Jen
asked
Deborah Harkness:
Hi there! I'm wondering how you decide what point of view to write a book or a chapter from. I've noticed the shifting pov most obviously in The Book of Life, and it really got me thinking about your process.
Deborah Harkness
great question! There are moments when first person (i.e. Diana's point of view) is just not sufficient to help the reader understand what's going on. In the case of THE BOOK OF LIFE, the first chapter was especially challenging, because I quickly realized (through multiple drafts of the first chapters from multiple points of view) that everybody waiting for Diana and Matthew to return from their timewalk had a different view of what had happened over the past nine months, a different set of worries, and a different basket of secrets. So a kind of kaleidoscope of viewpoints was necessary in the book to include the many other characters in the expanding Bishop-Clairmont family.
More Answered Questions
Susan Kicklighter
asked
Deborah Harkness:
At your signing in Coral Gables, you spoke a bit about your process for historical research. But, how/where/with whom did you conduct the research into witchcraft? Did you operate under the same "Swiss cheese" model as you did with the historical fiction, building on fact and filling in the holes?
Riley
asked
Deborah Harkness:
The vampire mythos has changed a lot over the decades. How did you decide which aspects of vampire mythology (connection to bats/wolves, process of turning into a vampire, etc.) are fact and which are fiction in the world of the All Souls Trilogy? Thank you for sharing your stories with us. Please keep writing!
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