Page Created: 04/20/23. Last Updated: 07/24/23.
STEVEN BRUST
ONLINE
Website: http://dreamcafe.com/
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/steven.brust.1/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenBrust
BOOKS
.....Vlad Taltos Series
Jherag
Yendi
Tekla
Taltos
(& Ten More)
.....The Khaavren Romances
The Phoenix Guards
Five Hundred Years After
.....Plus
The Paths of the Dead
The Lord of Castle Black
Sethra Lavode
Brokedown Palace
.....Others
To Reign in Hell
The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars
Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grill
(& Five More)
SHORT FICTION ONLINE
Meeting Date: July 8, 2023.
Meeting Site: Zoom Video Conference
Attendance: 34.
Meeting Program: Talk, Q & A with Fantasy Author.
Notes:
The five attendees of the Virtual Diner Run discussed cartoons, fostering kittens, home repairs, and The Bionic Watermelon.
Newsletter Account:
The following account is reprinted with permission THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2023 Philip J De Parto:
Meeting Notes:
GETTING STARTED
I decided to become a writer when I read Roger Zelazny's LORD OF LIGHT. I wanted to give someone the feeling I got when I read that book.
He has an abandoned 20,000 word unfinished novel.
His writing group includes Patricia Wrede, Pamela Dean, and Will Shetterly.
Pat Wrede was the first to get published. She wrote cover letters to his agent and his editor.
Never took writing courses.
"I learned how to write on the streets, man."
He paid attention to his writing group and to what editors said.
He organized a small writers convention so that he could pick the brains of a batch of really smart people.
ON NAMES & PRONUNCIATION
If I make up funny words, I don't get to complain about how people pronounce them.
ON VLAD TALTOS
He tapped into voices used by Raymond Chandler, Fritz Leiber, and Michael Moorcock.
YENDI
Original title was Duel.
Publisher wanted another weird title like the first book.
It's a shoddy book. It didn't work the way he wanted it to. But he will not rewrite it.
JHERAG
Took two years to come out.
Sold really well.
He had no clue he was writing a series when he wrote Jherag.
LYORN
Just turned book in.
Really liked how it turned out.
He had to work really hard to pull it off but loved how it came out.
TO REIGN IN HELL
Book was a real struggle.
He really didn't know how to write when he wrote that book.
A writer friend told him that he was reaching for something behind his grasp, but he should write it anyway, because he would learn from the experience.
He was just jumping into the deep end of the pool.
Wife arm-twisted him into finishing book when he was ready to toss it.
PHOENIX GUARDS SERIES
Started writing the first for his own amusement.
Was stunned when Tor bought it.
It violates every contemporary rule on how to write.
His narrator gives a page-long paragraph on the importance of brevity.
COWBOY FENG'S SPACE BAR & GRILLE
The only book he was unhappy with when he delivered it.
AGYAR
It's a disguised vampire book which never uses the word vampire.
Everything is implied.
The first letter of each chapter spells out Nosferatu.
THE INCREMENTALISTS
Co-authored with Sklyer White.
Enjoyed books but they didn't sell well.
GENE WOLFE
Couldn't figure out his book, Peace.
He called Neil Gaiman to explain what he missed.
Then he read it again and it all made sense.
He had to learn an entirely new way to read to understand The Shadow of the Torturer.
ON WRITING
Some writers see a shory in their head as a movie which they have to translate; Brust hears voices talking.
A strong Voice will get you through a rough part of Plot more than a strong Plot will get you through a rough part of Voice.
Writers develop Author Preperception that gives them a feel for how a story is going.
He doesn't keep a Story Bible, but fortunately has fans that do.
Don't do what I do: I keep three computers running. One has a game on it, one is for social media, and one is for writing. At the beginning of a project he is only on the writing computer a little. He spends more and more time on it as the book progresses.
He plays movies while writing so he can hear voices and dialogue.
Usually takes a six month break between writing novels.
Writing is learning how to see what is going on in the reader's head. If you do it right, you can leave things in plain sight that they don't see until later.
Career is based on frustrating reader expectation.
The name Looish is Hungarian (dog).
The line between delighting and offending the reader is thin.
PERSONAL
He always wears a hat because hats are cool.
I'm a lucky guy. I can make a living doing what I love.
WRITERLY STUFF
Sometimes he plots, sometimes he pants. It depends on the story.
He is a storyteller. A storyteller needs to learn how to write. A writer needs to learn how to tell stories.
His strengths are Dialogue & Narrative Voice. He had to learn description.
Memory is the bridge between Point of View and the Narrative.
What does your character notice when they walk into a room vs what is present in the room.
Don't pay attention to any advice from other writers. Everyone is different.
AFTER THE VLAD TALTOS BOOKS ARE DONE
No idea what he will do once the series is complete.
I have no shortage of ideas.
I will write the next book I feel like writing.
Or we could do a Help Steve Write a Book Panel at a convention.
FUTURE PROJECTS
Next book will be a shared world anthology A DAY AT THE DRAGON SHELTER.
The more you write, the more ideas for new stories will come to you.
ON VOICE AND TRANSLATION
A good translation is hard to do.
It's easy to translate what happens, but difficult to capture the Voice.
He talked about different translations of a scene from the Musketeers in which Athos is mistakenly identified as D'Artanian.
MISC
There is no thrill like going into a book store and seeing your book on the racks.
"Oh, God! They bought my book!"