Lois McMaster Bujold
This answer contains spoilers for the book, but really only the first chapter. (Free sample chapters, 1 - 4, are presently to be found here: http://www.baenebooks.com/p-2892-gent... )
Yes, I "knew" what Jole was (although not yet his first name) back when I first wrote The Vor Game in 1989, though he existed then more as a cloud of potential than as a known position. That potential expanded after I wrote Memory, circa 1995, which packed Aral and Cordelia off to Sergyar and incidentally extended Aral's narrative life by a decade. For the next 4 volumes the series followed Miles, who, you may have noticed, is a trifle self-centered, and thus so are his books.
Jole might have continued to exist merely as my private amusement if I hadn't been drawn back to write first CryoBurn and then Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, during which my speculations about him solidified, and then invited his story. The first notes hit actual paper in early 2011, when I was stalled on Ivan's book for various internal and external reasons. I then picked up Ivan's tale after a radical revamping and finished it, so I didn't get around to writing the first scene of GJ&RQ(which became the second scene of the actual book) in early 2012. (2/26/2012, my computer files tells me. Huh.) Reader demand to know what happened after CryoBurn also fed into this, as I gradually realized that the aftermath that really interested me was not Miles's, but Cordelia's.
Writing Jole's story did its usual trick of creating him, or at least, making him visible to me, in greater detail, and he finally achieved the character-density you see by the end of the book. (Not to mention that first name.)
Ta, L.
Yes, I "knew" what Jole was (although not yet his first name) back when I first wrote The Vor Game in 1989, though he existed then more as a cloud of potential than as a known position. That potential expanded after I wrote Memory, circa 1995, which packed Aral and Cordelia off to Sergyar and incidentally extended Aral's narrative life by a decade. For the next 4 volumes the series followed Miles, who, you may have noticed, is a trifle self-centered, and thus so are his books.
Jole might have continued to exist merely as my private amusement if I hadn't been drawn back to write first CryoBurn and then Captain Vorpatril's Alliance, during which my speculations about him solidified, and then invited his story. The first notes hit actual paper in early 2011, when I was stalled on Ivan's book for various internal and external reasons. I then picked up Ivan's tale after a radical revamping and finished it, so I didn't get around to writing the first scene of GJ&RQ(which became the second scene of the actual book) in early 2012. (2/26/2012, my computer files tells me. Huh.) Reader demand to know what happened after CryoBurn also fed into this, as I gradually realized that the aftermath that really interested me was not Miles's, but Cordelia's.
Writing Jole's story did its usual trick of creating him, or at least, making him visible to me, in greater detail, and he finally achieved the character-density you see by the end of the book. (Not to mention that first name.)
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Anne Archibald
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Is it my imagination, or should there be five Chalion novels? I mean, The Curse of Chalion is the Daughter's book, Paladin of Souls is the Bastard's, The Hallowed Hunt is the Son's — the hardcovers are even bound in the gods' colours — so are there two more planned for the Father and the Mother? Somehow I picture a murder mystery and something set in a plague hospital.
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