Diana Pharaoh Francis is the author of the high fantasy adventure novels Path of Fate, Path of Honor and Path of Blood, which make up her fantasy trilogy, The Path Series. Francis is also a professor at the Univeristy of Montana and a mom. Here, she talks to Pink Raygun about writing, creating fantasy worlds and balancing the working life, the family life and the writing life. Pay attention. You’ll learn a lot.
Pink Raygun: Which writers have been influential to you?
Diana Pharaoh Francis: That’s always such a hard question to answer. As a kid, I read voraciously, and there were a number of writers to got me reading more fantasy—the Narnia books were huge for me, but also Roger Zelazny’s Amber series. But as far as influencing my writing—I have a PhD in Victorian literature, and I’ve been told that one of the things readers like about my writing is rich description. One of the things that is a hallmark of 19th century writers, is that they really worked on world-building. In the 18th century, in the early novels, they didn’t do that—it was almost entirely plot and dialog, very akin to plays. So Jane Austen, Dickens, Trollope, Eliot, and so many others, have had a powerful impact on my writing. Both in the detail, and in the building of their worlds to create a sense of real place. Where the world has texture and smell and depth.
As far as fantasy writer influences, Andre Norton was big for me. She introduced me to the concept of strong women characters. And Elizabeth Moon, with her attention to nitty-gritty world details like where do people go to the bathroom. Also, Patricia McKillip with her amazing poetic language and rich, original worlds. I could probably go on and on . . .
[nms:Diana Pharaoh Francis,4,0]
PRG: What is it that drew you to writing high fantasy?
DF: Well, first, those Victorian novels were triple-deckers. So I liked the long stories that went on for several novels. But I was drawn to the themes, I think. I like exploring the question of what makes a hero and what makes a villain. I remember reading something by Mercedes Lackey that said something to the effect of ‘even evil wizards get up in the middle of the night to make chocolate chip cookies.’ They simply aren’t all bad. Hitler thought he was a good guy. So I like the complexities that can be explored in characters. I like the notion of good and evil and that they are in a constant state of imbalance, and that ‘good’ is not always good for everyone. I also love the notion of magic. Not as a simple and easy cure, but I do like the potential mystery of it, and that with magic, in so many stories, the person who is capable of magic doesn’t have to be rich or royal or special, but can be a pig-herder. And I have always been interested in power structures—I am really interested in the way power owned and used in a society.
PRG: What comes first: the story or the world?
DF: A little of both. I don’t think you can have a story if you don’t have a world, but for me, I usually start with a character in mind. Then I start thinking about what is her conflict and what kind of problems is she having, and that requires me figuring out the world and then it goes back and forth. With the Path books, I started with the idea of someone who was desperately afraid of heights and was stuck going way up in the air against her will. And I was thinking about what kind of person sacrifices herself for a total stranger? And that mixed in with some world elements I was thinking of, and pretty soon the yeast was bubbling and on it went. With my new series, I remember having a bunch of ideas of possible characters, and I had random notes for cool stuff that I’d put here and there in notebooks. I don’t know what the trigger was, but at some point, I realized if I put some of the random pieces together, I’d have a very unusual and interesting world.
PRG: What sort of planning or pre-writing process to you put yourself through before you start writing the story?
DF: Process sounds so . . . organized. And that I am not. I tend to take a lot of notes. Or write a ‘synopsis’ that isn’t anything like one. It’s more of a conversation I have with myself on paper. I don’t know anything well until I write it down, so I will write ideas and information down as it gels, then in the middle of it I’ll write: “but wait, that doesn’t work because if you have Lucy going here, she’ll never get that done and so what do you plan to do about it?�? So I’m literally talking to myself. I keep a kind of book ‘bible’ of details about the world and characters so that I can maintain consistency. I’m still doing a lot of this when I begin writing. For me, I can’t fully understand what’s going on until I really get into the story. So until around chapter five or six, I’m still sorting out how things work. It’s actually uncomfortable writing those chapters sometimes—there’s so many possible choices and which to pick? But the story helps me to do so, and my lizard brain is working behind the scenes to guide my fingers.
PRG: When you’re working on a novel, do you attack the story in a linear manner? Do you write it in non-linear chunks?
DF: I’m absolutely a linear writer. I have to write in order or it drives me up a wall. I rarely write later scenes down, even though I get ideas for them. I’m always afraid that I’ll try to shoehorn the novel into fitting, and for me, the novel develops very organically. A for instance is in the book I’m working on now, The Black Ship. I had anticipated this scene where my mentally-unstable captain and the Pilot get into a sort of hand-to-hand combat in the rigging in a storm. I like the idea of the scene a lot, but now that I’ve been writing, it cannot work the way I planned it. The captain, as it turns out, isn’t mentally unstable in the way I expected. If I’d written that scene already as I envisioned it originally, I’d have to either scrap it and rewrite it, or I’d have to make the story fit. Knowing myself, I’d forget that I could scrap the scene, and I’d shoehorn. The tunnel vision of being in the middle of a book can make you make stupid writing choices.
PRG: What was the most challenging aspect of writing your Path series?
DF: The second book. The first I’d meant as a stand alone. But then a little bit of it kept bothering me. Specifically, whatever happened at Mysane Kosk? It was like this nuclear explosion had gone off, but no one hardly noticed. I thought no, it has to have a great impact. And also, I kept thinking that with Reisil, what problems was she going to have with magic? So I was able, in the revisions, to set up Path of Honor in Path of Fate. But writing Path of Honor was a bear. Middle books are hard. You have to include backstory so that a reader just picking up the middle book isn’t clueless, and you have to have a decent ending, though you know the entire overstory won’t wrap up until the third book. I have huge admiration for writers who do that well, especially now that I know how very hard it is.
PRG: The most rewarding?
DF: I think there are a couple of things. One is sinking down into the world and really knowing every crevice of it. It’s being able to write as if that place really does exist. And also, Soka. He’s one of my favorite characters and an unexpected surprise. When I introduced him, I did so for the sole purpose of killing him. But then I rather liked him, so I kept him. In the third book, he became a rather important character, and did some things I didn’t see coming at all (like I said, my lizard brain is always doing creative thinking without my consciousness knowing about it—thank goodness). It was absolutely cool the way that his story line added depth to the book and became so important and so integral. I’d like to write about him again. Maybe one of these days.
PRG: You’ve wrapped up the Path series and are working on the Crosspointe Chronicles. How did it feel to start building something else after spending so much time with the world and characters of the Path series?
DF: In a way it was a relief. After the three books, I was just tired of the world. That comes from doing revisions for the editor, then copy-edits, then proofs, and on and on. There comes a point when you know longer know if it’s a good book or not, you just want it out of your hair. So the Crosspointe books were the proverbial breath of fresh air. Something new and exciting to stir up the imagination. Though I do miss Kodu Riik. As I said, I’d like to go back to Soka, and maybe Juhrnus, and write about them.
PRG: You also work as a college professor. How do find balance between your teaching life and your writing life?
DF: It’s getting harder as my kids get older. I try to organize a regular schedule of at least an hour or two a day and many more on weekends that I can just write. But I teach on a block system, which is very intensive (one class at a time, 3 hours a day, 3 and a half weeks). It’s pretty exhausting and it wears on me more than I’d like. But I plan to panic later. Much later.
PRG: Has your work as an educator influenced your writing?
DF: Students are really smart and see things in fresh ways, so yes, the process of teaching, of hearing ideas, of seeing their responses—all of that colors what I do.
DF: I figure Shakespeare and Dr. Seuss would withdraw rather quickly to observe and start commentating and writing. Dickenson, she’d probably turn up her nose at the whole thing. Vonnegut would quickly head to the bar for the whiskey, and everybody would be too afraid of Poe to really take him on. Probably the Marilyn Manson of his time.
PRG: In that same livejouranal post, you say “Sometimes there are writers I want to ask questions of and those questions never get asked in typical interviews”. What question would you like to be asked that no one has asked before?
DF: Hmmm. I never thought much about what I’d like to be asked. I wish I had something brilliant handy, but I don’t. I suppose, like someone else posted in on that thread, that I’d want people ask about some of the specifics of how certain things in the books came to be—like a commentary on a DVD of a film. Like for instance, the eyeball popping scene in Path of Honor.
PRG: What is the answer to that question?
DF: If you’ve read the book, you’ll know that it was necessary for the eye to come out intact—not smashed. And for plot reasons, I wanted something very identifiable from that person, and his eyes were a very particular shade of blue. So, eye-popping it was going to be. But I also am extremely creeped out by things that happen to eyes. And I exacerbated this by having Lasik surgery some years ago—it was fine, but the whole process made my skin crawl.
So writing the scene made me squirmy and uncomfortable (though in my next book, The Cipher, I wrote a scene near the end that gave me nightmares and didn’t let me sleep—it’s really, really creepy). Anyhow, I didn’t know a lot about eye-popping, so I did some research and discovered that eyes itch a lot when they come out, and there are a lot of blood vessels around them so once you cut, there will be a lot of blood. I invented a spoonlike tool to scoop it out, and took into account what it felt like when my contacts used to wander away in my eyes, and then off I went.
But what’s most amusing to me is that when all was said and done, and the scene written, do you know what I found to be the ickiest part? The fact that the guy doing it had bad breath. So that can tell you something about me.
The Path series is available in paperback online or at your local bookstore. The first book of her Crosspointe series, The Cipher, will be available this November. For more on Diana Pharaoh Francis, visit her website and livejournal.
Related Stuff:
Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
