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Michelle Sagara
Michelle Sagara lives in Toronto with her long-suffering husband and her two children, and to her regret has no dogs. Reading is one of her life-long passions, and she is sometimes paid for her opinions about what she’s read by the venerable Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. No matter how many bookshelves she buys, there is Never Enough Shelf space. Ever.
By Michella Sagara: I’d like to talk a little bit about an aspect of
The Emperor’s Wolves.
So, as is often the case, I’ll start with what might appear to be a digression. When writing a fantasy novel—or an SF novel that is not set in the near present—the question of worldbuilding always arises. Reading—for me—requires a willing suspension of disbelief. The world that is built to support the story has to feel real enough that the suspension of disbelief is not taxed to the breaking point. This doesn’t mean that the world will necessarily stand greater scrutiny and infinite nit-picking; it doesn’t mean that the writer has to be able to answer every single question that a reader might think to ask.