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 Conan
Tigard: What made you decide to kill off all of Drizzt Do'Urden's
friends: Bruenor Battlehammer, Catti-brie, Wulfgar and Regis after so
many years and so many books?
R.A. Salvatore: Well it
really wasn't a question of me deciding.
Forgotten Realms isn't my
world, obviously. I write in this shared world. And
Wizards of the
Coast, a few years ago, decided that they were going to fast-forward the
realms a hundred years. And in doing that, you know, for a dark elf he
might get through it, but for the other characters, a hundred and forty
human being doesn't fight very well.
Conan
Tigard: How did you feel about that?
R.A. Salvatore: Like I
said, it is their world and I just kind of roll with the punches. If I
don't like it, I could go write my own world. Right, I've done that a
bunch of time. But I'm still intrigued by the whole surroundings, the
playground that is
Forgotten Realms. So, to me, I looked at it as a
challenge, and it really has forced some character-development on the
dark elf that I think is a good thing.
Conan
Tigard: How did you come up with the idea for the new character: Dahlia Sin'felle?
R.A. Salvatore: Yeah,
that's actually really not her real last name, you'll find out. But,
yeah, how did I come up with that? Well, I knew that Drizzt was going to
be in a very vulnerable position. You know, he is alone, the world's
grown dark, and he is trying to move on. Put all those thing together
and her is this kind of reckless, dangerous, attractive, intriguing
character whose moral compass is a little different than his own. That's
really what I wanted to come up with because for all his life Drizzt has
surrounded himself with people of similar moral character. And now, all
of a sudden, he's falling in with people who view the world a little
differently. And so it begs the question: are they going to pull him
down deeper or is he going to lift them up. And I don't even know the
answer to that. And that is the fun of writing these books.
Conan
Tigard: Do you see Dahlia being a replacement for Bruenor, or in other
words, Drizzt's new best friend?
R.A. Salvatore: So far
it is working out that way. I don't know how long it will last before
they kill each other or one of them kills the other in their sleep.
Their bond was pretty tight at the end of
Gauntlgrym
. They are going on the road to adventure together. Neverwinter
is a revenge book and its really her revenge, but his as well, so
they've kind of agreed, "Let's go get 'em."
Conan Tigard: Do you plan
on introducing more beings, human or not, that will become part of Drizzt's gang of friends?
R.A. Salvatore: Yes, absolutely. In
Neverwinter, we're going to meet a couple of them. One of my
favorite writers is Fritz Leiber, Fafhrd and Grey Mouser. Another
one is Tolkien with his companions . . . its a buddy fantasy. One of the
things I've always done is try to give people an adventuring party that
they'd want to be a part of. I don't see why I'd stop doing that now.
So, there's some interesting possibilities out there, you know,
characters from the past and characters that we are just going to run
into now and it just seems to be forming on its own. It is kinda natural
for me to do that.
Conan Tigard: Fantastic.
That's what I like too. I love a party with beings from different
backgrounds.
R.A. Salvatore: Battle scenes get really
boring if it is one-on-one all the time.
Conan Tigard: I have
noticed that in the last few series that the stories, in my mind, get
caught up in other characters and the focus has often shifted away from
Drizzt, almost like he is a minor player in the story. Are you trying to
change that with the Neverwinter series and make him the focus again,
like in the early books?
R.A. Salvatore: There is a natural ebb
and flow to that. It can't always be just about him. One of the things
you need to do in a book is to move character growth. There has to be
character growth. If its just with Drizzt, then he is going to become
like the movie The Three Faces of Eve. He would become a person with
multiple personalities. That wouldn't work. So, there has to be times
where the people around him will grow forward. From my perspective, now,
because of everything that has happened to him, it is time to bring him
front and center.
Conan Tigard: Great. That
is what I would look forward to. With
Gauntlgrym
covering a multitude of decades, will time finally slow down in
Neverwinter and proceed at a normal pace?
R.A. Salvatore: Typically my books go
over the course of a week or two, or maybe a month or two, not a hundred
years.
The
Crystal Shard covered
a lot of years, the first book, and with
Gauntlgrym
I had to catch up with the world of
Forgotten Realms.
I'm not quite caught up, but I had to get close. That was part of the
deal. I had to do that. So, there are so many things that I kinda
glossed over that I would love to go back and explore, but we're moving
forward.
Conan Tigard: How do you
find inspiration to continue writing about Drizzt . . . now I want to
pronounce the last name right . . . is it Doo'Urden or Dow'Urden?
R.A. Salvatore: Do'Urden (sounds like
dwarden).
Conan Tigard: My friend
corrected me years ago on the pronunciation of Drizzt, because I used to
put that "i" in there and say Drizzit.
R.A. Salvatore: There are times that I
say it with an "i" too. I like that people argue over the name.
Conan Tigard: How do you
find inspiration to continue writing about Drizzt and the
Forgotten Realms world when you
have written so many books about it already?
R.A. Salvatore: It's really not as hard
as it sounds for a lot of reasons. I view my writing as a kinds of
personal journey. I use my writing to ask myself questions about the
world. I don't have all the answers, and that is why I write. With
Drizzt, I have a steady voice to kind of bounce things off of. So,
familiarity hasn't pushed us apart at all. It's actually made me look
forward to writing scenes with him even more. And he is always
surprising. The other thing is with a character like that, I know him so
well. When I'm writing the book, if he's acting out of character, that
is a queue for me that something is going on that I'm missing in the
story. It almost becomes and interactive thing between me and the
character. It's strange I know, it makes no sense. But that's the way my
mind works when I'm writing.
Conan Tigard: With
Neverwinter, Book Two of the Neverwinter series, about to hit
shelves Tuesday, October 4, 2011 in hardback form, do you see yourself
only writing books more books about
Forgotten Realms, or will you be
writing other stories, like the
Chronicles of Ynis Aielle?
R.A. Salvatore: I've written the Crimson
Shadow trilogy, Spearwielders Tale, my seven book
Demon Wars series, plus The Highwayman, and the Saga of the First
King, which is also set in that world of
Demon Wars. I've done a couple of Star Wars novels. I've done a
Tarzan novelization. I've got about thirty to thirty-five Forgotten
Realms books and about fifteen to twenty other books.
Conan Tigard: Edgar Rice
Burroughs was the first author that I fell in love with. I read all the
Tarzan books.
R.A. Salvatore: Pellucidar. I love
Pellucidar.
Conan Tigard: Where do
you see Drizzt Do'Urden in the future?
R.A. Salvatore: As far as where I see him
in terms of the story, I have no idea. I'm one of those writers who
doesn't even know what is going to happen on the next page most of the
time. That's why I love it. I write books that way other people read
them. It keeps me interested and excited. When I say I am going to keep
writing Drizzt books, and I will, that doesn't necessarily mean that he
will even be in them. He wasn't really in the Sellsword books. I
consider the Cleric Quintet to be Drizzt books. By Drizzt books I just
mean this story of friends, enemies, and Drizzt that just keep going
forward. So, if Drizzt died tomorrow, I'd still be writing Drizzt books
next year.
Conan Tigard: Are there
plans to bring him to the big screen someday?
R.A. Salvatore: As far as movie and
possible video games, and things like that, yeah, think that there is a
lot of interest. There's a lot of talk about it. These things have to
fall together correctly. It's really not my call as
Hasbro owns
Forgotten Realms. One thing I've
been happy about when talking to the people from
Hasbro and
Wizards of the
Coast is they know what they are protecting with Drizzt.
We've got a good thing going here. It's been going for twenty-three
years and it's not slowing down. They don't want to hurt that. So, if
they are going to do a movie, they want it to be done right. That's
gonna mean a lot of money. That's gonna mean the right people. That's
gonna mean a lot of things. If it all falls together, you may see a
Drizzt movie. If it doesn't, I'll just keep writing books and be happy
with that.
Conan Tigard:
Eragon was such a disappointment. It is a great book, but the movie
was horrible.
R.A. Salvatore: You can really mess up a
franchise with a movie, because that is your chance to go out and reach
so many more people. On the other hand, I thought the Peter Jackson
movies were fabulous. I think HBO is doing an incredible job with George
R.R. Martin's work, because Martin is really involved with that,
The Game of Thrones. He is very involved with it, which I think is
important. If they ever do a Drizzt movie, I hope they do it while I'm
still alive so I can be part of it. The other thing I'm looking at is
Wizards of the Coast announce the other day that they had finally settle
with Atari and gotten back the right to do video games in the
Forgotten Realms. So, we may see
Drizzt video games. I'm very involved with a video game company now and
in that whole market. I think that is a major, major new wave of
fantasy, obviously, with the World of Warcraft and so many other
products out there. I've been working with
38 Studios for five years now, and it is pretty incredible.
Conan Tigard: I've even
read your three books you wrote with your son, Gino, the
Stone of Tymora series, and quite enjoyed those too. I work at a
school and love Young Reader fiction.
R.A. Salvatore: Those were a lot of fun
to write.
Conan Tigard: Hopefully
Gino will continue writing too.
R.A. Salvatore: He's working as a
narrative designer at 38 Studios now. So, he is writing, but he is
writing for video games. And he and I have almost completed a five book
Drizzt comic series for
IDW Publishing. We were working on the last one Sunday, actually.
Conan Tigard: Great. And
you have a good artist for that too?
R.A. Salvatore: Oh, yeah. I don't know
who it is, actually, I leave that up to
IDW Publishing, that's their thing. That artwork on the first issue
was pretty amazing.
Conan Tigard: Well, I
look forward to reading more about Drizzt and his two scimitars. I love
his fighting style. It is one of my favorites things about your books .
. .how you write the fighting sequences. I think they're fantastic.
R.A. Salvatore: I love writing them. I
watch them in my head. It's like watching a movie and just telling
people what I'm seeing.
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