Triune

On this page will be collected the various sources of information from Ian himself - from links to interviews on other sites, to the emails he sends me with more up-to-date news.

Q1. You have often said that when you began the View from the Mirror series you didn't know how the next page would end, never mind the chapter. From the Well of Echoes series onwards, however, you had to have had some idea of where things were going; the rough ending for the series, as well as how it would become the Song of the Tears series. How has this affected your writing style?

Bloody good question. I don’t know how it’s affected my writing style, but I dare say some of my readers do, so why don’t you write all and tell me? [ianirvine@ozemail.com.au] I certainly do a lot more planning these days, rather than just making it up as I go along and then editing it into shape, but that’s partly because after X-thousand pages it’s easy for the author to fall into familiar patterns, write the same kind of characters and similar scenes, and I’m trying to avoid that. Also, undoubtedly my writing style has been influenced by the eco-thrillers and kid’s books I’ve written in between my epic fantasies, and now I find it difficult to go back to the elevated tone of the Mirror quartet.

It is certainly more remote and dignified, and perhaps epic, than the style of later works. In some ways that’s a good thing, though perhaps my later works are a bit easier in some respects, too.

On the other hand, I’ve often been told that many readers found my books overly complex and sometimes to get into, and I dare say they are to some readers who are looking for a simple, linear tale, but then again, the books that those readers really liked were not to my taste either.

Q2. Have you ever written a page that has never needed to be rewritten?

I don’t think so, though the chapter where Karan escapes from Fiz Gorgo in A Shadow on the Glass probably comes closest. I just wrote it down and hardly changed it in the 22 drafts of the rest of the book that followed. However it would be fair to say that the chapters I write quickest generally take the least rewriting, while those that I labour over on the first draft often take agonising redrafting to lick into shape.

Usually, in the latter stages of a book, I’ll have a few days where I write up to 10,000 words of first draft in a day, and sometimes as much as 50,000 words in a week, and often these sections take the least rewriting because I was absolutely ‘in the zone’ when I wrote them. However, as any writer will tell you, it’s really hard to get in the zone. I’ll often have days or even weeks when I’m constantly being distracted, or seeking distraction from my writing, and write only 300 words in a day. And being in the zone one day doesn’t mean that I won’t struggle the next. Every day you have to start from scratch and if I can’t write for a week or two due to other commitments, it can take a week to get back into it.

Q3. What is the most enjoyable part of writing for you?

Redrafting. I find first drafts to be really hard work, because even though I know how the book is going to end, I rarely know how I’m going to get to the end, and writing the first draft is a voyage to an unknown land. Moreover, it’s one where I’m constantly aware of how far my first drafts are from what I want the completed work to be. However, I love the later drafts, when the story is essentially complete and I’m polishing it into shape and adding all the last minute interconnections that pull it into one complete tapestry.

Q4. What do you feel is the strongest part of your writing?

Well, a reviewer once wrote that ‘sex seems to be banned in Ian Irvine’s novels’ (which seemed a bit harsh, since I’d only written one at the time. Besides, after all the mountains my characters had climbed, I don’t think they had the energy) so clearly it isn’t that. Perhaps it’s the different kinds of worlds and characters that occur in my books. Certainly, I think my works are less derivative than the majority of fantasy writers. But how would I know? Why don’t readers write and tell me?

Looking at it another way, I’m well aware that I’m not a great writer in the literary sense. My books aren’t reviewed all that often and are rarely considered for awards. However I do feel that I’m a good storyteller, and one who writes original fantasy. [And as for my eco-thrillers, not only are they scientifically correct, but happenings in them are coming true day after day.)

Q5. On your site it says that you began world-building before writing The Three Worlds. Are there any other worlds you created before you settled on Santhenar? If so, after the Three Worlds would you think of writing their stories?

My original world was created in the late 70’s (when I was supposed to be finishing my Ph. D) and in Europe ( when I nicked off for three quarters of a year of travel before completing it) and the early 80’s, before I had more than a few thousand words written, hardly any of which was later used. My first great map didn’t have a name at all – the name Santhenar wasn’t invented until several drafts into Shadow, years later. I didn’t develop any world in great detail before the Three Worlds though, and the world I created became the basis for the great map of Lauralin.

I do want to write other fantasies set in other kinds of worlds, and I dare say I will in future, though (as I may have said before, if Jane Austen can write half a dozen novels set in a few English villages, I expect I can write a lot set in three whole worlds and covering thousands of years of history).

Q6. Of all the genres you have written in (adult sci-fi, general fantasy, children's fantasy), which has been the most enjoyable?

When I look back on The View from the Mirror, I’m amazed at the elevated tone of that series, so different from the way I write now. I’m rather pleased with that, though I think the storytelling in my later books is better. Of all my books, I’m most pleased with the Runcible Jones children’s fantasy series, of which Book 2 (The Buried City) will be published here in a few months (June 07). I’ve had such fun writing them. And yet, if one is talking about important global issues, my 3 eco-thrillers have struck an important chord, though they didn’t sell nearly as well as my fantasy. There’s an amazing dearth of good novels, or SF, which actually deal with near future issues such as climate change. Such a dearth, in fact, that it seems clear that most readers simply aren’t interested.

Q7. Of all of your series (splitting Three Worlds into View from the Mirror, Well of Echoes, and Song of the Tears) which is your favourite?

Well, the Song series won’t be finished for another year, so I can’t judge, but I think in terms of storytelling, which is what matters most to me, The Well of Echoes series. I like the way Chimaera ends, despite that it breaks all the rules of storytelling – I’ve had no end of hate mail about the ending, and especially the way the beautiful Irisis meets her doom. Ah, I did love her by the end, and most of all for the noble manner of her death.

But of course, that has shaped the entire series I’m writing now.

And I was sorry that a number of issues from the Well series (eg the Numinator) weren’t fully addressed by the end of the series. I think it’s really slack when an author leaves important questions unanswered, and I hated doing it.

Q8. Will you ever be drawing any more maps, either for the Three Worlds series (the Northern continent maybe?) or the Runcible Jones books?

Yes. There is a map in Runcie 2, and I’ll definitely be drawing more maps for the remaining 3 Worlds books, though I don’t know what they will be. I love that way of realising a world.

And of course, whatever I write after the next series dealing with the fate of Karan and Maigraith’s children will have to have maps too.

Q9. Both the Well of Echoes and the Song of the Tears were originally meant to be a book fewer than they ended up. Are there any plans yet to expand Fate of the Children from a single book to a duet?

Er, hmn, sorry, I guess I’ve got no credibility left, but I think it’s probably going to be a trilogy. I’m not sure what it’s going to be called now, but since The Fate of ... Has already been used in the UK, I’ll have to come up with another title for these books.

Q10. Any chance of a film/tv series/animated version of any of your books?

I’ve been talking to an Asian animation studio (they recently finished the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated movie), but it’s incredibly difficult to get any movie up and takes a long time, so, sadly, don’t hold your breath.

Q11. The first Song of the Tears book was written from fewer view points than the previous books had been - just Maelys and Nish. Will this continue throughout the rest of the series?

There are more viewpoints in The Curse on the Chosen (3, actually). I deliberately wrote Book 1 from just two viewpoints as I wanted to write it a bit differently to the previous books, just top shake myself up as a writer and avoid falling into a particular pattern of writing. There may be more yet in the final book, The Destiny of the Dead.

Q12. Will we ever find out what happened to the Faellem left on Santhenar?

I honestly don’t know. I haven’t planned to write about them, but that doesn’t mean I won’t, because a lot of things occur in my books that I hadn’t planned, eg the reappearance of the Whelm in The Curse on ... {oops, I shouldn’t have told you that. Damn] . It may be that Santhenar calls on the lyrinx in future for help, or to repay their debt, and the call is answered, and some Faellem appear as well. I just don’t know, and no matter how much planning I do, there are always important new changes just popping up out of the subconsciousness when I’m writing, or sometimes even in the nth redraft.

Q13. Will you ever be returning to how the lyrinx are doing on Tallallame or is it an assumed happy ending? (being they survive and prosper)

See above. And never assume a happy ending in my books, due to the extreme harshness and cruelty of my nature. But honesty, at the present time I’ve no idea how they’re faring. I suspect they’ve done all right, but what if some tiny little thing brought them undone ...? And as with the answer to Q12, it’s entirely possible that they may be called upon for help in a tussle from some vexatious alien from the void or somewhere. Oops, shouldn’t have told you that either.

Q14. Is there anything more to learn about the amplimet seen in the Well of Echoes?

Again, I haven’t planned to talk any more about it. It was destroyed at the end of Chimaera, wasn’t it?

Q15. Will the prophecy of the Sea of Perion and Zain play any part in the next two Song of the Tears books?

Er, hem hem, mea culpa and all that, I’m sure everyone has noticed an error on the map in the Fate of the Fallen/Torments of the Traitor. The Dry Sea was refilling at the end of Chimaera, and definitely should have filled 10 years later, so it should be called The Sea of Perion now.

As to the Zain, I don’t know at this stage. Not all prophecies have to come true. And maybe it’ll wait until the series called The Fate of the Children.

Q16. Looking back, is there anything you would like to have changed about the Three Worlds series?

I’d have liked it to have had better writing, to be more exciting, dramatic and lyrical, with more skilfully drawn characters, and to be absolutely riddled with nail-biting suspense. Apart from that I wouldn’t change a thing apart from the story.

I don’t think any creative artist is ever happy with their work and I’m no exception. Every book I write is an inevitable compromise between what has to be written and the time available to write it, however hopefully in a couple of years I’ll completely give my environmental consulting away and do nothing but write. I’d pretty much done that about five years ago, until we had three children in higher education at once, very expensive!And then I got the opportunity to put in for the latest 5-year revision of Australia’s national marine pollution guidelines, which I’d been the principal consultant for from 1993 to 2002, and the opportunity to work on such an interesting and important scientific project was (sorry, my gentle readers) impossible to pass up.

So I am always pressed for time, but one day, soon, hopefully, I’ll have no other work activities on my horizon. Maybe then I’ll do a Tad Williams and only write a book every couple of years, and really take the time to get it right.

ENDNOTE The Curse on the Chosen, which I’ll be finishing over the next couple of months, has become the critical volume in the Three Worlds series because it links both the Mirror and Well Quartets to the current series and by the end will set the scene for the final trilogy, formerly known as The Fate of the Children (well, probably the final trilogy – who knows if I might be drawn forward in time again, or back for that matter, or even to one of the other worlds or the void? Not me.)

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