Molly
asked
Scott Hawkins:
Your universe is well developed. Did you map it out before writing or did it just fall into place as you wrote? This is an excellent book.
Scott Hawkins
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)[Hey Molly,
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it! I guess it's true to say that I made it up as I went along, but it's also a little misleading.
For instance, the first chapter of the book was at least the 10th version of a "meet the librarians" scene that I'd written. I mean, yeah, what you see is only slightly altered from the first draft, but there was a pile of stuff on the cutting room floor that you didn't see. In case you're wondering, the earlier versions had the librarians uniting against some outside threat. David kept trying to make a noble speech, they hugged a lot, stuff like that. The scene didn't work until the threat was internal and they librarians more or less hated each other.
There were also a couple of scenes that I tried to write but eventually dropped. At one point I had about twenty pages of Father + Nobununga + Mithraganhi squaring off against the Emperor, but it felt really corny. I eventually cut all twenty pages and replaced it with a couple of lines in the first Interlude that talked about Nobununga's back story.
Also I usually had at least a mental picture of what the story was with those off-stage bad guys (Barry O'Shea, Liesel, The Duke) even if I never wrote any of it down.
But most of that cropped up in the course of fleshing out the bones of the story. I didn't start out by mapping out lore and history Silmarillion style. (hide spoiler)]
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it! I guess it's true to say that I made it up as I went along, but it's also a little misleading.
For instance, the first chapter of the book was at least the 10th version of a "meet the librarians" scene that I'd written. I mean, yeah, what you see is only slightly altered from the first draft, but there was a pile of stuff on the cutting room floor that you didn't see. In case you're wondering, the earlier versions had the librarians uniting against some outside threat. David kept trying to make a noble speech, they hugged a lot, stuff like that. The scene didn't work until the threat was internal and they librarians more or less hated each other.
There were also a couple of scenes that I tried to write but eventually dropped. At one point I had about twenty pages of Father + Nobununga + Mithraganhi squaring off against the Emperor, but it felt really corny. I eventually cut all twenty pages and replaced it with a couple of lines in the first Interlude that talked about Nobununga's back story.
Also I usually had at least a mental picture of what the story was with those off-stage bad guys (Barry O'Shea, Liesel, The Duke) even if I never wrote any of it down.
But most of that cropped up in the course of fleshing out the bones of the story. I didn't start out by mapping out lore and history Silmarillion style. (hide spoiler)]
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