Last Set of Questions

Evan Ramspott asked I have a question - how many people do you have review your work before you're satisfied it is ready for submission? Follow-up would be how many revisions do you usually go through? Thanks!

It depends. Usually there's at least three or four, and my agent also reads it and gives it comments. Number of revisions is a harder question, because I usually don't write a draft straight through, I revise it constantly as I'm going along. I'll probably do at least one or two revisions after it's complete but before it's submitted, depending on what comments I get, how much time I have, and so on. And there's usually at least one or two revisions after it's been bought by a publisher.


David Zampa asked You have a LOT of named characters in the Raksura books. I love how it never feels crowded, with each having his or her individual place. What goes into character creation? I'm especially curious whether you profile each one. Also whether you create all of them before you begin writing, or add more as a need for them arises.

Thank you! The main ones I come up with before I start, but all the others are generally created as the need arises. I don't do a lot of outlining in advance, so I'm not sure what characters I'm going to need/what kind of people they're going to be/how they're going to react to the protagonist until I develop the world and the plot a lot more. I have to know quite a bit about the world, their particular place in it, to decide what their personality is going to be like.

I don't do character profiles very often, I just take a few notes about each one.