We discussed making it into three or four but I’ve never liked arbitrary breaks in books. Each of my books, while it might read better with prior knowledge, can be read alone. I do beginning, middle and end, I don’t finish a book in the middle of the story.
The Ascendants were born out of an idea I had way back in my college years. But I only really developed structure, character and plot during the writing of Demonstorm. I needed to do that in order to put together a pitch document for my editor and agent. Because it was a big departure from The Raven, Gollancz needed to be sure they were doing the right thing in offering a contract.
It was a massive task to get the first book out in just over a year (not something I could have done had I still been at work in the City) and the sequel hasn’t been any easier. I wanted to prove (to myself as well as to anyone else who cared) that I could write beyond The Raven and deliver an epic fantasy on a large scale. I think I’ve achieved that.
The book is 800 pages long because that’s how many pages it took to tell the story. Every book has a natural length, I think. And this is a big one. The sequel is slightly shorter and the next book I write will be half the size or less. I don’t believe in puffing out stories and neither do I believe in editing the life out of a story just to achieve an arbitrary word count. If your story needs to be inflated or hacked so much to fit a target, it’s probably the wrong target or the wrong story. Does that make sense?
That concludes part one of my interview with British author James Barclay. Check back here tomorrow to read the conclusion as we go into more detail about both The Ascendants Of Esotrea: Cry Of The Newborn and the adventures of The Raven.
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