Brzk
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
When you have first started writing about Miles, did you have a clear idea of how his character would turn out? To what extent have you based him on the traits of real person/s - or is Miles entirely a product of your imagination? Was it your intention that he starts as a complete outsider and thus his physical appearance? I guess it says a lot about your optimism that he survived and never turned against Barrayar...
Lois McMaster Bujold
I've answered this one a bunch of times in a bunch of places, now scattered to the winds of time I suppose. I really should fix myself one of those canned-answer files for FAQs, but so far I've been too lazy and disorganized. Iirc the intro to Baen's 30th Anniversary trade paperback reprint of The Warrior's Apprentice touches on it, also the Afterword to Young Miles.
No, I never have a clear idea how any character will turn out. In general, I set them in motion and watch them go, like an AI self-learning program. They will be created by their actions as they progress. (Note that speech, too, is an action, as is internal dialogue.)
I don't know where folks think the contents of people's imaginations come from, except from the world around them. It's not an either/or proposition. Real-word inspirations include but are not limited to young T. E. Lawrence, young Winston Churchill, my own relationship with my own father, a physical (but not psychological) template in a hospital pharmacist I used to work with long ago, Aral's and Cordelia's personalities and situation, and doubtless other sources now forgotten at a remove of, let's see, Miles was initially created in 1984, so now almost 35 years.
The first thing I knew about Miles, before his name or anything else, was that he would be born to Aral and Cordelia physically handicapped in some way, but very bright, on mutie-hostile Barrayar. This was about halfway through the writing of Shards of Honor. At that point, he was little more than a glowing blob in my mind, or in Cordelia for that matter, but he got better.
One might also note that the original first draft of Shards of Honor actually went up through the soltoxin attack, but not including the start of the war of the Pretendership. So up to the end of Chapter 9 or thereabouts, don't remember exactly where I broke off. I then cut backward to the present ending. When I went to start Barrayar a number of years later, I wrote a new Chapter One for the needed transition, laid in the 8 chapters I had in hand, retyping and editing them, and went on from there. So for a while, I knew a lot more detail about Miles's early start than the readers did.
Miles is not so much an outsider as a liminal figure, really, existing on the borderlines of so many things, able to see, and be pulled, in multiple directions.
Ta, L.
I've answered this one a bunch of times in a bunch of places, now scattered to the winds of time I suppose. I really should fix myself one of those canned-answer files for FAQs, but so far I've been too lazy and disorganized. Iirc the intro to Baen's 30th Anniversary trade paperback reprint of The Warrior's Apprentice touches on it, also the Afterword to Young Miles.
No, I never have a clear idea how any character will turn out. In general, I set them in motion and watch them go, like an AI self-learning program. They will be created by their actions as they progress. (Note that speech, too, is an action, as is internal dialogue.)
I don't know where folks think the contents of people's imaginations come from, except from the world around them. It's not an either/or proposition. Real-word inspirations include but are not limited to young T. E. Lawrence, young Winston Churchill, my own relationship with my own father, a physical (but not psychological) template in a hospital pharmacist I used to work with long ago, Aral's and Cordelia's personalities and situation, and doubtless other sources now forgotten at a remove of, let's see, Miles was initially created in 1984, so now almost 35 years.
The first thing I knew about Miles, before his name or anything else, was that he would be born to Aral and Cordelia physically handicapped in some way, but very bright, on mutie-hostile Barrayar. This was about halfway through the writing of Shards of Honor. At that point, he was little more than a glowing blob in my mind, or in Cordelia for that matter, but he got better.
One might also note that the original first draft of Shards of Honor actually went up through the soltoxin attack, but not including the start of the war of the Pretendership. So up to the end of Chapter 9 or thereabouts, don't remember exactly where I broke off. I then cut backward to the present ending. When I went to start Barrayar a number of years later, I wrote a new Chapter One for the needed transition, laid in the 8 chapters I had in hand, retyping and editing them, and went on from there. So for a while, I knew a lot more detail about Miles's early start than the readers did.
Miles is not so much an outsider as a liminal figure, really, existing on the borderlines of so many things, able to see, and be pulled, in multiple directions.
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Norine Luker
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Is there any other genre that you ever had a secret or not so secret yen to write in?
A Goodreads user
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Uterine replicators are happening. "Dr. Hanna said he and his colleagues had taken fertilized eggs from the oviducts of female mice just after fertilization — at Day 0 of development — and had grown them in the artificial uterus for 11 days." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/health/mice-artificial-uterus.html https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03416-3 ?
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