Interview with Karen Miller

With what part of your writing are you most pleased that fans have picked up on? Best reader response/experience?

A: I'm thrilled that readers are responding to the characters. I love these guys, and it makes me really really happy that other people are loving them too. It's incredibly satisfying to me that people are investing themselves emotionally in their lives, their journey. Because I'm really invested as well. Fictional characters have always been real to me, not just the ones I write about, but all of them. All the fictional characters I fall in love with, in books and moves and tv
dramas, they're all real. That's what drives my love of fiction. And I love it that other people feel the same way.

As for best response, well, I had an email the other day from a young English reader who wants to use the books as the basis for a school project. I am just blown away by that. It knocked my socks off. The other thing I love is when people tell me they don't usually read fantasy but they liked my books. Yes! More converts to the cause! *g*

Which characters have changed the most from your original idea of them, to how they've appeared on the page? I'd imagine Asher could have been pretty unruly! ;)

A: Actually, Willer changed the most. In a very very very very early draft he was just an obnoxious one-line character in a single scene. But he wouldn't go away. He just kept popping up, demanding to be included ... and now, in the final analysis, he's a pivotal character.

Asher was always the easiest to write. I knew him immediately. Gar was trickier, it took me some time to really understand his interior life. But I got there, eventually.

I was completely wrong! --Your first trilogy, Godspeaker, is currently being published in Australia. Could you tell us a little about the series and how it differs from Kingmaker... What's the situation for publication in other countries – I know I'm interested!?

A: Well, it's different. It's a bigger canvas, covering far more territory, literally. There's a much larger cast of characters spread across the 3 books. The first book, Empress, which comes out in the UK and US next year, is set in a hostile brutal culture far, far removed from anything approaching kings and queens and courts and knights on horseback. The central character, Hekat, is ... pretty out there. She isn't always sympathetic. I love her, I find her fascinating, but I can't escape the fact that this is a pretty dark book. It's not as rompish as some of the Kingmaker, Kingbreaker stuff, I have to tell you.

The second book shifts location to a more civilised, orderly place with a king and a court, but it's a society in danger of falling apart ... and though it doesn't realise it, the shadows from Empress have reached it already. The third book is about the clash between these two very different cultures, and the battle to see whose version of God is going to win. It's a much bigger story, and to be honest it's scaring the pants off me, I've bitten off a huge chunk of narrative. But if you don't challenge yourself you don't grow ... so I just have to keep my fingers crossed.

I'm sure there are many aspiring fantasy authors out there (more than a few people who run these review blogs for example!) so are there any precious nuggets of writerly advice that you'd like to share?

A: First of all, you have to educate yourself to the realities of the publishing business. And it is a business. As writers we get caught up in the creative aspect of the process, and that's fine, it's what we do. But if we want to get published by a publisher (as opposed to self publishing, which is a whole other story) then we have to step back from the personal, from the creative, and recognise that publishers are people who might love books but who also need to keep their bank accounts in the black. So there are cold hard pragmatic economical factors to the publishing game, and an aspiring author needs to know what they are. Read trade publications like Publishers Weekly and Locus. Talk to booksellers, who work at the coal face, who get to see first hand how readers react to the books on offer. Read editor and agent blogs. Get educated about the mechanics of the business. Too many aspiring writers live in a la la land where they seem to think that publishers exist to make their writing dreams come true. Really, they don't.

Beyond that, there's the writing. Writing is really really really hard work. It requires enormous amounts of time and patience and a willingness to overcome many barriers. The most important thing an aspiring writer can do is learn to be objective about the work. Yes, it's personal. Yes, it has deep significance to you. But it's also a commodity, it's a product, it's something you expect other people to shell out good money for. So you owe it to them not to be precious, not to be defensive, not to rant and rave and spit the dummy when you're told it's not good enough yet. Many writers say they want critical feedback but what they're really after is validation. Well, that might make you feel good but it won't get you any closer to being published.

If you're an aspiring spec fic author, the single best place I can think of for you to go to for help is the Online Writing Workshop for SF, Fantasy and Horror. It's a brilliant critiquing group run by
industry professionals. Critiquing other people's work can improve your own by quantum leaps. It's a wonderful community. I can't say enough good things about them.

Most of all, you need persistence. Writing is a marathon, not a sprint. You'll be investing years of your life in this with no guarantee of a prize at the end. You have to love the process. You have to love words and books and reading and story. You have to have enough ego to get you started, but not so much that it stops you from learning and growing. You need to never get complacent, but always be looking for ways to get better.

Well, I think that'll do for now! Thank you so much, again, for taking part :) Any last words? Or favourite ones at that? Mine at the moment are bamboozle and claptrap ... but I'm sure you can beat that!?

A: Last words? Well, thank you for inviting me to rabbit on, and thank you for taking the time to help a newbie author find her place in the game. Review sites like yours are becoming more and more important, especially for genre fiction, because the mainstream media doesn't give us much airtime. Your efforts and energy are hugely appreciated.

As for favourite words ... um ... communicative.

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Interview by Chris, The Book Swede
http://thebookswede.blogspot.com/