January posting meme: genesis of the Waters of Time series
yunitsa wants to know: What was the original genesis of the Time books? Did you start with the time travel, or the characters, or…?
Ah well, not so much genesis as evolution. I started out with a fierce desire to write a novel, in 2001 when I was a couple of years into online fandom (mostly mailing lists, at that point), and decided that I'd write about the fans of a particular SF book series, a possibly-diverse (mostly in political and religious terms, I expect, though I hope in race and gender and nationality and so forth too) group of people, and how they interacted and came into conflict and used the matter of the books to express themselves and solve difficulties, because I was seeing all that for the first time and it was fascinating. (I still think this would make a great book, even though I didn't write it, so feel free to steal the idea.)
This meant that I needed to invent the book series, and since I've always been fascinated by time travel, that's what I decided on. I was going to have to actually quote parts of the text, so I started imagining scenes and characters and plots and so forth, and eventually it occurred to me that it would be a lot more fun to write actual books than to just pilfer from imaginary ones, and I scrapped the original idea and started in with the much better one.
By that time I'd invented George and Olivia and Bernard (because love triangles are always fun, and I needed a moral conflict for those fans to agonize over). I think Olivia and Bernard were a reaction to the worship of age-gap romances I saw in some fandoms (I started out in Laurie R. King's Russell/Holmes books), and the problems I saw with that. I must have zeroed in on George's love of the 18th century early on, because I think I started with the time period and then worked out a plot from there (where I discovered tea smuggling, I am no longer sure). And Constantine and Associates came out of my own experience working for government contractors.
Another thing I recall about the early germination period (but I think after I'd started writing) was deciding what version of time theory to use, and explicitly choosing not to use the system Connie Willis had for the Oxford History Department books (though she altered it later, somewhat). I love her books, but I wanted more freedom for my characters to jump directly into danger if they so desired (and I didn't want to look like I was copying, either).
It seems like a long time ago, but I can still remember where I was when I came up with some of the essential plot nuggets that are so familiar now. Mostly a) out walking the dog, or b) in the shower. :)
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