Sept 4, 2013 Garneau Pub Patio, Edmonton Alberta
Part
Nine – How Big Should a Cast of Characters Be?
Question: Well, it is a beautiful late summer evening,
here at the Garneau Pub patio. The place
is filled with students who are just starting the fall term at the University
of Alberta - quite a cast characters, you might say.
Answer:
It’s busy all right. I suppose you will use that to segue into
something.
Question: Yes indeed.
Your Kati of Terra books range over a wide canvas and bring in a lot of
characters. You develop your stories at
some length, with many episodes and sub-plots.
Is there a particular model or a particular writer that you are
following in this?
Answer: I don’t think that there is anyone in
particular that I am purposely emulating.
A lot of Science Fiction writers like to paint on a wide canvas, as you
say. An obvious example is Kim Stanley
Robinson.
Question: For the benefit of those blog readers
who aren’t familiar with him, he wrote the Mars Trilogy - Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. Those books speculated about the colonization
of Mars in the near future. They
certainly had a large cast of characters and a sprawling storyline. Anyone else come to mind?
Answer:
Jo Clayton, with the Aletus
series. Isaac Asimov’s Foundation
trilogy. Lots of others.
Question: Besides giving good value for money,
what’s the advantage of writing on a larger scale, and bringing in a larger
cast of characters?
Answer:
Well, in SF you can have a whole
galaxy as your canvas, and that gives you a lot of room to play in. You can develop multiple ideas and imagine
how a multitude of characters might interact.
In fact, it almost forces you to range widely, or at least it does for
me.
Question: So it’s a bit of the Russian novel
phenomenon? The huge setting itself
makes you want to write on an epic scale and bring in a lot of characters.
Answer:
That’s true, though I am long way
from a Russian novelist. What happens is
that you end up surrounding your main characters with a sizable cast of
characters as each part of the overall storyline develops. If you write in the trilogy or longer series
form, that can carry on from book to book.
In both Kati 1 and Kati 2, our protagonists meet new people at every
stop of their journey, just as real travellers do, or at least those of us who
want to experience a great range of people and places. Plus, they pick up co-travellers for periods
of time who come and go, with the key characters always remaining the key
characters. This allows one to keep
refreshing those characters, giving them new companions and new experiences
through which to reveal themselves to the reader.
Question: A bit like Doctor Who, with his changing
companions.
Answer:
Perhaps a bit, though the dynamics
are different, with Kati and Mikal being a couple. But it does allow Kati and Mikal the
opportunity to interact with different and varied characters, and to display
their wit, sense of fun, and ability to improvise in the face of new challenges
and new friends and adversaries.
Question: You make sure that the local people that
Kati and Mikal meet play an important role in the stories, assisting Kati and
Mikal in their investigations and helping them to overcome the dangers and
perils that their adversaries set up. In
fact, sometimes the minor characters play as significant a role as the heroes.
Answer:
Yes, Kati and Mikal have a lot of confidence in the
skills, talents and abilities of the common people that they meet during their
adventures. They rely on them and trust
them, and that trust is generally returned.
Question:
Is that part of your own worldview?
Answer: Oh yes, I suppose that’s part of my
democratic shtick, my democratic assumptions, if you will. I think that elitists tend to underestimate
the intelligence and abilities of the common person. I let Kati and Mikal live those democratic
assumptions. It may be unorthodox, given
the prevalence of dystopian fiction, but that’s how I hope an intelligent future
will unfold.
No comments:
Post a Comment