[alison]

Ivan's Childhood is a gorgeous film...but very sad. It's set in Russia during WW2, when the Nazis invaded.

I don't know what instrument I'd play, Tari...I used to fancy a cello!

[Tari]

Ivan's Childhood is a gorgeous film...but very sad. It's set in Russia during WW2, when the Nazis invaded.

Is that the film about the Russian Pianist during WW2? coz if it is i've seen it too, but not for a long time.

Cello? i like the viola more, when it comes to strings. thanks i was just curious. no more questions from me for now.

~ Tari

[Mrs. Cadvan]

Here's my second question:

Q: If bards can communicate with all animals, from birds to fish to horses, via the Speech, why do they not consider it unethical to eat meat and fish? Are there some who are vegetarians on these grounds? Or do Bards simply believe that they are part of the food chain, and are thus free to eat other animals despite being able to understand their thought and feelings?

[whitesilkbreeze]

What was the very first thing you wrote about The Gift, when you sat down to write it?

How do you study technique? :confused:

[Jaffa]

1. Is it hard keeping the balance between fantasy and reality as the gift and the riddle managed to be imaginative yet at the same time had enough reality to make it believeable! Could you give any tips on keeping the balance or reality and fantasy the same throughout a piece of literature as I often struggle with this in my own writing!

(oo the cellos a cool instrument but personally I find instruments like the violin squeaky and painful to listen to! I played the flute instead far more pleasant to listen to! )

[owleye]

how do u make ur story feel so life like?

[alison]

Hi Tari - Ivan's Chilhood is a bit hard to get, it was made in the '60s and is a beautiful black and white film. Not the one you're thinking of (I think that's Roman Polanski).

Q: If bards can communicate with all animals, from birds to fish to horses, via the Speech, why do they not consider it unethical to eat meat and fish? Are there some who are vegetarians on these grounds? Or do Bards simply believe that they are part of the food chain, and are thus free to eat other animals despite being able to understand their thought and feelings?

Interesting question again, Mrs C! The only Bard so far encountered who doesn't eat meat is Ankil in The Riddle, and he is not quite a Bard... the others are all carnivores. Bards would consider it perfectly ethical to eat other animals, as long as it's done with respect, in accordance with the Balance: being, among other things, keen observers of the natural world, they would have a fairly clear idea of the predatory nature of life. The Balance would demand that if life is taken, it is taken consciously, and properly acknowledged. Contemporary mass abbatoirs or factory farming would horrify a Bard beyond belief.

What was the very first thing you wrote about The Gift, when you sat down to write it?

Hi whitesilkbreeze - I actually can't remember, because the first chapter went through so many rewrites - a least half a dozen - before I got it right. I often have problems with first chapters. But it always opened with Cadvan appearing in the byre and Maerad milking a cow.

How do you study technique?

That's all the nuts and bolts of writing. One really good way is to copy every writer you admire, to see how they do things from the inside - that's particularly true with poetry. But also, in reading, looking at how a narrative is put together, how characterisations are built, how a writer varies the texture of his/her work to create emotional states...novels do fascinate me as an art form, and I'm always really interested in how they're put together as structures. Also, spelling, syntax, grammar and things like that, which I am (still) learning.

Is it hard keeping the balance between fantasy and reality as the gift and the riddle managed to be imaginative yet at the same time had enough reality to make it believeable! Could you give any tips on keeping the balance or reality and fantasy the same throughout a piece of literature as I often struggle with this in my own writing!

how do u make ur story feel so life like?

Hi owleye and Jaffa - these questions are connected, so I'll try to answer them together, though it's actually really complicated... for me, that balance between the real and the fantastic is crucial to these books. I like fantasy which I can believe in, and in my own day dreaming I am a fairly detailed imaginer, I hate tripping over details that don't fit. One thing I learned fairly quickly was that detail is very important, and that it has to be the right detail. And that means imagining - really imagining - any situation. As you know, I am a bit vague on what my characters physically look like - it occurs to me that may be because in most situations I am looking out through their eyes. What I do know in any given scene is things like where my characters are in relation to each other, both physically and emotionally (close or far apart?, and the physical details of their environment - how big a room is, what's in it, whether it's warm or cold, comfortable or bleak, what objects catch the eye, and so on, as if I were there. I do know that the imagining, especially the emotional imagining, almost as if I were pretending to be these people, is what I find most exhausting about writing these books - it's quite hard work! And also a most peculiar way to spend one's day...

[owleye]

what an anwser

[Aras]

Hah! That answer inspired me to ask one of these questions I've been wondering about for a long time!! :D

If you could describe the way Maerad and Cadvan look, how would you? (Physically, and then, if you're up to it, how they are personality wize.) :p

[melliyna]

Okay - I'm going to bother you again *grin*

We know from both The Gift and The Riddle that the Bards have a complex ethical system. In regard to war, do the Bards have something like a Geneva Convention and what do they think of outright pacificism?

Was Sharma evil in the beginning when he came to Afinil to be taught? And could the that the fact that they scorned him when he came offering jewels have contributed to his downfall?