Dinosaurs

I’d like to be able to tell you where this came from, why I put it in the book, but . . . well, I have no idea. Remember, this book was–in essence–a long free write. I didn’t have much of an outline, setting, or anything else in mind. When I got to this point in the book, I thought, “Hey, talking dinosaurs. Let’s put those in.” So I did.

I enjoyed them, however, and had a lot of fun using them. They show up later in the plot–if I add something to a book, even in a free write, I don’t want it to be random. Things exist in stories for a reason, even if that reason is to give a deeper explanation of where the English language came from.

Worldbuilding after the Fact

That said, this chapter has some of the strongest historical worldbuilding in the book. This information–about Silimatics, the Incarna, and Biblioden the Scrivener–was all added to the book later as I developed it. The thing about a big free write like I did is that it just . . . well, wasn’t publishable.

Once I had a draft of the book, I knew that it would need stronger worldbuilding if I was going to make a series out of it. I needed a history for the Librarians, and motivations for what they were doing. So I did a lot my brainstorming for this book afterI wrote it, which was kind of an odd experience.

Peteridactyl

There are some jokes in this book that I don’t expect anyone to get. There are others that are just for a select group.

If you didn’t notice, I spelled pterodactyl differently every time I put it in this chapter. There are a good half dozen or more places where it’s misspelled, each time in a new way.

I put this in not because I expected the average reader to notice, but because it gave me glee to think of the proofreaders, editors, and spelling-minded people who read the book trying to correct each instance–then groaning when they discovered that I’d done it on purpose. (Evil laughter.)

Favorite Joke

That pteridactle one.