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truepennyQ: When Mildmay and Felix are at the Gardens of Nephele, Diokletian takes Felix to see the portrait of his mother. Oddly, Diokletian, who is very hung up on Methony seems to completely overlook that Mildmay is also her son and it doesn't occur to Felix that maybe Mildmay might also be interested in seeing the portrait. This incident illustrates how Felix has trouble interacting with Mildmay in a brotherly fashion, and more generally the snobbery in people's (such as Diokletian) reaction to Mildmay. Did you plan that, or did it just happen?
A: I generally don't plan my books, and that incident in particular was something that didn't come in until quite late. On the other hand, was it intentional? Yes.
Q: In describing Felix and Mildmay to others, I've said it was as if you chopped up one HERO!(tm) and one VILLAIN!(tm) and built each of your protagonists from a mix of the component parts. From hearing you speak of deconstructing genres I'm wondering, did you set out to do that intentionally or is it just how I'm reading the characters?
A: Hee. That's a nifty of putting it. I don't think my conscious thought processes were that orderly, but I was certainly thinking about fantasy protagonists and how they do and don't behave.
Q: You mentioned Mildmay as having 'grace'? Could you elaborate on that?
A: He's a trained cat-burglar, which in Mélusine means being half gymnast and half rock-climber. (Mildmay would love climbing gyms.) Both Felix and Mehitabel comment on the fact that he moves beautifully.
Q: What's the earliest you remember the DoL universe as being, before they were developed into what they are today? What was Felix like? Mildmay? Mehitabel?
A: Really, they've all pretty much been themselves from the start. There were some missteps, though. In one of the false starts for The Mirador, Mildmay and Mehitabel are married.
Q: My continual curiosity demands: You said Felix and Mildmay had 'high fantasy' names at one point? What were they?
A: Ikath (Felix) and Maiah (Mildmay). (The name Maiah is being reused in a different novel for a completely different character.)
Q: What's the hardest thign about writing Felix? Mildmay? Mehitabel? And the easiest?
A: Um. The hardest thing about writing Mehitabel is that she's a liar. And she lied to me for several drafts. Likewise with Felix, he hits things he doesn't want to talk about, and I get stuck for days.
(I don't actually buy into the whole rhetoric of "my characters are real people! I just write down what they say!" But it's the easiest way to express the very convoluted and inarticulatable negotiations between rational brain and underconscious that make up the creative process.)
The hardest thing about writing Mildmay is the limits of his vocabulary. Working around the words that I know and he doesn't can be a real pain.
Nothing about writing Mehitabel was easy, but I had the most fun with the theatrical allusions.
What makes Felix easy is that he does have my vocabulary. Any word or phrasing I can think of, Felix can use (given the limits of the moss-troll problem and the fact that he doesn't use obscenities or any profanity worse than "damn"). This frequently fills me with delight because it means I can get serious geekitude into a secondary-world fantasy.
Mildmay's voice is very comfortable for me, and the best thing about it is that it lends itself naturally to exposition and story-telling.
Q: When writing, often a character/plot point will pop up into the story that I hadn't planned at all, and yet the story wouldn't work/wouldn't be the same without them/it. Does this ever happen to you? With what?
A: Yes. I get the delayed version, too, where two books later I'll find out why it was ABSOLUTELY VITAL to have that scene in book one. Nera is one of those.
Q: Did you set out from the start of Melusine with the idea of having a homosexual protagonist and what, if any were the implications of his sexuality that you foresaw?
A: Felix was gay before I knew enough about his story to know I was writing a novel. And really, I think the implications are all right there in the first fifty pages. Okay, except for the thing with Mildmay, which I did not foresee.
Q: If you could get anyone, living or dead, to read the audiobooks of your work, who would you get to do them and why?
A: Jeremy Brett is Felix. I don't even care if he could have done an American accent or not (although I bet he could've).
Once again, Mildmay is harder. For an audiobook, you'd have to forgo accuracy, but someone with a very deep voice who either has or can learn the right accent.
A single person? Jeremy Brett is still my choice, but ideally it would be someone who could codeswitch between the two voices on the fly.
Q: How did you meet Elizabeth Bear?
A: On LiveJournal, as it happens. She was starting work on Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth and asking around for people with expertise on Renaissance England and Renaissance English theater and Shakespeare and Marlowe. And somebody pointed me toward her. That's all it took. *g*
Q: How exactly is your last name pronounced? This may sound like a stupid question, but I'ved heard "Monette" rhymed with "sonnet" in some places, and the first syllable rhymed with "bone" in others, and I have no idea which I should be using for you!
A: No, it's a very fair question. The o is long, and the stress is on the second syllable. It is also disyllabic (not trisyllabic) and it is not pronounced like the famous French Impressionist.
Q: At the beginning of Melusine, did Felix's own damage bring him to Malkar or was that part of whatever hooks Malkar still had in Felix?
A: No, Felix does it to himself (as Malkar tells him) because it's the most self-destructive, self-punishing thing he can do. Although, on a subliminal level, I would suspect that part of the reason he goes to Malkar is that the thaumaturgy as much as the pattern of abuse has conditioned him to.
Q: Do you have more to say about Museums? Or have you more or less covered it in Orm the Beautiful and The Bone Key?
A: 1. Although I would love to claim "Orm the Beautiful," I can't. It's![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala's. You mean "Draco campestris."
2. I don't know. There will be more Booth stories, and there are certainly more things I want to say about the Parrington. The Museum in "Draco campestris" certainly seems like it could have more stories to offer, but I haven't thought of any of them yet.
A: I generally don't plan my books, and that incident in particular was something that didn't come in until quite late. On the other hand, was it intentional? Yes.
Q: In describing Felix and Mildmay to others, I've said it was as if you chopped up one HERO!(tm) and one VILLAIN!(tm) and built each of your protagonists from a mix of the component parts. From hearing you speak of deconstructing genres I'm wondering, did you set out to do that intentionally or is it just how I'm reading the characters?
A: Hee. That's a nifty of putting it. I don't think my conscious thought processes were that orderly, but I was certainly thinking about fantasy protagonists and how they do and don't behave.
Q: You mentioned Mildmay as having 'grace'? Could you elaborate on that?
A: He's a trained cat-burglar, which in Mélusine means being half gymnast and half rock-climber. (Mildmay would love climbing gyms.) Both Felix and Mehitabel comment on the fact that he moves beautifully.
Q: What's the earliest you remember the DoL universe as being, before they were developed into what they are today? What was Felix like? Mildmay? Mehitabel?
A: Really, they've all pretty much been themselves from the start. There were some missteps, though. In one of the false starts for The Mirador, Mildmay and Mehitabel are married.
Q: My continual curiosity demands: You said Felix and Mildmay had 'high fantasy' names at one point? What were they?
A: Ikath (Felix) and Maiah (Mildmay). (The name Maiah is being reused in a different novel for a completely different character.)
Q: What's the hardest thign about writing Felix? Mildmay? Mehitabel? And the easiest?
A: Um. The hardest thing about writing Mehitabel is that she's a liar. And she lied to me for several drafts. Likewise with Felix, he hits things he doesn't want to talk about, and I get stuck for days.
(I don't actually buy into the whole rhetoric of "my characters are real people! I just write down what they say!" But it's the easiest way to express the very convoluted and inarticulatable negotiations between rational brain and underconscious that make up the creative process.)
The hardest thing about writing Mildmay is the limits of his vocabulary. Working around the words that I know and he doesn't can be a real pain.
Nothing about writing Mehitabel was easy, but I had the most fun with the theatrical allusions.
What makes Felix easy is that he does have my vocabulary. Any word or phrasing I can think of, Felix can use (given the limits of the moss-troll problem and the fact that he doesn't use obscenities or any profanity worse than "damn"). This frequently fills me with delight because it means I can get serious geekitude into a secondary-world fantasy.
Mildmay's voice is very comfortable for me, and the best thing about it is that it lends itself naturally to exposition and story-telling.
Q: When writing, often a character/plot point will pop up into the story that I hadn't planned at all, and yet the story wouldn't work/wouldn't be the same without them/it. Does this ever happen to you? With what?
A: Yes. I get the delayed version, too, where two books later I'll find out why it was ABSOLUTELY VITAL to have that scene in book one. Nera is one of those.
Q: Did you set out from the start of Melusine with the idea of having a homosexual protagonist and what, if any were the implications of his sexuality that you foresaw?
A: Felix was gay before I knew enough about his story to know I was writing a novel. And really, I think the implications are all right there in the first fifty pages. Okay, except for the thing with Mildmay, which I did not foresee.
Q: If you could get anyone, living or dead, to read the audiobooks of your work, who would you get to do them and why?
A: Jeremy Brett is Felix. I don't even care if he could have done an American accent or not (although I bet he could've).
Once again, Mildmay is harder. For an audiobook, you'd have to forgo accuracy, but someone with a very deep voice who either has or can learn the right accent.
A single person? Jeremy Brett is still my choice, but ideally it would be someone who could codeswitch between the two voices on the fly.
Q: How did you meet Elizabeth Bear?
A: On LiveJournal, as it happens. She was starting work on Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth and asking around for people with expertise on Renaissance England and Renaissance English theater and Shakespeare and Marlowe. And somebody pointed me toward her. That's all it took. *g*
Q: How exactly is your last name pronounced? This may sound like a stupid question, but I'ved heard "Monette" rhymed with "sonnet" in some places, and the first syllable rhymed with "bone" in others, and I have no idea which I should be using for you!
A: No, it's a very fair question. The o is long, and the stress is on the second syllable. It is also disyllabic (not trisyllabic) and it is not pronounced like the famous French Impressionist.
Q: At the beginning of Melusine, did Felix's own damage bring him to Malkar or was that part of whatever hooks Malkar still had in Felix?
A: No, Felix does it to himself (as Malkar tells him) because it's the most self-destructive, self-punishing thing he can do. Although, on a subliminal level, I would suspect that part of the reason he goes to Malkar is that the thaumaturgy as much as the pattern of abuse has conditioned him to.
Q: Do you have more to say about Museums? Or have you more or less covered it in Orm the Beautiful and The Bone Key?
A: 1. Although I would love to claim "Orm the Beautiful," I can't. It's
matociquala's. You mean "Draco campestris."2. I don't know. There will be more Booth stories, and there are certainly more things I want to say about the Parrington. The Museum in "Draco campestris" certainly seems like it could have more stories to offer, but I haven't thought of any of them yet.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-09-02 04:40 pm (UTC)Oooooooooooh. Yes.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-02 06:47 pm (UTC)Duh. Of course I do. Sorry about that. Apparently the "Gorgeous Poetic Short Stories About Dragons" folder in my head is not well-organized.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-02 07:18 pm (UTC)Someday, chapbook.
I need a dragon icon.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-03 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-03 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-02 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-02 09:54 pm (UTC)(OHMYGODJEREMYBRETT)
Also, do you plan on doing any readings? Or recording any? One of my favorite things is hearing the author read his/her own work, especially when the characters have such distinct voices to begin with.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-03 12:16 am (UTC)And, yes, I do readings. I'd like to do a podcast eventually, but I don't have the technology (yet).
no subject
Date: 2008-09-03 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-03 03:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-03 03:42 am (UTC)I mean, I really really liked those two together, but seriously.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-03 09:45 am (UTC)It just occurred to me that Christian Bale might have the right voice for Mildmay - I'm thinking of his accent particularly in The Prestige, if you've seen that?
no subject
Date: 2008-09-03 07:32 pm (UTC)Wow.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-05 07:47 am (UTC)::hides briefly::
I think somehow I might actually do that. For instance, I was writing the Doctor and he came out with a great big clanging Beethoven pun I didn't even notice was there until
Alternatively, perhaps parts of my brain just don't talk to other parts.
felix,mildmay and jashuki
Date: 2008-09-12 03:17 pm (UTC)I've made a little illustration of the two brothers : so different and yet so much alike : http://capucinemazille.com/page7.htm
I love you !