{"id":32575,"date":"2016-06-21T06:30:29","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T18:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=32575"},"modified":"2016-06-20T21:11:16","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T09:11:16","slug":"the-thewallofnight-qa-on-twitter-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/06\/21\/the-thewallofnight-qa-on-twitter-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The #TheWallOfNight Q&A on Twitter, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

As promised yesterday<\/a>, Part 2 comprises a blog version of the follow-up questions that came up during the course of the Twitter Q&A.<\/p>\n

Also as noted yesterday, for the cheerful commentary and witty repartee you will have to visit the Twitter hashtag #TheWallOfNight<\/a><\/span> site\u2014which is really very easy. Just search on the highlighted words<\/strong><\/span> (or click on the embedded link) and you will find all the goodness, for sure!<\/p>\n

OK, now onward to those bonus Q’s and m’ A’s. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

The Wall Of Night Q&A: #TheWallOfNight — the Follow Ups!<\/h3>\n
\"USA\"<\/a>

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

\"UK\/AU\/NZ\"<\/a>

UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

Follow-up Question One:<\/h4>\n

Ruth: <\/strong>“2 minor, possibly Y\/N questions: Will we learn Asantir’s backstory at some point? And will we see the Emer characters again?”<\/em><\/p>\n

Helen Lowe:<\/span> <\/strong>“Ruth, Yes–Asantir’s backstory is very important & has been swimming under the surface of<\/span> The Wall Of Night<\/a> throughout, so readers may expect to see it play out in The Chaos Gate<\/em> <\/strong>(<\/span>The Wall Of Night<\/a>, Book Four.) As for the Emer characters, for reasons of no spoilers I shall simply have to “neither confirm nor deny” at this point. “Author puts her hands in her pockets & kicks stones, whistling…”\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ruth:<\/strong> *reader gets unreasonably, irrationally and hopefully EXCITED!!*<\/em><\/p>\n

Helen Lowe:<\/strong> We do have it on good authority from Aragorn in LOTR<\/b> 2 that “there is always hope” \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n

\"USA\"<\/a>

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

\"UK\/AU\/NZ\"<\/a>

UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

Follow-up Question Two:<\/h4>\n

Kym:<\/strong> It maybe too early to say but will Kalan’s pledge to Myr be a separate story\/book or continued in next book?<\/em><\/p>\n

Helen Lowe:<\/span> <\/strong>No, it’s not a spoiler to say that it’s always been part of The Wall Of Night<\/a> storyline.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Follow-up Question Three:<\/h4>\n

Ruth:<\/strong> How did you decide the names of the Houses? & was it deliberate that the Darksworn houses are all related to fire?<\/em><\/p>\n

Helen Lowe:\u00a0 <\/strong>Ah, well-spotted: an aspect of ‘fire’, yes: i.e. sun, lightning, fire. Not all world-building\u00a0necessarily comes into the books, but the Houses affiliate on ‘elemental’ lines as well as caste & so earth, air, water and fire.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"USA\"<\/a>

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

\"UK\/AU\/NZ\"<\/a>

UK\/AU\/NZ<\/p><\/div>\n

Follow-up Question Four:<\/h4>\n

Rosie:<\/strong> Speaking of Emer, I love the way the arms\/tactics\/defence are so clearly different between cultures. Was it an interest before WALL?<\/em><\/p>\n

Helen Lowe:<\/strong>\u00a0Yes, from an early age weapons & history have been an interest; then I took up fencing & martial arts, & I read non-fiction history including the military stuff for (ahem)<\/em> fun(!) I also have ex-military readers to keep me on the straight & narrow, arms\/tactics\/battles-wise.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Follow-up Question Five:<\/h4>\n

Ruth:\u00a0<\/strong>Simple, and really common, question but I always like to know; Who is your favourite character to write? <\/em><\/p>\n

Helen Lowe:<\/strong>\u00a0I truly don’t have favorites. Characters like Garan who pretty much write themselves are a delight, but complex, difficult-to-get-at characters like the Earl are very<\/em> rewarding once you “nail” them. So favored, as vs favorite, characters can very much depend on time & place in the story arc, but I can say that every character named so far in this #thewallofnight<\/strong><\/b><\/a> thread has been a favorite at different times. \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n

\"USA\"<\/a>

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

\"US\"<\/a>

USA<\/p><\/div>\n

Follow-up Question Six:<\/h4>\n

Rosie:<\/strong> Team Haarth have a related technical question from FB – what kind of spear is the black blade Asantir took into the Old Keep, and how was she carrying it? (And an aside from me – loving how black blades symbolise the blend of power\/arms the Derai need to defend the Wall of Night.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Helen Lowe:<\/strong>\u00a0Ah, black blades… Well, dear Team Haarth, these blades in all their manifestations form part of a great fantasy & epic fantasy tradition, which I like to refer to as ‘the soul-sucking sword” — or ‘blade’ in a spear’s case. More seriously, they are weapons of power (also a Fantasy tradition) & the nature of their power is primordial but not necessarily chaotic — as in Kalan’s duel with Parannis, there are rules that govern their behavior. As for how Asantir carried the spear into the Old Keep, although tempted to employ that time-honored favourite “the bag of holding” the rescue party was well-armed, so implicitly it would have been amongst her equipment. But Great Spears are weapons of power & such weapons can be (to use Gollum’s word) “tricksie” — as Kalan found in<\/span> Daughter of Blood<\/em><\/a>.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

And I think that really may be a wrap — apologies if I’ve missed anything along the way!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As promised yesterday, Part 2 comprises a blog version of the follow-up questions that came up during the course of the Twitter Q&A. Also as noted yesterday, for the cheerful commentary and witty repartee you will have to visit the Twitter hashtag #TheWallOfNight site\u2014which is really very easy. Just search on the highlighted words (or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-about-what-im-doing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32575"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32593,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32575\/revisions\/32593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}