Thursday July 8th, 1999
In a most uncharacteristic move, Ray posted a little bit about the opening scene of the first novel of the next series, The Conclave of Shadows. The book is still a couple years away, and these juicy bites will certainly create some anticipation:
How I start a novel?
Depends.
Often I have an image and it's 'this guys sitting on a mountain top. . . Wait, it's a kid. . . . Ok, what's he doing?
And that's how Conclave of Shadows is going to start, for example.
Other times, I have a task, such as introducing characters. Prince of the Blood, Silverthorn, Daughter of the Empire, and King's Buccaneer were all books that had openings developed around the need to introduce a character.
They end up looking the same, because in the example above of the kid on the mountain top, that's how I introduce him to the reader. He's Talon of the Silver Hawk, last of the Orosini and what he's doing on that mountain and who he is, etc. starts the entire Conclave of Shadows series.
Of course this led to several wild guesses as to the origin of Talon and who the Orosini were, to which Ray responded:
The Orosini are not Tsurani or dwarves, they are a mountain people in area of the Eastern Kingdoms.
You haven't met any of the people of the Eastern Kingdoms, though you do meet a couple in Assassins, from the Duchy of Olasko.
Anyway. . . The rest is most certainly WUTNB stuff.
Yes, it is now totally acceptably to be extremely curious about Conclave.
