Jeremy
asked
Scott Hawkins:
I have to ask: How did you plan this story out? It was so detail oriented, so focused, all the ties coming together in the end with situations that could become so convoluted (stepping out of our universe, parallel universes, messing with time etc.). How did you keep it all straight and make it work so well? (and p.s. if no sequel, can you please just keep giving us books. You have a loyal reader in me for life)
Scott Hawkins
Hey Jeremy,
It probably looks harder than it actually was. Yeah, I mean, if you tried to just sit down and bang out a story like that over the course of an afternoon, it would be challenging. But it was done over a process of months, so I had a lot of opportunity to come awake in the middle of the night and go "oh, crap! found a plot hole!" or whatever. When I'm working on a book I keep a notebook with me so I can jot down note-to-self type stuff. It's very hipster.
But to answer your question of "how," it's kind of iterative. When I"m writing a book, the first thing I do is try to bang out a couple of scenes that feel like they'd be fun to read, without really worrying about how they string together. In this book the core scenes were the opening sequence of Carolyn + Steve at the bar, the neighborhood picnic scene, and the guy-goes-for-a-jog-and-gets-attacked scene.
Once I've got the cores, I start worrying about connective tissue. As a for-instance, by the time I started worrying about why it was Steve and not somebody else jogging through Garrison Oaks, I'd written myself into a corner. I'd already established that the librarians were whiz-bang powerful. Why couldn't one of them go into Danger Subdivision instead of--and probably better than--Steve? That's where the reissak ayrial came from. But why would someone put such a force field thingy there in the first place? Well, maybe there's something in the library that X is trying to keep hidden. Who is X? What are they hiding?
The trickiest one was "how is going to plausibly defeat in combat? " I sweated that one.
The fun part is looking for connections between all these little explanations for stuff. I was soooooooooo tickled when I figured out what the "trigger" for the reissak was going to be. The bit with Isha and Asha was originally a much smaller scene, but I liked it as a sort of unifying thread that carried through the book.
Anyhow, thanks for the vote of confidence! I'll try not to screw it up. The next book unrelated (sry). It's about a homicidal sous chef named Jackie who's hired by an evil pretzel billionaire to investigate a school shooting. I'm hoping to be semi-done with it in a couple of weeks. After that I'm going to take a hard look at a sequel to Mount Char.
Best,
Scott
It probably looks harder than it actually was. Yeah, I mean, if you tried to just sit down and bang out a story like that over the course of an afternoon, it would be challenging. But it was done over a process of months, so I had a lot of opportunity to come awake in the middle of the night and go "oh, crap! found a plot hole!" or whatever. When I'm working on a book I keep a notebook with me so I can jot down note-to-self type stuff. It's very hipster.
But to answer your question of "how," it's kind of iterative. When I"m writing a book, the first thing I do is try to bang out a couple of scenes that feel like they'd be fun to read, without really worrying about how they string together. In this book the core scenes were the opening sequence of Carolyn + Steve at the bar, the neighborhood picnic scene, and the guy-goes-for-a-jog-and-gets-attacked scene.
Once I've got the cores, I start worrying about connective tissue. As a for-instance, by the time I started worrying about why it was Steve and not somebody else jogging through Garrison Oaks, I'd written myself into a corner. I'd already established that the librarians were whiz-bang powerful. Why couldn't one of them go into Danger Subdivision instead of--and probably better than--Steve? That's where the reissak ayrial came from. But why would someone put such a force field thingy there in the first place? Well, maybe there's something in the library that X is trying to keep hidden. Who is X? What are they hiding?
The trickiest one was "how is going to plausibly defeat in combat? " I sweated that one.
The fun part is looking for connections between all these little explanations for stuff. I was soooooooooo tickled when I figured out what the "trigger" for the reissak was going to be. The bit with Isha and Asha was originally a much smaller scene, but I liked it as a sort of unifying thread that carried through the book.
Anyhow, thanks for the vote of confidence! I'll try not to screw it up. The next book unrelated (sry). It's about a homicidal sous chef named Jackie who's hired by an evil pretzel billionaire to investigate a school shooting. I'm hoping to be semi-done with it in a couple of weeks. After that I'm going to take a hard look at a sequel to Mount Char.
Best,
Scott
More Answered Questions
Jennifer Niskanen
asked
Scott Hawkins:
Like everyone else, I popped over to see if there were more books. I don't really have a question, other than how do you stand the greedy demands for a sequel? Good for you! I love Mount Char, but too many stretch what starts out as a great story, until it just fades to nothing. Trying to force a story on, when the inspiration is already complete, just sounds like a recipe for creative constipation to me.
Beachesnbooks
asked
Scott Hawkins:
I absolutely loved your book--it was so unique and creative. It's really refreshing to read something that different. I had a question about how you determined the disciplines that each of the children studied at the Library. Why was there no discipline for literature, or for history? What made you choose the areas of study that you did--was there anything in particular that influenced your choices?
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