Q&A with Random House (Part 3 of 3)

Sorry I've been dark for the last week or so, but I've been answering a few more Q&A's for bloggers. Why? Because my book comes out in exactly two weeks! YASSS!!! There are also some pretty stellar reviews of the book on Goodreads already, which I'll post a link to right here.

What book, you ask? Funny, because that's exactly what the rest of this Q&A is about: my debut epic fantasy novel, Master of Sorrows.

Let's dive right in, shall we?

How would you describe your novel in one sentence?
A student at a school for warrior-thieves clashes with the Academy’s headmaster while pursuing a coveted rank and struggling with the revelation that he may be the fulfilment of a dark prophecy.

What inspired your novel?
The inspiration for this novel (and the rest of the book series) arose from a single question: ‘What if the hero was the reincarnation of an evil God?’ I liked the concept of writing a coming-of-age story from the villain’s perspective, of seeing the character grow from a naïve adolescent and then evolve into a full-blown baddie.

Except that real people rarely see themselves as villains. Real people believe they are the heroes of their own stories and tend to vilify those whose world views clash with their own. This is fine for real life, but subjective morality complicates storytelling. Many fantasy novels avoid these complications by making their protagonist an obvious hero and their antagonist an obvious villain . . . but I feel such attempts are dishonest to the narrative. Other fantasy novels address this challenge by inverting expectations. In George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, for example, there are few truly heroic characters; instead, the world is painted in grey and characters regularly shift between being antagonists and protagonists. The villains at times possess unsung virtues while the heroes are burdened by damning vices, cruelty, or weakness. This resonates more with normal life, I feel, yet it also carries a nihilism that I find to be both false and destructive. There is good in the world, just as there is also evil. Likewise, I believe there is a divine influence in our lives (whether we acknowledge it or not) and that our lives are filled with meaning and purpose. In that sense, we are all heroes (or potential heroes) but not all of us are active protagonists in our stories.

Which brings me back to my first question: ‘What if the prophesied hero was the reincarnation of an evil God?’ Or, if I remove the subjective morality tags, ‘What happens when a protagonist is given two conflicting moral narratives?’ Further, ‘Does he embrace one and reject the other?’ Probably. In fact, I’d say it’s inevitable. The twist, though, comes when the protagonist discovers he once served the opposing narrative (and he is now on the opposite side of that narrative). In such a story, the hero would probably develop empathy toward his previous incarnation . . . but would that change his heroic path? Answering that question is the inspiration for my novel. My goal then is to write a coming-of-age story that follows the tropes of the epic fantasy genre but to also subvert those tropes by presenting a protagonist who could be either a hero or a villain. Time will tell if I get it right.

Who is your favourite character in the novel and why?
Crag. I really like the fat peddler because he is so enigmatic and full of surprises. He's also a stark contrast from either Sodar or Tosan (who are constantly pulling Annev, trying to mold him into what they want him to be).

Don't get me wrong, I love Sodar and Tosan immensely (for very different reasons), but Crag has a unique charm to him that you don't see elsewhere in the novel. He's a glimpse into something Annev could potentially become – a third path that doesn't follow either Tosan or Sodar – and that's enticing to someone like Annev. I liked writing Kenton's character for similar reasons, but he was much harder to write. Crag, on the other hand, came naturally to me.

Which scene was the most difficult to write?
Many scenes were difficult to write, but they were all difficult for different reasons. If I had to pick just one of those, though, I'd probably say the scenes surrounding and including the Test of Judgment. I had originally expected that entire sequence of chapters to take 20-30 pages (two or three chapters in total). In the end, if you count the chapters building up to the Test of Judgment, the whole sequence is around nine chapters (over a hundred pages). You might think that would mean I had written far more than I had intended, but you'd be wrong. I covered more or less everything I had wanted to include for that sequence of the story, but the events were difficult to properly narrate without being either too sparse or too didactic. I could see it all playing out in my head, but when I tried to put it to paper, the pacing was off or the narration was unclear or the characters' actions felt redundant. It was a frustrating, unwieldy monstrous scene that was also critically important to get right because so much was riding on its presentation: details about character relationships, their strengths and weaknesses, how things are run at the Academy, how Annev chooses to deal with his own inner turmoil while also solving the riddle of the arena. At the same time, the arena itself must be a real spectacle for the reader and the puzzle it contains must be no less impressive. Getting it all right without slowing down the pace or making the sequence unsatisfying was one of the most challenging things I did in the process of writing this first book. I only succeeded because I vomited it all out (so I had something to work with), and then I went back and began cutting, polishing, and revising. It was a bloody ordeal, but in the end, it came together. Gillian Redfearn at Gollancz UK also helped me clean up the pieces that were muddled or slowing down the pace too much (editors are great for things like that, especially when you're too much in the thick of things to see what still needs fixing). I'm very happy where things finally ended, and I've been told by many people that this sequence is their favourite part of the book. I try to remember that whenever I'm pushing through another rough section of narrative. It doesn't solve any problems, but it's a nice reminder that problems have to be formed into a narrative before they can be fixed, which means it's best to just embrace your flaws and get the damn story told.

What kind of readers do you think will enjoy your book?
I think fans of Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan will love Master of Sorrows (and the rest of The Silent Gods tetralogy) because those authors have written truly epic stories that managed to feel authentic without resorting to extreme morbidity, sexuality, or violence. The result is a compelling narrative that appeals to both adults and YA readers without excluding or pandering to either group.

Having said that, I expect some folks will still claim my books are too graphic – too profane, too visceral – but I would politely disagree. Likewise, some might say my series is too tame, too sanitized or too juvenile. Again, though, I would disagree. I have beta readers ranging from precocious Chinese nine-year-olds to jaded 60-year-old Harvard grads, and across every spectrum, folks have enjoyed the book with unreserved enthusiasm.

Are there any other books you might compare your work to?
Speaking in a general sense, Master of Sorrows is a coming-of-age story about a protagonist whose moral and ethical choices are sometimes ambiguous. It would be fair then to compare The Silent Gods series to R.A. Salvatore's Dark Elf Trilogy, Edward W. Robertson's Cycle of Arawn, Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicle, and Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. The magic system is also complex, which makes it easy to compare to Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere collection. In fact, as I read more from Sanderson's Cosmere, I sometimes get the feeling that we are describing different parts of the same universe or that the prime world from my series (Luquatra) could pass as another world from Sanderson's Cosmere. None of this is intentional of course (I mapped out the cosmology and most of the magic systems for The Silent Gods before Elantris or Mistborn were published), but my approach to writing is similar to Sanderson as is the level of thought we put into our magic systems. Much of that isn't apparent in Master of Sorrows, though, because the protagonist is still learning how to control his magic (and what kind of magic he possesses). Yet, as the series evolves, I expect our readers will find many unintentional parallels.

Second to Brandon Sanderson, my writing has been most often compared to Patrick Rothfuss. In fact, I once had an editor pitch my book series as akin to an ‘evil Patrick Rothfuss’ (comparing Annev from The Silent Gods to Kvothe from The Kingkiller Chronicle). To be sure, there is truth in that comparison, but there are many differences, too. For example, I like writing heroes who have moral ambiguities, and I like writing nuanced anti-heroes who are still empathetic. Kvothe falls into that spectrum, and his training at the Arcanum has some parallels to Annev’s training at the Academy. Kvothe and Annev also have dark impulses that can be described as subjectively good or bad, and they have trouble submitting to authority figures. This usually gets them both into trouble and, when that happens, they are both prone to using their wits to solve their problems.

Having said all that, it is worth noting that Kvothe is also a brilliant, charismatic storyteller – a true Edema Ruh trouper – and that he has both seen and experienced the good and the bad that the world has to offer him. Even before Kvothe enters the University, he’s world-weary and wise, full of the teachings of Abernathy, the hard lessons of Tarbean, and the tales and songs of his troupe. Kvothe’s story is also told in first-person, and the language Rothfuss uses to tell that story is simply beautiful. Annev, on the other hand, leads a sheltered life. He knows practically nothing of the outside world save what Sodar and the Ancients have taught him, and most of that is conflicting. His story is also written in third-person in a style that is more urbane than poetic. Their journeys might therefore be similar, but their narratives are very different. Kvothe starts out bold and brash, whereas Annev is earnest and hopeful. Circumstances then harden them, shaping them into ‘heroic anti-heroes,’ but Annev is not a trouper (nor will he ever be) and I estimate his final shape will be something altogether more grand (and more dark) than what Kvothe eventually becomes (though I’d have to read Doors of Stone to say that with more certainty).

That's it!

We've come to the end of my (overly) long interview with Random House, but I've still got a bucket full of Q&A interviews with other bloggers. I'll see about sharing more of those over the coming days and weeks (particularly as we get closer to the date of my UK book launch), but I'll also be sharing some reviews of Master of Sorrows from some of my favorite bloggers.

Punctuating all of that will be a few other blog posts I've been meaning to write that deal with something I call 'resonance' and 'authenticity' in writing. David Farland wrote a blog post about the former just a few weeks ago, and I wanted to share some of his words along with my own observations (made several years before he wrote the blog post). Till then, I'll let you chew on what's here.

T-T-F-N.