Patrick Weekes on Video Game Writing

Patrick Weekes’ first novel The Palace Job [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] came out two weeks ago. (And I would have had this post up then, if not for the fact that … um … okay, I got nothing. Apparently I just suck at getting things done on time lately.)

Anyway, not only does Weekes have both a novel and short fiction credits to his name, but he’s also done a lot of video game writing. I asked him if he would talk about how he got into video game writing, and the difference between writing a novel and writing a game.

Getting to hear about him being mauled by kobolds was just a bonus 🙂

You can read an excerpt of his new book at the Tyche Books website, or find him online at LiveJournal, the BioWare Blog, and Facebook.

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I came to video games as a player first. Primarily, in fact, as a somewhat terrible player. In the very old Telengard, I was the one wandering down to level 57 and getting eaten by demons. In the marginally less-old Gold Box Pool of Radiance on the Commodore 64, I was the one whose characters, all named after the heroes from Dragonlance, got mauled by kobolds. In Wing Commander, I was relieved to discover that you got medals for at least the first couple of times you panic-ejected. And in Star Control 2, I learned to sit patiently in hyperspace and wait for the Melnorme to come rescue me after the third or fourth time I forgot to purchase fuel.

As I grew up, I ran Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, built worlds, argued over rules, and went through the trials and tribulations that every gaming group encounters. I also started writing my own fiction, starting out with dark literary fiction in college and then gradually moving to lighter and happier work as I found my voice. On the video-game front, I played everything I could by a video-game studio called BioWare — the Baldur’s Gate series, then Neverwinter Nights, and finally Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

I came to BioWare after the editor at Amazing Stories, Dave Gross, bought a couple of stories about a nameless hero and his talking magical sword, and then joined BioWare and asked if I was interested. That was back in 2005. Since then, I’ve written on three games and sold a few more stories, along with my first novel, which came out on September 26th. It’s been an amazing ride, and it’s taught me some interesting things about writing for both the reader and the player.

The first and most obvious point when thinking about writing in games and in novels is that in a game like the ones we make at BioWare, the player has some measure of control over which characters they interact with, and how they talk with and form relationships with those characters. You have to be careful about writing a scene assuming that the player feels a certain way. Writing a buddy scene with the player and a character chatting over drinks? Whoops, it turns out that the player might never have spoken to that character before, and all your familiar old-friend dialog falls flat. Writing a scene where the player intercedes in an argument between two furious characters? Oh, by the way, you might be romancing one of them, and you might or might not have betrayed the other one on a deeply personal mission fifteen minutes ago. Writing an epic sacrifice scene where a beloved character dies tragically? As it turns out, the player has spent the last few hours on Twitter telling all her friends how incredibly annoying this character is, and how they really hope there’s a way to kill him off in the last act.

I used to think of this as a major difference — when I write a novel, I control how well the reader knows the characters, so I’ve got the final say in how those emotional scenes play out, right? As it turns out, working on video games helped me realize how important the reader is. My favorite character in the novel I’m writing might be the one that some readers reluctantly put up with. As a reader, I’ve read clunky novels and hit a point where I was clearly supposed to sympathize with a character who’d come up against terrible misfortune, but my reaction as a reader was, “Well, what did you think was going to happen, dumbass?”

As a novel writer, I’m in control of what the reader sees and hears, but not what the reader feels. Any emotional engagement on the reader’s part, I have to earn. As a result, when writing for games, I put the most emotional dialog behind logic checks that require that the player previously put time into making a connection with that character. And when I’m writing novels, I leave enough emotional content up for inference that the readers who are emotionally engaged will appreciate the scene, while those who don’t care about the character don’t have the assumption of an emotion they don’t share rubbed in their faces.

There are a lot of other differences, of course — writing as part of a team instead of being the sole creator of the world, writing dialog that is spoken aloud by a voice actor instead of read directly by the reader, and working with artists instead of simply writing descriptions for whatever I can imagine — but those aren’t specific to games. Every shared-world contributor has dealt with a team, and every playwright and screenwriter has had to learn to write for ear instead of the eye and work with the artists and set designers to create a shared vision. Video-game writing is where I learned to think of the reader not as the passive recipient of my wit and wisdom, but as an active participant who comes to my stories with his or her own experience, assumptions, and biases… and whose reactions to the story are going to vary accordingly.

Hopefully, then, it’s helped me learn to write things that work for more people. Or at least don’t leave people feeling like they’ve been mauled by kobolds.

Good News on the Ridan Front

I spoke with Ann Crispin about her situation with Ridan Publishing. Apparently Robin Sullivan, who runs Ridan, called this morning and said she is going to fix this.

I have to say, I’m a little stunned. This is exactly what I had hoped for when I wrote my blog post last night, but I didn’t know what would actually happen, and I didn’t expect anything to happen so quickly.

I also want to publicly thank Robin Sullivan for making what I imagine was a very difficult phone call, and for working to make this right. I hope Sullivan will be able to work things out with all of her authors in a timely way.

And to those who signal-boosted (thank you!), would you mind linking back to this update, please?

Ann Crispin and Ridan Publishing

Update 10/6: Robin Sullivan has contacted Ann and said that Ridan Publishing will work to make this right.

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I’m pissed.

I’ve had an exhausting week, between taking care of my injured wife at home, trying to figure out my new job at work, conferences for the kids, and more. I was planning to come home tonight and crash.

And then I came across a post by Ann Crispin. You might recall me blogging about Ann’s situation earlier this year. She’s fighting cancer, and her only source of income this year would be through her Starbridge novels, which had been republished by Ridan Publishing.

Or at least that was the plan. Only Ridan Publishing apparently hasn’t bothered to pay her, or do to much of anything publishers are supposed to do. From her Facebook update:

Ridan has pretty much stopped communicating with me. My last two certified letters, which included the contract termination letter, were never picked up at the post office. Even though StarBridge came out on December 5, 2011, I have never received a royalty payment from Ridan.

I know some of you were waiting for books 6 and 7 in the StarBridge series. Those books were turned in months ago, edited and ready to go, but they have never been released.

Ridan Publishing is owned and run by Robin Sullivan. There have apparently been other questions and concerns about this publisher lately over on Absolute Write.

I don’t know if Sullivan is deliberately trying to scam authors, or if (more likely, in my opinion) she’s simply gotten in over her head.

But I do know that Ann Crispin is an author whose work I’ve enjoyed for more than half of my life, an author who has done tireless and invaluable work for other writers. To Crispin’s great credit, she wrote a very reasonable, level-headed post, hoping for a civil resolution to this mess.

I, on the other hand, am feeling rather less than civil. I tend to feel very protective of those I consider friends, even those I’ve only met and talked to online.

So instead of coming home to crash on the couch, and maybe — if I felt ambitious — getting up to put in an episode of Avatar, I sat down to write this.

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Dear Robin Sullivan,

I don’t know what led up to the problems outlined by Ann Crispin in her latest Facebook post and on Absolute Write. At this point, however, I don’t particularly care.

Based on what Crispin describes, you have deprived her — an excellent author and an invaluable resource to the SF/F community, who is currently battling cancer — from her sole source of income this year. You have ignored her attempts to communicate with you.

Fix this.

Or I swear to God, I will do everything in my power to drop the entire fucking internet on your head.

Yours,
Jim C. Hines

Possible Fundraiser…

It started with a tweet asking me to do this pose.

Then Charlie Jane Anders offered to pay $5 toward my chiropractor fees if I did it.

Charlie Finlay pledged $5 for the implants I’d need to pull it off.

Tehani Wessely said she’d chip in as well.

I felt like such a fool! All these years, I’ve been going to work like a sucker, when I could have been posing for profit!

And then I thought about it a bit more, wondering how many people would actually pay money to see me do painful cover poses.

Or better yet, how many people would contribute to a worthy cause for such a show?

So now I’m seriously considering holding the First Annual Cover Pose Fundraiser. There are several good causes I’m thinking about right now. I’d pick one and ask people to donate. The more money we raise, the more poses I do. Maybe one additional cover for every $100 up to a thousand dollars. Then maybe every $200. I don’t have all the details worked out yet.

But wait, you cry. Which covers would you do? Therein lies the best part, my friends. I’d let the biggest donors each pick one. Thus encouraging even more generosity toward Good Causes. (Depending on the number of covers I ended up with, I’d probably do a few random drawings from the donors as well so that everyone has a shot at picking covers.)

My biggest concern is the tone of the whole thing. Offering to do ridiculous poses, even to raise money for a good cause, could come off as rather distasteful depending on the cause. On the other hand, I think I could probably frame and present it in such a way that it wouldn’t seem belittling to the cause in question, if that makes sense.

What do you think?

Codex Born Progress:

The October Plan

I originally wrote this piece on Saturday, planning to post it on October 1. Then we took a trip to the emergency room for some non-life-threatening but painful troubles my wife was having. That’s eaten up most of the past 48 hours. So I’m just going to post this today and pretend that October starts now and runs through November 2. That’s fair, right?

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For more than a decade now, I’ve done the majority of my writing during my lunch break at work. My coworkers have been generally understanding and supportive, which has been great. And looking back at the books and stories I’ve been able to put out, I’d say it’s worked.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t been working quite as well with Codex Born. I’m not entirely sure why, though I have a number of theories…

  • In general, each new book is more ambitious than the last, meaning in some ways, they get progressively harder to write, or require more time and energy to pull together.
  • Part of my therapy process with depression has been trying to learn to take time for myself, to just relax or have fun. Which is a good and healthy thing, but I wonder if deliberately concentrating on those issues has whittled away from some of the time I used to use to concentrate on the fiction.
  • Libriomancer is doing amazingly well, which is awesome, but it also means I’m feeling a lot more pressure to make book two as good or better. It’s a great problem to have, but it still means I’m putting additional pressure on myself, which might paradoxically be slowing me down.

I’m thinking about trying something I haven’t done in a long time. Back when I started writing books, we didn’t have National Novel Writing Month. We did have novel dares, though. Back in our day, we didn’t settle for just 50,000 words in a month. We wrote the entire novel. And we wrote uphill! Both ways!

I’ve started on the third draft of Codex Born. I’ve discarded several half-finished drafts, but I’m feeling more confident about this one, and I think I’ve worked through most of the problems that killed the earlier versions. So I’m setting myself a goal to finish this draft in October.

I expect to fail at this goal. Realistically, I think the odds of me completing a full, finished draft this month are pretty slim.

I know it’s not impossible. Heck, I wrote, revised, and started submitting Goblin Quest in about six weeks. But I was unemployed and living in my parents’ house at the time. Realistically, it will be a lot more difficult to do 80-90K words in the next 31 days. But I’m going to try.

And while I expect to fail, I also expect that the goal will help me mentally, and that it will be a more productive month. I’m also going to go back to posting word counts, which I haven’t done in ages, as another mind trick to keep me motivated and on track.

Wish me luck!

Promo Stuff

1 – I did an interview about Libriomancer [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] over at the Paranormal Book Club, where I mention my legendary battle with disco ninjas. There’s a giveaway at the end for a copy of the book, and five others will win autographed bookmarks.

B) Anton Strout had a new book out this week. Alchemystic [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] is the author of the Simon Canderous series, which I enjoyed. (I’ve talked about a few of them on the blog.) I haven’t read the new one yet, though it’s sitting on the pile waiting for me. But I can say Anton writes fun, fast-paced fantasy, which just might appeal to some of the folks reading this blog. He’s also one of my favorite people to taunt online. Penguin has posted an excerpt of the book here.

III. Vera Nazarian is doing a Kickstarter for her book Cobweb Bride. I’ve reviewed some of Vera’s work here and here, and generally enjoy her stuff. She tends toward a more mythic style in most of what I’ve read. The premise for her new book sounds interesting.

Lastly: Belated congratulations to Sherwood Smith and Rachel M. Brown on the sale of their novel Stranger. Smith and Brown turned down an offer of representation last year that came with a condition: “The agent offered to sign us on the condition that we make the gay character straight…” I’m happy and proud of both authors for refusing to compromise on that, and I’m delighted to hear that the novel has now been picked up by Sharyn November for Viking. Rachel has more details on her LiveJournal here.

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And that’s all I’ve got today. Any other new books/projects/announcements we should know about?

Codex Born Cover Reveal and Thoughts

CODEX BORN has a cover! This is 99% final, but I’ve been given permission to share. Click on the pic for a larger view, if you like.

There are many things I like about this image. I’m happy that the artist, Gene Mollica, found an Indian model for Lena Greenwood. I love seeing her teamed up with Smudge.[1. Cover Trivia: Smudge has now appeared on more of my U.S. book covers than any other character.] And I think this fits well with the look of the first book.

I’m particularly pleased that when I tried Lena’s pose, I was able to do it without pain. I love the expression on her face, and the fact that she’s actually got some muscle on her. And while the outfit she’s wearing is rather revealing, it’s also completely in character. Lena might be dressed sexy, but she’s not posing as a sexual object. There’s no unnecessary thrusting of hips or chest. She’s dressed the way she likes, and she’s stepping out of her oak to kick someone’s ass.

Now, those of you who’ve read Libriomancer [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] have probably noticed where this version of Lena doesn’t match the text. When we first meet Lena in chapter one, she’s described thusly:

Lena Greenwood was the least imposing heroine you’d ever see. She was several inches shorter than me, heavyset but graceful as a dancer. I didn’t know her actual age, but she appeared to be in her early twenties, and was about as intimidating as a stuffed bear. A damned sexy bear, but not someone you’d expect to go toe-to-toe with your average monster.

Which raises the question: Why has Lena been “thinwashed,” for lack of a better word?

When my editor was talking to the artist, she asked me to provide description for Lena, which I did. Like I said, Gene Mollica does photo shoots with a model in his studio, then manipulates the best pictures into the cover art. He looked for models who matched my description of Lena.

This was the largest Indian model he could find.[2. While I’m certain there are larger models out there, I’m not sure what other constraints Gene was working with in terms of location, budget, and time. I do know there was a rush to get this cover done for the catalog.]

I have the portfolio shots of the rest, and this truly was the best option for Lena.

This is just one piece of the problem. If we had found a heavier model, I wonder if marketing would have nixed it because they didn’t think people would buy a book with a fat woman on the cover. It’s a moot point, since Gene couldn’t even find a fat model … is that because the modelling profession in particular is hostile to anyone larger than a size six? Or is it because we’ve mocked and shamed people for being fat until they wouldn’t even consider trying to model as a career?

What it comes down to is that our disdain and disgust for anyone overweight, particularly women, permeates our whole culture, and it pisses me off. You don’t want to know how young my daughter was the first time she came to us worrying about her weight. I do think we’re finally starting to figure out that maybe it’s not okay to mock people for their race or gender or sexual orientation, but fat people are still fair game, both in real life and on every movie and sitcom you see.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH US???

The Lena Greenwood on the CODEX BORN cover is a sexy, attractive woman. [3. As much or more because of her confidence and humor and strength than because of her body or the amount of skin she’s showing.] But you know what? The Lena Greenwood in my book is damned sexy and attractive too. And while I’m happy with this cover, and I think Gene did a nice job, I’m also disappointed that we don’t get to see that Lena Greenwood.

Because she’s awesome.

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The Superheroes Union & My Life as a White Trash Zombie

I read Ruth Diaz‘s novella The Superheroes Union: Dynama [Amazon | B&N] a while back, and then discovered a new problem (for me) with e-books. When I read a print book, the book sits on my bedside table, reminding me to do a review. When I read an e-book, I don’t have that reminder, and then a month goes by before I get off my butt and review the thing…

TJ Gutierrez is a divorced former superhero with twin children. Her ex-husband is a villain named Singularity, who can manipulate gravity in nasty ways. Our story begins when Singularity escapes from prison and starts hunting for TJ and the kids…

And then there’s Annmarie Smith, who helps save the world not with superpowers, but by looking after the children of superheroes while they’re fighting evil. She moves in to watch the twins while TJ does everything in her power to intercept and stop her ex-husband.

We’ve seen superhero stories look at family dynamics before (The Incredibles being a great example), but Diaz approaches it from a different angle. Her heroine is trying to build a new life and to protect her children from an overly powerful and potentially abusive father. Aspects of the story are almost painfully believable and realistic.

There’s also a romantic plotline, and while at times Annmarie seems a little too perfect, I liked her romance with Gutierrez, as well as her role in the world of superheroes. (Because how would a superhero ever be able to trust a regular babysitting service?)

The ending didn’t work as well for me. My biggest complaint was that it felt like Diaz pulled out a deus ex machina for the climax. But overall, it was a good read.

Diaz has a brief excerpt posted on her website.

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I also just finished Diana Rowland‘s My Life as a White Trash Zombie [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy]. I’m going to cheat and post an abbreviated version of the official summary:

Angel Crawford is a loser.

Living with her alcoholic deadbeat dad in the swamps of southern Louisiana, she’s a high school dropout with a pill habit and a criminal record who’s been fired from more crap jobs than she can count … until the day she wakes up in the ER after overdosing on painkillers. Angel remembers being in an horrible car crash, but she doesn’t have a mark on her. To add to the weirdness, she receives an anonymous letter telling her there’s a job waiting for her at the parish morgue.

Before she knows it she’s dealing with a huge crush on a certain hunky deputy and a brand new addiction: an overpowering craving for brains. Plus, her morgue is filling up with the victims of a serial killer who decapitates his prey–just when she’s hungriest!

This was a fun, fast read. I zoomed through the book in a few nights, and enjoyed it. Angel reminds me in some ways of Jig the goblin. She’s society’s underdog, and she knows it, but when you’re seeing life through her eyes, you can’t help but sympathize and cheer her on. Many of the secondary characters were a lot of fun too, and more than they seemed at first glance.

Rowland’s background includes a job as a morgue assistant as well as working as a street cop and detective, all of which add a lot of realistic detail to Angel’s life and work. The plot moves along at a good pace, starting with Angel’s exploration of what it means to be dead, then shifting more into the mystery of the serial killer.

All that said, I found myself occasionally troubled. It would be easy for this book to fall into cliche and stereotype, the “Ha ha, look at the uneducated white trash trying to survive as a zombie” approach. Rowland avoids that trap for the most part, I think. Yet there are still times when Angel felt defined as White Trash as opposed to being an individual, if that makes sense. I’m having trouble pointing to a specific example, which is annoying.

It might just be the title, the way a derogatory label frames the entire story and series. Or maybe it was the sense of needing to be rescued from her life by various men.

It’s also possible that I’m overthinking it.

To be clear, I liked the book a lot, and will be reading the sequel.  But I’d be interested in hearing what other folks thought of this one.

The first few chapters are available on Rowland’s website.

Evolution of my (Lack of) Fashion Sense

I’ve never really understood fashion.

I mean, I understand wanting to look good, and I get that clothes can affect how you feel. When I was tuxed up for Writers of the Future 13 years ago, I was amused to note how it affected my posture and manners. The leather jacket of infinite pockets I picked up a few years ago is something I’ve learned to associate with Jim-the-Writer, and helps me get into that mindset. (It’s exactly like Bruce Wayne’s psychological transformation when he dons his cape and cowl. I am Writing Batman!)

But in general, clothes are something to keep me warm and to avoid the social awkwardness of parading around naked. All I cared about was that they were comfortable and covered up what they were supposed to.

This wasn’t a big deal in elementary school. I could show up in hand-me-down pants 10 years out of style or turtlenecks and sweatervests, and nobody cared. My plastic-framed glasses let me read the chalkboard and avoid walking into walls, and that was what mattered.

Things changed in 6th grade. Suddenly my sneakers were wrong, my pants were wrong, my shirts were wrong, and my glasses were wrong. Some of the other kids spent a great deal of time and energy making sure I knew how much my look screamed “nerd.”

For the first time, I started to pay attention to what I wore. When I went clothes shopping, I looked for anything that would deflect attention. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was beginning to develop a sense of style based on a single goal: I wanted to be invisible.

A friend described it as the gray-man approach. If people were going to give me crap about how I dressed, how I talked, how I interacted with others, how much I read, and so on, then I would do my best to blend into the background and avoid notice.

When I picked out glasses, I followed the same strategy: I chose whatever was comfortable and least likely to attract attention. Simple designs, thin metal frames. Contact lenses for a while. For the most part, my style was all about the unobtrusive. Even in my thirties, I automatically avoided anything remotely close to the bulky plastic nerd-glasses of my youth.

I’m 38 years old now. I still don’t care about fashion (though I have nothing against those who do). But I was out shopping for new glasses a few weeks back, and something was different. Maybe it’s the antidepressants and therapy putting me in a different space. Maybe it’s being old enough that I finally don’t give a damn anymore. But as the woman who was helping me brought over a pile of frames similar to my old ones, they just struck me as boring.

So I asked, “What about something … different?”

She got an odd smile on her face and came back with another pile of frames to try on. Some didn’t work at all. And nothing in this pile was terribly subtle … yet I couldn’t bring myself to buy another damn pair of bland glasses.

I kept returning to a pair of plastic frames that looked much like the nerd-specs of my youth. I was torn. I even posted a picture to Twitter and got mixed reactions. A friend gave me a flat-out “No.” But I kept looking in that mirror.

The woman helping me said not everyone could make those frames work, but she thought I could.

I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me before. That, in terms of style, I could make something work.

That little voice inside got louder, and I started to realize it was … not angry, but old and tired and defiant, asking, Who gives a shit what the other kids think?

My self-esteem is in pretty good shape these days. I have a healthy ego. (Perhaps too healthy, sometimes.) I feel good about who I am and what I’ve accomplished. And yet those voices from a quarter of a century ago were still whispering in the back of my brain. What’s up with that?

I write fantasy novels. I blog and socialize on the Internet. I go to science fiction conventions. I play Dungeons & Dragons and watch Avatar: The Last Airbender with my son. I built a LEGO Tardis and a customized Doctor Who minifig.

This is who I am.

I’m therefore dedicating this picture of me in the new glasses to every person, TV show, movie, and book that ever flung the word “nerd” at me like it was a bad thing.

An Interview with Pearl North

Pearl North is another Michigan author whose far-future trilogy (under this name) is all about the magic of books and the power of libraries. So naturally I had to ask her about LEGOs and dessert preferences, because here on my blog, I’m not afraid to ask the really important questions!

Her newest book is The Book of the Night [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy]. I wrote a bit about the first book, Libyrinth, here.

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1. Let’s start with introductions. In exactly 29 words, who is Pearl North?

Ooh, tricky! Pearl North is the young adult pseudonym of that notorious genre jumping author, Anne Harris. It’s all done with mirrors, actually. Is that twenty-nine words yet?

2. That’s 29, but I think that last bit was cheating. Anyway, this is the third book of the Libyrinth trilogy, which includes a magical library and a librarian—pardon me, a libyrarian—with some amazing gifts. Why are libraries and librarians just so dang awesome?

A book takes up a relatively small space on a shelf, and yet when you open it, you enter a whole new world. So for anyone who loves to read, libraries are a vast realm of possibilities. All of those words and worlds are just awaiting the reader’s exploration. And the librarian is the one with the map, the seasoned navigator guiding you through uncharted waters, the shaman who’s been initiated into the mysteries of the books. Pretty hot, really.

3. All right, let’s get into your books. Tell us about the new one!

In The Book of the Night, Haly travels to Thesia, a clockwork city stuck in time. There she discovers a secret that calls into question everything she thought she knew about her world. Meanwhile Clauda has returned from her own adventure in time and space with another piece of the puzzle. But she may die of thirst in the desert unless Selene can find her in time. And Po is engaged in a battle of wits and will with Queen Thela, who now possesses the Pen, an ancient device that rewrites reality. Thela is determined to revise the world to suit herself, even if it means destroying it in the process. Ultimately, Po, Haly, Clauda and Selene must come to grips with the truth about the Libyrinth, and it will be up to Selene to decide what kind of world she and those she loves will live, or die in.

4. You originally wrote Libyrinth as a standalone. What made you decide to turn it into a trilogy, and now that you’ve finished, what would you say is the heart of that trilogy?

That’s right. However, my editor was adamant that I write a trilogy. It was a bit of a problem for me at first, because (and I’ve said this elsewhere so my apologies if you’ve heard this before) at the end of Libyrinth, I felt that Haly had completed a significant character arc and I really didn’t have more I wanted to do with her at that time. Fortunately, I got the idea to use a minor character from the first book as the protagonist in the second. That’s Po, the “boy from Ilysies.”

The heart of the trilogy. Oh wow. There are so many different ways to answer that. In a very literal sense, the legendary tome entitled The Book of the Night is the heart of the trilogy. From a character standpoint, I would say it’s Selene, because she has been present at so many of the book’s pivotal moments, and because of what happens at the end (but I won’t tell.) But maybe the most sensible and accurate answer is just that the Libyrinth itself is the heart of these books and the world in which they take place.

5. If you had an infinite supply of LEGO bricks, what would you make first?

Infinite, huh? Okay, the TARDIS.

6. What is your favorite bit from the new book? Feel free to share a paragraph or two to make us all fall in love with the writing and rush out to buy our own copies.

Just one? Well, okay. This is from the beginning of the book, so it doesn’t give anything away.

They were close enough now that Selene’s fragrance of ink and wool filled Clauda’s nostrils, making her dizzy. “Do you…” She didn’t know where to begin. The words she wanted to say tangled themselves up in a knot and lodged in her throat, making it hard for Clauda to breathe, let alone speak.

Selene frowned. “Are you all right?”

Clauda nodded.

“Are you having a seizure?  You haven’t had one since the Redemption, have you?”

Clauda shook her head.  She was losing her nerve.  If she didn’t do what she came here for soon, it was never going to happen.  And words were not helping her now.

Selene put a tentative hand on Clauda’s shoulder and leaned down.  “Do you need to sit down?”

Clauda put her hands on Selene’s shoulders and arched upward. She closed her eyes, and pressed her lips to Selene’s.

7. What was the hardest part about writing this trilogy, and how did you get through it?

The complexity of the world I had created. You have no idea. But you will after you read The Book of the Night. I struggled and struggled, trying to make it simpler, and that didn’t work. Eventually, I had to give up and embrace the complexity. Now, I’m actually very happy with the way it came out and I wonder why I gave myself such a hard time about it. LOL.

8. Cheesecake or ice cream sundae? Defend your answer.

I lost my tolerance for dairy this year *sob*, but a Sanders Hot Fudge Cream Puff Sundae with butter pecan ice cream is totally worth the pain. Creamy, and crunchy, buttery and sweethot and cold, it’s an orgy of delicous contrasts and a Detroit original.

9. ::Drools:: Ahem. Okay, so what’s next for Pearl North?

She doesn’t have any immediate plans at the moment.

10. Thanks for stopping by the blog and saving me from having to write up my own content today! Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Thank you for having me. Great questions.

There is one thing I want to mention. Libyrinth got some wonderful attention for having a character of color on the cover, and I was thrilled by it too. It was a total non-issue with my publisher, Tor. With The Book of the Night, we put Selene on the cover, because she’s been an important character all along and she’s a very important character in this final volume. The jacket cover copy, however, focuses on Haly, because she’s been a consistent viewpoint character throughout all three books. I can see how easy it might be to assume that it’s Haly on the cover, looking very different, but that’s not the case. Haly has not been whitewashed. The cover features Selene, and it’s a reasonably accurate representation of what she looks like.

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