Interview with Stephen R. Donaldson

- More and more, authors/editors/publicists/agents are discovering the potential of all the SFF blogs/websites/message boards on the internet. Do you keep an eye on what is being discussed out there, especially if it concerns you? Or is this too much of a distraction?

No, I don't visit blogs/websites/messages boards. Indeed, I spend as little time on the Internet as possible. Sure, those things are distractions--not to mention black holes for time. But that's not the primary reason I avoid it. I avoid it because it's bad for me. Poking around on the web trying to find out what people are saying about me sounds a whole lot like middle school; and I really need to be an adult.

- M. John Harrison recently wrote this post on his blog:

"Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding.

Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unneccessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader's ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.

Above all, worldbuilding is not technically neccessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn't there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. It isn't possible, & if it was the results wouldn't be readable: they would constitute not a book but the biggest library ever built, a hallowed place of dedication & lifelong study. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the worldbuilder & the worldbuilder's victim, & makes us very afraid."

Needless to say, a multitude of people disagree with Harrison's postulation. What's your take on Harrison's post and the concept of worldbuilding in general?

It's difficult to argue with Harrison's position as he's expressed it here. (Remember, however, that he has assigned a specific meaning to the term "worldbuilding"--a meaning which the term might not have if someone else used it.) Indeed, I would be inclined to go a little further: "Every moment of any literature must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding." Or I might re-state Harrison's position to more accurately reflect my own (without, I hope, doing too much violence to his views): "Every moment of any literature must represent the triumph of storytelling over worldbuilding."

Of course, we could make the whole issue go away simply by assigning a different meaning to "worldbuilding". But where would be the fun in that?

Many thanks again for accepting to do this interview. And thank you as well for all those wonderful novels! We wish you continued success with your writing career and best of luck with the forthcoming release of FATAL REVENANT.

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Interview by Patrick
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