Laer Carroll
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Do you know the endings of your books when you begin them? If you do, how much knowledge? A little? A lot?
Lois McMaster Bujold
I think these process questions may have been answered at greater length earlier in this column -- people who want more are invited to scroll back. But, briefly, the answer would be different for each book but converging on "a little". My notions at the start about the end change along the route as I write my way, scene by scene, into my material, and new possibilities arise that were not yet thought-of, and could not be thought-of, back at Scene 1. So even when I think I know the ending, I often turn out to be wrong. The story only looks inevitable in retrospect.
My scene-by-scene outlines are a rolling process, scaffolding for my elusive thinking and my prose, built and taken down in a just-in-time fashion. Like nailing jello to the wall. (Which would work, come to think, if you made the jello cold and concentrated enough...)
Ta, L.
I think these process questions may have been answered at greater length earlier in this column -- people who want more are invited to scroll back. But, briefly, the answer would be different for each book but converging on "a little". My notions at the start about the end change along the route as I write my way, scene by scene, into my material, and new possibilities arise that were not yet thought-of, and could not be thought-of, back at Scene 1. So even when I think I know the ending, I often turn out to be wrong. The story only looks inevitable in retrospect.
My scene-by-scene outlines are a rolling process, scaffolding for my elusive thinking and my prose, built and taken down in a just-in-time fashion. Like nailing jello to the wall. (Which would work, come to think, if you made the jello cold and concentrated enough...)
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Diane Houdek
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
There are certain authors that I will immediately order/preorder their new book, but will then save said book to read as a reward or to consume in pure happiness because I know the writing, plot, world-building, etc are top notch and will not disappoint. You, T. Kingfisher, Alma T.C. Boykin, James Benn, (Terry Pratchett, alas) are some of my very favorites. Are there authors or series about which you feel similarly?
Kate Davenport
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Maybe unfair to ask since your books don't fall into this category, but what makes an author abandon a series that has an unfinished through-line? I now have 4 different series I have followed where the author seems to have abandoned them and moved on to other things without wrapping up the larger story. (Example: 18 months between each of the first 14 books. 5 years since the last one, a semi-cliffhanger.)
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