Luke R.J. Maynard
Like probably almost everyone, I'm inspired by what I take in. That's part of the reason why I take a breather and never read the same genre I'm currently writing in: writers consciously echo what they take in, and if I read high fantasy while writing high fantasy, there's a chance what I'm doing will turn out too much like what they're doing. I love the Tolkien comparisons I've been getting with "The Season of the Plough," but I don't want to *copy* JRRT or anyone else in fantasy.
So I mostly read other things. For "The Season of the Plough," I took a page out of William Faulkner: he also spends a lot of time writing about small towns growing up as a community in the shadow of a civil war only a couple of generations past. I wanted to begin the Travalaith Saga with a look at a small town.
It eventually became a town of refugees from all across the Travalaithi Empire because I wanted a diverse cast without the feeling like I was just shoehorning one into the standard English Medieval setting of most high fantasy. I wanted a small town like Faulkner's for Aewyn to grow up in, but I also wanted a rich background of people from all over, with past lives and stories from far away... something like the alien cantina in Star Wars.
If you imagine a world where that's not a spacer bar, it's just a bar where all the local farmers go, but all the local farmers came here from other worlds to get away from their lives, I guess that's what Widowvale is like.
I also wrote the book while studying for a law degree. So I had Aewyn's story from the beginning, but the idea for the setting grew out of William Faulkner's short stories, plus Star Wars, plus a few medieval land conveyances and tax evasion case law.
The upcoming sequel, "The Season of the Cerulyn," has its roots in Guy de Maupassant's short fiction from the French decadence. But that, as they say, is another story...
So I mostly read other things. For "The Season of the Plough," I took a page out of William Faulkner: he also spends a lot of time writing about small towns growing up as a community in the shadow of a civil war only a couple of generations past. I wanted to begin the Travalaith Saga with a look at a small town.
It eventually became a town of refugees from all across the Travalaithi Empire because I wanted a diverse cast without the feeling like I was just shoehorning one into the standard English Medieval setting of most high fantasy. I wanted a small town like Faulkner's for Aewyn to grow up in, but I also wanted a rich background of people from all over, with past lives and stories from far away... something like the alien cantina in Star Wars.
If you imagine a world where that's not a spacer bar, it's just a bar where all the local farmers go, but all the local farmers came here from other worlds to get away from their lives, I guess that's what Widowvale is like.
I also wrote the book while studying for a law degree. So I had Aewyn's story from the beginning, but the idea for the setting grew out of William Faulkner's short stories, plus Star Wars, plus a few medieval land conveyances and tax evasion case law.
The upcoming sequel, "The Season of the Cerulyn," has its roots in Guy de Maupassant's short fiction from the French decadence. But that, as they say, is another story...
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