Patrick Rothfuss - The Slow Regard of Silent Things

It was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.

I did not mean to write this story. Or rather, I did not mean to have this story about Auri turn out the way it did.

I started writing it midway through 2012. I meant for it to be a short story for the Rogues anthology edited by George Martin and Gardner Dozois. I’d anticipated it being a trickster story and figured Auri would make a nice complement to the more traditional scoundrel-type rogues who would no doubt show up in that book.

But the story didn’t turn out the way I’d expected. It was stranger than a simple trickster tale, and Auri herself was more full of secrets and mysteries than I had guessed.

Eventually the Auri story hit 14,000 words, and I abandoned it. It was too long. Too odd. And beside all that, it had become clear it wasn’t right for the anthology. Auri was no mere trickster. Most importantly, this wasn’t a rogue story at all.

Despite the fact that I was already over deadline, Martin and Gardner were very kind and gave me some extra time. So I wrote “The Lightning Tree” instead, a story featuring Bast. A much better fit for the anthology.

But Auri’s story was still crawling around in my head, and I realized the only way to get it out was to finish the thing. Besides, I owed Bill Schafer at Subterranean Press a novella from way back. He’d published my two not-for-children picture books, The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: The Thing Beneath the Bed , and the sequel, The Dark of Deep Below. So I knew he wasn’t afraid of a story that was a little strange.

So I kept writing the story, and it kept getting longer, and stranger. I could tell by this point that it wasn’t any sort of normal. It wasn’t doing the things a proper sort of story should do. It was, by all traditional metrics, a mess.

But here’s the thing. I liked it. It was weird and wrong and tangled and missing so many things that a story is supposed to need. But it kinda worked. Not only was I learning a lot about Auri and the Underthing, but the story itself had a sort of sweetness to it.

Whatever reason, I let the story develop according to its own desire. I didn’t force it into a different shape or put anything into it just because it was supposed to be there. I decided to let it be itself. At least for now. At least until I made it to the end. Then I knew I’d probably have to wield the editorial hatchet, performing cruel surgery in order to turn it into something normal. But not yet.

You see, I’d actually been down this road before. The Name of the Wind does a lot of things it’s not supposed to. The prologue is a laundry list of things you should never do as a writer. But despite all that, it works. Sometimes a story works because it’s different. Maybe this was that kind of story. . . .

But when I wrote the eight-page scene with Auri making soap I realized that was not the case. I was writing a trunk story. For those of you who don’t know the term, a trunk story is something you write, then when it’s finished you put the manuscript in the bottom of a trunk and forget about it. It’s not the sort of story you can sell to a publisher. Not the sort of story people want to read. It’s the sort of story that you write, then on your deathbed you remember it and ask a close friend to burn all your unpublished papers. Right after they clear your browser history, of course.

I knew Bill at Sub Press was delightfully open to strange projects, but this? No. No, this was a story I had to write to get out of my head. I had to write it to learn about Auri and the world. (Which is named Temerant, by the way, did you catch that?)

Simply said, I knew this story was for me. It wasn’t for other people. Sometimes that happens.

But still, I liked it. It was strange and sweet. I’d finally found Auri’s voice. I’m rather fond of her. And I’d learned a lot about writing in the third person, so it wasn’t a total waste of time.

When it was finished, I sent it to my agent, Matt, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re a writer. I told him I was going to offer it to Bill, but that I didn’t expect Bill would actually want it, as it was, narratively speaking, a train-wreck.

But Matt read it and liked it.

He gave me a call and said we should send it to Betsy, my editor at DAW.

“She isn’t going to want this,” I said. “It’s a mess. It’s the story a crazy person writes.”

Matt reminded me that, according to my contracts, Betsy had right of first refusal on any future books I wrote. “Besides,” he said. “It’s just polite to loop her in. She’s your primary publisher.”

I shrugged and told him to go ahead and send it. Slightly embarrassed to think of Betsy reading it.

But then Betsy read it and liked it. She really liked it. She wanted to publish it.

That’s when I started to sweat.

In the many months since my conversation with Vi Hart, I’ve revised this story roughly eighty times. (This isn’t unusual for me. In fact, it’s a little on the light side.)

As part of this process, I’ve given this story to about three dozen beta readers, gathering feedback to help me in my endless, obsessive revisions. And one comment people have made over and over again and again, phrased many different ways, is this:

“I don’t know what other people will think. They probably won’t like it. But I really enjoyed it.”

It’s strange to me how many people have said some version of that. Hell, I just now realize I said something similar myself a page or two ago in this author’s note.

The truth is, I’m fond of Auri. I have a special place in my heart for this strange, sweet, shattered girl. I love her more than just a little.

I think it’s because we’re both somewhat broken, in our own odd ways. More importantly, we’re both aware of it. Auri knows she isn’t all quite proper true inside, and this makes her feel very much alone.

I know how she feels.

But that itself is not unusual. I am the author, after all. I’m supposed to know how the character feels. It wasn’t until I started gathering feedback that I realized how common this feeling is. I’ve had person after person tell me that they empathize with Auri. That they know where she’s coming from.

I didn’t expect that. I cannot help but wonder how many of us walk through our lives, day after day, feeling slightly broken and alone, surrounded all the time by others who feel exactly the same way.

So. If you read this book and you didn’t enjoy it, I’m sorry. It’s my fault. This is a strange story. You might enjoy it more on a second reading. (Most of my stories are better the second time around.) But then again, maybe not.

If you’re one of the people who found this story disconcerting, off-putting, or confusing, I apologize. The truth is, it probably just wasn’t for you. The good news is that there are many other stories out there that are written just for you. Stories you will enjoy much more.

This story is for all the slightly broken people out there.

I am one of you. You are not alone. You are all beautiful to me.

Pat Rothfuss

June, 2014

P. S. I realize now that I haven’t talked about the illustrations at all, which is a terrible shame. Not only because they are lovely. And not only because Nathan Taylor is a saint for putting up with my obsessive insanity. But because the story of how they came to be included in this story is an interesting one in its own right . . . .

Unfortunately, I’m out of time and out of space. So that story will have to wait until I write about it on my blog. If you’re interested, you can track it down there: http://www.patrickrothfuss.com.