Alli
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
I love your work and my all time favorite series (not just of yours) is The Sharing Knife. I'm in a intercultural marriage so this series really hit home for me. One thing I admire about characters you write is that you show their intelligence. I always feel like I learn from your them. Could share any insight or tidbits on how you developed Dag and Fawn?
Lois McMaster Bujold
It's been a while... A lot of things about Dag & Fawn arrived together -- both of their starting-points at first meeting (Dag with a longer, but not more important, backstory than Fawn), their ages and heights, the uneven command of magic but equal smarts (actually, Fawn has the edge there, camouflaged by her lack of experience) the bare basics but not yet all the details of their respective cultures and families and world history, much of which was developed as the story went along.
Having set up their bare-bones backstories, I basically set the pair in motion in the opening scenes and let them show me their tale as they moved through it, adding more characters and material as needs arose. We were frequently all of us surprised.
The first two volumes were initially a single bigger one, split on publication, but ending on a down-ish if promising note. There was plainly more tale to be told and more world to be explored as both characters broke free from the constraints of family and clan and found new room to grow; the second pair of volumes became the "there and back again" of all that.
Ta, L.
It's been a while... A lot of things about Dag & Fawn arrived together -- both of their starting-points at first meeting (Dag with a longer, but not more important, backstory than Fawn), their ages and heights, the uneven command of magic but equal smarts (actually, Fawn has the edge there, camouflaged by her lack of experience) the bare basics but not yet all the details of their respective cultures and families and world history, much of which was developed as the story went along.
Having set up their bare-bones backstories, I basically set the pair in motion in the opening scenes and let them show me their tale as they moved through it, adding more characters and material as needs arose. We were frequently all of us surprised.
The first two volumes were initially a single bigger one, split on publication, but ending on a down-ish if promising note. There was plainly more tale to be told and more world to be explored as both characters broke free from the constraints of family and clan and found new room to grow; the second pair of volumes became the "there and back again" of all that.
Ta, L.
More Answered Questions
Kate Davenport
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
Maybe unfair to ask since your books don't fall into this category, but what makes an author abandon a series that has an unfinished through-line? I now have 4 different series I have followed where the author seems to have abandoned them and moved on to other things without wrapping up the larger story. (Example: 18 months between each of the first 14 books. 5 years since the last one, a semi-cliffhanger.)
Bill O'Connor
asked
Lois McMaster Bujold:
In the world of the five gods, how different are the afterlife experiences of the various gods? That is to say, if a person is taken up by the Brother, do they experience a truly different afterlife from someone taken up by the Daughter? And, as a corollary, do each of the gods have a separate "heaven" or is there one afterlife that may be affected by the perceptions of the god whose gate you came through?
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