Richard
asked
Scott Hawkins:
This question contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)[Dear Scott,
Before my question, I'd like you to know that I'm very grateful that you answer questions. You already answered some questions related to mine, but what were your inspirations for Ablakha and his story? So the world is in it's 4th age in the story, so I'm curious to know what inspired you to say that. Who are the Emperor, Duke, and the rest of Father's enemies? I'm bursting at the seams with questions! (hide spoiler)]
Before my question, I'd like you to know that I'm very grateful that you answer questions. You already answered some questions related to mine, but what were your inspirations for Ablakha and his story? So the world is in it's 4th age in the story, so I'm curious to know what inspired you to say that. Who are the Emperor, Duke, and the rest of Father's enemies? I'm bursting at the seams with questions! (hide spoiler)]
Scott Hawkins
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)[Hey Richard,
Marking as spoiler so I can be candid:
Okay, so first I want to say that I think there's a case to be made for just dropping little details like this into a story without much explanation. The idea is that if you let the reader's imagination fill in some of the blanks, they are (almost by definition) going to come up with stuff that is more interesting and fulfilling for them personally than I as a writer ever could.
For instance: there's this movie called Lord of Illusions about a supernatural private investigator. The first time you meet him, he's just finishing up his last case before starting the one that the actual movie is about. Somebody asks him (Scott Bakula) how the last case went. The screen flashed back to about two seconds of horrible monster footage, then Scott Bakula says something like "Meh. The usual." I loved that. I spent hours extrapolating from that two seconds of flashback. For me it was just enough.
The flip side of that, of course is that you, the reader, paid for the book and it's not unreasonable to ask me to finish the @!$^ story for you. So whenever anybody specifically asks, I'm happy to answer.
On the other hand, a lot of this stuff got cut for a reason. You mmmmight be happier not knowing. Your call.
As far as the ages of the world--I kind of picked "five" at random. The only ones we really know anything about are 3 (which Father was born into and overthrew) 4 (which Carolyn was born into) and 5 (which starts right at the end of the book). I thought of the third age as being a sort of mythological stew--a warring angels / Greek gods / Norse titans kind of thing, except not specifically drawing from any one mythology. Father was born into that, kicked ass, and assumed the throne. (So to speak).
At the onset of the Fourth Age, even after overthrowing the Emperor, Father was just one of several major powers. He spent the first 40,000 years smiting the competition--think early Stalinism. By the time he was done, he was indisputably the ruler of reality, and also indisputably a monster. To some extent, Mount Char is the story of Father rediscovering himself (though a bit too late to do his victims much good).
Originally, I was going to include a flashback about Ablakah / Adam Black deposing the Emperor and ending the third age. It was intended to illustrate that Father wasn't such a bad guy when he started out. I was going to drop it in right before the bull scene in hopes of raising a "what the hell happened to this guy?" kind of question.
In that scene, there were some explicit parallels between Nobununga (the tiger) and Erwin, and Mithraganhi (the kid on the platform at the end) and Steve, plus some differences. One of the big differences was that Nobununga was originally the dark lord's chief lieutenant. He finally saw that Ablakha was just a better dude. It was Nobununga's support that pushed Father over the top to victory. (Carolyn, by contrast, did it all on her own.) The Emperor himself was never fleshed out very much--he was just a generic, all-powerful jerk along the lines of Sauron.
I spent about two-three weeks working on this, but eventually cut it down to just a couple of lines: "He [the dark lord] must have been quite a character to go around smiting Father."
I mostly cut it because it interrupted the flow of the story. It ran about twenty pages somewhere in the first third of the book. At that point, readers were confused enough already--introducing a lengthy subplot probably would have been the last straw for a lot of people. A secondary concern was that it undercut the actual showdown (Carolyn v. David) by having a parallel showdown about a hundred pages before anybody cared about the characters. Finally, it just wasn't very well written--a lot of what I write goes on the floor for that reason. Shrug Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you.
I didn't spend as much time writing The Duke, but I thought he worked slightly better. Originally you were supposed to think he was some sort of minor noble, but it turned out that he was the actor John Wayne (whose nickname was "the Duke") . The story was that he'd gotten cast back in time (or whatever) when a nuclear test went awry during the filming of The Conqueror. John Wayne got zapped into some sort of magic realm, or something, and also received horrific scarring. Over the course of millenia, he educated himself in the dark arts (or whatever) and became a semi-serious force to be reckoned with.
There was a scene where Carolyn was receiving visitors in the Library after she assumed the throne. She and The Duke were exchanging veiled threats when Steve recognized John Wayne's voice. Steve gets all fanboy on him--"Loved you in Rio Bravo, sir."
I cut the throne room scene during a rewrite--it was bogging down the third act, and it didn't really do much story-wise. The John Wayne bit was kind of funny, but (you won't often hear me say this) maybe just a wee bit too far over the top.
Barry O'Shea was a seventeenth century alchemist who managed to get his hands on a book from the Library. He used it to give himself eternal life, but at terrible cost--he's all tentacle-y, and it's very contagious. Rejected by his beloved Clementine, he fled to the bottom of the ocean. He makes his home in sunken ocean liners and mopes a lot. Lately he's been trying to get back into the world via online dating. He's actually kind of a nice guy, but first dates are rough. Most people can't see past the tentacles.
Thanks for reading / hope that helps somewhat.
Best,
Scott (hide spoiler)]
Marking as spoiler so I can be candid:
Okay, so first I want to say that I think there's a case to be made for just dropping little details like this into a story without much explanation. The idea is that if you let the reader's imagination fill in some of the blanks, they are (almost by definition) going to come up with stuff that is more interesting and fulfilling for them personally than I as a writer ever could.
For instance: there's this movie called Lord of Illusions about a supernatural private investigator. The first time you meet him, he's just finishing up his last case before starting the one that the actual movie is about. Somebody asks him (Scott Bakula) how the last case went. The screen flashed back to about two seconds of horrible monster footage, then Scott Bakula says something like "Meh. The usual." I loved that. I spent hours extrapolating from that two seconds of flashback. For me it was just enough.
The flip side of that, of course is that you, the reader, paid for the book and it's not unreasonable to ask me to finish the @!$^ story for you. So whenever anybody specifically asks, I'm happy to answer.
On the other hand, a lot of this stuff got cut for a reason. You mmmmight be happier not knowing. Your call.
As far as the ages of the world--I kind of picked "five" at random. The only ones we really know anything about are 3 (which Father was born into and overthrew) 4 (which Carolyn was born into) and 5 (which starts right at the end of the book). I thought of the third age as being a sort of mythological stew--a warring angels / Greek gods / Norse titans kind of thing, except not specifically drawing from any one mythology. Father was born into that, kicked ass, and assumed the throne. (So to speak).
At the onset of the Fourth Age, even after overthrowing the Emperor, Father was just one of several major powers. He spent the first 40,000 years smiting the competition--think early Stalinism. By the time he was done, he was indisputably the ruler of reality, and also indisputably a monster. To some extent, Mount Char is the story of Father rediscovering himself (though a bit too late to do his victims much good).
Originally, I was going to include a flashback about Ablakah / Adam Black deposing the Emperor and ending the third age. It was intended to illustrate that Father wasn't such a bad guy when he started out. I was going to drop it in right before the bull scene in hopes of raising a "what the hell happened to this guy?" kind of question.
In that scene, there were some explicit parallels between Nobununga (the tiger) and Erwin, and Mithraganhi (the kid on the platform at the end) and Steve, plus some differences. One of the big differences was that Nobununga was originally the dark lord's chief lieutenant. He finally saw that Ablakha was just a better dude. It was Nobununga's support that pushed Father over the top to victory. (Carolyn, by contrast, did it all on her own.) The Emperor himself was never fleshed out very much--he was just a generic, all-powerful jerk along the lines of Sauron.
I spent about two-three weeks working on this, but eventually cut it down to just a couple of lines: "He [the dark lord] must have been quite a character to go around smiting Father."
I mostly cut it because it interrupted the flow of the story. It ran about twenty pages somewhere in the first third of the book. At that point, readers were confused enough already--introducing a lengthy subplot probably would have been the last straw for a lot of people. A secondary concern was that it undercut the actual showdown (Carolyn v. David) by having a parallel showdown about a hundred pages before anybody cared about the characters. Finally, it just wasn't very well written--a lot of what I write goes on the floor for that reason. Shrug Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you.
I didn't spend as much time writing The Duke, but I thought he worked slightly better. Originally you were supposed to think he was some sort of minor noble, but it turned out that he was the actor John Wayne (whose nickname was "the Duke") . The story was that he'd gotten cast back in time (or whatever) when a nuclear test went awry during the filming of The Conqueror. John Wayne got zapped into some sort of magic realm, or something, and also received horrific scarring. Over the course of millenia, he educated himself in the dark arts (or whatever) and became a semi-serious force to be reckoned with.
There was a scene where Carolyn was receiving visitors in the Library after she assumed the throne. She and The Duke were exchanging veiled threats when Steve recognized John Wayne's voice. Steve gets all fanboy on him--"Loved you in Rio Bravo, sir."
I cut the throne room scene during a rewrite--it was bogging down the third act, and it didn't really do much story-wise. The John Wayne bit was kind of funny, but (you won't often hear me say this) maybe just a wee bit too far over the top.
Barry O'Shea was a seventeenth century alchemist who managed to get his hands on a book from the Library. He used it to give himself eternal life, but at terrible cost--he's all tentacle-y, and it's very contagious. Rejected by his beloved Clementine, he fled to the bottom of the ocean. He makes his home in sunken ocean liners and mopes a lot. Lately he's been trying to get back into the world via online dating. He's actually kind of a nice guy, but first dates are rough. Most people can't see past the tentacles.
Thanks for reading / hope that helps somewhat.
Best,
Scott (hide spoiler)]
More Answered Questions
Christopher Farrell
asked
Scott Hawkins:
Hi Scott! I'm a bookseller in a small mall and I have been doing everything to handsell your book - it's the most interesting, original book I've read in years. I know you have a prequel story coming, but stories about the Librarians would be appreciated! (More Peter, please - he takes after the cook buried in my own heart) What was your research like for this book?
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