In The Emperor’s Soul , when did you decide to change the beginning?
It was Mary, from the podcast with me, is very good at short fiction. She read it, and she said, “This intro is just holding the story back”. And I read it again, and I’m like, “I really feel that she’s right”. I felt at the end of it that the intro was interesting for people who liked Hoid already, but for people who didn’t, it was just distracting and confusing. So at the end of the day, I cut it out, and I think it was a good move, even though it was sad. If you google the phrase “killing your darlings”, it’s a phrase we talk about in writing and storytelling. That scene was what made me want to write the book, it’s what started me off in writing the book, and then I cut it out. But sometimes you have to end up doing that.
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