Shadow of the Templar discussion post

[secretsolitaire]

In the interest of not cluttering up my flaily OMG the final Shadow of the Templar book is up!!! post with spoilers, I decided I'd start a new thread to discuss the final book (and anything else related to the series). I know there are a few of you out there who haven't finished yet, but feel free to drop by and join the discussion as soon as you

Comments

[tsukikoushi]

Cough.

So, yes, having been pointed in this direction, I couldn't stay away--hello, I'm the author, and I've been enjoying the discussions in this entry an awful lot!

I'm going to refrain from jumping into ongoing conversations, because I don't actually want to quash anything that's brewing. As I said to secretsolitaire when I asked permission to join the fun: wouldn't that be a buzzkill, to have the actual author crush your nascent speculation with a flat announcement of YES AND/OR NO AND I OUGHT TO KNOW SO THERE? God knows I don't want to discourage you people. ^_^

That being said, if there's anything you'd like to ask me about Shadow of the Templar, by all means, go ahead! I'll answer questions in this comment thread until I run out of questions to answer or until my fingers fall off. Just be certain that you actually want to know the answer to your question, because by God, you'll get it.

And before I forget: thank you all for reading, and for your kind words here and elsewhere! I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. ^_^

[secretsolitaire]

Yay, thank you for stopping by! I will start (with more to come later, once I decide what I really want to know and what I'd rather just speculate about *g*):

1. Somewhere on your site you say that when you first started writing, you began with a random chapter out of book three. Which chapter was it?

2. From the first book:

"That's true," Simon admitted. "I didn't get hung with a handle like Bobcat." Everyone at the table promptly burst out laughing, except Jeremy, who glanced around with a quizzical smile on his face. "I'll explain some time," Simon said, once he managed to stop laughing. "It's a long story."

Did you ever explain this? What's the full backstory on this?

3. Were there any scenes or characters you found particularly hard to write? What about particularly easy?

[tsukikoushi]

1. It's actually been broken up into two chapters now, to fit the whole 'changing POV' thing, but back in 2004 I wrote the whole scene where Sandra brings Simon home from the hospital. All the way from Simon protesting that he does not need babysitting to the "Oh God, you taste like coffee" conversation. (To this day, one of my favorite exchanges.)

It appears in With A Bullet almost exactly as I originally wrote it, too. SotT continuity has always been solid--believe me, I'm as astonished as anyone

[secretsolitaire]

1. the "Oh God, you taste like coffee" conversation. (To this day, one of my favorite exchanges.)

I adore that exchange too. ♥

2. Ahahaha! Thank you!

3. I think it's so interesting to hear that writing certain parts was such an effort. One of the things I like most about the books is how snappy they are -- they really flow, with no evidence of the effort that must have gone into them.

With A Bullet was also pretty difficult in general, just because I was suddenly maintaining seven POVs, most of which I had never written before.

I was going to ask about this, actually -- whether it was a challenge to wrangle all those characters at once. I can't decide which book is my favorite, but I do love With a Bullet for giving me insight that I hadn't had before into all the characters besides Simon and Jeremy. (One of my favorite scenes in that book is the one where Dave vents to Jeremy and Jeremy tells him to grow a spine. ♥)

[libby_drew]

So you DO have an LJ. May I stalk friend you?

I'm a huge fan. Your books are by far the most enjoyable I've read in quite a while. Thanks for all your hard work and for sharing your talents so generously.

[tsukikoushi]

Sure, go right ahead! I'm afraid I'm not all that interesting, but I do announce site updates and such on there. And thank you!

[westernredcedar]

Really?! I mean, Hi! and Really?! You are so generous!

I have so many questions, but as you said, I have to think about what I really want to ask and what I'd prefer to mull over myself...also, I'm rereading from the beginning right now, and already more and more of your detailed set-up of this world is coming through to me (hello, Nate and Simon allude to Farraday at the very beginning of "Morning Star"! Love it!), so for now I'm going to ask a writing process question:

I get the sense from the website that you had the entire series pretty much plotted out before you started writing. Is that true? Did you stick to your plan? Did anything veer from the plan or surprise you (plot, character, or otherwise) as you wrote? If so, what changed?

[tsukikoushi]

That's basically true, yes. The skeletons of the first three books had been entirely plotted out by the time I started, and High Fidelity was added to the roster just a few months after I started The Morning Star, because it was becoming obvious that it was necessary in order to wrap the whole thing up in a satisfying manner. I stuck to those skeletal plots like glue.

That being said, when I say 'skeletons', I mean it. What was going to happen was already set in stone, but how it was going to happen was a little less so; in With A Bullet, for example, I knew that Mike and Sandra were going to get madder and madder at each other as the book progressed, but I didn't know how that anger would be expressed until I actually got there, every time. Supporting characters were invented as needed, too; for example, I came up with Langridge on the fly, and Norton Fowles doesn't appear in my notes until close to the end of 2007

[westernredcedar]

This is really interesting, thank you! I've had this discussion with other writers before, where there seems to be some people who lose all motivation if they have a fully developed outline before they write, and other people who cannot write until they have a coherent and organized sense of where they are going...I'm in the second group myself, so your process sounds very lovely to me!
I'm looking forward now to getting to that conversation in the motel room again in Double Down as I reread. I absolutely LOVE when characters do that- decide to just go in their own direction for a while, insisting on proving they are, in fact, whole motivated characters. :D

[gaycrow]

Lovely to see you here!

Okay, I'm going to jump in the deep end ... (Those who prefer to leave it to their imaginations can look away now. ;D)

How many of the team knew/guessed about Simon and Jeremy's relationship before Simon had the "talk"?

I have more questions, but I'm happy to wait for a while before asking.

[tsukikoushi]

Ha! Oh, boy, the eternal question

[gaycrow]

I love this answer! There go all of my high-flown ideas. :D

That's what I love about your writing ... we can let our imaginations flow in all sorts of directions, and not mind a bit if they're wrong.

I'm just about to fly out the door, but I do have another question, or confirmation perhaps. Is Simon bi-sexual then, rather than being gay, with Sandra just being an experiment? It doesn't matter all that much, but I'm curious to know if he had had many other relationships, either with men or women. One night stands would probably be the easier way to go in his line of work, perhaps.

[tsukikoushi]

Simon is bisexual, yes, and actually tends to prefer women, although there are some things that are just easier with men, in his opinion. Simon figured out that he was attracted to hot people of any gender when he was in high school--hooray for the weight room--and he's always been enough of a self-confident bastard to go 'eh, I'm awesome, so that's awesome' and accept that about himself without much of a stumble. It's part of why he doesn't really read as 'gay

[secretsolitaire]

*nod nod* That definitely fits with my vision of Simon.

Sorry, one more follow-up question -- well, two. 1. What was Jeremy's sex life like before he met Simon? Fairly similar, ie one night stands whenever the opportunity arose? Had he ever had any relationships?

And: 2. Now that Simon and Jeremy have their arrangement of sorts, do they still sleep with other people? (And is that issue something they would ever talk about in any universe? :-D)

[tsukikoushi]

1. Fairly similar, yes--artful one-time pickups--although generally even less often. (Jeremy is just as insane about his job as Simon is about his, after all.) Jeremy's choice of pickup venues tends to be less bar-oriented as well, although he is Eurotrash enough to enjoy the occasional club scene.

To potentially open an entire can of worms: Jeremy has only had two 'relationships' in his life. (Quotes used advisedly.) Simon is the second, and is likely to be the last; Bran was the first. When Jeremy describes their relationship as 'complicated', he is not kidding2. They'll never discuss it, most likely, but they do stop sleeping with other people almost immediately. Technically they stopped sleeping with other people after the very first time they slept together, but it's monogamy by omission rather than commission, if you follow me. Less 'OH I AM MONOGAMOUS WITH YOU NOW' and more 'GOSH I'D JUST BEEN THINKING ABOUT GOING OUT AND GETTING LAID AND THERE YOU WERE AGAIN

Jeremy and Simon's relationships

[gaycrow]

They'll never discuss it, most likely, but they do stop sleeping with other people almost immediately. Technically they stopped sleeping with other people after the very first time they slept together, but it's monogamy by omission rather than commission

The romantic fangirl (old woman in my case) in me really likes this, even though it's monogamy by omission. I'm warm and fuzzy about Simon and Jeremy anyway, and this adds to the fuzziness, as does Simon is the second, and is likely to be the last.

Bran was the first. When Jeremy describes their relationship as 'complicated', he is not kidding.

Aha! My eyes widened when I read this. My thoughts were that Bran was just a "brother" to Jeremy, although I had my suspicions. It does open a new can of worms. (I'm thinking Jeremy is more than a bit of a masochist when it comes to relationship partners. ;D)