When last we saw our Intrepid Authors, they were rolling the last page of the fair copy of their first novel, Agent of Change, out of a literally burning typewriter.
That typewriter being Officially Declared Toast by the technicians at the local stationary store, Lee and Miller were at something of a technical disadvantage with regard to their chosen field of endeavor.
An expedition was planned to the Giant Graveyard of Used Office Machines in Baltimore City, for a day when both authors were free of their day-jobs, but before that expedition could be mounted, Sharon arrived home from work one day to find a brand new and blue Swintec “electronic typewriter” on her desk.
I’m not sure I ever got the details of the deal that had resulted in this rather major miracle. We were broke, and I really don’t think we had anything to sell for funds sufficient to purchase a state of the art typer. Let it merely stand as a fact that suddenly! there was a working typewriter in the house, and?
Writing could go forth.
As we shall.
Conflict of Honors was written on the blue Swintec, which, oddly for us at that time, had no name other than The Swintec, which was as different from Uncle Harry as Conflict was from Agent.
Not only was Conflict different, it was better written. Mind you, Agent had been good enough — the prose got the job done, and the narrative showed not only flair, but an interesting touch with character and worldbuilding. Plus, there was all that action! My goodness, a lot happens in Agent of Change, and as a foundation story by writers who were still discovering Almost Everything, it’s really quite amazing.
Conflict of Honors had the advantage of being our second novel. Even though we were firmly convinced that what we were doing was writing a short story, the experience of already having written one novel was salutary, though the process of writing the second book was vastly different from writing the first.
Agent of Change was a three-month wonder, written all in a rush. It got a read-through after we had typed The End on the first draft, but not much else. Well. Except for the chaptering.
Not only was our first novel written all in a rush, it was written as one continuous item. We made liberal use of the two-blank-lines-and!-new-scene method, but we didn’t do anything remotely resembling chapter breaks.
After reading our draft, I Felt Strongly that we ought to have chapters, but I didn’t have any idea how to decide where the breaks ought to go. Steve had been told or somehow thought he knew that chapters were 10 pages long. So, he went through the draft and on every 11th page wrote a number at the top. He handed the manuscript back to me, and unfortunately my immediately and heartfelt reaction was —
“That’s not right!”
Steve went for a walk. Or possibly a drive. Maybe both.
And I sat down to re-read the book, and break it into chapters when it . . . felt right.
This is called “learning.”
Once the chapters were in place, I set about typing the fair copy that would become our submission draft.
Conflict of Honors was — after we realized it was a novel — not only more ambitious, but it took longer, physically, to write — very nearly two years, if the story card is to be believed.
Then, there were the chapter heads. Far from simple One, Two, Three — the chapter heads in Conflict of Honors tell you things: Where you are, what day it is, what shift it is, what hour it is. It was insane, really. Making up the shift roster for the Passage, so we would know who was on duty when took days.
Steve did question whether this was necessary, but I was a driven woman.
When the first draft was done, and we had both read it, I brought a suggestion to the table. I wanted the Healers to be active. I wanted them, in fact to be able to fix trauma, and to nudge people in the direction of embracing change.
Steve wasn’t completely onboard with us, not because he didn’t want psy powers in the SF — we’d already established Val Con’s “hunches” were a sort of precognition, and said straight out that he’d been tested and found to have a negligible talent for telekinesis.
No, Steve’s objection was that making that change — making it explicit that Healers are interacting with those they help — would alter the story we had in hand.
He was not wrong, but, yanno? You just can’t tell some people; they have to learn it the hard way.
*waves hand weakly*
Two things came out of my desire to have interactive empaths in the Liaden Universe:
1 I learned the Change One Thing Rule. Oh, boy, didn’t I.
2 Conflict got a second, and a third draft, which made for a smoother end product.
3 Healers and psy powers became warp and woof of the Liaden Universe, long before the Tree-and-Dragon Trade Mission sets foot on Colemeno.
For the record, I regret nothing.
Moving on to the text, very briefly. I will note that Shan tears up several times in Conflict so the folks who attribute men crying to the authors becoming Woke in their dotage are, um — wrong.
I honestly didn’t know that we had been so imprudent as to actually describe the Passage.
While I’m not sure that Shan’s version of Korval’s foundation is actually what we recorded in the Crystal books, I am amazed that, even then, we knew there had been an exodus from another universe.
I was surprised by the constant use of “galaxy.”
I am . . . amused by space travel that’s a lot like catching a taxi. Witness Mr. dea’Gauss popping back and forth between Liad and the Passage, after complaining how much he hates to travel, too.
Back to the subject of foreshadowing, already it’s set up that Korval is very thin, and most of them young, with only two members of the former generation available to them — Kareen and Luken.
Really, it was like we knew we’d be working these fields for a good, long time.
And here ends my summing up of Conflict of Honors.
Good thing you Changed that One Thing then, since you and Steve are so VERY good about Keeping Canon across all your novels, and I suspect you’d have had a hard time with the Universe agreeing to continue to be written if the healers had to stay passive (kind of like how Val Con refused to steal Edger’s ship).
I was surprised to discover on this reread that Dramliza were defined already in Conflict of Honors.
And I’d love to see Dutiful Passage’s Duty Roster here on Splinter someday, assuming it’s still in the files.
Thank you Sharon (and Steve) for the Liaden Universe. Best storytelling ever!
I entered into this universe with Conflict of Honors. Shan, Priscilla, Gordy, Rusty, Sav Rid, Dagmar. Characters you loved, and hated. To me, it’s great writing when the characters trigger my emotions.
Also, as someone who teaches Asian Religions and has been a meditator for more than 25 years, I have to ask if you would be willing to share anything about the teachings and practices you’ve been exposed to before Agent of Change and, particularly, Conflict of Honors. The Scout’s rainbow, Val Con’s movement practice to restore himself to himself, Priscilla’s breathing exercises, healing, etc, etc, I am so curious to know anything you are willing to share about your inspiration.
The Scout’s Rainbow comes from a relaxation technique Steve was taught by a counselor specializing in free-floating panic. Steve was agoraphobic. He found the Rainbow useful and taught it to me, and when he decided that Val Con was having a panic attack in Agent, he also gave him the Rainbow. In Balance. Breathing exercises, guided movements, and pilot visualizations/board rest come from yoga, where one sits with one’s breath, and also, again, from the panic therapy, where one is encouraged to visualize preferred outcomes.
Does melant’i have any relation to Hindu dharma (translated as duty, law, or even religion) and determined by place in society and lifestage, among other things? It doesn’t work in the same way, but conflicting melant’i reminds me of various dharmas that similarly come into play depending on context.
Melant’i may be related dharma, but we did not have that in mind when we were doing development, neither one of us being any kind of expert on Hindu thought. What we were looking at is the thing that we all do, and never formally acknowledge, except to sometimes say, half-flippantly, “In my hat as X.” The formalizing of the various life-roles from which one acts at necessity is one of points of philosophy that separates Terran experience from Liaden experience.
Conflict of Honors has always been my favorite book of the series. I adore Shan and Priscilla. The whole readathonis a joy, I’m afraid I’ve galloped ahead, and I’m halfway through Fledgling.
I continue to find it fascinating that you keep discovering this universe as you write. It’s tempting to assume that you have it all worked out ahead of time. I was surprised to find turtles in Agent of Change, for example, on this reread, complete with the story of Val Con killing the dragon. And Conflict of Honors introduces so many more valuable aspects of the universe, let alone Shan and Priscilla, who are just treasures.
In this reread, I finally noticed that there is precedence for Daav and Aelliana.
I have to say I came Late to the Liaden series. My daughter dictated the order. Local Custom, Scouts Progress Conflict of Honors, Agent of change, Carpe Diem, Plan B, I Dare. Reading them in order their were published is giving great insight in to how you developed the whole Liaden Universe. For one it shows how you expanded the CODE and the language. It is a fascinating look at growing a Universe.
I must say, that my introduction to Shan and Priscilla was, unfortunately, backwards… I went from “Agent” to “Carp Diem”, having started decades after everyone else had read it. So, I was notably confused when I read “Conflict” since I was completely lost in the timeline. It took a while to sink in (I have a hard head) that “Conflict” occurred years ahead of “Agent”, given that both Shan and Priscilla would have noticed the changes in Val Con. However, despite being hooked by the action of “Agent” and “Carp Diem”, I did not find the pace of “Conflict” that odd and it seemed to give a richer depth to these characters. The world building that you and Steve did is definitely a joy to behold.
Conflict of Honors was my intro to the Liaden Universe, it was the first of 3 in an omnibus volume in our library bookstore. I was disappointed that Agent of Change, the second story wasn’t a continuation, but by the time I finished #3, Carpe Diem I was hooked on Val Con and Miri. It was enjoyable rereading Conflict as it has been a while. Thanks for this read along.
Conflict of Honors was my first Liaden Universe novel, and it got me to go on and read Agent of Change and all that came after. It did not hurt that I was already at that point a HUGE fan of Dorothy L. Sayers and the Lord Peter Wimsey novels. I did indeed see echoes, even before I knew that Steve, at least, had Wimsey precisely in mind. I felt sad about Agent of Change briefly ONLY because there was no sign of Priscilla and Shan. But I got over it. Eventually, I was glad to see, they came back. Brava/o to the authors.
I find the character development in these books very compelling; each character is unique and well defined but I wonder how you keep them all separate and true to to themselves. I’m amazed at how different characters slip so seamlessly from one book to another. The engrossing cultural threads of the Korval Universe and the many cross-cultural misunderstandings which result and become resolved are so true to life.
I’m a little confused as to how one would be a passive healer? Our first came across conflict of honors in the meisha Merlin Partners in Necessity. On the other hand, my copy of agent of changed was a gift from the person who had bought it first, to my husband. And I noticed, when I was reading it, that it was autographed to my husband.
I will admit to feeling disappointed that this second book was not “Valcon and Miri continue their adventures” but I think Shan is one of my favorite characters.
*Conflict of Honors* is one of my favorite books; I just finished a re-read this week. Thank you for the story.