tiredAnd this is a problem for me.
I like answering mail. I'm incredibly slow about it, because I have a thousand other things I need to be doing at the same time, and a message that just says "thanks for writing books" but isn't from a teenager or asking questions may just be smiled at and tucked into my files. At the same time, these questions make me dread opening my inbox.
How do I say "no" without coming off as an arrogant bitch? How do I explain that these are questions I can't answer, because it isn't fair to all the readers who didn't ask me? And most of all, how do I explain that I can't answer because I don't want to lie to you?
Things change. As far as I'm concerned, if something isn't in a book that you can buy on the shelf, it isn't set in stone. I mean that literally: while there have been very, very few last-minute changes, there have been at least two instances where the ARC came out, I did my ceremonial "I will now read the ARC to see how it feels as a book," and have then called my publisher in tears, begging that something be fixed. Even the ARCs can change. If you had asked me who the important characters in the Toby series were going to be before the first book came out, my list would not have included Quentin, Raj, April, Walther, Etienne, or Danny. Danny actually didn't exist until after Rosemary and Rue had been purchased by DAW.
If I say "oh, don't worry, X is happening in book Y," there's a good chance I'm wrong. The original villain of One Salt Sea isn't in the book. At all. The original first chapter of An Artificial Night didn't even make it to my publisher. And those are just the examples I can give that don't come with associated spoilers.
It's really difficult. I have a lot of trouble navigating these questions, and no matter what I say, I wind up feeling like I'm being mean. I'm not, really. I just don't want to spoil any surprises, and I definitely don't want to tell any accidental lies. So please, don't ask those questions. I can't answer them, and it makes me want to cry when they just keep coming.
Bah. Writing is hard.
January 12 2012, 17:41:46 UTC 5 years ago
"You expect my answer to follow some Reimann Reason?"
Seriously, though. I treat my novel writing like I'm playing a D&D game, only I get to control my characters -and- the scenario and the plot. Most of the time, I don't know who the murderer is in a murder mystery, or how the heroes will win in the end -- or IF they win in the end. If someone asks me where a certain character is going to be, or if they find out just who the eyeball they found at the bottom of a mine on Mars belongs to, I just smile and say, "I'll figure it out when I actually write the scene. Until then, your guess is as good as mine."
"How can you not know? You're the one writing this!"
I always explain it like this:
When I'm running my RPG, sometimes the best plot twists come from the characters themselves -- I have them now trained to say: 'Oh gods, I just gave the GM a horrible idea. He's SMILING'. I have an idea of where I'd -like- the adventure to go, but I don't believe in railroading the PCs into a spot where they feel like they didn't have a choice. So my characters in my stories work out the same way. Sometimes a minor character takes off in a completely different direction than I expected, and then the story plot follows them around because I like them better than my main character. Other times, I don't like my main character as much as I thought I would, or they develop differently than I initially thought them to. Still other times, some unplotted part of their past gets blurted out in response to a question another character asks them.
Writing isn't like recording a song. You have the general musical theme in your head somewhere, but the actual lyrics don't get written until you get to that particular verse, and sometimes you scribble out bits to put -better- lyrics in. That's part of what filk is about -- you keep the tune, but you make new lyrics.
-Traveller
Reimann Reason
January 12 2012, 21:42:49 UTC 5 years ago
*beth keels over*
(And yeah, sometimes the characters just pop out with something that... fits... but you have no idea where it came from! They're black-box emulations running in the back of my head, and that's all there is to it.)