This didn’t feel especially exigent – again, since we were expecting nothing but rejection slips. However, when we realized the entire manuscript was heading to London and that a honest-to-goodness editor was going to peruse it, we had to get serious about cleaning it up. The rewriting fell to me, but Jay was involved all along. Unable to type his ideas, he would read sections, mark places that needed to be addressed and then share his ideas during our sessions.
I think we managed to avoid most disagreements, because we rarely wrote about the same characters at the same time. When we did, one of us was usually more invested in that group of players; so, the other generally (not always, by any means) gave in. Our writing styles and work habits were different, and we learned early in the process that working simultaneously on the same paragraph or – God forbid – the same sentence was the kiss of death.
Q: You have your characters deal with some very serious personal issues. Stephen has never been motivated or resolute enough to do things, and now is forced to, and Garec is forced to come to terms with his skill as a killer. It's obvious you wanted this to be more than just an action/adventure series. Any specific reasons for the internal conflicts, aside from motivating the characters?
Writing a traditional fantasy story, Jay and I needed to come up with a few things – hopefully subtle things – that would make the Eldarn books a fresh experience for fantasy readers. Our characters and their personal struggles were favourite drawing boards, ones we revisited often, especially when the draft copy felt like something we had both read dozens of times. With the project nearly complete, the richness of the characters and their development is one of the critical things on which Jay and I hung our hats. There is passion, mysticism, magic, conflict, and plenty of action; however, I believe the Eldarn books live or die based on the reader’s connection with our characters.
When we started, neither Jay nor I had written much fiction. We established some rules that seemed to work, and we stuck by them, no matter what. I was surprised at how frequently one character’s evolution dictated what needed to happen in the plot. (I had read about those things happening but never experienced it firsthand.) Versen’s death (without spoiling too much) is a key moment, because without his murder, Brexan’s character would have continued to exist in his shadow. Brexan is a significant character in Lessek’s Key and The Larion Senators. Yet, she would not have emerged as a varsity player in these books had Versen lived. The same holds true for Garec, Hannah, Mark and Hoyt. They are all characters who evolve slowly but – hopefully – into memorable participants in an albeit, traditional, story.
Article comments
1 - pam holby
I was wondering if you could give me the e mail of Robert Scott the author of Like Father Like Son This is in regards to the crystal stedman murder. Thank you very much
2 - Margaret
Good review. Good interview. Thank you. I am waiting in impatient anticipation of Lessek's Key and the Larion Senators. The Hickory Staff I read over a week-end; could not put it down.
Thanks for your review.