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[edit] A Chat with Eric Flint

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http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/05/04/020414.php

INTERVIEW^[1] A Chat with Eric Flint Written by theco Published May 04, 2005 See also: » A look at the Rhine: Interview with Tom Kratman » Book Review: XAML in a Nutshell by Lori A. MacVittie » Book Review: F.U.B.A.R. by Sam Seder and Stephen Sherrill

CO: The River of Time is a new world for you, what type of world is it, fantasy, sci-fi alternate history?

EF: Alternate history, of the type that's sometimes called "pure" alternate history. What I mean by that is that there is no time travel or science fictional element involved at all, beyond the change in history itself due to a single changed event.

CO: What can we expect from this book, what themes are you exploring?

EF: The book is the first in a series, so it establishes the themes but doesn't finish them. In essence, what I'm dealing with are what changes in American history might have occured if the relocation of the southern Indian tribes (especially the Cherokees) had happened differently, and in such a way as to lead to the formation of an Indian nation in the central area of the continent - more precisely, something of a hybrid nation with whites and blacks also involved - that was strong enough to resist the later pressure of US expansion in the middle of the 19th century and begin to effect the development of US history as a whole. To give just one example, what ramifications would such a development have had for the Texas Revolution in the 1830s?

CO: Is this an ensemble cast or is there a single main character? And can you tell us a bit about the people who's eyes we'll be seeing the world through?

EF: It's betwixt and between. Sam Houston is the central character, but he's more of a first among equals than The Hero of the story. There at least half a dozen major characters. Most of them are historical figures like John Ross and Major Ridge, the two central leaders of the Cherokee, Andrew Jackson, James Monroe, Tiana Rogers, Robert Ross, etc. The only more-or-less purely fictional major character is Patrick Driscol, who is, second only to Houston, the major character in the story.

CO: How does writing the first book in a series differ from later books?

EF: Well, first of all, it's a lot easier in terms of the level of research required. I still need to do a lot of research, of course, to situate the story properly in the period. But once the first book is done, there are enough changes in history that I no longer have to make sure that every single minor detail is accurate, since things will have changed anyway. Beyond that, the first book in a series of any kind has to establish the setting, plot premises, and characters. Once you get past that, you can move on to spend most of your time and effort just telling the story.

CO: When you are ready to work in a new world or even on a new story in a familiar one what are the steps you go through before you hand it over to the publisher?

EF: No different than any novel, really. Keep in mind that I did not write this novel "on spec," as writers call it. (That means you write the story first and then try to sell it.) I had a contract for it ahead of time, and part of the contract involved the publisher accepting the plot outline I submitted. Thereafter, the editor handled the final manuscript the same way any manuscript would be handled.

CO: You've collaborated with several of the biggest names in science fiction and fantasy in David Drake, Mercedes Lackey, and David Weber. How was writing with each of them different?

EF: Every collaboration is different. In the case of the three you refer to above, the differences are these:

Dave Drake and I work together pretty much exactly the way an opera gets written. He does the libretto and I set it to music, you might say. Dave develops a full plot outline and then I all do the actual writing.

Dave Weber and I divide up the chapters and we each write some of them. Then we'll swap the chapters back and forth for some further input, rewriting, whatever.

With Misty Lackey, it works somewhat the same way, except those are three-way collaborations with Dave Freer. Once we've jointly worked out the plot outline, Dave writes the first draft except for those chapters we've agreed ahead of time that either Misty or I will write. The first draft then goes to Misty, who writes the second draft, filling in all of her material. Then it comes to me for the final draft.

CO: You've also written with a few people who are currently less well known like Ryk Spoor, Andrew Dennis, and Dave Freer. How does your role in the collaboration differ from when writing with someone a bit more well known and more set in their own way of doing things?

EF: Well, first of all, those are three different writers and I work differently with all three. Dave Freer is a much more experienced writer than either Andrew or Ryk. That said, the process is basically the same. We agree on a setting and plot outline, and then my collaborator writes the first draft. (In theory, at least. In the case of Andrew Dennis, the publisher changed the publication schedule for 1634: The Galileo Affair so I wound up writing about half of the first draft because of the time pressure.) Once the first draft is done, it comes to me and I do the rewrite. That's the same way I work with all my "junior" collaborators, such as Kathy Wentworth, Sarah Hoyt, and Virginia DeMarce. The extent of the rewriting involved varies a lot from one book to another. Most of the actual prose will remain that of my co-author, with a fair amount of polishing and tweaking by me. My main contribution is what you might call a cross between rewriting and macro-editing. There's a lot more to making a story work as a story than simply the sentence-by-sentence exposition. I might, for instance - I have, actually - moved chapters around to make the pace work better, cut chapters, added chapters of my own, rewritten various scenes, etc etc. By the time it's all done, I'd be very hard-pressed to tell you which parts of the book were "mine" and which were my partner's. So would they. And neither of us cares. A book has its own life, as it were.

Having said all that, the difference in the way I work with "junior" partners as opposed to well-established writers like Drake and Weber and Mackey is a continuum. There's no Chinese wall involved. I do exactly the same things with all my partners. The only difference, really, is that working with someone like Misty or the various Daves - this includes Dave Freer and well as Weber and Drake - involves a lot less "fixing" on my part. Not surprisingly, there are fewer problems to begin with, because they're much more experienced writers.

CO: You are probably most famous for your works in the series started by 1632 and you've since opened that world up to a lot of first time writers, care to talk about how that works?

EF: There's a short answer and a long answer.

The short answer is: It works very well, as the excellent sales of both anthologies (Ring of Fire and Grantville Gazette) demonstrate. Based on that, my publisher has agreed to produce at least four more such anthologies.

The long answer is that it's very complicated. To be honest, much too complicated to try to answer in a short interview like this.

CO: Any full length novels in the works either by yourself and one of the contributors to the 1632 universe, or by one or more of them solo?

EF: There are a number of novels under contract, one solo by me and the rest collaborations. As follows:

1634: The Baltic War, by me and Dave Weber. Dave and I also have contracts to do three more 1632 novels, but we haven't settled on the subject matter of those yet.

Andrew Dennis and I have contracts to do three sequels to 1634: The Galileo Crisis. Andrew is about halfway done with the first draft of the first one. Our working title for that is 1635: The Pope Must Die, but that's just a private joke. It'll have a different title by the time it comes out.

There are two immediate sequels to 1634: The Baltic War. One is a solo by me, whose current working title is 1634: Escape From the Tower. That'll change, however, because I've decided the actual escape will happen sometime in The Baltic War. Several of the characters involved, however - Julie Sims, for one - will continue to have adventures in the British isles and that's what this novel will cover.

The other sequel is a collaboration between Virginia DeMarce and me entitled 1634: The Bavarian Crisis. Virginia's already finished the first draft of this novel. In fact, I've been snippeting it lately in Baen's Bar. But we can't do anything further with it until Dave and I write The Baltic War, since some of the action in The Bavarian Crisis will be predicated on that.

Finally, I have a contract to do what amounts to a sequel to my short novel "The Wallenstein Gambit" (which appeared in Ring of Fire). The title of it is 1635: The King of Bohemia, and I'm co-authoring it with Mike Spehar.

So far as solo novels by other contributors to the series is concerned, the problem there is a marketing one. There are already two story lines developed by other authors for the online magazine The Grantville Gazette - one by David Carrico and one by Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett - that would be easy to turn into good novels. The problem becomes, how do you market them? The simplest way to do it would be to add my name as a co-author, but I won't do that because my contribution to these stories has been entirely that of an editor, not a writer. That crosses a line I consider illegitimate. (Yes, I know it's been done in the history of SF, and plenty of times. But not by me, and I don't intend to start now. Any book that lists me as a co-author is a book that has a lot of input from me as a writer.)

But if you try to market the books under the authors' names, that poses the problem of trying to sell books by new authors which are in someone else's setting - i.e., have all the disadvantages of any first novel and none of the advantages. At the moment, the only feasible way I can think of doing it would be to use a formula that kept my name - presumably combined with the 1632 series as a "brand" - but didn't list me as one of the authors. Something like "Eric Flint presents a 1632 novel." Essentially, you'd be marketing it as a 1632 book and distributors and bookstores would order and shelve it accordingly.

That's... possible. But to be successful, it presupposes a higher level of sales for the series than it has at the moment. It's by no mean impossible in the future, since the series seems to be picking up more readers as it goes along. We'll just have to see.

CO: There are also rumors you have begun work on the final Belisarius series. Is this true?

EF: Yes. I've got about 3/4 of the first draft finished, and I don't expect any major rewriting will be necessary. In fact, the book is already scheduled for publication in February of 2006. The title is The Dance of Time.

CO: What other forthcoming works can we look for from you?

EF: After The Rivers of War comes out in mid-May, there'll be a hiatus of a little over half a year before any new title of mine comes out. There are quite a few of my titles being reissued in paperback during that stretch, as well as several reissue volumes of old SF writers that I edited. But the first new stuff of mine won't be coming out until February. Then, in the same month, I'll have two new novels appearing. In addition to the last Belisarius series book, The Dance of Time, I've got a hard SF novel coming out that month that I'm very pleased with. It's titled Boundary, and I co-authored it with Ryk Spoor.

The next month, March, will see the appearance of the second volume of the Grantville Gazette, in a hardcover edition, with a new story by me that wasn't in the electronic edition.

Then, in May, we're coming out with a new title in the 1632 series called 1634: The Ram Rebellion. This book is a little hard to describe. It's something of a cross between a novel and an anthology. There are several stories by several authors, but all of them are connected and are related to a single story line. The two main authors are myself and Virginia DeMarce, and the centerpiece of the volume - probably close to half of it - will be a short novel co-authored by us entitled (what else?) The Ram Rebellion.

After that, I don't know. There are quite a few things in the works. The most immediate, obviously, is 1634: The Baltic War. In addition, Dave Freer has finished and turned over to me the first draft of a new novel we're collaborating on called Slow Train to Arcturus. I expect to get that finished sometime in the middle of the year. I'll also, sometime before the end of the year, finish the third volume in the Joe's World series, A Desperate and Despicable Dwarf. And, of course, once The Baltic War is finished, Virginia and I will be able to wrap up 1634: The Bavarian Crisis very quickly.

Finally, over the summer, I'll be writing the sequel to The Rivers of War and I believe that'll come out sometime by the end of next year.

CO: Where can we find more information on you and your works?

EF: My own web site: www.ericflint.net. Fair warning, though: I haven't updated the site in over half a year and won't be able to for another few weeks, until I get The Dance of Time finished.

CO: Anything you'd like to say to your readers?

EF: Yes. I want to urge anyone, especially anyone who has been following the Heirs of Alexandria series I've been doing with Misty Lackey and Dave Freer - the first two books of which are The Shadow of the Lion and This Rough Magic - to buy Dave Freer's A Mankind Witch when it comes out this July. A Mankind Witch is an integral part of the whole series, not a "spin-off." (Chronologically, it takes place between The Shadow of the Lion and This Rough Magic, and follows the adventures of several main characters - Prince Manfred, Erik and Francesca - during the one-year interval between the two books.) Dave Freer is much less well known than either Misty or I, and has mostly gotten published as a co-author for one or both of us, but he's an excellent writer in his own right. Hopefully, A Mankind Witch will get him solidly established as an independent writer. He well deserves it, and the book is a very good one.

Eric Flint resides in Chicago and can always be relied upon to make any conversation interesting. Beware though, when you talk to him even if you vehemently disagree with him he as a way about him that will have you nodding your head in time to what he says and he'll have changed your mind before you even knew he had tried. It's very disconcerting, but an amazing thing to watch. In addition to his own works Eric is working with Baen to re-release a large amount of classic science fiction. For information on upcoming interviews see my blog www.iwt.blogspot.com. An immoderate moderate black blogger from Ma.

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