While most of the Mind Unbound site is intentionally rated G, the following post is rated PG, due to a single instance of "strong language." Given the context, any censorship of the word would have altered and thereby misrepresented the genuine expression of Mr. Rothfuss' emotions and personal experience.
EM: We're back at the The Cobblestone Café, and joining us again this week is Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Name of the Wind. I'm delighted to see you again!
Patrick: You... You can see me? Do you have a camera in my house? Are you a witch?
EM: Um... no. [adds in stage whisper] I'm just pretending.
Patrick: Oh... good. That's for the best. Trust me.
EM: [muttering while writing] Note to self... no cameras... no witchcraft...
Right. Got it. OK, last week you mentioned that the trilogy has been fourteen years in the making, all told. The Name of the Wind is magnificent—truly magnificent—but during those years there had to be times when the process felt terribly difficult. Were there moments when you doubted the project? When you even doubted the value of what you were creating?
Patrick: For the vast majority of the time, I assumed that it was never going to be published. I'm a practical person, and I never lied to myself about the odds. I think of every 250 people who start a novel, one finishes it. Of every 250 people who finish a novel, one sells it. Since I didn't have any expectations of success, I wasn't disappointed. I was writing because I loved to write, and because I loved the story.
But that isn't to say that I didn't have hopes. And when you have hopes you're opening yourself up to disappointment. (Any Buddhists out there? Sound familiar?)
I remember one night in particular I was sitting up, typing (I was probably 4 years into the project at this point) and I realized with perfect clarity that my book, in fact, was pure shit. That I had, in fact, wasted years of my life. And that, in fact, this book would never, ever sell. Ever.
I sat there at the computer at 2:00 in the morning. I knew these things to be perfectly true. It was a desolating experience.
Then I started typing again. What else could I do? I wasn't going to leave things half-finished. I couldn't just walk away....
EM: Oh, I'm so glad you didn't! But I guess that's something just about every author goes through... Looking back on that struggle today, now that The Name of the Wind has been published and is receiving such positive attention, does it feel like it was all worth it? If you had known up front how much time and effort was going to go into the trilogy, would you still have decided to go through it all?
Patrick: Well it's easy now to say yes. We've sold it in 13 countries right now, with number fourteen on the way. I'm nominated for a couple awards. People write me letters telling me how much they like it. Of course I'd still do it.
But even if I hadn't been so lucky, I'd still do it. I've learned so much writing this book. I'm a better person for it.
I might try to do it a little more quickly though. It would have been nice to have got my foot in the door of the publishing world about 5-6 years ago. I feel like I'm getting a bit of a late start.
EM: I'm glad to know you'd do it all over again either way, but I also know what it's like to wish things hadn't taken quite so long. I wish I'd been where I am today about ten years ago...
Getting back to your book, you've done such a tremendous job with your characters. Kvothe is terrific—so real, so engaging—and I love his relationship with Denna, the way they dance around each other. It's marvelous how thoroughly you've developed Denna's situation as a young woman in that society, and how that influences her character and the nature of her relationship with Kvothe.
You've stated in other interviews that you're concerned about the prevalence of sexism in fantasy literature. I can—and do!—personally recommend your books for dealing both openly and intelligently with this issue. What other authors would you recommend in this vein?
Patrick: Terry Pratchett does a great job with all of these elements. He deals with sexism, racism, classism, everythingism. Best of all, he does it without being heavy-handed or preachy. He's just an all-around great writer. If you read fantasy and aren't already into his stuff, I'm surprised.
Robin Hobb does a great job with this stuff too. And Ursula K LeGuin, of course.
Oh. How about someone who's a little newer to the scene? Neddi Okorafor. Her first book, Zarah the Windseeker, was awesome. It's a young-adult book where the fantasy world has a strong African theme. You don't find that very often.
Even more impressive is the fact that the main character is a young girl who sets out on an adventure into the wilderness to save her friend. Zarah is gutsy and clever. She survives by her wits and her talents, not by being rescued by someone else. We need more books with strong female characters like that. They're too rare.
Lastly, one of my favorite webcomics, Goblins, regularly talks about this sort of stuff. Even though a lot of the commentary is humorous, you can tell the author is actively thinking about some of the clichés and that are embedded deep into the fantasy genre.
EM: Speaking of clichés, I loved your responses in a couple of different interviews regarding the use of fantasy clichés in The Name of the Wind. On Fantasy Book Spot, for example, you said:
When I first sat down to write it, I thought, 'I'm not going to do anything even remotely cliché.' So I made a long list of the things that I felt had been overdone, and set out to avoid them.
The trouble is [...] some tropes are universal. Boy meets girl. Betrayal and revenge. The search to discover a hidden truth.... A mother's love isn't cliché, it's universal. These things are archetypes. They're the building blocks of myth and legend. They are a big part about what it means to be human.
Is it fair to say that writing The Name of the Wind became an exercise—or better yet, an exploration—in recognizing the difference between stereotypes and universal human archetypes?
Patrick: No. It wouldn't be fair to say that. While I'd love to take the credit for doing something so profound, it's just not true. I set out to tell an interesting story. That's all.
Now don't get me wrong. I wanted the book to have substance as well. I wanted it to have an emotional impact. I wanted to create real characters. I wanted people to lose sleep because they couldn't put the book down.
And, truthfully, I do think about those things. Stereotypes and Archetypes. Truth and beauty. I think about what makes us human and the chicken and the egg thing and all sorts of what-ifs. It's only natural that pieces of those thoughts end up in the book.
But to say that the book is an exploration of those things....? No. No I don't think so.
If anything. I think the book might be a story about stories. It's about how we shape stories and how we are ourselves shaped by our belief in them.
Maybe that's what the book is about. I don't know. I don't really think too much about those terms.
EM: Ah. Well the answer may still be "no," but I didn't mean to ask about the finished book. I really meant to ask about your experience in writing the book—about how deeply you delved into the process of separating the clichés from the archetypes.
You mentioned earlier that you feel you're a better person for writing the book. Is your thinking about stereotypes and archetypes a part of what you gained from the process? In what way would you say you've become a better person?
Patrick: While I did do a lot of thinking about those things, it's not the main benefit.
What I gained from the book is a better understanding of stories, of people, of the craft of writing. Also, because everything I learn is potential fodder for the book, everything is interesting to me. I look at mountains and I think, "Are the mountains in my world like this?" I learn about soil erosion and I think, "This would have a huge effect on pre-industrial farmers." I find how snakes live through the winter and I think, "This can apply to certain fae creatures I'm trying to develop."
Because I have the book, everything is relevant and cool.
EM: We were talking last week about worldbuilding and how much goes into it. You've mentioned in other interviews that there's another side to worldbuilding: "The key to good worldbuilding is leaving out most of what you create."
What advice would you give emerging writers on how to know the difference between what needs to be included and what ought to be left out?
Patrick: I think that question is probably the most crucial one in all writing. Not just fantasy, but all types of writing in any genre. "How much is too much?"
If you write too much, you risk your reader getting bored. If you don't write enough, you risk your reader getting confused. Where is the happy medium?
If I had the easy, foolproof answer to this I could sell it for a million dollars. I'd be the messiah of the writing world.
But I don't. So let me tell you a story instead.
Way back when I started working on my book, one of my professors was good enough to do an independent study class with me. He was a creative writing professor named Larry Watson, the only professional writer I knew at the time.
I remember asking him this same question. I was building a world for my characters to live in. I was building religions and magic systems and histories. It was fun, but I was worried about how much of my world I wanted to include in the story.
So I asked him, "How much of this do I need to include? How can I tell what's necessary?"
He said, "That's probably the most important question in all writing. How much is too much?"
Then he said, "I read a book once where the main character was a glovemaker. It was a great book, and I really enjoyed it. But a lot of people were irritated because the author devoted large portions of the book to the fine points of glovemaking. He described it in a lot of detail."
He leaned back in his chair and said. "Was the glovemaking necessary to the story? I don't know." He shrugged. "But I liked it. I enjoyed the glovemaking."
Nowadays, when I'm working on the book and I start to worry if I'm giving the reader too much, or giving them things they might not be interested in, I think, "Am I glovemaking?" But I also remember what Mr. Watson said. He liked the glovemaking.
There is a difference between something being essential, and it being necessary. If you take your favorite book and strip it down to what is merely essential to tell the story, it would be butchery. The end result would horrify you. Essential is the bones of the story, but the soul lives somewhere else.
EM: Oh, I love that. The soul lives somewhere else...
Well, we've gone way over time here—not that I'm surprised—but Larry's about to wax into conniptions over in the booth so I guess we'd better sign off. That's it for this week, folks. Let's hear a thunderous round of applause for our guest, Mr. Patrick Rothfuss. Patrick, thanks so much.
Aaaaaand... three... two... one... we're out.
EM: Thanks so much for being on the show, Pat. That was terrific!
Patrick: Thank you. See you again when book two comes out?
EM: I'd love it! I'll be here with bells on. Most likely figuratively, but who knows? A lot can change in a fashion-year...
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