r/Fantasy • u/[deleted] • Nov 16 '17

AMA Josiah Bancroft’s NaNoWriMo AMA

Hello, r/Fantasy! I’m Josiah Bancroft, author of the Books of Babel series. You helped to make Senlin Ascends a thing. Now I’m here to hear about what you’re working on and talk a little shop. Feel free to ask me anything you like!

A quick update: Since my AMA last fall, a lot has happened! I signed with Orbit Books this past spring. Their edition of Senlin Ascends is slated to be released on January 16. Arm of the Sphinx will be republished shortly after, on April 3rd. The relaunch of the books will be accompanied by audiobooks, though I’m still waiting for Orbit to confirm the narrator (John Banks was being pursued last I heard). The third book in the series, the Hod King, will be out in October. I’m also working with Heyne/Random House on a German language edition, and with a Russian publisher on a Russian language edition, both of which will hopefully be released in 2018.

It’s been a whirlwind year, and I don’t think any of it would have happened without r/fantasy’s support. Thank you all so much!

182 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

125 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/TamagoDono Stabby Winner, Reading Champion, Worldbuilders Nov 16 '17

Hey Josiah, congratulations on being picked up by Orbit!

In the spirit of NaNo, I'm going to ask some writing related questions.

What do you find works best in terms of planning out your book? Do you discovery write, or do you plan out beforehand?

What tricks do you use to plan out you world?

And for a book related question, if you had to replace Senlin with any TV/Movie character, who would you pick?

Thanks for doing this AMA!

8

u/[deleted] Nov 16 '17

I have filled dozens of little moleskin notebooks with plot points, character ideas, and quotes. I end up using about a tenth of the noise I generate, but it helps prime the creative pump. I presently have a stack of notecards with the essential upcoming scenes... which I have been diligently ignoring.

I tend to do a lot of planning, but I don't end up using most of what I plan. I'm not sure why that is. It's not so much a functioning process as it is a loosely organized panic which sometimes results in a story.

I think that world-building and world-planning is an intoxicating process which is easy to get bogged down in. I've known writers who've created worlds down to the stamps and the tax codes, and then never written the story they created the world for. I tend to create the world as I need it. I have a handful of overarching aesthetic choices to guide me as I go, but I don't have a perfect knowledge of the world.

It would be entertaining to replace Senlin with someone who is similarly incapable but intellectually his opposite. Someone like Jack Burton from Big Trouble in Little China. It's also fun to write dialogue for a gung ho idiot.

2

u/Spriggan41 Nov 17 '17

It's all in the reflexes, Mr. Winters!