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By Andrew (2007-11-18)
Does that become more difficult with the mosaic novels in each triad?
The mosaic is the hardest. When we invented that form way back with book three it was a huge hit. The fans loved it, and we were very pleased with the final result of book three too. Especially books six and seven, which were all part of the same mosaic initially. We had split it into two because it had gotten so long. But there's so much work with the mosaics that we can't do it that way every book. It would just kill us. We did consider it when we saw how popular the form is, and what a good result it added, but it's too complicated. Instead we try to make the mosaic the concluding book of the triad. So we begin with two books of stories with an interlinking interstitial narrative, which we sometimes call the beads on a string. Where each story is a bead and the interstitial is the string that ties them all together. There are two volumes of that, with the third being the true mosaic novel. They usually involve fewer writers too. These days we tend to have 8 or 9 writers in the beads on a string book, but with the mosaics six is about the most that I can take. Every time you add another writer or another character it increases the order of complexity that much more.
And how long does it generally take to get a Wild Card novel ready for publication, once you all have decided on a direction and everyone has begun writing?
Basically our deadlines are a year apart, but we don't work on every book for the entire year day and night. Many of us have other projects to do. There's always a lot of rewriting involved in the Wild Cards books because you can't just write a first draft or write a draft to your satisfaction. If it was a short story for yourself you'd do a first draft and a polish for yourself and then an editor would buy it or not buy it. It doesn't work that with Wilds Cards because these stories have to fit together. They're part of a greater whole. So inevitable, no matter how carefully we plan it ahead of time, and how many meetings we have, and telephone conference calls, and email exchanges, there will be cross signals. It's like a relay race where somebody is supposed to hand off a baton to somebody and they don't. Or they mishandle it in some way and the two stories don't fit together. And sometimes it's just the opposite; you wind up with two people who are doing the same thing. There was some misunderstanding, and gosh!, both people have solved this murder. They've come up with different solutions. But that's why I get the big bucks as editor to straighten out these things and crack the whip.
Do the writers have a lot of free rein, or are there strict plot points each writer has to hit on?
It varies with the book. After we have a lot of discussions there's a certain point where I throw the book open for proposals. We currently have thirty members of the Wild Cards consortium-thirty writers that are eligible to pitch-and they all get a solicitation for proposals. Many of the other writers have other projects, deadlines or other things that they're doing, so not everybody has the time to be in every book. And that over-plot may not be one that concerns them or one they don't think that their characters can fit in. But those who want to be in the book will send me story proposals, and I will sit down and look them over. I usually select about 8 or 9 that fit in that specific book, and give them the go-ahead to go write their stories. The rest will get passed on.
Which writers contributed to Inside Straight?
We have some new writers. We have Daniel Abraham who actually made his debut in deuces down and he's back. He's doing interstitial and there's a sample of that on my website. We also have Carrie Vaughn, Caroline Spector, and Ian Tregillis. These are all new writers to the Wild Card series. A number of the older writers are there too: John Jos. Miller, Melinda Snodgrass, myself. Overall there will be nine contributors to the book.
With a series this long you've got to have some kind of encyclopedia or Wild Cards reference book handy. That's a lot to keep up with, especially so many different writers involved.
We don't. Many years ago when Wilds Cards had its first initial success back in the 80's there was a game version done by Steve Jackson Games for his GURPS system and John Miller, one of our Wild Card writers, did the world book for that. They put together a lot of information about the first five books, which was all that was out at that time. And that was great, that was a wonderful resource where we could look up characters and find things about them; we could look up the timelines. It was very concise. It was a great resource for us, but unfortunately it only goes up to book five. So as the series has continued over the years and decades John's book has gotten progressively more and more outdated and incomplete as new characters come in and the old characters have additional things happen to them and they change. It's not as useful as it was back in the early nineties, say. A lot of it is just me. I seem to have a good mind for remembering this stuff. Admittedly, though, I think I had a better mind for remembering all this back in 1984 or so, when Wild Cards was still on it's first go round and I was still doing it every year. Then we had that seven year layoff where we didn't do the Wild Card books and I forgot a lot. 
Andrew Brooks | 
