Building a Legacy
Today marks Legacy of Steel’s release! A journey that began either three or twenty-three(ish) years ago (depending on how you measure) takes another significant step. War is coming to the Tressian Republic. Armies will rise. Heroes will fall. And the gods themselves will take sides.
To celebrate, I’m going to dive into the writing and development of Legacy of Steel, and give you a bit of a peek behind the scenes. Spoilers ahead for Legacy of Ash, and the mildest of mild spoilers for Legacy of Steel.
Consequences and Questions
In Legacy of Ash, Melanna spared Viktor Akadra, believing that he was not the threat she believed, only to glimpse contrary evidence days later. Elsewhere, Malachi Reveque struck a bargain with the Parliament of Crows in order to defeat Ebigail Kiradin’s coup. Those two decisions – necessary as they might have been – echo throughout the sequel.
Legacy of Steel is, first and foremost, a story about consequences. It’s also a war story, concerned with the choices our heroes have to make in order to win said war.
But trouble also looms on a personal level.
Josiri’s attempts to find his place in northwealder society without forgetting his past. Viktor’s reconciliation of his dual nature. Sevaka’s struggle to overcome her mother’s poisonous legacy. Melanna without and within about what it takes to become Empress. Then there’s the new generation coming of age and trying to find their place. Because when you get right down to it, wars may be fought for borders and territory, but they’re about people.
And of course, there are the questions that Legacy of Ash left unanswered – and not just the one posited in the final pages. Questions about Ana. The Crowmarket. What’s going on with Sidara. Ashana’s relationship with Melanna. In Legacy of Steel, you’ll get these and more besides.
Friends, Enemies and Everything In-between
A big part of mapping out the narrative was working out which characters I wanted to put in a room together, figuratively speaking. From a writing perspective, half the joy of a sequel is taking the characters you know and love and throwing them into new pairings and new situations so you can see what makes them better (or worse) people.
It’s all about learning who you are, and unlearning who you shouldn’t be. Some characters do, and others … well, you’ll see.
Two existing relationships, in particular, were nailed on right out of the gate. Viktor and Josiri – and their frenemy-ness – remain the heart of Legacy of Steel. I won’t spoil the other one here, but it arose organically out of Legacy of Ash’s writing process, and I wanted to give it more room here.
As for the new pairings … ? Well, they’re a lot of fun. There’s little more entertaining to write (or read) than Anastacia bouncing through other folks’ lives with cheery – or murderous – abandon. There’s joy and tears, events that will make you cheer and others to make you scream. Legacy of Ash forged a family – a dysfunctional one, granted – and seeing how that family grows and evolves in Legacy of Steel (and into Book Three) is a huge part of the joy.
But the main thing, as ever, is that our heroes, villains and I-don’t-knows get to see themselves reflected in others – the good, the bad and the very, very ugly.
Narrative Origins
All that said, where does the actual narrative from Legacy of Steel come from?
Well, first and foremost it’s from the characters themselves. Almost everyone has their roots in Legacy of Ash. They know what they’re about pretty well by now. So really my job is to put them under pressure and see how they react.
Does that mean I’ve turned into a manager?
The horror. The horror.
Beyond that? I can trot out my usual list of influences. Babylon 5. Doctor Who. I, Claudius. Robin of Sherwood. Bernard Cornwell’s The Warlord Chronicles. And so on. Tolkien’s there as a worldbuilding mentor, and the themes owe a lot to Shannara. Oh, and I absolutely adore Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and there’s a lot of tonal inspiration from those settings.
I’m also a sucker for redemption stories – especially self-destructive ones – so you might find a bit of that in Legacy of Steel. Nothing makes me fall in love with a character so much as a redemption arc that ends in their bittersweet death.
Some characters fall from grace, others rise.
But I think more than anything else – more even that Legacy of Ash – Legacy of Steel is about mythology. How it’s built, how it’s remembered and how it shapes the world to come. So there are fragments and echoes of Robin Hood as well as the Arthurian and Norse mythology I loved so much when I was growing up. Chief among these is the notion that great events are shaped by many hands, not by a single hero (or villain) alone, and seldom tidily.
The Beginning
I’ll be completely honest – half of my plotting process begins as a ‘What If?’ inspired by scraps of other stories. A relationship crisis here. A moment of personal growth there. A reveal. Sometimes, these are things I loved, but mostly they’re tales that I wanted to love but couldn’t. I think we’ve all vivisected movies and books that didn’t quite land, and tried to make them work.
As least … that’s where it starts. As I said before, the characters quickly take over and make the story their own.
Viktor, Josiri and Malachi (and one or two others) have been part of this story for its whole two decades plus of life. Melanna and Kai were always there, but have grown in the telling. Others were added when the writing began, and some of those bullied their way to prominence. Sevaka, Ashana and Apara weren’t part of the original plan, but they’re now vital to the narrative. They set up shop, and refused to leave. Honestly, I’m too scared to ask that they do.
The Writing Process
So, how was Legacy of Steel written?
Ultimately, it was a front to back, top to bottom job. I knew where it started and where it ended. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s quite rare for me to have both in place when I commit to a project.
From there, I did a polished draft of the whole thing, tweaking and nudging as I went. I generally aim for about a chapter a day but it’s often a tangled path, with me writing and rewriting a sentence several times before moving onto the next – especially when it comes to scene-setting.
My wife reads everything on a daily basis. My agent gets a bundle of chapters every couple of weeks (or more frequently, if I’m worried about something in the draft). And all the while I’m prodding, poking and thinking ‘what is most fun?’ And listening to the characters’ demands for what they want to do next.
Polishing and Pruning
Once the final page was in place, Legacy of Steel got put through my usual revisions process. This comes in two parts.
Firstly, I have to go back and address the list of plot points, character details, jokes, references and concerns that lives on my computer desktop. In this case, roughly one hundred action points in need of attention, covering everything from ‘this character needs a new name’ to ‘gothic the ritual up a bit’ or ‘character X needs to do Y at point Z’. These don’t tend to be structural issues, as those get polished off during the draft. (One chapter, in particular, kept getting moved further and further back during the writing process to make timings and character beats work.)
That accomplished, it’s then time to get the manuscript down to a fighting weight. I try not to use filter words or overspend on adverbs, but there are always plenty of them lurking. Also, weird bits of dialogue repeats, over-long action scenes or descriptions, etc. Likewise, too many sentences end up waffling their way into oblivion – these get trimmed or split to keep things pacey. Honestly, if you can say a thing in fewer words – dialogue excepted – it’s almost always stronger.
A couple of passes of this, and Legacy of Steel was about the length my editor expected. Hooray!
Oddities
Want some weird little (non-spoilery) titbits about the book? Let’s see what I can manage.
Somewhere in the writing process for Legacy of Steel and Legacy of Ash, I managed to accidentally Tuckerise (i.e. obscurely name-drop) an actor I admire as not just one, but two characters. I felt guilty about this for a while after finding out, but as the actor in question is no longer with us, I’m actually kind of glad it’s there to stand as an obscure tribute.
I’ve mentioned from time to time that the landscapes of Britain serve as inspiration for much of Aradane. There’s one particular scene where this takes a very odd direction. See if you can guess which.
I’ve always known that one scene in the story owes inspiration to, of all things, a Disney movie (though, as usual, the characters have ensured it’s very different now). Looking back, there are a couple of other parallels have crept in along the way.
No. No clues. You’ll have to work it out for yourself.
And Finally
See, my notes for this section say that I should talk about some of my favourite bits. Which is really hard without getting into spoiler territory. But let’s see what can be done …
- There’s a bit of a Halloween-y vibe to much of the book. You’d think that was deliberate, given the Autumn release, but no.
- Viktor and Josiri’s friendship travels to some interesting places.
- There’s also an unconventional relationship triangle that I like a lot.
- Kurkas. Always Kurkas.
- And Ana, of course, always gets the best lines.
… but if you want details, well, you’ll have to read ‘em for yourselves.
The Fantasy Inn would like to thank Matthew for his guest post! Legacy of Steel, the second book in the Legacy trilogy, is released today, and you should be able to buy it or read a sample via the Amazon widget below.
This post is part of the Legacy of Steel blog tour. You can check out previous posts on FanFiAddict and Fantasy Book Nerd, and should keep an eye on other participants as listed on the below graphic!
