Ask the Author: Carol Berg
Answered Questions (14)
Carol Berg
Dear Rayne,
Thank you so much for such a wonderful comment. You have made my day! I wrote Transformation after giving myself what I call an eight-year, self-directed writing class. A friend got me started writing a story, and I just couldn't quit. I never imagined anyone would want to read what I wrote, but it was such fun! As I wrote, I would come across an article about point of view or story openings, or I my friend and I would talk about characters and how they needed to feel like real people... and then I would rewrite the stories I'd been working on. After a while I knew they were getting better...and I went to a writer's conference and read the opening of Transformation for an editor...and she really liked it. Fortunately I did NOT try to publish the first things I wrote! (Though one of the characters from those early stories showed up in my Collegia Magica books....
Thanks for writing me!
Thank you so much for such a wonderful comment. You have made my day! I wrote Transformation after giving myself what I call an eight-year, self-directed writing class. A friend got me started writing a story, and I just couldn't quit. I never imagined anyone would want to read what I wrote, but it was such fun! As I wrote, I would come across an article about point of view or story openings, or I my friend and I would talk about characters and how they needed to feel like real people... and then I would rewrite the stories I'd been working on. After a while I knew they were getting better...and I went to a writer's conference and read the opening of Transformation for an editor...and she really liked it. Fortunately I did NOT try to publish the first things I wrote! (Though one of the characters from those early stories showed up in my Collegia Magica books....
Thanks for writing me!
Carol Berg
Thanks so much! What wonderful things to hear. I don't have a second Aidan book planned right now, but I have written a follow-up story called The Heart's Coda. It was initially published in an anthology called Lace and Blade 4. I am hoping to put it up myself some time this year.
Thanks for asking! (I don't know why I didn't see this question until this week when another one came in! My apologies.)
Thanks for asking! (I don't know why I didn't see this question until this week when another one came in! My apologies.)
Carol Berg
I don't have a second book planned right now, but I have written a follow-up story called The Heart's Coda. It was initially published in an anthology called Lace and Blade 4. I am hoping to put it up myself some time this year.
Thanks for asking!
Thanks for asking!
Carol Berg
Hi Michelle, I am so SORRY it has taken me so long to get to your questions! Somehow I have not been seeing Goodreads questions for a long time. Anyway, I did write a novella sequel to Song of the Beast, called The Heart's Coda. It was published in a little anthology called Lace and Blade 4. It is my intention to get this out in electronic form and perhaps in paper sometime within the next year. I have wrapped up the third Cate Glass Chimera book (due out in Feb 2021), and I hope to get some of my shorter pieces out Real Soon Now. This pandemic time has not been conducive to writing (in my head) but I am feeling the urge to get some of these smaller projects DONE. All the best, and stay well!
Carol Berg
Hi Shima, So sorry it has taken me SOO long to get to your question. If I got any notice of it, it must have ended up in my spam folder. I am so happy to hear you've enjoyed the Chimera books. And yes, there is another one coming out in 2021 - A Summoning of Demons. I hope it will be fun, as well. I dive into some of the mythology behind Romy's world - and yes, we do meet Teo again. Not yet sure what I will be working on next. I'll try to stay in touch better!
Carol Berg
Hi Rob! Yes, I have been quite slack on social media this spring and summer. I am doing well, though spending a lot of time catching up on some long neglected activities - primarily yard maintenance and reading! I have found time to finish revisions and review copyedits for the third Chimera book, A Summoning of Demons, that will come out in February. I am excited since it will explore some of the mythological questions raised by Teo in A Conjuring of Assassins. As for writing beyond that, I am still mulling what I want to tackle next. Tough in this kind of hypercharged pandemic environment. Thanks for asking. And you stay safe, as well!
Carol Berg
Hi Jo, Yes, I am a bit hard on my principals. And honestly, I am a nice person! But I've got to say, it drives me crazy when I read (or watch) stories of men and women who reshape the world in the face of terrible villainy, yet emerge unscathed or unchanged. Or when strong characters make hard decisions, decisions that violate their most fundamental beliefs, on the spur of the moment. Strong people don't change easily. The stronger the person, and the more certain they are of the rightness of their course (like Seyonne fighting the demon war or Lucian and the pureblood way of life, or Anne de Vernase with her righteous disdain for magic and the uses of power) the more difficult it would be to make that person do the last thing he or she would ever do, which is often what's needed to change the course of the world. Sometimes I have to do a lot of convincing. The stories I write demand that those choices be hard. Yet, even though I often have to be cruel and leave them battered in the end, I like to think that I also leave them with hope and ongoing purpose and a sense that their ordeal was worthwhile. Thanks for asking - and thanks for reading!
Carol Berg
Hi Liam,
A few years ago, I would have said no. Done is done. But then I had this idea for going back to Navronne. (Delighted to hear you enjoyed it!) So I no longer rule out going back to the new Derzhi Empire or to Sabria. But I promise that it won't just be for the love of going back or to see if Seyonne ever retrieved what he lost. It would only happen when I have a new story to tell. Thanks for asking! - Carol
A few years ago, I would have said no. Done is done. But then I had this idea for going back to Navronne. (Delighted to hear you enjoyed it!) So I no longer rule out going back to the new Derzhi Empire or to Sabria. But I promise that it won't just be for the love of going back or to see if Seyonne ever retrieved what he lost. It would only happen when I have a new story to tell. Thanks for asking! - Carol
Carol Berg
That moment when one of my characters becomes a person. All of a sudden I know how he will react when I throw something at him or what she will or won't say in a stressful conversation or what it will do to that person's soul when I force him to do the last thing he would ever do. Sometimes it's early on in the writing process. Valen in Flesh and Spirit was whole when I wrote the first page. Sometimes it comes later. The Aleksander I wrote when I began Transformation didn't take shape until a few chapters into the book and then I realized that some of his actions did not fit the man I was writing about. A few adjustments in the story and I felt like I had him.
Carol Berg
Only when no one else is looking.
Carol Berg
Most definitely. I touch a piece of bacon or a bowl of popcorn and it vanishes. I once traded books with a friend from work and suggested we go out to lunch to lunch to talk about it, and voila, we ended up writing a fantasy story together when I never thought I could write any kind of fiction. Ten years later I sold three books. Magic, right?
Carol Berg
I write linearly - beginning to end - so being unable to move forward is really tough. With deadlines an issue, I can't afford to just wait it out and work on something else. Sometimes a stoppage means I've made a wrong turn in the plot, and I have to look back at the last fork in the road and consider alternatives. Sometimes the idea I have for what happens next just is not the logical outgrowth of what comes before, so I have to start asking myself questions like, "Why would the hero choose that?" or "What does the heroine want right this minute?" Writing down these hard questions forces me to think deeper and figure out my way.
Carol Berg
A couple of short stories, one for the Canadian magazine Pulp Literary, and one for an anthology. I have some ideas percolating for a new series, and I'm hoping to dip a toe into the world of indie publishing, maybe starting with a couple of novellas.
Carol Berg
I loved the world I created for the Lighthouse Duet - the kingdom of Navronne, the "mythological" layers, and the system of contractual magic, strictly confined to certain pureblood families. I realized that I had left a great deal of that world unexplored as the hero of Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone had spent his life running away from his magic and his family. I asked myself what if there was an equally interesting young man who sincerely believed in the pureblood way of life - and thus Lucian de Remini was born and two novels of the Sanctuary Duet: Dust and Light the forthcoming finale, Ash and Silver.
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Mar 12, 2025 11:12PM · flag