Meta:OBRS Wiki Interview with R.J. Hanson

This Q&A was originally conducted via. the FaceBook Messenger chat on November 11 & 12, 2021, by Korra II Allison Baskerville and author R.J. Hanson.

Questions and Answers

[Editor's Note: Due to the nature of the answers provided to these questions, I requested and was granted permission to turn this into an interview for the OBRS Wiki for the purpose of citation and documentation. R.J. Hanson's answers all remain unedited, however, questions and answers have been slightly re-arranged due to the nature of the casual conversation.]

Korra II: Idea's I've got from other series I enjoy, such as L.A. Banks' Vampire Huntress Legend Series and Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle are between-the-books chapters and deluxe editions with hand-drawn character art and cut chapters or letters between characters and such. Is that something you've ever considered doing or would consider doing?

R.J. Hanson: I would love to have the time to write in-between-chapters, but I don't. As to the hand-drawn characters, I love the idea, but my artistic skills wouldn't take third place in a kindergarten contest.

Korra II: I was referring more to the cut, removed, unused, altered, etc. chapters. I'm a huge fan of content like that. I feel you on the time thing. It feels like there's never enough time to do all the stuff I want to do and I have a seasonal job.

R.J. Hanson: There's really not much 'cut' material. As hypocritical as it is coming from Stephen King, I have always adhered to his advise regarding writing in that you should leave out the parts that readers are going to skip over anyway. Actually, I struggle with slowing down and taking my time. I tend to get straight to the meat of the story and often fail to put in the niceties like surroundings. There are a number of rabbit trails that the saga has taken thus far, but I've managed to snip those in the bud as they tend to muddy the water.

Korra II: Something else I've been wondering for a while. You play tabletop RPGs, correct? I've been wondering if you've ever considered making a tabletop RPG based on your series. I've been interested in tabletop RPGs since 2012, but I've never had anyone else to play them with.

R.J. Hanson: Actually, Roland was 'born' in 1996 when I rolled him up as a character to play in a pen&paper RPG, Rolemaster. He's been living in my head ever since. We have a weekly gaming session just about every Saturday and for the last few years we've played at least half of our sessions in Stratvs.

Korra II: Oh my me, that's awesome!!

R.J. Hanson: I will have not shortage of short stories when it comes to that because we've played so many campaigns in Stratvs already. In fact, several of the characters in Blood & Bone and Whetstones are characters played by other gamers in our group. For example, Jandanero is actually my daughter's character and Rogash is my son's. Dunewell & Silas were both originally played by me in our OG rolemaster setting before developing the world of Stratvs.

Korra II: I'll add that as trivia to their wiki pages. And Dunewell is one of my flavorite characters in the series. He's part of why I liked Fires That Forge so much.

Korra II: Before I forget, do you have any character descriptions sitting around? [Editor's note: This question was originally asked for the character intro paragraph's on the wiki. I suck at writing those.]

R.J. Hanson: Not at hand, but I know what each of them looks like.

Korra II: I'm not a writer and of you couldn't tell from my wiki pages, my page summaries are always lacking. I mean just a basic summary of their personalities and such. 1 sec. [Editor's note: Vampire Huntress Legend Wiki example sent]. These sort of character summaries are the bane of my existence.

R.J. Hanson: As to character descriptions, for the most part I think of actors in specific roles when I think of them. For example, Dunewell looks like Rutger Hauer in LadyHawke (hence the alias of Rutger when Dunewell is in disguise. Silas is Edward Norton, Roland is a young Jeffery Dean Morgan, and so on.

Korra II: I can't wait to add this to their lore pages. My character intro summaries are extremely basic or non-existent because I just don't know how to describe what a person is like. I need to re-read the physical copies to make notes of all their details. I don't know that I've ever filled out a personality section. [Editor's note: Vampire Huntress Legend Wiki example sent].

R.J. Hanson: Jonas and Velryk would be versions of Jeffery Dean Morgan, older and scarred. As bad as it sounds, I envision Dru as the pornography actress Asia Carrera and Lady Evalynne as Eva Notty. Uriel-Ka is the bald unic from Game of Thrones.

Korra II: I've never seen Game of Thrones. (Flushed emote) George R.R.R.R.R. Martin is obese and old as hell, takes a decade to write a book. I refuse to get invested in the series, only for it to end on a cliffhanger. I've wanted to read it for almost a decade now. So I've been patiently waiting for the last couple books.

R.J. Hanson:That's him.

Korra II: You sad you make your maps online now? Do you have files for the house, capital, etc. icons you use for the maps? Are they a program or something you designed?

R.J. Hanson: The software I use for maps is from www.inkarnate.com I just use their icons.

Korra II: I had an idea for the wiki I wanted to pass by you. [Editor's note: Examples of Two Worlds Wiki icons sent.] I could add small icons like this to the locations page. To denote different location types. Castles, forts, cities, rivers, etc. that would match the official maps.

R.J. Hanson: Sounds good to me.

Korra II: Do you mind if I rework some of these questions and answers into an interview for the wiki? I'd like to be able to add these as trivia to the wiki. But I'm not sure how to cite a messenger conversation.

R.J. Hanson: That's fine with me. I'd say it qualifies as an interview.

Korra II: I'll have to re-word my questions so they're more appropriate for an interview format. I'll email you a draft and post it once I have maybe 10 or so questions.

R.J. Hanson: Sounds good to me.

Korra II: I noticed while doing research for the wiki; Roland's Path is the only book in the Heirs of Vanity series to have its own audiobook. It also has a different narrator. Is there a story behind that? Will the other books ever have standalone audiobooks as well? If so, would the other narrator return?

R.J. Hanson: There is a story but not much of one. Path was my first attempt at having an audiobook produced. I didn't know what I didn't know. By the time the audio for Path was completed I had already put together the omnibus of the trilogy. The first narrator declined to continue the series, which was a blessing in disguise because I then discovered Terry F. Self. I love Terry's work on Heirs and the Lords of O&C series. I don't see any need to do stand alone audios of Vow and Triumph since they're already available in the omnibus at the lowest price ACX will all a book set.

Korra II: Do you have any plans to make another omnibus?

R.J. Hanson: I was barely able to get Heirs into an omni because KDP limits the number of pages you can put in one book. I really had to trip Heirs to get it all in, so I doubt it.

Korra II: Guess that makes it special now. It's one of a kind and likely will be.

R.J. Hanson: Yep. I’m continuing to learn more about the publishing industry and Amazon continues to grow and add options but for now, I don’t see another omnibus on the horizon.

[Editor's Note: We've talked about the omnibus before and I asked what was removed from it. I'll include that here for those who would like to know, as well as for documentation.]

R.J. Hanson: ..... The omnibus Heirs of Vanity was more of an experiment and was much more trouble to put together than I anticipated. Amazon/KDP (who I publish through) sets a max number of pages at 1000. After some trimming I got Heirs down to 997 pages. I’m not ruling out combination volumes in the future but it’s not anything I have planned at the moment......

Korra II: Something that has been driving me crazy. When you say you trimmed it down, did you have to delete or remove scenes? I want to buy one of the self-published copies of Eragon because Christopher Paolini said he removed about 15,000 words from it. I also want to purchase the deluxe edition because it has extra content. I'm cursed to always want to get the full narrative across all versions of stories I enjoy.

R.J. Hanson: I understand exactly what you mean by wanting to know the WHOLE story. Rest assured no story content was removed. I just had to reformat the books and remove the map and dedication pages.