January 2009 will always be notable for me as the moment when my aspirations of being a published author were finally realized. True , it wasn't going to be quite how I imagined it, but my name would be appearing on the cover of a book on bookstores across North America. I had been approached by Ulysses Press and asked if I would be interested in writing What Will Happen In Eragon IV?, a book predicting what would happen in the fourth and final instalment of Christopher Paolini's Inheritance cycle (Eragon, Eldest, and Brisingr)
They had had remarkable success with a similar book about J.K Rowling's Harry Potter series, and although Paolini has yet to duplicate her popularity, he's been pretty close. Brisingr, book three in the series, sold a half million copies the day it was released in North America, a new record for its publisher, Random House, for a young adult title. Another reason why Ulysses figured there would be interest in our book, was the fact Paolini had originally intended to only write a trilogy, but halfway through the writing of book three a press release was issued, announcing that he wasn't going to be able to finish the story properly without creating a fourth book.
The cynical among you might think that this was merely a ploy to try and milk a golden goose by either the publisher or the author, but if you've read the books as closely as I have (and, believe me, I've read them closely in the past few months), you'll know he really didn't have much choice in the matter. The story had become so large that for him to wrap up all the loose ends he had developed over its course the third book would have needed to be close to 1500 pages in length to cover everything. Even before the third book was published speculation about how the series would conclude has been rife in forums, blogs, and social networking sites, so there's definitely a market for a book on the subject.
My initial contact with Ulysses Press may have been in January, but I wasn't given the go ahead to start writing until the end of February. Initially I had been told that my deadline for submitting a first draft — they asked for a minimum of 50,000 words — was May 1st, 2009, but by the time I signed the contracts that had been shifted back to April 1st. I ended up handing in 55,000 or so words by the end of March. That very rough draft was sent off to some readers whose comments were passed back to me, and I was given an opportunity to make any changes I wanted to the text before it was sent off to the editors. So, roughly two weeks later, I handed in a second draft — this time closer to 57,000 words — and sat back to wait.
Article comments
1 - Jordan Richardson
Congratulations on the whole experience, Richard, and thanks for some fascinating insight into the whole process. Sounds like a charming headache!
2 - Jennifer Bogart
Thanks for sharing the whole process with us Richard!
3 - Susan Deville
Oh come on....... this is Raffi for twenty year olds. I say this with all due respect to the Author. I'm sure he worked hard on this but there's a hollowness to the story, where's the message here? At one point in the story should I feel inspired, uplifted, something, where's the emotion? I forced myself to read it. I won't say it's bad but it's a weak attempt at serious fantasy literature.