Watch: Epic YA Panel featuring Cassandra Clare at BookCon

Cassandra Clare was a busy woman at BookCon last weekend. Especially Saturday, where she had two panels, including an Epic YA Panel.

The panel featured Cassie, as well as Tomi Adeyemi (Children of Blood and Bone), Jason Reynolds (Long Way Down) and Julie Murphy (Dumplin).

Here are the highlights of Cassie’s portion of the panel, starting with her describing what makes a story “epic.”

Cassie went on to talk about how important it is to create characters that readers care about and can truly invest in.

Then, Cassie discussed “The Bible,” which is the thing that holds anything and everything relating to the Shadowhunters world.

As we know, each Shadowhunters series has taken on a new location, and Cassie talked about keeping it fresh in her world.

It’s important to make sure that the characters you create aren’t perfect — they need to be human, someone your readers can relate to. Cassie breaks that down using Julian Blackthorn as the perfect example.

After the moderated portion of the panel, fans got a chance to ask these authors some questions, including any regrets they’ve had in writing.

As for anyone that aspires to be a published author, Cassie has some advice.

It was an amazing panel with four incredible YA authors!