From the mailbag #7
How much do you develop your characters prior to their appearance onstage?
Not much. Usually, they either walk into my head fully formed or develop as I write them. Very occasionally, I’ll poke at one of them before I start writing, but it never seems to be much use as far as their personality and what they’re like is concerned. I either know them, or I don’t.
What I do do is backstory – who is related to whom, who works for whom, who is plotting with or against whom, what kinds of agendas different characters may have. But much of that can change when they finally show up on the page, if their personality demands it. Or if the story does. Sometimes, it feels kind of like casting an actor in a role and then realizing that he/she doesn’t have the right chemistry with the rest of the cast and having to replace them after a couple of days.
What’s your daily work schedule like?
Extremely varied. I have enough else going on in my life that I can’t set a time and stick to writing, unless I get up at 4 a.m., which I am not about to do when I don’t have to. For me, what works best is to get some words written on a daily basis; how many, for how long, and at what time of day doesn’t matter as long as they happen.
What are your passions outside of writing?
Reading and, at the moment, knitting. Reading is the only constant; I’ve dabbled in gardening, home repair, tailoring, cross stitch, and a variety of other things over the years.
How many books had you written before your first major sale?
My first novel was my first sale, so none. I’d done a number of unsellable short stories, mainly because everyone told me that was how you were supposed to do it, but I’m not a short story writer, so they all sounded like plot outlines or else like a chapter excerpted from the middle of a novel. Which is why they never sold. Well, that plus them being really terrible.
How much time do you spend creating your worlds? Do you shape your worlds around your characters or vice versa?
It depends on the book. I have to have a certain amount of backstory done before I start writing, but it always keeps developing as the story gets written…and backstory is not quite the same as worldbuilding. How much I need to have figured out before I start the story varies from book to book; it also depends on how close I am sticking to real-life history vs. making things up entirely out of whole cloth, like the Lyra books.
I don’t always start with the same set of ingredients, so there’s no one answer to “Do I shape the world around the characters or vice versa” – it depends on the story. If I start with the characters, things shape around them to some extent; if I start with the plot, that’s what both world and characters grow from; if I start with the world, the plot and characters grow out of it.
What writers have influenced your work the most?
J.R.R. Tolkien, Dorothy Sayers, L. Frank Baum, Georgette Heyer, and Jay Ward.
After thirty years or so, does finishing a book still give you the same thrill of accomplishment?
I wouldn’t call it a thrill of accomplishment; it’s more like a huge sigh of relief.
What do you think of women’s (characters) roles in Sci-Fantasy? Are they given enough credit for their strength and ability?
There is no genre that has only good or only bad portrayals of one kind of character. There is also no genre that has only one way of portraying a particular type of character. Some books have complex characters, while others have flat ones; some have a realistic variety of characters, while others have a sprinkling of stereotypes. There are also a variety of reasons why this happens, ranging from intentional authorial effort through unintentional reflection of authorial beliefs to lack of authorial skill on the part of an author who wants his/her characters to be realistic and complex, but who doesn’t have the chops to pull it off. And all of this applies just as much to male characters as female ones.
Why do you write children’s fantasy?
I don’t write children’s fantasy. I write books I would like to read, and then the Young Adult/Teen Fiction people offer me more money than the adult publishers for them, so they are printed and marketed and sold as YA.
Is there anything about the writing process that absolutely sucks?
For me, it’s transitions and middles and council scenes, especially in the first draft.
