watching the road

The capri News is like a missive from Rohan- it's on its way and it'll arrive at some point, just when you need it most

A fourth capri book isn’t completely out of the question but there isn’t one planned for now

The Brazilian capri covers are their own thing but they don’t represent the books well. They have a very dark-ages-hard-masc-medieval aesthetic

How tall is Damen? Laurent thinks that he’s a foot taller and that sometimes it feels like more

Orlant: Rough exterior, heart of gold, didn't deserve what happened to him

Pacat pronounces Vere like Veer (veer off course) but that is not the correct pronunciation that Laurent and the Veretians use so feel free to pronounce it how you want

Pacat wasn’t really involved in the art for the Japanese edition but has been a fan of Chinatsu Kurahana for a long time. Usually the author doesn’t get much input for foreign editions. The Japanese publisher was very welcoming and let Pacat have some input, but he was such a fan of the artist that he let her do whatever her vision was. He gave a bit of a description for clothing but didn’t tweak any character concepts once they were drawn because he likes having different versions of the characters in different media. We shouldn’t think of it as an official version of the characters or as Laurent’s canon hair length

Dark Rise

The submission date for the Dark Heir manuscript was June 2022. At the time of this live, Pacat was just past writing the midpoint of the first draft, heading towards the climax. The climax has been planned for a long time

We absolutely get James's POV in Dark Heir. Pacat had just finished writing one of his chapters when this live happened

How would Anharion describe Sarcean in one word? The answer would change depending on whether Anharion was wearing the collar. If he was wearing it he would say whatever Sarcean wanted him to say

James is not named after the gay king james (James I of England)

We will find out about James’s mother at some point, either in book 2 or later

Pacat’s current favourite Dark Rise character to write is a new character from book two

It was important that the stewards were racially diverse. When Pacat was pitching Dark Rise he had little pictures of the characters to show what the aesthetic of the book is, it was art that he found online. Things might have changed since then but this was three or four years ago and it was really hard to find fantasy imagery of non-white characters. If you wanted to find mages or warriors in suits of armor, all the artwork had white characters. So he wanted to include different types of people in the traditional western fantasy aesthetic

Favourite part of Dark Rise #1 is the ending because it was all of the pieces falling into place

Cyprian’s surname is not St. Clair but saying more than that would be a spoiler

Stewards have family in the outside world

Pacat would love to write short stories for Dark Rise like the ones for capri but she’s a slow writer so it would be some time in the future

Dark Rise/Capri

Justice’s appearance wasn’t specifically influenced by danmei, he has long hair because all the Stewards have long hair. The Stewards have long hair because everyone in the Old World had long hair and the Stewards carry on the sacred traditions of the past. This was inspired by the delightful long-haired-Laurent contingent in the capri fandom because they were so underserved by Captive Prince. No one in capri other than Ancel has really long, butt-length hair so Pacat wanted to change that in a new series

Where do you get inspiration for jewelry like Nicaise’s earring or James’s collar? Pacat has been thinking lately about the importance of creating a strong visual aesthetic for a character. The earring was created as a plot device. It’s long because it had to be very gaudy and noticeable because Laurent would use it as a disguise later, and it has blue sapphires because blue is Laurent’s colour. It's one single earring instead of a pair because it felt more poignant as a memento. The earring was more about purpose than aesthetics, but Pacat paid more attention to aesthetics in Dark Rise. When working on Fence, Johanna is so good at creating characters with an iconic visual look, and Pacat was thinking about that when he created James. He started with the idea of red because it's the colour of blood. The collar started off as a necklace that was a drop of blood, but it was changed to be more interesting and to have more of an impact. Pacat often thinks about the scene from the Hunger Games when Katniss is about to prove herself to the sponsors and they're not paying attention to her so she shoots the apple in the boar's mouth. A lesser author would’ve had her nail the bullseye but Suzanne Collins souped it up one more level, to come up with something slightly cooler or more imaginative. So Pacat goes through his finished drafts and thinks, is there anything I can turn up to 11? And the necklace wasn't at 11. So he thought about making it a choker, then a collar. A choker with rubies looks like a slit throat and that’s a very cool image, so that’s what it was changed to

Pacat is an only child so Tom and Auguste as older brothers aren’t based on personal experiences, but the idea of siblings has a strong importance to her. Dark Rise is dedicated to her half-sister Mandy who committed suicide when she was 15, which was the year Pacat was born

Fence Comic

The process of creating Fence: First Pacat writes the script, then it gets sent to the illustrator Johanna. It goes through a few rounds of notes where the two of them talk about the kinds of things they want to see happen, what would be cute or great in the upcoming storyline, and then Johanna does sketches. Then art edits happen, but usually the art is so incredible that it doesn’t need many edits so the only usual change is to make sure that Nicholas is left handed when he’s fencing. Then Boom (the publisher) looks over it before it goes to inks, then to the colourist Joana Lafuente, then to Jim Campbell for lettering. Jim places the speech bubbles and fits the script onto the page. Where the bubbles are placed and which words are emphasized makes a big impact on the flow of the script. Then everything gets sent back to Pacat for proofreading and editing of the lettering and then it’s done

Pacat worked very closely with Sarah Rees Brennan on the fence novels. They talked a lot about how events would play out, biographical details of the characters, made canon compliance edits, saw the books at every level and loved them. It’s impressive how Sarah can turn on a dime between two sets of opposing feelings when transitioning between emotions. Her books have a lot of wit and charm but also a lot of hard-hitting emotion

There was information about Rise and a preview but I'll skip over that part because it's already out now

Personal

When creating characters, Pacat often thinks of them in terms of dynamics they’ll have with other characters, or what they want to achieve, or what kind of archetype they resonate with, or how to build a backstory that gives them layers. Characters are interesting when they have more than one motivation, when they look one way on the surface but then different aspects of them from the past are revealed

Pacat was an Earth sciences major

Pacat chooses all the fanart friday posts himself and then his assistant Hannah sends a request to the artist

Least favourite book trope: band of misfits who save the world through a hail mary pass. Pacat likes a highly confident crew, not a small rabble of people who fluke their way into saving the world. It's not a bad trope, he doesn't know why he doesn't like it. He doesn't like Firefly because of this trope

He often reads fanfic on ao3 for more of a story than was in the original or more of a dynamic that was underserved in the original. But authors can’t read fic of their own works for copyright reasons

Owns multiple copies of the Lymond Chronicles. Book four is her favourite because the ending is so intense and devastating. Pacat often thinks of that ending when deciding what to do with her own works because most authors would’ve chickened out of writing an ending like that. She read book one for the first time in a restaurant at 9:00am and stayed there until she finished the book. She probably looked like a mess because of all the laughing and crying, and at one point one of the waiters came over to bring her a handkerchief and said “are you okay?” and Pacat said “I’m just at a really intense part right now"

Pacat does brainstorming sessions with friends to come up with ideas for books and looks at art books for inspiration

He’s reading the BL manga Twittering Birds Never Fly

Danmei dramas/web novels are really long so he isn’t familiar with most of them, but he ordered MDZS and he’s looking forward to reading it because he’s heard a lot of good things about it