I know it’s premature to discuss this, but I am entertaining fond hopes that after you finish A Memory of Light , you will publish a WoT companion, which will include things like:
—All the notes and details and backstory which never got put into the novels.
—Deleted chapters, or longer draft versions of scenes which had to be edited down.
—An account of the writing process as you experienced it, with perhaps an outline of the books showing how much of each part was yours and how much RJ’s, and the difficult decisions you had to make at each point.
—Alternative chapters or scenes which were discarded.
—Answers to any issues which are still disputed by fandom after the last book.
I know this is premature, but I was hoping you could at least tell us if 1) Is this something you, personally, would be willing to do? 2) Is there any chance of it actually happening?
Excellent question. I’ve spoken on this a little bit before. It is something I’d be willing to do; in fact, it’s something I want to do.
I don’t want to say that the chances of it happening are poor, but one thing you have to understand is that Harriet is very careful and cautious with Robert Jordan’s legacy, and rightly so. You may have heard, for instance, that at the first JordanCon she allowed us to play the tape of him dictating a scene from the prologue of The Gathering Storm , but she asked for it not to be recorded, and she doesn’t really want it to be played again. It was just that one time for that special event. People asked her why, and her response was that she didn’t want people to remember Robert Jordan in his weakest hours. I think that is a very valid point.
So the decision will be Harriet’s. I haven’t even approached her about this yet, because I don’t think it’s the appropriate time. But once the series is done and we’ve had some time away from it, I will ask her if it’s all right if I do something like this.
It would include a lot of the things you mention. Specifically what I want to do is talk about the writing process and the difficult decisions that you mention, some of the scenes that didn’t end up in the books, some of the things that Robert Jordan had written as potential scenes. I’ve mentioned before that in his notes he would often have comments where he says, “I will either do this, or this,” and sometimes the options are very contradictory. He had not yet decided between them, and I ended up being the one who decided which one we were going to do. So I would include those and some of the actual notes.
The reason Harriet may not want this to happen is that if his final publication is unfinished notes, that might make her uncomfortable. I certainly intend to make a plea for the importance of this from a scholarly standpoint, that people might be able to have access to this, and also so that the notes are there for people who don’t like my interpretation of things, so they can see exactly what Robert Jordan had to say. I’m really hoping we can do it, but let’s wait until the series is done and then I’ll approach Harriet about it.
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