Re: On writing Freedom & Necessity

[Jezabella49]

I do! Sometimes. Even most of the time! Sorta. Depending.

Emma.  I love you for saying that.

Did you have fun writing Freedom and Necessity with Steven Brust?  Or shouldn't I ask?

(I enjoyed reading it ... a LOT)

[Emma Bull]

Did you have fun writing Freedom and Necessity with Steven Brust?  Or shouldn't I ask?

OMG so much fun! We actually exchanged the letters. And didn't consult each other on the plot until about 2/3 of the way through, when we had to stop and share a couple of plot destination ideas. After which we went back to surprising each other.

Turned out to be great training for the kind of without-a-net storytelling we're doing on SU, particularly in the LiveJournals.

[Alena]

Did you have fun writing Freedom and Necessity with Steven Brust?  Or shouldn't I ask?

OMG so much fun! We actually exchanged the letters. And didn't consult each other on the plot until about 2/3 of the way through, when we had to stop and share a couple of plot destination ideas. After which we went back to surprising each other.

Turned out to be great training for the kind of without-a-net storytelling we're doing on SU, particularly in the LiveJournals.

Did you each have a set of characters, or just write "the letter that comes next"?  For Freedom and Necessity, that is, though I would also be interested in the answer for the SU LJs.  *g*

[Emma Bull]

Did you each have a set of characters, or just write "the letter that comes next"?  For Freedom and Necessity, that is, though I would also be interested in the answer for the SU LJs.  *g*

Alena, as soon as I can figure out how to move the appropriate messages, we'll continue this in my topic on the BBS, okay? Thanks for your patience!

[Emma Bull]

Did you have fun writing Freedom and Necessity with Steven Brust?  Or shouldn't I ask?

OMG so much fun! We actually exchanged the letters. And didn't consult each other on the plot until about 2/3 of the way through, when we had to stop and share a couple of plot destination ideas. After which we went back to surprising each other.

Turned out to be great training for the kind of without-a-net storytelling we're doing on SU, particularly in the LiveJournals.

Did you each have a set of characters, or just write "the letter that comes next"?  For Freedom and Necessity, that is, though I would also be interested in the answer for the SU LJs.  *g*

Oh, look, here we are!

We did each have particular characters. Two each of the main POVs. Steve always insists on making people guess who wrote whom. 

[jimsmyth]

We did each have particular characters. Two each of the main POVs. Steve always insists on making people guess who wrote whom. 

I blame you for Susan.  The rest follows from that.


Also, thanks to you both for writing one of my favorite books.

[Calluna Vulgaris]

We did each have particular characters. Two each of the main POVs. Steve always insists on making people guess who wrote whom. 

I was going to be quiet, but I can't resist that.  My guesses:

You - James, Susan
SKZBrust - Richard, Kitty.

After that...one of you had the fantastic, marvelous chutzpah to make a character out of Engels, which I will never get over, and I'd have guessed Mr. Brust except that the scene depicted is all James and Susan, so I think you must have written that one, if my initial premises are correct.

I assume that you each did newspaper clippings and the like as needed.

And now I'm trying to remember if there are other POV characters, if any, without crossing the 10 feet to my bookshelves to check, because I really ought to be doing the work I got up early to do.


...it suddenly occurs to me that perhaps I wasn't supposed to guess quite so publicly.  If that is the case, then I beg that you will remove the offending post without delay or, if you cannot or will not, that you notify me that I may do so.

[Emma Bull]

Got it in one! Good for you!

Mostly people assume I wrote the women and Steve wrote the guys. Which is funny, since Steve has more background in pinko politics ( ) and I have more research into woo-woo. So shouldn't I have written Richard and Kitty, and Steve written James and Susan? Well, yes. Except we were having a great time working on each others' turf.

Likewise, you'd expect Steve to have introduced Engels. But it was me; I surprised Steve with his first letter to Susan, and introduced him in person into the story. But when we wrote the two big discussions between James and Engels, we wrote them as an argument, sitting at Steve's computer, with me taking James's side of the dialogue and Steve taking Engels's.

The newspapers articles were supplied by the Times of London, circa 1849. Via microfilm in the basement of the library of the University of Minnesota. Yes, really. This is the absolute most fun part of historical fantasy: there's always some real-world history that looks suspicious enough to be turned into fantasy. 

[Alena]

Being a high school student who has never been taught philosophy, my only exposure to Engels has been in Freedom and Necessity, and so I was very surprised the other day in history class when we were talking about who Che Guevara had been influenced by, and my teacher asked, "Who other than Marx?" and someone said, "Engels?"

... I think before that I had sort of half-assumed you'd made him up.

[Mattador]

Hm.  I was going to guess too, and now I'm just as glad I didn't, since I was wrong.   

I really need to get me a copy of that book, rather than hunting it from library to library every year or two.

[Elizabeth Bear]

There's a lovely trade paperback edition out from Tor, currently....

[Calluna Vulgaris]

I admit, it's one of the books I have in battered paperback for carrying around, and also in nice hardcover for keeping over the long haul.  I don't double up that often, but...sometimes you just gotta.

I'm ridiculously chuffed that I guessed right.  I would never have thought it would be gender-divided, though I remember at one point toying with the idea that you had written James and Kitty, with the idea that the more extravagant characters (and despite the italics, I do think of Kitty as less extravagant) character of each gender had been written by the writer of that gender.  But then I read Falcon and adjusted my perspective accordingly.

And I think actually that I knew, or believed, that some or all of the newspaper clippings were real, but it's one of those books that I read too many times in too short a period and had to put away for a while, so it's actually been, oh, gosh, more than a year since I looked at it last.

I just about fell over with that first letter from Engels.  My undergraduate degree was stuffed full of philosophy and political theory, so I was enjoying myself with the ook anyhow, all along, but at that point I started just grinning at the page.

And I also admit that I've wanted to ask one of you about who wrote whom and how, and have gotten friends who heard you speak at cons to dredge up everything they could remember, since the first time I understood it had been written as a letter exchange.  So it's extremely gratifying to have had the chance at last.

[Cole]

I just wanted to say that I love this book. It's definitely one of the best books I've read in the last couple years. And how fun, to write it by actually exchanging the letters!
Emma, you totally rock. 

[Emma Bull]

Steve totally rocks, too. I was inspired to write James's first letter with no warning whatsoever (Idea Fairy Incoming! Duck!). Once I'd written it, I looked at it and thought, Huh? Wha?

Then I thought, Oh, it's a storytelling game! Which, clearly, required another player. As soon as I realized that, I knew exactly the person to play it with.

So I printed it out, put it in an envelope, and drove to Steve's house. Rang the bell. Steve opened the door and regarded me with puzzlement and, possibly, deep suspicion.

I held out the envelope. "You don't have to play," I told him, "But if you do, the ball's in your court." And I turned and gallumphed back to the car and drove off.

...The next thing I heard from Steve was Richard's first letter. They're off! 

[el_jefe]

I admit, it's one of the books I have in battered paperback for carrying around, and also in nice hardcover for keeping over the long haul.  I don't double up that often, but...sometimes you just gotta.
.

Me too, but my hardback is signed by both authors. 

It stays in a nice safe place for occasional looks, while the poor, battered paper back takes most of the abuse of being re-read.