Um, hi. This is a bit late, but I did attend Leakycon, so assuming you guys are still interested, I'm just going to write what I remember. Some of it might be a repeat of what you already know.
There was a panel that was a conversation between MWT and Holly Black. Holly Black pretty much just interviewed MWT the whole time, with a few audience questions sprinkled in. Holly/someone asked about geography and setting, and MWT talked about traveling, and about how she didn't want to set the book in Middle Earth, but everything looks like Middle Earth, and everything that doesn't takes ages to describe, and she didn't want to spend pages familiarizing readers with landforms. But when she visited Greece, it was familiar to people, but not Middle Earth and a great fit. They also talked a bit about first person viewpoints, and how there was always an obligatory, "get the character in front of a mirror" scene. She also didn't want to do that (cue: I did everything wrong! joke). Holly talked about Ally Carter, and how her books were cons, and asked mwt point-blank whether she would consider her books to be a con. A lot of waffling, but a firm no. "I give you all the information you need, it's right there in the text. I don't lie. I don't trick the reader or give misinformation, I just like to play with general assumptions readers make." Which is accurate and all, and they went back and forth on that for a bit, but I was busy trying not to laugh, so I don't remember all of it. She also talked about how, when it first came out, no one spoiled her book. That astonished her, the young readers didn't, but neither did the librarians, who were recommending books to add to a library's collection. She said she was worried about making the twist too obvious when she was writing the book, because everyone was going to get it right away, but then no one did. It was mentioned that even knowing there was a twist was a spoiler in itself. She said you could pronounce the names however you want, she hated those long, unpronounceable names in fantasy books when she was a kid, so she'd just replace the name with one starting with the same letter. Both authors complimented each other a lot (lots of blushing on both sides) and MWT said she loved Tithe, because of how real the band scene felt, and how accurate it probably was. She mentioned that in Urban Fantasy these days, characters just feel like they're fulfilling roles or archetypes, and they don't feel real. She didn't have that problem with that in Tithe. She said it took her so long to write since she wrote everything out, and then went back and consolidated it into just a few sentences, but everything had to fit into those sentences. I think she also said she had written a lot of things that just weren't relevant to the plot, so she had to cut them. When asked if/when she knew she was writing a series, she said she was actually writing another novel after the Thief, that was unrelated. It wasn't going that well though. She didn't know that she was going to write a sequel until her agent/editor/publisher called her after she won the award and said, where's the sequel? She put the other book to the side and said, I'm writing a sequel! It was about an hour long conversation, but that's all I remember of it.
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Date: 8/24/12 04:47 am (UTC)There was a panel that was a conversation between MWT and Holly Black. Holly Black pretty much just interviewed MWT the whole time, with a few audience questions sprinkled in. Holly/someone asked about geography and setting, and MWT talked about traveling, and about how she didn't want to set the book in Middle Earth, but everything looks like Middle Earth, and everything that doesn't takes ages to describe, and she didn't want to spend pages familiarizing readers with landforms. But when she visited Greece, it was familiar to people, but not Middle Earth and a great fit. They also talked a bit about first person viewpoints, and how there was always an obligatory, "get the character in front of a mirror" scene. She also didn't want to do that (cue: I did everything wrong! joke). Holly talked about Ally Carter, and how her books were cons, and asked mwt point-blank whether she would consider her books to be a con. A lot of waffling, but a firm no. "I give you all the information you need, it's right there in the text. I don't lie. I don't trick the reader or give misinformation, I just like to play with general assumptions readers make." Which is accurate and all, and they went back and forth on that for a bit, but I was busy trying not to laugh, so I don't remember all of it. She also talked about how, when it first came out, no one spoiled her book. That astonished her, the young readers didn't, but neither did the librarians, who were recommending books to add to a library's collection. She said she was worried about making the twist too obvious when she was writing the book, because everyone was going to get it right away, but then no one did. It was mentioned that even knowing there was a twist was a spoiler in itself. She said you could pronounce the names however you want, she hated those long, unpronounceable names in fantasy books when she was a kid, so she'd just replace the name with one starting with the same letter. Both authors complimented each other a lot (lots of blushing on both sides) and MWT said she loved Tithe, because of how real the band scene felt, and how accurate it probably was. She mentioned that in Urban Fantasy these days, characters just feel like they're fulfilling roles or archetypes, and they don't feel real. She didn't have that problem with that in Tithe. She said it took her so long to write since she wrote everything out, and then went back and consolidated it into just a few sentences, but everything had to fit into those sentences. I think she also said she had written a lot of things that just weren't relevant to the plot, so she had to cut them. When asked if/when she knew she was writing a series, she said she was actually writing another novel after the Thief, that was unrelated. It wasn't going that well though. She didn't know that she was going to write a sequel until her agent/editor/publisher called her after she won the award and said, where's the sequel? She put the other book to the side and said, I'm writing a sequel! It was about an hour long conversation, but that's all I remember of it.
Priya