Eliana asked Lois McMaster Bujold:

In a discussion with friends about Diplomatic Immunity, I mentioned having seen you say that you regretted not having made the plot resolution section with Ekaterin be present tense, from her POV, rather than described after the fact. Someone asked where I had seen that - and I can't find it! I had thought it was in an afterward, but I'm not seeing it. Do you remember where that might be? Thank you!

Lois McMaster Bujold
I don't know where you might have run across this, but what I was actually thinking was that I somewhat regretted not making the tale dual viewpoint between Ekaterin and Miles. In the early sections, there wasn't much for her to do, so it would have seemed unbalanced. By the end, I realized the viewpoints could have been balanced not side by side, but end for end, a different structure, but at that point the book was running late, and what was going to be Paladin of Souls was late to start -- long story, but it was how I learned I couldn't contract and write two books at once, at least not to two different publishers. (I had actually started with trying to alternate chapters between the two projects, got a couple chapters in, and stalled out painfully on both.) I lost about 9 months to that mental logjam, plus some concurrent health issues. I only got unjammed by setting Ista aside.

Present tense, no, that was never contemplated. If I had done Ekaterin's viewpoint, it would have been tight third person past tense, just like Miles's.

Also, on a different level, I think Ekaterin and Ista were competing for creative energy viz women's thematic issues in some weird way. But even if I'd thought of this at the time and not after the fact, I would not have had the will to rip apart a perfectly good book that was finished for a bunch of changes that would make no difference to the outcome.

Ta, L.

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