stewart wrote:dvdscar wrote:From Eric Flint's Facebook page today:
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I have now started working on the next Honorverse novel I'm co-authoring with David Weber. We are at the initial stage we always go through when we start a novel -- of which we have now written five together, two in my 1632 universe and three in David's Honorverse.
I think of this stage as the Nursery. This has two connotations. One is benign: this is the stage at which the story idea comes into existence. The other is, ah, grouchier. This is the stage at which the clear-headed and forthright partner in the collaboration -- that's me -- has to wrangle with the obsessive-compulsive anal-retentive fussbudget who is driven by an ultimately futile quest for background perfection to insist that every miserable goddam little plot twist has to be reconcilable in every respect with the ontological essence of the insanely complex nail-down-every-minutia setting he dreamed up over a period of way, way too many years when he could have been doing something practical and useful like washing dishes.
(Clears the throat.) In fairness, I suspect David has harbored similar thoughts when he's worked with me in the 1632 universe.
So. Back to the Nursery, where I currently have to contend with the stubborn one who is insisting that we have to develop a story line wherein two of Our Heroes -- actually, one hero; one heroine -- plot to overthrow the Wicked Establishment even though the evil ones have made sure that all their subjects are implanted with nanotech that causes them to commit suicide whenever they fall afoul of said evil ones or just find themselves in a bad spot where their continued existence might discomfit the evil ones.
Yes, we'll figure it out. Medieval theologians would be aghast at our tortured logic and dumbfounded by our devotion to the oxymoron called "true fiction."
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Actually we "could" have multiple pairs of Heroes & Heroines --
Zach & Gail on Darius
Victor & Thandi on Mesa
Faith & James and Raul & Katherine growing up
Helen & Paulo
with plot segments jumping every other chapter -- imagine the fun of keeping the plot threads straight !!!
-- Stewart
In a sense all of those serving could be said to be heroes or heroines. That leaves out the kids and probably Zach and Gail.
But Zach and Gail are on Darius. That's useful. But Anton and Victor are a pair as well...and work well together. Of course, they don't romance together.
Let's leave off the shipping for a while.