Wren's World

 

A few people have asked whether or not the Wren books and Crown/Court Duel take place on the same world.  The answer is typical for me: no, yes, um.

 

The short explanation: the first version, the two hardbacks Crown Duel and Court Duel were initially put in Wren's world because it was easy to change the outlying details.  But the version I prefer, from Firebird--with the two parts back together, and the Flauvic scene restored--is back where it should be, on S-D. 

 

Here's the long version.  When I was 17, I got the idea for Wren, and blithely began writing it.  In that first version, Wren was hiding on Earth before she went back to the other world to rescue Teressa.  (The first line was: "The phone rang.")  The title, which I thought so cool at age 17, was Tess's Mess.) I knew fairly soon on that it didn't take place on Sartorias-deles, so I decided I would make a world, not discover one, like S-d.  It would be fun, and it also would not break the "rules" I perceived in children's literature at the time.

 

See, in those days, you didn't have fantasy stories for kids in which kids from this world could go Over There and stay;.  They always had to come back, grow up, etc.  Or, the ending I loathed with intense passion, they were enchanted to forget all their wonderful adventures, or to think "it was all just a dream."  Bleccch!

 

To get around that, I got rid of the Earth part of the story and Wren was put in the orphanage instead.  (I do deal with that issue in another, but I'll get to that.)  I basically made a Sartorias-deles lite: kept the mage council, the Twelve Towers guild for gathering and disseminating books and knowledge, and changed one of the indigenous races to the Iyon Dayin (I figured they'd scattered through the World Gates anyway, so it  could even be 'true' but I fought against the sense of trueness creeping in.  Really did, though I wasn't as successful as I could have been--Eren Beyond-Stars being the biggest oopsie.)

 

When I write an S-d story, it "feels" like I'm a watcher at the window.  I can't change anything that happened any more than I can willfully make myself younger or change our bank account from disagreeable and ongoing debt into comfortable wealth.  It just is, and all I can change is how I write about the events. I wanted to try my hand at a world where I could change things, and the story wouldn't all fall to pieces. S-d is a house of cards. Wren's world was meant to be like building Legos.

 

Anyway. Wren's world I decided to make tectonically active--kind of like one of S-d's sister planets--so it has lots of giant islands and archipelagos.  Plenty of variety and story potential.  I did want to stay with the "rules" to get published, because I didn't want to be stuck with the futures they told us women had as job options way back then: nurse, secretary, or teacher.  I thought published authors had it made in the shade--I could own a big house full of rescue animals, where friends could stay, and I could write and never have to wear shoes again.  As if!

 

Sooo…anyway, I sent Wren out, it almost sold, thank goodness it didn't, I put it away, tried it again in my mid-thirties when my first child was old enough for school.  We'd struggled on one income so I could be a stay-at-home mom, but when my child began school it was time to go back to work, and to avoid that I tried publishing again.  The irony is that Wren did sell a year or so after I had to go back to work--but the reality of the money for most writers is so tiny, and spread out over years, that the dayjob had to be kept anyway.

 

I was going to finish the four Wren novels as I'd envisioned them all those years ago, but about the time I was finishing the third Wren book I thought it might be fun to just try one of the S-d stories--see if anyone would possibly like them.  Try one "in disguise." So I picked one out of the main story-line that could stand on its own, typed it up one summer, and changed little details to place it in Wren's world--which was easy, since I'd used S-d for a model for Wren's world.  Like Eidervaen became Erev-li-Erval.  Easy changes.  The Hill Folk existed in both worlds, so no problem there; I just didn't use their name, Hervithe.   Gave it a title (few of the handwritten ones have titles; this one was just "Mel's mess in Remalna") and sent it in to my editor.

 

Well, it worked.  But the editor wanted it split into two (those rules, one of which was "YAs won't read long books") and I left out the Flauvic scene to keep it more G than PG. And so, while those came out I wrote some more--a fun one called Lhind; that pretty much hits a lot of the popular clichés (a young thief) but I loved it anyway.  In that one I explore the Iyon Dayin more, and the empire that I borrowed from Sartor on S-D.  I then took an S-d story that pretty much stands on its own, Barefoot Pirate, and took out the elements that I knew publishers wouldn't approve of, but kept the exploration of that issue I used to hate, the choice to leave Earth or to stay.  That story took on its own character with the new protagonists, getting into what it means to go into a new place and lie about who you are, etc.  It was a fun book, it separated itself off from the S-d novel it had begun as a mirror to (Legos! Yay!) , and I'd thought that that would follow Wren's Journeymage, if Lhind didn't--but Jane Yolen books was cancelled, and no other editor has shown any interest in seeing any of these stories.  I mean they've never even been printed out.  Before the Cluestick hit me, I was almost done with another fun one, A Posse of Princesses, but I dropped it, depressed about the above. However, I'm finishing it now, for Norilana Books

 

So, for the Firebirds edition of Crown Duel I changed everything back to the way it was supposed to be. Meanwhile I wrote Wren Journeymage because I'd signed a contract for it. Firebirds also brought out the Wren books in paperback. They bombed. Maybe it was the story, maybe the covers (I kept getting letters scolding me for picking such dark, ugly covers, not that I had anything to do with that--I would have preferred the old covers, which are hanging in my house), so when the time came to deliver Wren Journeymage the editor wasn't interested. So it, too, sits on my hard drive along with Lhind and the second Barefoot Pirate. Harcourt has been sold, so getting my rights back is a huge mess, but once I do, Norilana will probably print at least Wren Journeymage.