One of the design tenets of Baru’s character is that she is highly agentic.Ī descendant of Maia Urun, just as the people of Taranoke are descendants of the Tu Maia. Poor Baru! Note also that Baru is already an active agent, manipulating the plot. Loved her mother and her father dearly, but she loved to know things just a small measure more, and she had recently discovered cunning.Įven at age seven, Baru’s unable to disentangle her emotional life from her desire for knowledge, which becomes her desire for power. I wrestled with this sentence because I didn’t want to code Solit as effeminate and Salm as masculine. It was a struggle to characterize these two in very little space. Another major landmark near Taranoke is the Navel, a creepy blue hole.Ĭallused hand pressed against his husband’s bare strength But I can see why people start with Hawaii as a basis, with names like this. Taranoke is meant to be its own creation, not an analog for any Earthly place. The Ashen Sea is actually named for the useful ash you can get from burning its plentiful kelp. The kelp for ash, the ash meant for glass I wanted to tell readers, hey, don’t worry, this book will have action! But it’s cowardly to jump forward and then back, just for excitement.

Watching firebearer frigates heel in the aurora light… We are colonizing Baru, shaping her into a character who tells us a story, and she manipulates us by focusing on things we’ll find interesting. But we are also arriving with the Masquerade, seeing her do things that will make her valuable to us. The first page of the book focuses on Baru, the Masquerade, then Baru again. We are with her, counting the ships. The Masquerade sent its favorite soldiers to conquer Taranoke…

(You can read this chapter online for free at Tor.com.) In each structural unit I try to map out an arc. I think a lot about arcs and the cycle of tension, and I hope that makes the book compelling. This let me know when I had to key up tension, and when to key down. Before I set a single word down in Baru Cormorant, I blocked out three acts, each of ten chapters, each of about four 1000 word scenes (subject to change). Readers should be suspicious: is something painful inherently more valuable and truthful? What about love and joy? This epigram is an act of deceit, establishing one of Baru’s character flaws.Ī note on structure. It warns readers who aren’t in the mood for a dark read to flee. It claims that truth is painful, and that pain can establish truth. I like epigrams! This is doing a lot of work. Join me in dissecting The Traitor Baru Cormorant, chapter by chapter! I’ll talk about my prose decisions, characterization, and behind-the-scenes secrets, like which chapters I wrote in a drunken panic and who I want you to write fanfiction about. Now that the book’s out in the wild, I want to talk about how very clever and stupid I am.

The traitor baru