My take on Mat is very divisive among Wheel of Time fans. A great number feel I did him poorly in The Gathering Storm . I’ve had a similar number approach me and tell me they like my Mat better than they did in previous books. Unfortunately, in doing so, these latter readers prove that the first readers are right. People don’t come to me and say “I like your Perrin” or “I dislike your Perrin.” They don’t do it for Rand, Egwene, or any of the other major characters. While undoubtedly there are some who feel this way about those characters, there isn’t a consensus opinion among a large number of fans as there is that Mat was DIFFERENT in The Gathering Storm . Those who like him better are likely ones who just naturally prefer the way I do a roguish character as opposed to the way Robert Jordan did one. It doesn’t mean Mat is better—just that I wrote him differently, and anytime there’s a difference, some will prefer the changed version. (There are even people who prefer New Coke!)
I don’t mean to demean the opinions of those who feel Mat was great in The Gathering Storm . I’m glad you enjoyed him, and I think there is some excellent writing involved in his viewpoints. However, I feel that I was wrong and the critics are right. Looking at Robert Jordan’s Mat and what I wrote, there are some subtle differences that made Mat read wrong to a sizable portion of the audience. (Jason Denzel, who is a good friend, was the first to point it out to me—not maliciously, but truthfully. His comment was along the lines of, “I think your take on Mat feels like very early books Mat.” This was a nice way of saying that my Mat lacked some of the depth of characterization he’d gained over the course of the latter books of the series.)
My Mat wasn’t an attempt to fix or change Mat—the sense that Mat is “off” was created by me trusting my instincts and in this case being wrong. You see, as I say above, I discovery-write characters. I write a viewpoint, and then judge if it has the right feel. I try again, changing the way the character reacts and thinks, until I arrive at the right feel. It’s like casting different actors in a role, and I do this quite deliberately—I feel that there is a danger in outlining as much as I do. It risks leaving your characters feeling wooden, that they are simply filling roles in a plot. (I find that many thrillers, which as a genre focus on tight plotting, have this problem.)
To combat this, I let my characters grow more organically. I allow them to violate the plot outline, and then revise the outline to fit the people they are becoming. They often do this, but mostly in very small ways—usually, my casting process finds the right person for the plot, and this doesn’t require major revisions as they grow.
However, I’ve read The Wheel of Time over and over—and I had never noticed that my picture of Mat was still deeply influenced by his book one/two appearance. The sidekick rogue. While some of my favorite parts of the series are his latter appearances where he gains a great deal of characterization (although this starts in book three), I cast the wrong Mat in these books, and I simply wrote him poorly. It was a version of Mat, and I don’t think it’s a disaster—but he’s much farther from his correct characterization than the other characters are.
The interesting thing about this is, though it is the biggest mistake I made in my writing of The Gathering Storm , it also is one of the things that taught me the most. My digging into viewpoint for the next book became one of the greatest learning experiences of my career so far.
To be continued.
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