'Long threads of history and culture'

 

“Whenever you're writing a book orcreating a movie or a game, your first task is to get thereader/audience/player to suspend disbelief, to buy into the logic andboundaries of your world, even though those boundaries might include thingslike dragons and magic. To do that, you need long threads - of history andculture.” – R.A. Salvatore

 

Born in Massachusetts onthis date in 1959, Salvatore has authored 22 New York Times bestselling books, ledby The DemonWars Saga and Forgotten Realms novels.  Healso has been highly successful writing the backstories and text for a numberof popular science fiction-type video games.

 

The youngest of a family of seven,he credited his high school English teacher with his initial development as awriter. Then as a student at Fitchburg State College in Virginia, he becameinterested in fantasy after reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lordof the Rings, given to him as a Christmas gift.  Hequickly changed his major from Computer Science to Journalism/Media and took upwriting fantasy.  

 

Just before becoming a full-timewriter in the early 1980s, he worked as a nightclub bouncer and attributes hisfierce, vividly described battle scenes to that experience – a tribute to the "Alwayswrite what you know" mantra.

 

“I never intended to be aprofessional writer,” he said.  “As the story (for my firstnovel Echoes of the Fourth Magic) developed, the one thing I had inmy hopes was that this would be something tangible to separate me from thenameless, numbered masses.  I loved the world of imagination.”