Every now and then, I pester my creative colleagues with five questions about their work. Most of these folks are friends, a few are secret enemies, and one has been blackmailing me for years.

Josh Vogt and I met in San Antonio, Texas, at a Worldcon room party. He’d already written “The Weeping Blade” for Paizo’s web fiction, and I had a hunch it wouldn’t be the last we saw of him in Golarion. Sure enough, he soon after published “Hunter’s Folley” and was hard at work outlining Forge of Ashes, the latest of the Pathfinder Tales novels. As if we didn’t have enough in common, I learned he’s also written for roleplaying games and was soon contributing to Privateer Press’s Skull Island eXpeditions.

Once we connected online, I was impressed to see how closely Josh keeps tabs on freelance opportunities, both those that look promising and those about which Admiral Ackbar would warn, “It’s a trap!” Josh is also passionate about fitness, especially encouraging his fellow writers to push away from the desk and stretch our legs now and then.

I loved the outline and the few chapters I was able to read while buried under my own deadline, but I’m excited to see the final version of Josh’s Pathfinder Tales novel, Forge of Ashes, available now.

1. Whether it’s a robot or a dark elf, a protagonist ends up being essentially human or else we can’t really sympathize with her. That said, in what ways do you make your dwarf heroine different from human? How about your other non-human characters?

With Akina, there are certainly going to be some “surface level” qualities that set her apart at first glance. Her dwarven strength and heritage, longer lifespan, a sensitivity to the earth itself and ability to see in the dark…all of those sorts of attributes. The dwarves of Golarion also have a fascinating history of how they came to the surface (and what happened to those left behind) and I enjoyed taking Akina through both a physical and inner journey as she discovers just how much that ancient history remains relevant to her. Her reason for fighting is more than mere survival or glory. It’s in her blood.

Ondorum, Akina’s oread companion, was also a delight to create. As an oread, with earth elemental ancestry, he has this inhuman patience that has been further honed by his martial studies. Even though they’re from different races—and possess extremely different temperaments—Akina and Ondorum actually relate to one another in deeper ways with their shared passions and protectiveness of those they truly care for. Some might view Ondorum as naive because of how he tries to treat everyone and everything as possessing of inherent value. It’s a bit of an odd perspective in a world where there are many divisive lines, be it through war, claimed territories, faith, simple banditry, or feuds that go back centuries.

2. You keep an eye on markets and job opportunities for writers, and sometimes I wonder just how much of your time that consumes. How do you balance hustling for work with writing for yourself as well as keeping up with contract gigs?

Actually, in the years I’ve been freelancing, I’ve gotten my gig-hunting process down to be rather streamlined. And I don’t have to be doing it constantly, as I now have past clients who keep bringing work to me. Those times that I do search for new contracts, if I put in a couple solid hours for a few days, I will often pull together enough work to keep me busy for at least a week or two, meaning I can scale back the job hunt again for a while.

With my personal writing, my fiction and all, I will often work to get freelance projects checked off and then give myself a couple days of just focusing on my stories. It lets me be more immersed in the process rather than constantly hopping all around. So it’s less like juggling and more just shifting into one mode for a stretch at a time. Obviously, my hope over the years to come is that I can start focusing more exclusively on my novels and other stories, but freelancing continues to pay the bills!

3. Likewise, you’ve a keen interest in fitness for writers. Apart from the obvious, that is the sedentary nature of the job of writing, how is fitness useful to the craft of writing?

Walking and being physically active in general helps me think. Sometimes when I’m trying to untangle a complicated plot issue, going on a run or hitting the gym can get more blood flowing to the brain. It also takes a little of my direct focus off the issue, so my subconscious might start processing it more and a solution will eventually emerge. I also think doing activities like obstacle course races, martial arts, or crossfit classes are excellent for introducing one’s self to new challenges and learn how to train and persevere—critical qualities for any career writer.

4. How much research do you do when writing for a setting like Pathfinder, which has thousands of pages of setting and rules material? That is, how much is enough without being too much? And how much did you absorb as a gamer before writing a Pathfinder Tales novel?

I’ve gamed much of my life and have been decently familiar with a wide variety of settings from when I was younger. I hadn’t done much since after college, so I did need a refresher. I read through every manual I could get my hand on, focusing first on locations, lore, and creatures relevant to the novel’s specific plot. Then I did some more general research so I could bring in details or mention things a bit further afield from the main action. The fun thing was, a number of items, like city layouts, hadn’t been nailed down in official canon yet, so I was able to develop those details along the way. I also read all the other Pathfinder Tales novels so I had a good idea what what other authors had explored and could see just how in-depth they’d gone. As I wrote, my editor, James, was invaluable and could easily answer any question I had or offer suggestions for particular scenes.

5. How much, if any, does writing for a shared-world setting inspire your original work? Do you ever find yourself reserving ideas for yourself rather than committing them to a project you don’t own or control? Or do you find yourself borrowing or slightly altering your own ideas for both original and work-for-hire projects?

It goes both ways. I always believe the story I’m telling, whether it’s an original setting or shared world, deserves my best effort. So if I have a big inspiration while drafting a tie-in story, I won’t hoard that by any means. There are always more ideas to be had. Honestly, sometimes I can’t use an idea simply because it doesn’t work within that specific world or isn’t allowed by the underlying nature of the game. But in original work, I make the rules!

Check out Josh’s latest news and advice at his website.

Each week, I’ll pester one of my creative colleagues with five questions about his or her work and, if I’m feeling wicked, deeply personal issues. Most of these folks are friends, a few are secret enemies, and one has been blackmailing me for years.

Jennifer Brozek is one of the many colleagues I knew first online, even though were were more-or-less neighbors. We didn’t meet in the flesh until after I’d moved away from the Emerald City but returned for the Seattle International Film Festival. Our mutual friend Ed Greenwood had suggested I might contribute to Jenn’s Grant’s Pass project. Between movies, Jenn and I got to know each other over bowls of pho. While her anthology sounded terrific, I got caught up in other things and, well, I just never came through for her. Later, I’d bump into her at the Writers Symposium at Gen Con, and once or twice we’ve been on the same panel.

This past year, when another editor mentioned that Jenn was his partner on an upcoming fantasy anthology, I saw my opportunity to make good on my earlier intention. Finally I wrote a story for one of her many anthologies, and I feel I’ve completed a long-deferred quest.

I caught up with Jenn just after her trip to Orycon 2013.

1. Judging by your convention schedule alone, one might consider you the hardest-working editor/writer in the business. How do you balance doing the work with buying, selling, and honing the work?

I’m a very goal-driven person. I keep lists of due dates and a weekly calendar of what must be done that week by day. Then, when I need to work on more than one thing at a time, I block out hours per project per day. In short, I am very organized, and I stick to the schedule I create. I live and die by my own merit. I am my own boss and, sometimes, I can be a real pain in the butt. Fortunately, my husband and friends understand when I say, “I can’t this time, working,” or, “I have one hour to socialize.”

2. When you co-edit a project, how do you and your partner divide the work? Is one of you more concerned with line-edits and the other with content? Is one of you more paperwork and the other more author-wrangling? Which aspects of the job are your strengths?

It is different with each co-editor, and I learn from them as much as they learn from me. We divide the work based on our strengths. We both read the stories. One co-editor could then do the first edit pass with the other doing the second edit pass. Or, we each take half the stories for a first edit pass and then trade for the second edit pass. I usually do the very final consistency polish and, to date, I do most of the paperwork.

3. In the origin story of your geekness, which came first, the fiction or the RPG? How does your work in one field influence your work in the other?

The gaming—by a long shot. And it has influenced me. I tend to write, thinking about the gamer who can break systems. So, I am careful with my world building. Also, I believe working in any other part of the publishing industry influences the other parts. Slush reading teaches you about writing. Writing teaches you about editing. Editing teaches you about writing. All of it teaches you how to interact with every other part. I am a firm believer that every author should read slush for 6–18 months.

4. What is it about our field that demands we sub-categorize everything? For the writer and the reader, is there really a meaningful difference between urban fantasy and paranormal romance? Do epic fantasy and sword & sorcery really need to be separated? What really is the difference between dark fantasy and horror?

I do believe that genres are important. A paranormal romance requires there to be a romantic relationship between the protagonists. In fact, there isn’t a story without it. While an urban fantasy doesn’t require any romance. Dark fantasy tends to be traditional fantasy with a very dark bent while horror tends to be modern day. Also, fantasy generally implies adventure while horror implies a cautionary tale.

You’ll note that I say “generally” a lot because numerous books cross the lines or are “cross-genre.” The categorization helps readers find novels in the vein they are looking for.

5. If you had to give up editing or writing, which would you choose? Which of them helps you more with the other discipline?

I would give up professionally editing. I still have stories to tell that I’m not willing to give up on. But I would miss editing. Really, both skills inform the other. When I edit others I learn how they write and tackle problems. Sometimes, reading it first hand while editing—because you’re so focused on how the story is written than the story itself—you can see how things are done. That’s invaluable.

But I still wouldn’t give up writing.

For lots more info on Jennifer’s upcoming projects, check out her website.

Each week, I’ll pester one of my creative colleagues with five questions about his or her work. Most of these folks are friends, a few are secret enemies, and one has been blackmailing me for years.

My first encounter with James Sutter was an email, shortly after he’d come to Paizo and I’d moved to the Great White North. Harlan Ellison was looking for me, but that’s a story for another time.

The second encounter was shortly after Erik Mona told me the secret that Paizo was launching Pathfinder Tales. James wanted to try me out on a story before deciding whether to tap me for a novel. As I recall, my first pitch didn’t send him, and he asked for several more so he’d have a selection. One of the follow-ups was a re-tooling of an sketch I’d made for another, disappearing, editor. James liked that one, we changed one character’s name, and thus began a steady stream of Radovan & the count stories and novels.

Not to be outdone, James entered the fray to much acclaim with his own Pathfinder Tales novel, Death’s Heretic. The sequel, The Redemption Engine, continues the adventures of Salim Gadafar, unwilling servant of Pharasma, the Lady of Graves. Read a sample chapter, and check back to the web fiction link soon for a new Salim story.

1. As the editor for Pathfinder Tales, you’ve seen a wide variety of outlines, some incredibly long, others quite short. What is the perfect outline for you to read as an editor? And what is the perfect outline for you to write as an author?

Outlines are everything. As an editor, especially an editor of tie-in fiction, I require detailed chapter-by-chapter outlines from all of my authors.

Some authors really hate outlining, because they feel like it kills the fun of exploration. I can sympathize with those folks, but I can’t hire them. If an outline comes to me with too much Underpants Gnome-style handwavium in the middle, I send it back.

That may seem like an overly hard line to take, but it’s actually done out of love. Because as much as it can be annoying to sit down and come up with every plot point for a novel in advance, it’s nothing compared to the devastation both of us will feel if I have to go back to an author and say that, because of a problem that could have been caught in the outline phase, she’s going to have to rewrite half the book. My goal is to always frontload any editorial concerns in order to save both the author and myself as much time and heartache as possible.

For that reason, my ideal outline as Paizo’s Managing Editor is about 5,000–8,000 words, and tells me every twist and turn of the plot. I don’t need every detail of who says what, but I need to be able to follow the connections between events, as well as understand any rules that are pertinent to the plot (to make sure that a spell is being interpreted correctly, that the right monsters are being used, etc.).

As an author, I was never been a big outliner before I started editing novels, and now I outline everything, using basically the same format identified above. For me, it’s extremely freeing to know where a story’s going. I don’t have to worry about how it’s all going to come together or try to hold it all in my head, and instead can relax and focus on having fun with each individual scene.

2. What’s a challenge you overcame while writing that later translated into advice to an author?

Honestly, I think the biggest challenge I’ve overcome is the act of writing novels itself. I’ve always wanted to be a novelist but spent most of my life terrified of embarking on a project of that size. It just seemed impossibly huge. But when I started editing novels professionally—starting with yours, Dave—and saw the process a novel goes through from birth to final product, it took away a lot of the mystery, and I realized that a novel is really just a collection of scenes that tell a story. If you can write a scene, you can write a novel. And looking back at the work I’d done on the original Eando Kline Pathfinder’s Journal, tying each episode together over the course of 36 volumes, I realized that in many ways I’d already been through the process of outlining something like a novel. That gave me the confidence to move forward and write Death’s Heretic.

So that’s a big piece of advice I give to authors, both neophytes and budding pros: don’t psych yourself out. Novels are just long stories. (In some ways, they’re even easier than short stories, because you can do all the planning up front and then just write for months.) A corollary to that revelation is the fact that authors are just people. It’s easy to look at your favorite authors and think, “I could never do what they do.” But realize that you’re likely seeing those authors at the top of their games, after they’ve been polished and prodded and otherwise made the best they can be. You can’t hold yourself to that standard. Just write the best book you can. (And if you can’t write the best book you can, just write the book—you can judge it once you’re done.)

3. In the endless skirmishes between anti-adverb, pro-passive-voice, and various other pet peeve guerrillas, what are a few of your style and grammar bugbears? Can you think of something you always immediately change in a manuscript? What’s something you once might have changed but now let stand?

I adore contractions. They’re a fundamental part of how we speak, and to me, writing in the vernacular is the best way to get yourself out of the picture and let the reader interact directly with the story. This is triply important in dialogue. My eyeballs itch every time I see someone write something like, “I cannot do it, Captain! I do not have the power!” That’s probably my strongest linguistic prejudice. (This is, of course, problematic in those exceptionally rare cases where contractions might not actually be warranted, such as from a robot or a particularly obsessive half-elven count.)

I also really can’t stand stilted language, again particularly in dialogue. Too many people think that in order to write fantasy, you have to write purple prose or faux-medieval dialogue, and that just doesn’t cut it with me. I want the language to be smooth and clear, including dialogue. Even in a story set in a fantasy world with many medieval trappings, like Pathfinder, I’m way happier with a character shouting, “Hey, asshole! Hands off my horse!” than “What ho, varlet! Dost thou thinkest to deprive me of my noble steed?”

Last but not least, I’m not a big fan of third person omniscient point of view. When I’m in a scene, I want to be in a character’s head, or at least hovering over that particular character’s shoulder. If I know what one character is thinking, I shouldn’t be able to know what another character is thinking until there’s some sort of scene break. You can have multiple point of view characters, but there need to be set break points when you shift focus, so that you’re not just drifting between characters’ thoughts. (I also hate it when you’re spending all your time following the hero, and then suddenly the book cuts away for a single scene to show you what the villain’s been up to and give you information the hero has no way of knowing. That always feels lazy to me.)

Whew! That probably makes me sound more cantankerous than I actually am, but such is the nature of the job. In terms of things I might have changed but now let stand, I can’t really think of anything off the top of my head, save for those contraction instances I mentioned above. That may sound arrogant, but actually it’s because if I’m ever unsure about whether to make a change, I consult with my immensely talented and knowledgeable coworkers and get their read on the situation, which hopefully keeps me from making too many unnecessary changes.

4. You’ve mentioned a variety of literary influences in past interviews, but can you think of some artistic influences from other media that influence your fiction? For instance, are there musicians, visual artists, comedians, or interpretive dance companies that inspire your writing?

Fantasy art is a huge inspiration for me, though I’m only now coming to realize how I can deliberately capitalize on that. I’m particularly fond of fantasy landscapes and monster design that portrays fundamentally alien things in a realistic style. I’ve written before about how fantasy landscapes inspire me, and some of my favorite artists are those like Wayne Barlowe, Michael Whelan, and Stephan Martiniere that can bring a new world to life. And just the other day I sat down with a copy of the new Spectrum art journal and began flipping through it, and realized, “Oh my god—I could write a book about every one of these pictures!” So I think that’ll be my new secret weapon. From here on out, whenever I need inspiration, I’m just going to google “concept art landscape”—or pull up Reddit’s amazing Earth Porn subforum for real-world landscapes—and let my brain run free.

I also get heavily inspired by music, but that usually drives me to make music. Every time I go to a good show of any style, I inevitably come home thinking ,“That looks like fun! I should do that!” Which is why my personal music projects tend to bounce around stylistically, from hardcore metal to folk to hip-hop to musical theater. (I’m actually finishing up mixing on the debut EP from my new band, Brides of the Lizard God, as we speak!)

5. You write about a lot about faith and the afterlife, especially in Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine. Have you ever had any real-world encounters with the supernatural or inexplicable?

Actually, yes.

First, some background: I’m about as white as untoasted sourdough, but growing up, I had an uncle named Cha-das-ska-dum Which-ta-lum, one of the spiritual leaders for the Lummi Tribe. The man was seriously larger than life: He’d hung out with Jimmy Carter and the Dalai Llama. He’d been hit by lightning twice. He’d once been flown out to Japan because a bunch of secluded monks saw him in a vision. And there were even stranger stories—the ones my parents rolled their eyes at. In the 1970s, when he’d been a police officer on the rez, he’d been the one to investigate several suspected sasquatch attacks, tracking the creatures and taking (ultimately inconclusive) blood and hair samples for the research labs. And even once he’d retired as a cop and gotten more into the spiritual side of things, he continued to sometimes act as a sort of psychic detective, tracking auras when there was no other way to locate a corpse.

Was some of it bullshit? Maybe. The man loved a good joke as much as anyone, and was a hell of a tale-spinner. But when so many of his stories were empirically provable—not even my parents could argue with the pictures of him and the Dalai Llama, or the results of the lightning strikes—you had to wonder why a man like that would even need to make up stories. Certainly twelve-year-old me from the boring Seattle suburbs was happy enough to have a little magic in my life.

Yet there’s a big difference between firsthand experience and a story, no matter how good the tale. One time when I was maybe thirteen, he invited me to come along to a powwow in a friend’s smokehouse. What he didn’t tell me until we were on the road was that the gathering was actually exclusively for high-ranking medicine men from all over the Pacific Northwest. When we showed up, it was a bunch of very old native guys—and me. Such was everyone’s respect for Cha-das-ska-dum that nobody said a word about it.

Most of it was what I’d come to expect: a lot of drumming, a lot of chanting and singing, some dancing. Yet toward the end, they brought out an extremely old man who’d been brought down from way up in British Columbia, who my uncle whispered was a Big Deal even among the medicine men. He was decked out in full regalia and carrying a staff.

The drums began, and he started to dance. They got louder, he got faster. Then just when it reached a crescendo, he silenced them with a wave of his stick and pointed it at the ceiling.

BOOM! The sound was like the world exploding. I lept up from my seat, ready to run for the door, but Cha-das-ska-dum collared me and sat me back down. Above us, the smokehouse roof shook and roared like a tornado was trying to rip it off. Then the old man began to dance again, the drums resumed, and he repeated the gesture with the staff.

The rest of the ritual was a blur, but I remember pushing through the doors and discovering the source of the roaring: a thick carpet of hail.

Hail which extended for maybe fifty feet around the smokehouse, then stopped in a clean line.

Above, the skies were just as clear and sunny as they’d been when we’d entered the smokehouse. When we eventually got back to my parents—staying only a few miles away—they hadn’t heard about any hailstorms. The weather reports didn’t note anything.

Was there a rational explanation for what I witnessed? Quite possibly. But I think that was the day I first decided that there is indeed weirdness in the world, and that while we should always remain skeptical and strive to find rational, scientific answers, there will also always still be more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

Keep an eye on James’ website.

Each week, I’ll pester one of my creative colleagues with five questions about his or her work. Most of these folks are friends, a few are secret enemies, and one has been blackmailing me for years.

For a while, as far as I knew him, James Jacobs was “the new guy” who worked on the far side of the cube farm in the first Paizo office. (They’re now in their third.) He’d come aboard to work on Dungeon after I’d migrated to a galaxy far, far away. It took a while for us to realize we had a shared interest in horror and Asian cinema. It’s taken him and Wes Schneider even longer to forgive me for inviting them to see what turned out to be one of the less coherent examples of both forms.

Even though I’ve long since departed the Paizo offices for the northern prairie, Pathfinder Tales and the Seattle International Film Festival bring us back together now and then. And while I forgive James and Wes for refusing to let me choose the movies, I rely on them to introduce me to the best breakfast joints that have sprung up in Seattle since I left.

1. You’re best known as a designer of RPG adventures, and H.P. Lovecraft is an obvious influence on your choice of subject matter. Who are some other authors or filmmakers who have influenced your game writing?

Lovecraft is hands down the biggest influence on my writing, but not the only one. His pulp companions Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith are important as well (Clark Ashton Smith’s Xothique stories having been a huge inspiration for the necromancer empire in my home-brew setting that would eventually itself inspire and inform the nation of Thassilon on Golarion), along with modern writers like Clive Barker, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and Ramsey Campbell.

Horror, for the most part, is what inspires me, and that carries over into film, with the works of directors like John Carpenter, Guillarmo del Toro, and Akira Kurosawa being very inspiring (yeah, I know Kurosawa’s not a horror director, but he’s awesome!). George R.R. Martin is my favorite fantasy author of the moment. For some more obscure writers and film directors, I’d have to give call outs to T.E.D. Kline, Tim Lebbon, Thomas Ligotti, and most recently Joseph Payne Brennan have been huge influences on the writer side of things. As for more obscure film directors, I’d call out Ti West, Xavier Gens, Pascal Laugier, Gareth Edwards, and Mike Flanagan as having delivered some truly unforgettable and inspiring movies.

2. I once watched in awe as you began a Call of Cthulhu session at PaizoCon. Not only were you great, but you had three or four great players at your table. What struck me is that none of you were performing in the sense of improv actors, but the talk was so fluid and conversational compared with the awkwardness we often see at convention gaming tables. How do you do that? Is that how all your games go, or was that an anomaly? If it’s always that way, how do you do that?

Well, thanks! You’re making me blush! I suppose it’s no real secret that having great players at a table really helps to make a game overall much better, and when I’ve got great players at my table, they inspire me to do better. At the very least, they’re constantly giving me new things to go on and to expand upon.

I’m not afraid to throw out parts of the adventure’s plan if, for example, a player comes up with a much more interesting interpretation of a clue or whatever; not only does that make the game more fun, but it gives the players the feeling that they figured things out. In any event, being good at improv is, I think, an essential skill for a GM. You have your script (in the form of an adventure), but the players are really good at going off script. Being a voracious reader and watcher of films helps here—you build up a lot of material in your head when you immerse yourself in stories like that, and it also certainly helps to have spent some time acting as well—I was pretty active in the drama club in High School, and dabbled a little more in college with a few acting classes as well. In any event, that’s more or less how I run all of my games. I’m not afraid to let the dice get set aside once the players and I start getting into playing out conversations and the like with NPCs. I run very few convention games, in any event, so all of that comes from my home games I’ve run over the past three decades.

3. The world of Golarion is vast and varied, yet it seems certain areas (notably Varisia) are much more popular among players than some of those that depart from the European paradigm. With the Jade Regent Adventure Path, you seemed to have a strategy to ease Euro-centric players into Tian Xia. How well did that strategy succeed? And how would you apply it in bringing players to areas like Osirion (soon), Qadira, or Vudra?

I think that the strategy worked pretty well. I do kinda wish we’d gotten to Tian Xia at least one adventure sooner, but the way in which that Adventure Path “eased” players into playing a game steeped in Asian mythology and inspiration was always the intent.

For an adventure set in Osirion, Qadira, or Vudra, we can kinda cheat—there are nations in the Inner Sea region that are already all about those cultures—they’re right there on the map, bordering (or near bordering) other more European-themed nations. As such, it’s much easier I think to do adventures there, since you can allow the players who prefer more European tropes in their games to simply play “next door neighbors” visiting the area.

For the upcoming Mummy’s Mask Adventure Path, we’re starting in Osirion and staying there the entire time—we’ve done enough with that nation already that I think folks are familiar enough with the ideas there already that we don’t need to ease anyone in. It certainly helps that we’ve done a few adventures set there already, and that one of the factions for the Pathfinder Society organized play campaign is Osirion!

4. I’ve heard that you’d like to write fiction but just can’t find the time. How much of the fiction itch does writing game adventures already scratch, and what additional or different satisfaction do you anticipate when you do write that first novel?

Writing adventures is certainly fun, but for me, at least, it only intensifies the itch to write fiction.

The main difference between writing fiction and writing adventures is that when you write an adventure you’re missing out on the chance to write the best part of the story—the protagonist’s role. In an adventure, those roles are played by the player characters, and you have to be comfortable with that if you’re writing an adventure. Comfortable with the fact that, no matter how much work you put in on what you write, those NPCs are often just gonna end up being reduced to numbers and things to loot in the end. Comfortable with the fact that in a typical group, only the GM gets to actually read what you wrote—what the others at the table get to experience is more the GM’s creation than yours.

It’s weird, for example, seeing a bad review of an adventure you wrote and reading it and realizing that all the things the writer was complaining about are bad ideas introduced (unknown to the reviewer) by the bad GM. Or likewise, seeing a great review of an adventure you felt was terrible, because the GM was brilliant and turned a poor adventure into a masterpiece.

I’ve written a fair amount of short fiction, and have plenty of ideas for novels in my head, what I’m really looking forward to there is the ability to spend time with characters I have full control over, rather than spending time on the surrounding characters whose fates I have no control over… and to seeing more people check out my writing, I suppose.

5. Like some of your Paizo colleagues, you have a reputation for liking the dark and scary stuff. Yet I have a feeling you have some big, bad phobias knocking around in your imagination. What is your worst one?

I hope this doesn’t backfire, but the worst one is, hands down, clowns. I’m not a fan of crowds (and as such conventions tend to be high-stress for me), and tsunami are the most often-repeated themes in my actual nightmares, but clowns are the thing that distress me the most. Ugh.

Keep up with James’ latest hijinks at Bigfoot Country.

And if you missed yesterday’s Crossing the Streams book giveaway, check it out.

Each week or so, I’ll pester one of my creative colleagues with five questions about his or her work. Most of these folks are friends, a few are secret enemies, and one has been blackmailing me for years.

Like several other distinguished colleagues, Jonathan Tweet first came to my attention through the pages of Alarums & Excursions. I could tell he was smart, but it wasn’t until I moved to Wizards from TSR that we met in the flesh.

After he, Monte Cook, and Skip Williams were tasked with a revision of Dungeons & Dragons, Jonathan invited me on a stroll around the company’s “Mana Pool” and asked my thoughts on the new edition. When he actually implemented my suggestion—although I’m sure I was far from the only proponent of a single experience table—I figured he was sincere.

A few weeks ago, I noticed Jonathan’s Kickstarter for Grandmother Fish and asked him to talk a little about his new book and the last few editions of D&D and related roleplaying games.

1. Why is it important to teach kids about evolution?

First of all, the great challenge of human life, something that no other animal faces, is the imperative “Know thyself.” You can’t understand what a human is without understanding evolution. The theory of evolution tells us where we fit in the world of living things and how we came to be. Neil deGrasse Tyson says that acknowledging our kinship with all living things is “a soaring spiritual experience,” and I agree.

Second, for a hundred years intelligence has been rising from one generation to another, especially in the industrialized world. Most of this increase is driven by an increase in scientific thinking, and evolution teaches us to see living things from a scientific perspective. We desperately need some kids to grow up and save the world from the perils we’ve created. The kids who grow up to save us will be kids who understand science.

2. What elements of your background in game design came into play while writing Grandmother Fish?

A big part of my career has been inventing new ways to engage the imaginations of young people. My game Everway, for example, used imagery to inspire players’ imaginations. Grandmother Fish coaxes children to mimic the sounds and motions of our ancestors. They wiggle like fish and hoot like apes. That’s a trick for inspiring a preschooler’s imagination, for getting them to engage with the story they’re hearing.

Another part of my career has been making complicated concepts understandable to beginners. I’ve done beginner products for Magic: the Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, Pokémon, Duel Masters, and other games. Grandmother Fish relies on that experience. Once again, I’ve figured out a new way to present complicated issues in an accessible way.

3. Two-thirds of the book is for kids, while the final third addresses adults. Do you expect to win over many adult Creationists with the book?

Creationists are committed to their beliefs, and if giant piles of scientific evidence haven’t convinced them that evolution is true, then Grandmother Fish won’t work, either. People believe things mostly for emotional and social reasons, which is why debates with creationists are so futile.

And that’s also why Grandmother Fish is designed to work on an emotional level rather than simply being factual. The book makes evolution personal to a child, and it gets them to love the idea that we are descended from animals. If kids like the idea of evolution, it will be easy for them to incorporate knew evolutionary knowledge as they’re exposed to it.

If you try to defeat creationism with evidence, it’s easy for creationists to get defensive and close their minds to whatever evidence you offer. But if you make evolution attractive and simple, it appeals on an emotional level, and emotions motivate humans more than abstract knowledge ever does. Creationism has suffered a lot because dinosaurs are so popular and appealing. In reference to dinosaurs and young-earth creationism, even Pat Robertson says that if you fight science, you’ll lose your children. Let’s make science popular and accessible, and people will naturally gravitate toward it.

4. Looking back on two versions of Dungeons & Dragons since the one you designed, how do you see the game evolving in ways you wish you’d thought of? And what elements of your version do you feel stand the test of time?

The classes in 4E are a lot better balanced than the classes in previous editions, and that’s a tremendous improvement. Spellcasters in general and clerics in particular are way too powerful in 3E. Fourth Ed also added the capacity for characters to recover lost hit points on their own, a concept that I launched in Omega World, my Gamma World variant from 2002. That’s a worthy edition to the system. The limit on healing in 4E is a huge boon to high-level play. In previous editions, it was too easy for high-level parties to replenish their hit points magically. I wish that 4E had been envisioned better so that it would have been successful. It’s unfortunate that the edition’s good improvements are largely ignored just because the overall edition was disappointing.

“Fifth Edition” looks like it will be more faithful to the D&D tradition than 4E was, and that’s good to see. It’s still going to be hard for Wizards to win back players, especially since they’re going up against Pathfinder, which is essentially an improved version of 3E.

It’s really heartening to see how many players are committed to Pathfinder. It’s been 14 years since 3E launched, and, in the guise of Pathfinder, it’s still the most popular version of the game today. No previous version of the game system has lasted that long. Our major accomplishment with 3E was giving players a tremendous amount of freedom, and that feature still resonates with players. For 3E, we ditched all sorts of limits: level limits by race, class limits by race, multiclass limits, etc. Players ate it up. With 4E, Wizards strictly limited what sort of characters you could create, and players rejected the system. The system that Monte Cook, Skip Williams, and I put together in 2000 still resonates because it’s the most open-ended version of D&D ever.

In 2013, Pelgrane Press released 13th Age, which Rob Heinsoo and I designed. It’s basically a version of D&D designed to give even more creative control to players and GMs. Mechanically, it’s simpler, faster, and better balanced than 3E, and it puts the players’ inventiveness ahead of the game system. Rob and I prefer RPGs that give players lots of creative authority, and that’s what 13th Age does.

5. If you could give every kid in the world a copy of Grandmother Fish and one other book (even if you had to write it yourself), what would the second one be?

The other book would be The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss. A universal problem in human society is tribalism, the conviction that one’s in-group is right and all out-groups are wrong. The story of the Star-Bellied Sneetches teaches children not to think that one’s own group is better than all the others. That book also contains “The Zax,” which is a lesson in not stubbornly insisting that one’s own way is right. That’s a similar lesson and also valuable.

Check out the Kickstarter for Grandmother Fish, which you can also follow @grandmotherfish or on Facebook and Jonathan’s website. You can peek at an early draft of Grandmother Fish here.

Each week, I’ll pester one of my creative colleagues with five questions about his or her work and, if I’m feeling wicked, deeply personal issues. Most of these folks are friends, a few are secret enemies, and one has been blackmailing me for years.

Jaym Gates hugs on first meeting. So, you know, brace yourself for that.

We first met in person at Gen Con 2012, but she’d already been attached to my then-latest Pathfinder Tales novel as publicist. She did a terrific job putting me in touch with podcasters and online magazines I’d never before encountered, and the work she did for Queen of Thorns was still helping me when she’d moved on to other ventures and King of Chaos rolled around.

Speaking of King of Chaos, Jaym was the one I consulted to make sure my descriptions of the horses and unicorn seemed reasonable to a woman who’s raised and trained the magnificent beasts.

Jaym is also an accomplished writer and editor, most recently of the anthology War Stories, which is charging toward its Kickstarter goal with about another week left to achieve total victory.
1. Before we met, we “met” when I heard one of the contributors to Rigor Amortis read her story at the Pure Speculation convention here in Edmonton. Something tells me there’s a story behind your first stint as anthology editor. Care to share it?

This is a where the “Jaym’s not allowed to make jokes on the internet” thing started. A couple of friends were talking about how passe zombies were, and I made some comment about how “it’s not over until there’s a zombie erotica anthology.” Even when people started getting excited, I figured I was safe, because no publisher would ever touch it. Then someone introduced me to Erika, who had a publisher who was willing to take a chance. The rest, as they say, is history.

3. While Edge Publishing brought out your first anthology, you’re Kickstarting your latest, War Stories, for publication with another traditional publisher, Apex. What’s easier and what’s harder about taking that route?

The easiest and hardest thing are actually the same, I think: Kickstarter allows the editors or authors more control in the final product. However, that also means that we’re doing a lot more than just choosing the stories. There’s still a safety net, but it’s smaller, and there are more balls to juggle. I mean, it’s great, it’s just more nerve-wracking.

4. Once again as a publicist, do you have a short and sweet summary of advice for authors maintaining their own websites?

CONTACT INFO. I can’t emphasize that enough. I can’t tell you how many times someone’s lost out on an opportunity I wanted to give them because I couldn’t find any way to get in touch with them. It doesn’t have to be a fancy website, just name and email. Seriously. Every author website that doesn’t have an email address makes a publicist weep.

5. No one spends more than a couple of minutes with you without realizing you’re a warrior at heart, but as a writer what unique perspective are you bringing to the War Stories anthology?

The first part of that statement may have made my day. I think the unique perspective I bring is that of a person between the civilian and military world. I’m not military, but I’m very much influenced by many of my friends and family who are. Since one of the big problems now is that the average civilian doesn’t have any understanding of what a service member goes through, I hope my perspective might help.

6. You’re also a horsewoman. Since they are such a staple of fantasy fiction, can you offer a few helpful tips to writers on capturing horse behavior?

Horses are frequently like big dogs. If they’re raised right, they’re loving, loyal, sweet, and protective. They’re also frequently aggressive, prone to idiotic flip-outs, and goofy as hell. Each horse has a very distinct personality, so they’re an excellent way to add some color and distinction to your story.

Check out the War Stories Kickstarter and Jaym’s website.

Every now and then, I pester my creative colleagues with five questions about their work. Most of these folks are friends, a few are secret enemies, and one has been blackmailing me for years.

Before I ever met Chris Carey, our mutual friend Pierce Watters told me we’d get along for several reasons, not the least of which was a shared interest in Pulp-era fiction and a non-debilitating academic background. When we finally met at PaizoCon in 2010, I felt as if I already knew him well, but I regretted we had so short a visit. By day Chris is an editor at Paizo, but by cloak of night he continues the adventures of Hadon of Opar, a hero created by the legendary Philip Jose Farmer.

1. I first discovered Philip José Farmer though Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, which probably wasn’t the best portal. How did you first encounter his work? And which would you recommend as a great starting place for newcomers?

I came upon Phil’s work through the gateway of Edgar Rice Burroughs. From the ages of twelve to sixteen I devoured just about every novel of Burroughs’s then published, and early on during that period I discovered Farmer’s Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke and Hadon of Ancient Opar on the bookstore shelves, both books being inspired, of course, by the works of ERB. I bought those up, along with the first volume in Farmer’s World of Tiers series, The Maker of Universes. I read the latter first and was immediately sold on Farmer’s writings. I think it’s a good place to start if you like adventure-based science fiction. But for the more groundbreaking work by Farmer, I might start with a novel like Night of Light or one of his short story collections. Farmer’s skill at writing short fiction is often overlooked.

2. Speaking of Doc Savage, who’s your favorite of the Fabulous Five? For those who aren’t yet fans, please describe the character and what’s great about him. (Bonus points if you can guess my favorite, and a scalding virtual stare if you can’t.)

Well, I’m going to guess Monk Mayfair, since isn’t he everyone’s favorite aide? Monk is the wise-cracking, hot-tempered, rough-and-tumble member of the group, who also happens to be one of the world’s most brilliant chemists. He serves as a welcome contrast to the rational, often Spock-like Doc Savage and provides a lot of humor by digging into his simultaneous rival and (in secret) closest friend, Theodore Marley “Ham” Brooks, the dapper lawyer of the group. Almost a Radovan and Jeggare thing, wouldn’t you say?

I read all of the original Doc Savage novels back in the day, and I was honored to contribute an essay to the deluxe hardcover edition of Farmer’s fictional biography on the Man of Bronze, Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life. I also loved Farmer’s Doc Savage novel Escape from Loki, which has many facets to it that often go unnoticed, because Phil liked to bury the bone deep. I’ve read little of [Doc Savage creator] Lester Dent’s work in recent years, though as far as pulp goes, my childhood love of Edgar Rice Burroughs is still as strong as ever, and I find the works of H. Rider Haggard to be much more rewarding to read in my adult years than I ever found them to be when I was a teenager. Haggard wasn’t a pulp writer, of course, though he often gets lumped in with the genre, as does Farmer. It’s true that Farmer’s first story was published in Adventure, and his next few appeared in Startling Stories and Thrilling Wonder Tales, but that’s just a technicality. I regard him very much as a modern, and if I had to label him based on his output, I’d probably put him in with the New Wave.

I should add that I don’t read only pulp. If you want to have breadth and depth as a writer, in whatever your chosen niche, you shouldn’t limit yourself as a reader. That goes both ways, I think. Don’t be too heavy all the time or too light.

3. Can you describe the process of collaboration with PJF and how your approach changed (or didn’t) after his death?

When Phil was still with us and I was completing his manuscript to The Song of Kwasin, the third novel in the Khokarsa (aka Ancient Opar) series, I had the golden opportunity to ask him questions. “How would you like the novel to wrap up, since this is the conclusion of a thematic cycle?” “How would you feel if I added this or that?” “You have this or that in your outline, but over here in one of the prior novels in the series you say this contrary thing. How about if I reconciled it like so?” Phil was retired from writing at that point, and his health was in decline. I received more feedback toward the beginning, when he was feeling better. He let me know what he wanted to happen at the end of the novel, and told me to drop certain elements from his original outline because he no longer thought they worked. But he also told me to do what I thought best for the novel. That was simultaneously a huge confidence builder and terrifying. I mean, this is the guy who transformed the face of science fiction with his story “The Lovers.” I touched base with Phil while I was in the process of writing, sending him batches of chapters, which his wife read aloud to him, and visiting him at his home in Peoria to let him know how the manuscript was progressing. Hearing back from Phil and his wife Bette that they loved what I was doing with the story provided probably the biggest morale boost I’ll ever get as a writer.

After Phil, and then shortly thereafter Bette, passed away, the process of continuing to write installments in the Khokarsa series was the same, but without having that golden opportunity to ask him questions. I’m a pretty much a purist when it comes to the established continuity and strive to remain in the spirit of what went before in the series. So I do a tiring amount of research and fact-checking for each story.

But I also know that Phil was a big believer in innovation as a writer. He was disappointed with the lack of creativity in some of the shared-world stories that were spun off of his own work during his lifetime. When I asked Phil what his single most lasting impact on science fiction was, he responded, “Giving younger writers the courage to come forward with new ideas as I did with ‘The Lovers.’” I’ve taken that advice to heart and keep it in mind while I’m working on the stories in the series. Thus, in my novella Exiles of Kho, a prelude story set eight hundred years before the main series, I was more comfortable adding some new major elements to the mythology. Khokarsa is a matriarchal society, and yet in the original novels by Phil, we never get to see anything from the viewpoint of the priestesses or learn any of their esoteric secrets. So I chose for my protagonist the priestess-heroine who discovered the valley of Opar, and we finally get a glimpse of some of the hidden knowledge and inner workings of the temple of Kho, the Mother Earth goddess. In Exiles of Kho and the upcoming Hadon, King of Opar, I also address the topic of prejudice in a society that permits slavery. This will play out even more in Blood of Ancient Opar, which is due out next year. These are topics that I’m sure Phil would have tackled had he been able to continue the series, and I try to think of how he might have come at them from unexpected angles that also would have been appropriate to the continuity.

4. Since you’re a fan of “Pulp” fantasy, what’re a couple of lessons contemporary fantasy authors can learn from the masters? That is, one thing we should do more like them, and one thing they did that we should never try.

Don’t be afraid to let tradition inform your writing, but don’t let it restrain, limit, or blemish your work either. In other words, embrace the mythic structure and modes of the storytelling of those masters, but move them forward either without the prejudice on display in those earlier works or by addressing that prejudice directly.

5. Now that you’ve written in the Pathfinder setting, for which you’ve been an editor for years, how much do you feel your insider status helps and/or hinders you creatively?

In terms of writing for the Pathfinder campaign setting, it mostly only helps, since I have a legion of experts within earshot every day I’m at the office. Of course, that’s also hugely intimidating. But when you’re writing shared-world fiction, you either get a thick skin and learn how to work creatively within an established framework, or you don’t do it. The idea that writers of mainstream and other genres outside of science fiction and fantasy aren’t limited by the boundaries of setting is ludicrous. To write a meaningful story, you need to have things you can do in the story and things you can’t. To do otherwise, well… let’s just say that’s not a story I’d be interested in reading.

Because the number of limited-edition copies is determined by pre-order, you can and should pre-order Hadon, King of Opar from Meteor Press right this minute. That is, by the end of June. And you can follow Chris on Twitter.