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truepennyQ: Do you think Mildmay and Mehitabel's relationship might have worked if Hallam hadn't been in the picture (besides the fact that she might not have been at the Gauthy's if not for him...)
A: No.
Q: What changes have been made to Mildmay's and Felix's character overtime when the story was still stewing and being rewritten? Or Mehitabel's and Malkar's or...whoever else, for that matter. Was there a point where the story was going in a totally different direction than it is now?
AND
Q: You mentioned having had this in your head for fifteen years -- has it changed radically from what you first imagined? And was the worldbuilding a large part of that?
A: Aside from the long stretches of time where I didn't know where the story was going at all, no. There are things in Corambis that I've been waiting to do since I started writing Mélusine. The biggest change, I suppose, was in Mehitabel. It wasn't until the last draft that I figured out that Hallam was still alive. The world-building has gotten deeper and richer (I hope), but I don't think there have been any radical departures from what I originally envisioned. Mostly, however, this is because my "vision" when I started this was neither sharp nor broad nor really much of anything. I world-build as I go, and I've been very lucky in writing these books that that hasn't turned around and bitten me on the ass.
Q: A lot of fantasy readers/writers hate "normal" names in fantasy. How did you decide on them, and why did you decide to use so many of them to populate the Mirador?
A: Originally, Felix and Mildmay had quote-unquote fantasy names. But the longer I lived with the story and the characters, the more wrong they felt, especially as the other characters who showed up--Stephen, Shannon, Victoria, Thaddeus--all had quote-unquote real names. I know the names in my books drive some people nuts because they don't seem to have any logic behind them, but in actual point of fact, they do: Mélusine is a city where six or seven different cultures collide, so the names reflect cultural borrowing and seepage and all sorts of things.
I think about names a lot.
And at the same time, I was cannibalizing real-world languages like mad--French and Greek and Latin--and making up names based on them, like Poluphemie or Mavortian or Jean-Tigre. (Methony is actually named for another Greek Crusader castle, Methoni.) So these fantasy names that had no connection to a real language just looked more and more fake and twee, and I finally couldn't stand it any longer. Also, this was about the time I got my first agent and I realized in trying to talk about the book that I didn't know how one of the names (Ikath) was pronounced. (The other name, Maiah, I'm recycling in The Emperor of the Elflands, where I've made up a language so that it will make sense.)
So I gave them real names, and the world-building clicked into focus for me.
Q: Have you ever amused yourself in a socially awkward situation by thinking "What would Felix/Mildmay do?"
A: Oh hell yes. I just have to remember not to act on it.
Q: Does Methony have any surviving family?
A: I don't think so, but I don't know for sure. I also don't know who Felix's father is. Or Mildmay's, for that matter.
Q: There was a panel at WorldCon this year called “20 Essential Science Fiction Books of the Past 20 Years.” I am curious what your choices would be as you are well read and never short of smart opinions. Some of the respondents have already expanded the list to include fantasy.
A: Okay, you ask that question, and my mind goes blank. Of the lists on Cheryl's blog, the books that I have read--and agree are at least important, if not essential--are:
Grass, Sheri S. Tepper (1989)
The Book of the Long Sun (Nightside the Long Sun; Lake of the Long Sun; Caldé of the Long Sun; Exodus From the Long Sun), Gene Wolfe (1993 - 1996)
Sandman, Neil Gaiman (Yes, the whole damn thing.)
I would for certain add C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner.
Most of the books I don't list aren't because I don't think they're important, but because I haven't read them. And I can assert that, for instance, Nalo Hopkinson should be on that list, but that's not because I've personally read very much of her work. I'm not nearly as well read as you think I am. *g*
Q: Is Corambis the final book of the series?
A: Yes.
Q: What is your favorite part of Corambis? I'm not asking for a pivotal plot moment, just a part or chapter that you really enjoyed writing. You don't have to say it, but maybe some page numbers?
A: The page numbers won't help you, since they aren't the same between the manuscript and the finished book. And--I just discovered--I can't even give you chapter numbers, because I seem to have done something creatively awful to the chaptering in the manuscript as it stands. So I will simply say that I enjoyed the train trip from Bernatha to Esmer quite a lot.
[To ask a question, go here.]
A: No.
Q: What changes have been made to Mildmay's and Felix's character overtime when the story was still stewing and being rewritten? Or Mehitabel's and Malkar's or...whoever else, for that matter. Was there a point where the story was going in a totally different direction than it is now?
AND
Q: You mentioned having had this in your head for fifteen years -- has it changed radically from what you first imagined? And was the worldbuilding a large part of that?
A: Aside from the long stretches of time where I didn't know where the story was going at all, no. There are things in Corambis that I've been waiting to do since I started writing Mélusine. The biggest change, I suppose, was in Mehitabel. It wasn't until the last draft that I figured out that Hallam was still alive. The world-building has gotten deeper and richer (I hope), but I don't think there have been any radical departures from what I originally envisioned. Mostly, however, this is because my "vision" when I started this was neither sharp nor broad nor really much of anything. I world-build as I go, and I've been very lucky in writing these books that that hasn't turned around and bitten me on the ass.
Q: A lot of fantasy readers/writers hate "normal" names in fantasy. How did you decide on them, and why did you decide to use so many of them to populate the Mirador?
A: Originally, Felix and Mildmay had quote-unquote fantasy names. But the longer I lived with the story and the characters, the more wrong they felt, especially as the other characters who showed up--Stephen, Shannon, Victoria, Thaddeus--all had quote-unquote real names. I know the names in my books drive some people nuts because they don't seem to have any logic behind them, but in actual point of fact, they do: Mélusine is a city where six or seven different cultures collide, so the names reflect cultural borrowing and seepage and all sorts of things.
I think about names a lot.
And at the same time, I was cannibalizing real-world languages like mad--French and Greek and Latin--and making up names based on them, like Poluphemie or Mavortian or Jean-Tigre. (Methony is actually named for another Greek Crusader castle, Methoni.) So these fantasy names that had no connection to a real language just looked more and more fake and twee, and I finally couldn't stand it any longer. Also, this was about the time I got my first agent and I realized in trying to talk about the book that I didn't know how one of the names (Ikath) was pronounced. (The other name, Maiah, I'm recycling in The Emperor of the Elflands, where I've made up a language so that it will make sense.)
So I gave them real names, and the world-building clicked into focus for me.
Q: Have you ever amused yourself in a socially awkward situation by thinking "What would Felix/Mildmay do?"
A: Oh hell yes. I just have to remember not to act on it.
Q: Does Methony have any surviving family?
A: I don't think so, but I don't know for sure. I also don't know who Felix's father is. Or Mildmay's, for that matter.
Q: There was a panel at WorldCon this year called “20 Essential Science Fiction Books of the Past 20 Years.” I am curious what your choices would be as you are well read and never short of smart opinions. Some of the respondents have already expanded the list to include fantasy.
A: Okay, you ask that question, and my mind goes blank. Of the lists on Cheryl's blog, the books that I have read--and agree are at least important, if not essential--are:
Grass, Sheri S. Tepper (1989)
The Book of the Long Sun (Nightside the Long Sun; Lake of the Long Sun; Caldé of the Long Sun; Exodus From the Long Sun), Gene Wolfe (1993 - 1996)
Sandman, Neil Gaiman (Yes, the whole damn thing.)
I would for certain add C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner.
Most of the books I don't list aren't because I don't think they're important, but because I haven't read them. And I can assert that, for instance, Nalo Hopkinson should be on that list, but that's not because I've personally read very much of her work. I'm not nearly as well read as you think I am. *g*
Q: Is Corambis the final book of the series?
A: Yes.
Q: What is your favorite part of Corambis? I'm not asking for a pivotal plot moment, just a part or chapter that you really enjoyed writing. You don't have to say it, but maybe some page numbers?
A: The page numbers won't help you, since they aren't the same between the manuscript and the finished book. And--I just discovered--I can't even give you chapter numbers, because I seem to have done something creatively awful to the chaptering in the manuscript as it stands. So I will simply say that I enjoyed the train trip from Bernatha to Esmer quite a lot.
[To ask a question, go here.]
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-24 09:30 pm (UTC)A: Oh hell yes. I just have to remember not to act on it.
*laughs* I bet and as a writer myself can totally empathize with it. Though I 'd warrant that sudden real live 'in character' moments yield a lot of hilarity at times ;)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-24 09:36 pm (UTC)#2. It's pretty good when your characters stay consistent like that. Mine very rarely stay the same in development, save one or two.
#3. I can sort of see Felix having a "fantasy name," but Felix is just such a perfect name for him that I wouldn't want it any differently. And Mildmay...he just seems like the kind of guy that needs a fairly normal-sounding name, even if it's not exactly common.
# Last question: Putting Mildmay and Felix on a train together has got to be amusing. I'm also sort of curious as to what you did to the chapters now...
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 01:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 01:26 pm (UTC)(Her ideas are so huge, and so often brilliant [Dervish Daughter still makes me giggle to think of it, and those exasperated animals]. But there is a paragraph in Beauty that made me throw up when I read it, and it created a little seeping wound inside that hasn't yet healed.)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 04:43 pm (UTC)But *Beauty* really pissed me off, with the rant about how writing certain kinds of fiction is Evil in itself.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 07:43 pm (UTC)I didn't mean to be.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 04:46 pm (UTC)This is not true of Grass, which is brilliant and disturbing and it lingers.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 04:41 pm (UTC)This seems so very wise to me; I'm taking it on board.
Tolkien was a *philologist*; the whole series' worldbuilding started with language. I ain't Tolkien. Anything I come up with is going to be recycled Fantasenglish.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 10:18 pm (UTC)