IMORA – FAQ
Are there any epic battles between good and evil?
Epic battles? Sure. Good and evil are sort of blurred lines in this book. Is the dragon evil for eating a village when she's hungry? Is a warrior evil for wanting to kill a dragon for glory and fame?
Are there any noble warriors on an epic quest?
Uh. No. That's an old hat I'd rather not wear. I find books like that boring to read, so I can't imagine writing one.
Are there any farm boys with world saving destinies?
Uh. No. No destiny.
Who is the main character?
That would be Imora, a dragon. The entire book is told from her point of view.
What is your favorite part of the book?
When Imora is at her weakest, struggling to survive as a huge creature bound to the land and having to adapt to a new way of living without her wings. There is a point when she is forced to find a new cave to sleep in for a hundred years and it's in a warm place, which for an ice dragon is very uncomfortable. A hundred years later she wakes to find the landscape drastically altered into a swamp, in which she has become a feature.
Who is your favorite supporting character?
I'd have to say it is the scribe she encounters. While she doesn't eat him (she doesn't eat everyone in the book!) she still finds a way to use him to further her own glory in a sort of selfish, but at the same time nice way. This historian/scribe manages to meet her on a level playing field intellectually.
How does the setting relate to a place you have been?
Any New England day with LOTS of snow and ice around!
What is Imora the Ice Dragon's favorite color?
Any of the shiny ones! You know, like gold, silver, rubies, sapphires- those are colors right?
What is Imora the Ice Dragon's favorite food?
Believe it or not, fairies are not only a very tasty treat, but extremely nutritious.
If Imora the Ice Dragon could go on any vacation she wanted, where would it be?
She would definitely go to the North Pole and spend a couple decades just lounging on a glacier and hanging out with polar bears. She'd need a few thousand servants to supply her with a constant stream of fish.
What does Imora the Ice Dragon do for fun? I mean, she's got decades of being awake; she must have some sort of hobby to fill in the years?
You're right. Even Imora needs to take a break from showing off how powerful she is to the locals so they don't think they can mess with her. Hunting takes up a lot of her time, but when she's chillin' in the ice cave with a full belly, she likes to make ice sculptures. When she really needs to relax, she crochets with hooks made from bones and really, really, really big skeins of yarn.
Does this story have a central lesson?
If there is any central lesson, its that dragon's are not humans.
At what point did you decide to continue writing this book?
As soon as the outline was done. I like plotting everything out before I start writing. I don't always stick to the outline 100%, but I like to know what's coming so I can think about and take notes on parts I know are upcoming so I'm ready to write them when I get there.
Did the book turn out the way you wanted it to?
The biggest problem I had with Imora, was trying to make sure she couldn't easily be replaced with a human character, both physically and in the way she thought or made decisions. She had to be alien enough, that is different enough, from a human character but also be sympathetic to the reader.
Did you face any obstacles when writing this story with plot problems or character development?
The biggest problem I had was how to order the chapters. Part One is really the middle part of the story. Part Two is the beginning. Part Three is the end. The reason for this is Chapter One of Part One has the strongest introduction to the dragon, with her waking up in an ice cave after a hundred years asleep. I struggled with this order a lot and had a hard time finding a better way to introduce her.
Have you read books similar to this?
Conn Iggulden's historical fiction Conqueror series about the Genghis Khan gives the reader a hard, stone-faced character you just don't mess with or defy. Likewise, the main character in Bernhard Cornwell's Saxon Stories is brilliantly arrogant and sees himself as an awesome, teeth kicking warrior. Of course, Game of Thrones gives the reader many "villain" POVs.
There are plenty of fantasy books too. I remember reading the beginning of a Piers Anthony book that started in a goblin's point of view and the idea of an entire book told this way really struck my imagination. I don't remember the name of the book or if I even finished reading it after it dropped the goblin's point of view.
The Orcs trilogy tries to give us the orc's point of view but mostly could have been about a band of human mercenaries instead of monstrous, other-worldly orcs. We really didn't get a good idea of what it was to be an orc as much as it was to be a team of mercenaries working for the bad guy. We do get a good glimpse at other non-human characters though.
