different people are showing her that she is.
G: Aletheia has this unconditional love for her darling and the pride she feels when her friends gather around Tenaya guides the reader. We’re watching somebody love somebody in completely the right way.
M: I really liked that I could show Altheia’s perspective, even when they were not speaking. The one thing that I really wanted to include in this book was a creative use of format and text. I saw it in The Shock of the Fall where instead of just being paragraphs, there were words split up across the page. My little brain, at about 12 was blown. I thought, ‘you can do that’.
So, the distances between their perspectives shift based on their relationship.
G: Do you have any final thoughts to share?
M: I haven’t given up on writing the sequel. It’s coming! I’m really, really honoured to have anyone read my book, let alone the number of readers that has already reached! Going to conventions and having people actually want to get my book from there and seeing people have bought it in shops, that’s a dream come true.
Every writer wants to evoke emotion in their reader, not necessarily a specific emotion, just feelings. I hope that comes across in my writing, and I hope they enjoy the story, and are ready for many more perspectives in the next books
G: Thank you so much for your time today.
If you’re interested in Molly’s work, you can buy her work The In-Between here via Arkbound.
Arkbound is a charity publisher, which means 100% of profits (excluding author royalties, of course) go back to the charity to support underrepresented writers. While we aim to make our books widely accessible, we encourage readers to purchase from one of the wonderful local bookshops that stock our books on their shelves or directly from the Arkbound website, to ensure the majority of profits go back to the authors and the charity.
