Kathy, could you tell us about your own writing process

[Teresa Edgerton]

Now that you've answered so many of our general questions, Kathy, could you tell us more about your own books and the process of writing them?

I know that Marion Zimmer Bradley was an early influence -- could you tell us a little about that, and some of your other influences and inspirations? It would also be interesting to learn some of the specifics for one of your stories -- how the first inspiration evolved into the general outlines of a plot, and how much (if at all) and in what ways that changed in the writing.

 

[kdwentworth]

Now that you've answered so many of our general questions, Kathy, could you tell us more about your own books and the process of writing them?

I know that Marion Zimmer Bradley was an early influence -- could you tell us a little about that, and some of your other influences and inspirations? It would also be interesting to learn some of the specifics for one of your stories -- how the first inspiration evolved into the general outlines of a plot, and how much (if at all) and in what ways that changed in the writing.

I adored Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover stories and I was a huge fan of Andre Norton, Anne McCaffery, and C.J. Cherryh. In later years, I also really admired Sharon Lee and Steve Miller's Liaden stories, as well as Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis series. Have you noticed that most of my favorites are women? I don't know how that happened!

Two of my favorite subjects are psionics (and the cultures that could support them) and aliens. When I can combine the two, I'm in writing heaven.

In short stories, I often like to write about a world where the rules are different, not so much magic as that things just work differently. One of my stories, "Along the Old Rose Trail," was inspired by the song "Rambling Rose." In it, they herd roses instead of cattle in the old American West.

Another, "As You Sow," was inspired by a man teasing my grandmother when she bought some birdseed and asking her what kind of birds she was going to grow. I wrote a story about an Estonian peasant back in the 1700's who tries to buy geese seeds and winds up with flamingo seeds instead. In that story everyone knows that you get birds from planting seeds. It's a given.

I also write about religion a lot, because it makes me crazy that something which is meant to bring so much comfort into the world is used to drive us all apart. I have a story on the Nebula ballot right now about a Jesus clone called "Born-Again." I had another one on the Nebula ballot a few years back about a priest sent to another planet to minister to aliens. It was called "Tall One." One of my novels, This Fair Land, is an alternate history Cherokee fantasy about an Irish priest who discovers he has an unwanted talent for Indian magic.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Since Fantasy tends to be so Eurocentric, and there is so little use made of American and American Indian folklore, it interests me that you've written stories set in the Old West and based on Cherokee magic. My father was born in Missouri, and I've always wanted to write something based on Ozark superstitions and folkways -- which I have researched, and which I find really resonate for me, although so far no definite story ideas. I would imagine that folk magic in the rural parts of Oklahoma would share a lot of similarities with Ozark traditions. Have you written many stories based on that local folklore? I'd also be interested to hear more about your alternate world Native American magic, in This Fair Land.

And do you do a lot of research when you are writing a book, or do you tend to stick with subjects that have always interested you and you already know a great deal about? If you do research, how do you generally go about it?

 

[Jives]

Now that you've answered so many of our general questions, Kathy, could you tell us more about your own books and the process of writing them?

Kathy is a published author? WE ARE NOT WORTHY!!!!

I know that Marion Zimmer Bradley was an early influence

I just finished "Hunters of the Red Moon," for the quadzillionth time. It was just as good as ever.

So Kathy, do you do the whole "rough draft / revised edition / final edition" thing?

I know I'm doing it wrong. I get the urge and then I just sit down and write the whole thing in a single sitting. That can't be right.

 

[kdwentworth]

Since Fantasy tends to be so Eurocentric, and there is so little use made of American and American Indian folklore, it interests me that you've written stories set in the Old West and based on Cherokee magic. My father was born in Missouri, and I've always wanted to write something based on Ozark superstitions and folkways -- which I have researched, and which I find really resonate for me, although so far no definite story ideas. I would imagine that folk magic in the rural parts of Oklahoma would share a lot of similarities with Ozark traditions. Have you written many stories based on that local folklore? I'd also be interested to hear more about your alternate world Native American magic, in This Fair Land.

And do you do a lot of research when you are writing a book, or do you tend to stick with subjects that have always interested you and you already know a great deal about? If you do research, how do you generally go about it?

I generally do a lot of research. Part of the fun is learning about something new. When I wrote The Imperium Game, I had a whole shelf of books about ancient Rome. In fact, once the book was finished and sold, I had trouble weaning myself from buying more!

I also did a ton of research for This Fair Land, most of that about the Cherokee and geographical details of Georgia. I'd only been to Atlanta which hardly qualifies you to tell a story set in rural Georgia in the 1700's.

I'm strongly attracted to Native American mythos. I've done a number of short stories based on them, including "The Turquoise Horse" (Navajo), and "In the Land of the Bears" (Cherokee). Since This Fair Land is an alternate history, it had to have a point of divergence with our timeline, so I picked Columbus's first encounter with the natives. They drive him away with their magic and then keep the white man out of the New World until the mid-1700's. The book takes place in 1774, about the time of the Revolutionary War in our timeline.

I had some trouble researching authentic Cherokee beliefs of the pre-contact period because, by the time anyone got around to writing things down, the Cherokees had been heavily influenced by Christianity and it was reflected in their stories. So I used what I could find and made the rest up.

I also gave the Indians giant dogs the size of horses, to give them another advantage over the invaders. I love big dogs and have a hundred pound akita and a sixty pound siberian huskey at the moment.

 

[kdwentworth]

Kathy is a published author? WE ARE NOT WORTHY!!!!



I just finished "Hunters of the Red Moon," for the quadzillionth time. It was just as good as ever.

So Kathy, do you do the whole "rough draft / revised edition / final edition" thing?

I know I'm doing it wrong. I get the urge and then I just sit down and write the whole thing in a single sitting. That can't be right.

Yes, I'm a draft writer. I read a how-to-write book once that said writers fall into one of two camps: Draft writers and Block writers.

Draft writers just have to get the whole story down, then they go back and fine-tune it. In some ways I like working on second and third drafts better than first drafts, because the shape is complete and all I have to do is iron out inconsistencies, add details, and generally make it better.

Block writers have to make each sentence perfect before they go on, but they do almost no rewriting, so in the end it takes about the same amount of time.

Neither method is better than the other. You just have to figure out which one works for you.

 

[Brian G Turner]

The idea of psionics sounds really intriguing - do you have a specific "rule" system on how it works in your writing, or do you take a more spiritual/intuitive role? Or am I simply showing my ignorance here?

 

[kdwentworth]

The idea of psionics sounds really intriguing - do you have a specific "rule" system on how it works in your writing, or do you take a more spiritual/intuitive role? Or am I simply showing my ignorance here?

Well, since there is no science of psionics for me to research, I had to make it all up. My psionic people are called the Kashi, the People of the Light. They don't have levitation, but they have telepathy, healing, teleportation (with the aid of crystals), and a power called Searching, which is relatively rare. They also have different degrees of these abilities, starting with Plus-One (barely Talented) and going up to at least Plus-Eleven. Healing is also rare.

And then there are these telepathic non-human natives (you can hardly call them aliens, I suppose, since it was their planet first) called the ilseri, who taught them to connect with these abilities in the first place.

And on top of that, we have the complication of a few women being able to travel through a temporal nexus. That makes things really complicated.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'm curious to know more about your aliens. (You mentioned C. J. Cherryh as one of your influences, and I think she does aliens better than anyone.) In writing about races like the Hrinn, the Flek, and the Jao, what do you use as inspiration in imagining their societies? Do you take some aspect of human culture and give it a twist? Base them on what we know about social interactions among non-human species like wolves or chimpanzees?

 

[kdwentworth]

I'm curious to know more about your aliens. (You mentioned C. J. Cherryh as one of your influences, and I think she does aliens better than anyone.) In writing about races like the Hrinn, the Flek, and the Jao, what do you use as inspiration in imagining their societies? Do you take some aspect of human culture and give it a twist? Base them on what we know about social interactions among non-human species like wolves or chimpanzees?

I research other cultures, when creating aliens. When I wrote Black/on/Black, I researched the Arabs, Africans, and Japanese, just trying to break out of my western viewpoint. It seems to me, that to create a successful alien species, you have to worry more about what's inside their head than how they look on the outside. I'm always disappointed when I read a book where aliens are doing and saying what humans would in the same situation, becoming then just humans in alien suits.

The most telling detail is to figure out how they think the universe works. The Hrinn believe destiny is governed by great unseen patterns that arise and affect your actions. To be successful in life, you have to figure out which pattern is arising right now, then use that knowledge to modify your decisions. The patterns have names, like patience/in/illusion, which is the harbinger of wonders, and fire/in/water, which signifies deception.

Also, Hrinn are so violent that they worship the power of order and fear chaos. They think it's fine to kill, if you have a legitimate reason. Killing without a just cause frightens them.

The Jao, in The Course of Empire, believe that the highest value is to be of use. They have no patience with the human ability to create, which they think of as crafting lies, then circulating them. They think fiction, films, television, and religion are nothing but a pack of lies that obsesses us and keeps humans from accomplishing anything important.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Kathy, in what ways do you think your writing has changed since your first story was published in 1989? And is there any one thing you know now that you wish you had known ten or fifteen years ago?

 

[kdwentworth]

Kathy, in what ways do you think your writing has changed since your first story was published in 1989? And is there any one thing you know now that you wish you had known ten or fifteen years ago?

I had to think about this one for a while. A lot of what I wish I had known from the start is information that I've internalized, so I don't have to think about it much anymore.

The most important thing is structure, the underlying bones of a story. I understand the rhythm and shape of a story and a novel now, and trust that my subconscious usually knows what it's doing so that I don't have constantly question myself and let the editor part of my brain rule.

I've improved with description. Visual details are hard for me because I'm principally an auditory learner. I'm best at dialogue because I can hear the voices in my head. Visual details have to be added in second and third drafts, through a lot of conscious effort.

Another thing that I've learned is that LESS IS OFTEN MORE. If a paragraph or page isn't working, it often just needs to be cut. I used to spend days trying to make something work when it just needed to go.

One mistake I made early on was to invent alien terms and names with no vowels. Have you ever done thirty Search and Replaces a chapter on a book with over thirty chapters? I paid for my sins on that one!

I'm sure my brain is just holding out on me as far as other lessons painfully learned. I'll post more if it coughs them up.