Official-Enough "Talk About 'Summerhill" Thread (Spoilers!)

Jan 25, 2013 15:24

Now that my book has been out for a week, people have started mentioning that they've gotten around to finishing reading it (which is very exciting!). However, since places like Twitter are less than ideal for having literary discussions, I thought I'd make a thread where people can talk about it and have room for, like, words and stuff ( Read more... )

writing, summerhill, furry, books

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Comments 8

indicoyote January 26 2013, 04:55:57 UTC
Seen any Rydale otters on Taps yet? ;)

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indicoyote January 26 2013, 05:08:04 UTC
...More seriously, I was curious how you came up with names? Not just Summerhill; I'm guessing there's something truly interesting there to be revealed later, but Arasiel and Shoön for instance. Neither seems to be a reference to anything, but they sound very evocative nonetheless. Any insight you can give on how you come up with interesting names?

(Also, I just worked out where Nusquam came from. Well played. ;))

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rikoshi January 26 2013, 11:41:34 UTC
You know, I actually don't remember where I got Summerhill's name from. I do remember that I came up with it right at the beginning, though, as the very first thing.

Arasiel's name is supposed to be evocative of the names of angels (e.g., Uriel, Barachiel, etc.) but also still sound feminine. Shoön is more of a phonological thing that's kind of hard to explain.

Also, Katherine is a family name. My father's mother was named Catherine, and my sister's middle name is Kathryn, in honor of her, so I thought I'd use another different spelling to sort of carry on the tradition.

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reptyle September 30 2013, 03:37:48 UTC
Hey, I just found a less public/spoilery place to ask you something about Summerhill!  I've wanted to ask this since I read it but didn't want to on Twitter, both due to space constraints and not wanting to publicly spoil anything, but this will do nicely.  If, y'know, you even see it nine months after the fact. :)

Anyway, you made no secret of the fact that Summerhill was originally a short story that your friends and fellow group members kept pressuring you to expand on until your original, core idea ended up surrounded by a whole novel, and since reading it I wanted to ask this.  The scene where Summerhill, feeling trapped by his imminent relationship commitment and craving freedom, split his self in two so he could be free without hurting the one he loved: was that the core, the seed that grew into the novel?  It felt the most... visceral, I guess, the most emotionally charged part of the whole book, so I've always imagined that that was where the story grew from ( ... )

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rikoshi October 3 2013, 06:57:31 UTC
The original short story actually started out as a combination of two images.

First was the idea of an alien stowaway dancing in a ballroom with a hostess aboard a cruise ship in space. This scene made it a few drafts into the process before being cut, because it just didn't fit with the Katherine/Summerhill dynamic that eventually developed.

The second was the concept of otters that made you hallucinate if you licked them. Which, okay, the "cloning and separation" thing still happened even in the original short story, but mostly as a weird hand-wave to just keep the story going I guess.

Hope that doesn't ruin the mystique too much.

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reptyle October 3 2013, 07:27:26 UTC
Hah, okay.  Well, sir, even if the genesis of Summerhill wasn't the conflict between commitment and freedom but a combination of otters and psychotropic frogs, it still stood out as a powerfully expressive scene in a very evocative book.  Thank you for letting me know. :)

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rikoshi October 3 2013, 17:40:10 UTC
I mean, don't get me wrong: the theme of the original short story, as written, was still about wanderlust and a drive for adventure. The hallucinotters were just there because, well, weirdness.

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