Michael Daigh
asked
C.A. Higgins:
Despite the allusion to initial conditions, (which I loved...it's the sort of thing I focus on when writing about historiography in the Age of Newton), this book seemed to me like an end-ordered narrative; satisfyingly, poetically, mechanical. To what extent was the destination in mind at the beginning? Was there a dependency, unplanned, on initial conditions?
C.A. Higgins
This answer contains spoilers�
(view spoiler)[Hi Michael, Thank you so much! Lightless came about as the merger of two different ideas: one, of a ship that gains self-knowledge in its own chaos; two, of a man telling lies like Scheherazade until he can be rescued. Both these ideas existed, as you said, end-first: the sentience of the ship and the rescue of the man. I outline very extensively and follow the outline very strictly so the story was carefully constrained before I started writing it, so in some ways plotting the story was about finding the initial conditions that would lead naturally towards the end that I had already determined. Even so there are details that I'm not certain can be planned out that affect HOW the story reaches the end point, even if they don't change what the end point is. For instance, Ivan's repeated line about "Do you know what that thing does to the human body?" is something that wasn't planned--small, but it affected the way that the scene where Althea has him at gunpoint progressed, and what decisions she made during it. (hide spoiler)]
More Answered Questions
Jera Em
asked
C.A. Higgins:
Hello! I've really been loving your books and I'm looking forward to the third in the Lightless series. I was wondering, however, if you knew whether the alternate cover for Supernova was available anywhere or if it never came to fruition? I was just wondering since it matched the original cover of Lightless pretty well. Thanks a bunch and happy writing!
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