2009 Best Question in the GI Nominations and Discussion

[Menolly]

Who posed a really fascinating question to Mr. Donaldson in the Gradual Interview, or who elicited some amazing insight just by asking?
You can see questions and answers Watchers highlighted in the Gradual Interview thread, as well as nominating another not mentioned.
Please link to the question and reply.

Nominate.

[wayfriend]

I nominate Mysteweave's question as Best Question this year.

dlbpharmd, Vader, rhopeca (as Rob), zenlunatic (as Michael from Sante Fe) and Demondime-a-dozen-spawn (as Greg O'Malley) were the only other Watchers who I saw with questions. But I thought Mysteweave (as Sarah) got us the most interesting answer from Donaldson.

Too bad Mysteweave has been missing since March. Nevertheless... I nominate her question.

Sarah: Hello!

You've said previously in the GI that when you came up with the idea for the First Chronicles, you knew how it was going to end, and worked backwards from there. Was it a case of working backwards through main story events until you reached a starting point, or was there greater detail involved in your thinking?
An example: In "The Power That Preserves", Covenant destroys the Staff of Law when he confronts Elena. Was that known to you as you thought out the story (backwards), or was it something that happened as you wrote? If it was the former, did you know that Elena was Covenant's daughter, and therefore that he would rape Lena?

Sorry if this is a difficult question to answer! And thanks for your time.

• Well, I *do* have to reach back three decades....
  
  Where the first "Covenant" trilogy is concerned, the "planning backward" notion applies in most situations. For example, I needed a final war to set up Covenant's confrontation with Lord Foul. I wanted that war to be as destructive (therefore as UNnatural) as possible. That led me to the misuse of Law, which suggested the misuse of the Staff. But of course Covenant couldn't get at Lord Foul without first facing the misuser of the Staff. And the misuser had to be a High Lord. Much better for the High Lord to be someone he knows: someone more than just a good-guy-turned-bad-guy. But not Mhoram, who didn't fit the role. Better for the High Lord to be someone with whom Covenant has a personal relationship. A very personal relationship. Who better than a daughter? But how was she turned into a bad guy? And where did she come from in the first place?
  
  You see what I mean. At any rate, that gives you a rough idea of how my planning process worked in those days.
  
  (02/04/2009)

[Orlion]

I nominate Mysteweave's question as Best Question this year.

dlbpharmd, Vader, rhopeca (as Rob), zenlunatic (as Michael from Sante Fe) and Demondime-a-dozen-spawn (as Greg O'Malley) were the only other Watchers who I saw with questions. But I thought Mysteweave (as Sarah) got us the most interesting answer from Donaldson.

Too bad Mysteweave has been missing since March. Nevertheless... I nominate her question.

Sarah: Hello!

You've said previously in the GI that when you came up with the idea for the First Chronicles, you knew how it was going to end, and worked backwards from there. Was it a case of working backwards through main story events until you reached a starting point, or was there greater detail involved in your thinking?
An example: In "The Power That Preserves", Covenant destroys the Staff of Law when he confronts Elena. Was that known to you as you thought out the story (backwards), or was it something that happened as you wrote? If it was the former, did you know that Elena was Covenant's daughter, and therefore that he would rape Lena?

Sorry if this is a difficult question to answer! And thanks for your time.

• Well, I *do* have to reach back three decades....
  
  Where the first "Covenant" trilogy is concerned, the "planning backward" notion applies in most situations. For example, I needed a final war to set up Covenant's confrontation with Lord Foul. I wanted that war to be as destructive (therefore as UNnatural) as possible. That led me to the misuse of Law, which suggested the misuse of the Staff. But of course Covenant couldn't get at Lord Foul without first facing the misuser of the Staff. And the misuser had to be a High Lord. Much better for the High Lord to be someone he knows: someone more than just a good-guy-turned-bad-guy. But not Mhoram, who didn't fit the role. Better for the High Lord to be someone with whom Covenant has a personal relationship. A very personal relationship. Who better than a daughter? But how was she turned into a bad guy? And where did she come from in the first place?
  
  You see what I mean. At any rate, that gives you a rough idea of how my planning process worked in those days.
  
  (02/04/2009)

Seconded.

[wayfriend]

Sorry if I did not find them all, but here are some other Watchmember questions that I have found. Sorry but I didn't really format these, look for the bold font to see where questions begin.

dlbpharmd

In "Variations on The Fantasy Tradition," W. A. Senior wrote:

"Donaldson sent the manuscript to more than forty publishers before Lester Del Rey finally accepted it on the second submission, insisting, however, on major revisions that led to protracted battles between writer and editor."

Your battles with Del Rey regarding the Second Chronicles are well known and have been discussed here (i.e., the use of Linden as protagonist in TOT, which prompted Del Rey's now famous exclamation "You can't have a Tarzan book with Jane as the main character!") However, I don't believe you've ever discussed here in the GI the "protracted battles" with Del Rey over the First Chronicles. What can you tell us about the revisions to First Chronicles?

Actually, I believe I *have* talked about this. Trying to brief.... Our biggest fight was over "The Illearth War". In the first drafts of that book, the whole story of Korik and Hyrim's mission to Seareach was told in one uninterrupted "movement"--from Korik's point of view. Lester objected in the strongest possible terms; and until I understood the substance of his objection, I was devastated. (Being fair to myself: he made himself difficult to understand because he preferred to dictate solutions without explaining what the problems were.) However, once I did understand his objection (he felt that 200+ pages from Korik's POV undermined everything I was trying to do with Covenant's Unbelief), I naturally agreed with him. I didn't accept any of his proposed solutions: to his credit, he did accept mine (no doubt because I demonstrated a grasp on the underlying problem).

(01/13/2009)



Rob (rdhopeca?)

Hi Mr. Donaldson,

I am an avid fan and as such have poured over the website, including reading W.A. Senior's studies and watching the videos that are posted. You had mentioned in one video that the storytelling is what is most important to you, and as such I am wondering. How accurate is W.A. Senior's study as it relates to the thought process of your work? He talks about patterns of heros and mythos in writing and so forth and I am just wondering if that is really your intent when you write, if you do or don't pay that much attention to that sort of "technical aspect" to your storytelling.

Thanks and looking forward to AATE!

As with any critical analysis, Senior's study reflects his way of thinking about reading my books, not my way of thinking about writing them. Of course, I'm educated in his general style of thought (although every critical thinker is different in practice). Similarly, he's, well, educated in *my* general style of thought: we're friends; and he's interviewed me several times. But that doesn't mean I think in his terms--or anything like them--while I write. (He certainly doesn't think in my terms when he reads.) You might consider it this way: it's my job to bury as much gold as I possibly can; it's his job to locate and dig up as much gold as he possibly can. Those are very different activities being performed by very different people.

In fact, I pay a HUGE amount of attention to the "technical aspect" of my storytelling. But those words probably don't mean the same thing to me that they do to you. For example: as a storyteller, I have absolutely no interest in such things as "patterns of heros and mythos". It's the critic's job to take note of such things and generalize about them; but good storytelling must by definition be very specific, dealing as it does (almost exclusively) with specific individuals and specific emotions in specific situations.

Putting the whole thing another way. The storyteller tries to reach outward (to patterns) by reaching inward (to individuals). The critic does the opposite, starting with patterns and applying them to individuals.

(01/28/2009)



Rob (rdhopeca?)

The art of Darrell K. Sweet was what initially drew me to pick up Lord Foul's Bane. Upon reading the first few pages, I, like millions of others, were hooked. I always enjoyed the continued use of his artwork on subsequent novels but upon the release of the Third Chronicles, his artwork was sadly missing. Was there a reason for choosing to go with another artist?

What can I say? Tastes change. Contemporary music is very different than it was 30 years ago. So are book covers.

In addition, Sweet was remarkably open about his contempt for fantasy in general, and for my work in particular. Long ago, I heard him say that if he could earn living with ANY other kind of art, he would never touch fantasy again.

I have no say at all where the covers of my books are concerned. (*I* certainly would not have put Gandalf on the cover of "Fatal Revenant".) Still, I'm glad to have an artist now who doesn't sneer at my work.

(02/27/2009)



Vader

Hello and Merry Christmas from Germany.

My question might have been asked before (couldn't find anything in search though), it might be answered in the "Last Chronicles" (just re-reading the 2nd Chronicles after 20 years before starting TLC) or it might be completely irrelevant, but anyway ...

The Elohim's "Würd" can also be read as "Worm" and this "Würd/Worm" can be seen as part of their nature. When the Nicor of the Deep are said to be "offspring of the Worm of World's End" what is the connection between Elohim and Nicor? Or did I misunderstand the explanation of "Würd/Worm/Word" as presented in the 2n Chronicles? If not, wouldn't this also let the Nicor be "Offspring of the Word" and would this be a similar conception of "Word" as presented in the Bible Genesis?

A happy, successful and prolific 2009.


It always sounds like a cop-out to say so, but I never intended any of this to be taken literally. My stubbornness about equating “Worm” and “Word” and “Weird” and “Wuerd” (I don’t know how to make this software do umlauts) was never meant to imply that those things are all identical. They are all thematically/morally/symbolically/archetypally relevant to each other; conceptually interwoven. But that doesn’t mean the physical or practical manifestations of those ideas are interchangeable. So: any relationship of relevance or meaning that exists between the Elohim and the Worm does NOT entail a relationship between the tangible Elohim and any mundane offspring which the Worm may (or may not) have produced in its slumbers.

If “Word” has Biblical resonances, however, that’s no accident.

(03/03/2009)


Michael from Santa Fe (zenlunatic)

I think it's time we started a serious, sentence by sentence breakdown of the Chronicles. So, to begin: Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 1: Golden Boy, First Sentence:

"She came out of the store just in time to see her young son playing on the sidewalk directly in the path of the gray, gaunt man who strode down the center of the walk like a mechanical derelict."

Hmmm...interesting beginning. The one item that has puzzled me about this is the use of the word "gray" (although I remember the "mechanical derelict" really puzzling me when I was younger - now I understand since I'm older and most mornings I wake feeling like a mechanical derelict myself). What does "gray" refer to? Covenent seems a little young to have gray hair. His clothing? His temperment? His eyes, which I believe are described as being "gray"? Can you shed any light on your use of the word "gray" to describe Covenant at this critical first sentence jucture?

Next month - Sentence Two! Just kidding...

I was referring to the color of Covenant's skin: that ashen hue some people get when they're sick.

(05/27/2009)



Michael from Santa Fe (zenlunatic)

I love short stories, they are a nice break from always reading just novels. I love yours and wish you would write more of them but I understand about the "one track mind" and being in the middle of Covenant now. So, I'm looking for recommendations for short stories. What is your favorite short written by someone else? Favorite collection? I ask because the authors who you have recommended in the past (Russell, McKillip, Erickson) have all been great (IMO). I have read some of McKillip's short fiction ("Harrowing the Dragon" which contains many of her shorts but not all was excellent) but unfortuneately the other stories are hard to find. Any other recommendations would be great!

Like most people, it appears, I don't read many short stories. (The average short story collection sells a small fraction of the average novel. It's a miracle, really, that my short story collections are still in print.) If I really enjoy what I'm reading, I usually want it to last longer than a short story. However, if you're willing to go hunting for out-of-print books, look for "Strange Dreams," an anthology of short stories which I edited. (The book got good reviews, but nobody bought it, so it went out of print almost immediately.) The "gimmick" of the anthology (if that's the right term) is that the book is composed entirely of short stories which I couldn't forget once I'd read them.

Incidentally, Erikson has published some outstanding short fiction; but you might have to search under his "real" name, Steven Lundin.

(06/08/2009)


Greg O'Malley (Demondime-a-dozen)

Hello, Mr. Donaldson.

Thank you for the Land and its people. I consider your work a priceless gift to our world, present and future.

Recently, while discussing Fatal Revenant with another reader, I ventured an opinion that was rebutted by using a quote of yours from this Gradual Interview itself.

That seemed to settle the matter. However, being the pedant that I am, I began to think about whether the story as presented can (or should) be trumped by the author. After all, the argument I presented in no way contradicted the evidence in the book, and only your quote from these interviews negated it. (I am deliberately NOT going to provide the quoted passage. <grins>)

I feel that "if it isn't in the story, it isn't in the story."

I suppose my questions are these: What authority (if any) should an author have over his published work with regard to its *meaning* and its *facts*, and are you aware of any instances where any of your stories as written diverge from what you intended them to say?

PS. I also realize that there are still two books forthcoming, and what you stated here in the GI could simply have been an inadvertently dropped spoiler, but my questions remain.

Since I don't know what specifically prompted your query, I have no context for a reply. (As you intended. <grin>) But in general I'm on your side. Only the text matters. The way the author happens to view his/her work cannot and should not take precedence over the actual text--if for no other reason than because the unconscious mind (the author's as well as the reader's) works in mysterious ways, its wonders to perform. Virtually everything I've ever published means both more and less than I intended it to mean: a fact which delights me (although the "less" part can be disappointing <rueful smile>); and which explains, at least in part, why I try (with incomplete success) to avoid polemics.

Sure, I have opinions about what I've written. And my opinions are uniquely well-informed, since I'm the only one who has access to my own sources of inspiration. But those opinions are still...just opinions. They don't reveal the story (except, perhaps, occasionally and obliquely): they only reveal how *I* think about the story. As long as you "play fair" with the text, what *you* think about the story is surely valid.

The fact that different readers can read the same text and extract different meanings is one of the true glories of storytelling.

(07/07/2009)



Michael from Santa Fe (zenlunatic)

Thanks for the "Strange Dreams" recommendation for short stories. Amazon has it used so I'll get a copy. I did notice one thing about it that surprised me. One of the authors listed as contributing a story was Orson Scott Card. I was under the impression that you didn't read Card because of his views on censorship? Did you pick the stories in the collection, or just edit them after someone else decided what was in the book? Or did your view of Card change AFTER "Strange Dreams" was published?

As I think I mentioned, the "gimmick" for my anthology, "Strange Dreams," was that it contained stories I couldn't forget after I read them. I chose all the stories in the book myself on that basis. So as it happens, I read the Card story long before I even met him, much less heard him preach in favor of censorship. And it satisfied my criterion for the anthology: I couldn't forget it. So in retrospect I shrug and move on. Life is too short to spend it second-guessing such things.

(07/08/2009)



Michael from Santa Fe (zenlunatic)

Way back in the mists of time (which I guess is appropriate when talking about the Last Chronicles) you answered a GI question about the Power of Command. The question was about whether a person could only use the power once. You answered:

"...I've always assumed that this was a "single use per person" sort of power: it's always *there,* so in theory it can always be used; but it's *so* powerful that no un-god-like being could survive tapping into it more than once. And even that "once" leaves room for doubt: we don't know what the effects on Elena would have been if she hadn't gotten herself killed almost immediately by other means."

So, my question, Linden has now used the Power of Command - is the text going to explore or answer the question about what effects this might have on her?

Hmm. I'm not sure how to answer. Some of the effects are pretty obvious: look at the Staff of Law. Some are probably obviated by the--I can't think of a better term--the comparative *littleness* of Linden's Command. She isn't trying to change the world, or even understand it. She just wants an immediate, personal bit of insight. And some (I'm just speculating here) may have been channeled away from her by the nature of the subsequent battle. Really, in every respect Linden's use of the Power is fundamentally different than Elena's. The effects (if any) pretty much have to be different as well.

(10/16/2009)



Michael from Santa Fe (zenlunatic)

You've stated many times, in many forums, that you write for love. You fall in love with your stories/characters and have to tell their tale. You also said that the ideas for the Last Chronicles came to you with the Second. So, when White Gold Wielder ended, you knew there was more story to tell but did not. You went on to other stories. You've sorta answered this before, about not being ready to tell this last tale, that you knew it would be a hard one to do and that you needed more time to prepare to do it. I also think you have mentioned being afraid to tackle it. My question is: was that hard, the waiting (Tom Petty seems to think it is )? Was it hard to leave Covenant dead and Linden broken-hearted at his death at the ending of White Gold Wielder when you knew there was more to tell of their story? Coming back to my first point, about loving your characters, was it hard to leave them where you left them? Or has it all worked out pretty much how you wanted, working on Mordant's Need, the Man Who books, the GAP books, short story collections first? Hope this question makes sense, I'm not sure it really does to me, but hey, your the smart one and if anyone can understand what I'm trying to ask it would be you.

To be honest: no, it wasn't hard to postpone starting "The Last Chronicles". It sure didn't feel like *waiting*. One reason? I had plenty of other things I really wanted to do. Putting Covenant/Linden aside for mumblemumble years gave me opportunities I would never have had otherwise. In addition, I was not dissatisfied with where I left the story at the end of "The Second Chronicles". As with the ending of the first trilogy, I was at a perfectly good stopping-point, and I never felt that the world (or I) would somehow be made less if I never completed my Grand Design.

But another reason--as I've said before--is that the prospect of TLC scared the s*it out of me. It looked like it was going to be too hard for me. It *has* been too hard for me. And it certainly isn't going to stop being too hard now. I didn't come back to Covenant because I got tired of "waiting". (Maybe *it* got tired of waiting: *I* didn't. <sigh>) I came back to Covenant almost literally out of desperation.

(11/02/2009)



Michael from Santa Fe (zenlunatic)

There's been a lot of discussion on the GI about the titles of the volumes in the Chronicles. However, I don't remember you ever being asked if the title for the series itself: "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" was your idea or was something Lester or someone else came up with. When you were writing the First Chronicles, did you call them that, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, or was that something added later for publication?

Strange. I can't remember. Because "The Chronicles of Narnia" were such a formative influence in my childhood, "Chronicles" may very well have been my idea. But it may also have been Lester del Rey's. The only way to know for sure at this point is to look at the original manuscripts--which I don't have because they're all stored at the Kent State University Libraries Special Collections. (Do I need to add that PCs didn't exist in those days, so the first six "Covenant" books were all written on a typewriter?)

(11/11/2009)



Michael from Santa Fe (zenlunatic)

You've said many times that you only create what you need, as far as any back story you may reference in your books. But I don't know if you've touched on how detailed you must make it, for yourself, to use it. For example, in Lord Foul's Bane you mention the Elohim and the Sandgorgons. They don't show up until the Second Chronicles, which at the time you wrote Lord Foul's Bane you didn't even know you were going to write. So, when you wrote about them in LFB, did you have any ideas at all about them, other than just a name a few details you mention in the text? Did you have in your mind what a Sandgorgon looked like, so when it came to the Second Chronicles you decided, "hey, I can use those cool desert creatures with the battering ram heads I thought of in the First Chronicles?" Or did you, in writing the Second, have to figure out exactly what you meant by a "Sandgorgon"?

I find that my writing life works out better if I "only create what need," and if I create *only* what I need. The Elohim and Sandgorgons in LFB are perfect examples. At the time, all I created were the names--and a hint or two of context (e.g. the word "faery," or a reference to the Great Desert). Nothing else. So when I decided to write "The Second Chronicles," I was free to "mine" the first trilogy for whatever nuggets I could find, and then forge those nuggets into whatever I needed.

But "The Second Chronicles" has caused problems because from time to time I created more than the absolute minimum required by the story. I did this because I *thought* I knew the story for "The Last Chronicles," and I *thought* I was preparing for my eventual intentions. Well, I *did* know the story--in broad terms. But I neglected to foresee the possibility (the likelihood?) that in the 20+ intervening years I would come up with *better* ideas for details and back story than the ones I (unnecessarily) wrote into "The Second Chronicles". As a result, the "mining" and "forging" operations in "The Last Chronicles" have been far more arduous than they would have been if I had exercised the same restraint in the second trilogy that I did in the first.

<sigh>

(11/16/2009)

[Menolly]

While this could technically be viewed as "commentary," I'll let this post stand to make it easier for others to nominate and hopefully second more of these before nominations close tomorrow.

Thanks way.

[[Syl]]

I'll nominate Demondime for the reader response question.

[dANdeLION]

Demondime, Seconded.