Unique Author Interview of Me as Myself

I've never given an author interview as myself (Tal Boldo). I've always answered as my pen name persona. But for the cerebral book blog, ZigZag Timeline, I made an exception.

I speak of the philosophical origins of The Sound and the Echoes, the storytelling techniques I invented to create this world, and I sprinkle a little insight into the creative process of world-building.

Here's how the interview starts:

QUESTION: The premise of The Sound and the Echoes begins with the idea that each time a person is born, an otherworldly twin—an Echo—comes into existence as well. What inspired this idea?

ANSWER: I am a strong believer in free will. We each have a choice about our actions, no matter how limited our options seem. But what would happen, I wondered, if choice was taken away from us in the most fundamental way? What if at any moment life itself could be snatched away from us or the people we love?

This idea floated in my head almost simultaneously with another. I was thinking of Plato’s Realm of the Forms. As an early Greek philosopher, Plato was concerned with where our ideas of concepts originated. After all, we never see a cat in its abstract form, only many different versions of cats. So, the Ancient Greeks wondered, how do we come up with the idea of cat-ness.

Plato concluded that we are born with Innate ideas, a memory of these perfect “Forms”. The Forms exist on a higher plain, and we are merely imperfect reflections of that place.

From this to imagining a reflection world, an Echo to our Sounds, was a short leap of the imagination.

QUESTION: The majority of The Sound and the Echoes takes place in the icy fantasyland the Echoes live in. How did you go about developing the history and magic system of this fanciful universe?

ANSWER: As with human history, the basic customs of the Echoes developed from their ideas. If the Law of Death sentences every Echo to die when his Sound dies, it is logical that Echoes will start to hope fervently for good luck. “Please, please don’t let it be my son the Fortune Tellers come to kill.” Hence, I created a superstitious culture that, over generations, began to worship Fortune...

**Read the rest of my author interview on ZigZag Timelines.**