Fiction writers create new worlds and characters; or they give us a new perspective on people and places we think we know. In my opinion, the best writers give us both.
Whether it’s Robert Jordan and his Seanchan continent of the Dragon Reborn, Laurel K. Hamilton’s redefined supernatural urban jungle in St. Louis, or even Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky monster in the looking glass, the characters and their milieu are forever intertwined. These authors lived with the characters in the worlds they created for decades.
· Robert Jordan’s first volume in the Wheel of Time series was first published in 1990; the last book (that he completed, his 12th), was published fifteen years later.
· Anita Blake’s Guilty Pleasures was published in 1993; Ms. Hamilton’s 21st(!) volume in the series is due out this year.
· Lewis Carroll first published a single stanza of Jabberwocky some 18 years before he completed the poem for Through the Looking Glass.
Writers create from their own experiences; these authors have inhabited their richly imagined worlds and cultures for much longer than it takes us avid readers to consume them. How can they not be affected by slaying dragons, or worshiping strange gods or making love to the undead? Kind of makes me wonder; at what point does the story world the author creates begin to change the writer’s ‘real’ world?
