Where do you get your ideas? How long does it take you to write a book? How do you come up with the names? Do you write every day?
These are a few of the questions people have asked me, and apparently other authors are quizzed on them as well. Some people are casually curious and trying to get a peek behind the curtain to see the Ompah Lompahs at work. Others are trying to write novels themselves and find the task is like building a swing set that arrived with “some assembly required” but missing a page of instructions. In school, they may have learned about symbolism and metaphors, but no one said anything about which software program to use, how much of an outline to build before you begin writing, or what music to listen to while typing.
What you’re about to read, is how I wrote the novel The Death of Dulgath. If you’re a reader of my work, you might find the “magic” of how I made various decisions (like why some characters lived while others died), interesting. If you’re an aspiring writer, you’ll get to see the step-by-step process of going from concept to finished book. Discovering how someone else does the same thing can often yield some insight, but I firmly believe that the book creation process is a personal business, and you’ll have to come up with what works for you. Still, seeing what tools I used, how many words a day I wrote, and how much of a plot I had before I began typing might be helpful. I’ll discuss my outline and what it looked like, and other things such as how did I decide where to start? What went behind the choices on whose point of views to use? How did I name the characters? When and where did I write? What problems did I encounter and how did I solve them? What changed during the editing process? These are some of the things I will explain along with where the story started and how it went completely off the rails.
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No book I’ve ever written has come out as I expected, and The Death of Dulgath was no different. I hope you enjoy this peek behind the scenes.
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WARNING: This behind-the-scenes book is filled with spoilers. I am assuming that you’ve read The Death of Dulgath and as such I won’t be flagging any spoilers for that book. That said, it also will touch on spoilers related to the other Riyria books (both The Riyria Chronicles and The Riyria Revelations). While spoilers for those books will have warnings, I know how difficult it is not to look away, even when told. So, for those who want to make sure they don’t ruin the Riyria reading experience, I recommend you save this until after you have finished that story.