Rick Ellrod
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Rereading _A Civil Campaign_ for the Nth time, I wondered about whether you had already developed the plot of that book while you were writing _Komarr_ -- the latter story makes such brilliant use of the plot elements set up in the earlier one. Did you have the main plot of ACC laid out when writing Komarr?
Lois McMaster Bujold
Only in the broadest sense of "a Barrayaran Regency/Shakespearean romantic comedy". Komarr was the romantic drama half, and it would have been a tonal mismatch to try to jam both parts together into one book.
Parts that came up only well after I started writing the first draft were Mark's butter bug plot, recycled from an abandoned short story idea, and Ivan's plot with Donna/Dono. Ivan's subplot gave me fits, as I generated and slew several bad ideas, till Dono arrived and took over, in all her/his thematic perfection.
Viewpoint, and limiting it, mattered hugely in structuring and centering the story. At one point I had an early scene from Pym's point of view, which would have pulled the tale off-course into a study of armsmen in the capital, which, however intrinsically interesting, was not what turned out to be thematically on-point. Also I dimly recall (it's been over 20 years, yowza) a scene either written or outlined from Gregor's point of view, which would have had a similar problem. His romance was told in Memory and did not need revisited.
More high-level fannish musing on ACC here: http://dendarii.com/accc.html
Ta, L.
Parts that came up only well after I started writing the first draft were Mark's butter bug plot, recycled from an abandoned short story idea, and Ivan's plot with Donna/Dono. Ivan's subplot gave me fits, as I generated and slew several bad ideas, till Dono arrived and took over, in all her/his thematic perfection.
Viewpoint, and limiting it, mattered hugely in structuring and centering the story. At one point I had an early scene from Pym's point of view, which would have pulled the tale off-course into a study of armsmen in the capital, which, however intrinsically interesting, was not what turned out to be thematically on-point. Also I dimly recall (it's been over 20 years, yowza) a scene either written or outlined from Gregor's point of view, which would have had a similar problem. His romance was told in Memory and did not need revisited.
More high-level fannish musing on ACC here: http://dendarii.com/accc.html
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Kate Davenport
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
I wonder how much interest Miles is taking in his half-sisters and one third (?) brothers, since they are so far away physically and so different in age. I have had several friends with siblings and half siblings far away physically and/or chronologically and they run the gamut from being very close, to being cordial acquaintances, to being essentially strangers.
Ari
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Upon rereading Gentleman Jole, I was struck by a simple question: enabling technology is a fine thing, but would you really want to start raising children at your age? And on the topic of reproductive tech, what do you think of Lavie Tidhar's Central Station? It's wonderful to see how different authors take similar premises in very different yet thought-provoking directions.
SvetlanaP
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Did you come up with the line "I'll trade you one Mark for the Commodore's 18 million" before or after you named the character himself? It's always been one of my favourite lines in the series because of the coincidence & brilliance needed for it to work, so I've always wondered how much of a coincidence it really was. Either way, thank you for writing books with such awesome & quotable lines!
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