Nerva Maximus asked Michael J. Sullivan:

Hey! Your series has many layers to it and you often mention that one of the reasons why you write the series as a whole before publishing is to get them all in order. But how do you actually incorporate these layers into your writing? Do you just go with an idea them add the needed scenes as you go or did you have some plan/list of what should lead to what somewhere to keep them all straight as you wrote?

Michael J. Sullivan Hey Nerva, Sorry for the delay getting to your question. It's been very busy as of late. There's no easy answer to that, because it depends on many things. For instance....

1. The running "gag" about the play "The Crown Conspiracy" (in Royalist controlled areas and "Betrayal in Medford for the Imperialist crowds) started out because Robin (my wife) noticed I missed a great opportunity in Avemparatha. At the start of that book, Royce and Hadrian walk by a theater and I do a brief description of it. Robin was the one who had decided to make the play "The Crown Conspiracy" and then I brought it up from time to time for color -- and the running gag was created.

2. Sometimes a character doesn't exist and when I'm in book #x (where they are made), I feel like I have to go back to prior books and introduce them so they just don't "show up" on a whim. It also helps to hide their importance because they've been around for a long time.

3. Sometimes is a plot point that needs more emphasis. Originally I had one "Kile story" in the book (in Avempartha) and when Robin got to the end of the series, and there was a reference to that one story Robin didn't get it. When I explained it to her she said, "Wow, yeah, you can't expect people to mention that one reference way back 5 books ago), so we "sprinkled in" more of those references.

4. Some of the "big pay offs" in the last book I had planned since before I wrote the series, so I planted the seeds and exposed them when their time would come.

5. Sometimes it's a certain character who I really liked so he/she gets more "screen time" later on - Some of the people in the Chronicle books are characters that I wanted to spend more time with.

For those looking for these overreaching threads it's usually easy to find them if something is left unexplained or something "just doesn't seem right" chances are there is more coming as the rest of the story plays out.

I'll give an example that makes this a bit clearer. In The Crown Conspiracy a bunch of people find themselves trapped in a prison where a constantly playing song make them relive the worst moment of their lives. For Hadrian this brought up a coliseum of people chanting "Galenti." It's not until several books later when you learn what that word means and why Hadrian hates it so. That was one of those "threads planned from the very beginning.

That's a long answer to your question. But the answer the threads manifest themselves in a number of ways.

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