Fia Naturie asked Laurell K. Hamilton:

Hi Laurell, I was wondering how do you keep Anita and Merry's worlds separate in your head? Better question, when you write a scene for Anita and something sounds more like Merry do you stop writing the Anita story and go to Merry? Love both series.

Laurell K. Hamilton I actually find it fairly easy to keep the two worlds separate when I'm writing now. When I first started writing the Meredith Gentry series I had to fight to keep Anita out of my head, but by the time I'd finished the first few Merry books her voice was solid enough that it wasn't a struggle anymore. I did have Jean-Claude pop into my head suddenly while writing the first Merry novel, A Kiss of Shadows. Jean-Claude was just peering over my shoulder and said, quite clearly in my head, "You had this and did not offer me any?" My plan had been to write Merry with a high sexual content from the beginning but to continue to keep it low with the Anita books, that would change with the very next book, Narcissus in Chains. Maybe Jean-Claude saw what was happening in the other series and was just done waiting for it in his series? He had never spoken so clearly and unexpectedly in my head until I started writing Merry, but he never tried to cross over into her world, just felt cheated at what I was willing to do there, but not in his world - sort of. It was the first time I remember a character coming to me like that, so loudly when I wasn't writing them, or thinking of them.

flag