Kingkiller Book 3 answers videos by Pat

[Snorkel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_THbNVR7oA - Patrick Rothfuss: "If I didn't care about the third book, you'd have it by now." (December 2020)

(Not sure why youtube won't embed it)

Edit: Before anyone replies to this thread with a rant about how mad you are at Pat because he "promised" that he had already written the books (which, if you pay attention, you'll see that he actually has), and how you feel that you are personally owed a book right now, and how badly he has personally screwed you over by not giving you that book . . . 
please ask yourself "If Pat reads this, will he need more therapy?"

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And here's his previous video linked too
 

 

Edited December 13, 2020 by Snorkel

[Snorkel]

Too long; can't watch right now:
These are not absolutely literal transcriptions, I cut out a bunch of words for readability.

Video 1:

. . . sometimes I fantasise about being that person, and getting to do whatever I wanted all the time, and not feel bad that a lot of people out there want something from me, and I haven't been able to give it to 'em.
I feel bad about that all the time.
Honestly it's one of the things that's kinda ♥♥♥♥ed me up. I'm in a lot of therapy right now, and I'm gonna be in a lot more, 'cos I went from fiddling around with a book that I just liked to work on, and I knew would never be published, over the space of a couple of years, and then it's like "Hey, by the way a million people are ♥♥♥♥ing disappointed in you because they want this book".
It's not a great feeling.
So, I absolutely still care about finishing this book, but I also absolutely don't want to . . .
. . . Here's the thing. If I didn't care about the book, you'd have it by now. Because, I know, in some ways - no matter what, people will buy this third book because they wanna know how the story finishes.
But I don't just wanna sell a book.
I want everyone who's loved this book, and everyone who's told me that it's important to them, and everyone who's gotten the words from it tattooed on their bodies, y'know, people who've named their children after my characters, I owe these people, I owe everyone who loved the book something beautiful.
That's the only reason I want to make things, is to make something beautiful.

- (2:06) We do learn how Bast and Kvothe meet. Pat gives an example of how he expanded the Ademre trip for Wise Man's Fear, which was originally 3 chapters long, and similarly he will expand on Bast/Kvothe and their relationship developing.

- (5:27) Pat has short rant about the bad writing in The Witcher tv series. XD (he has not read the books)

- (6:21) Pat is asked if he'd have liked a fourth book. He explains that the world is big enough for many more books to be written in it after the trilogy.

- (6:50) Will he do more novellas? - He wants to write novellas or short stories for Elodin, Devi, Bast. He will probably do this if he gets a good burning idea for one.  He talks about how he's lost stories by not cutting away to write them at the time the idea was fresh.

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Video 2

Q) Is book 3 darker than your beta readers expected?
A) It depends on the beta reader. Some of them get it, some of them don't. Some of them are surprised, some of them are not. The people who are surprised are surprised in different ways.

Q) (0:17) Pat, with as much as you've added to the books during revision, is there a danger of book 3 becoming too large for one volume?
A) No there isn't.

Q) (0:40) You said you had the ending in mind way back in the day, has that ending changed?
A) No.

Q) (0:46) Is the incorporation of new ideas stalling your writing?
A) No, the problem is I wrote the whole thing, and then I worked on the first piece of it turning it into TNOTW for years. Like years and years and years.
And then I sold it, I got an agent in the year 2002, and I worked on it for four years until 2006, and then we sold it to the publisher and I then revised it more, and then it was published in 2007, and I didn't go on and change the rest of the book.
And then I worked on Wise Man's Fear for a long time and there were a tonne of problems with it, and it didn't match up with the first book any more in a lot of places because I'd changed so much and improved it, and characters had been added and character stories had been developed and expanded on, so then I had to do all of that, plus I was a better writer then, so I really fleshed things out and did a bunch of stuff.
And so now Book 3, originally what was the third part of this huge story, a lot of it was written in '98.  So long ago.  I was not as good a writer.  And even the parts of it that are good writing didn't match up with the parts of the book that I had changed to make the story function better.

Q) (2:29) What's your favourite thing about book 3 right now, regarding the thing itself or the making of it specifically?
A) I'm really liking . . . I'm revising a piece of it right now . . .  Right now I'm revising a piece, and if you're close readers you know that there's mention of barrow-draugrs in NOTW, and in Vintas there's stuff like that.  Kvothe himself even mentions . . . "I have . . ." Oh boy, what's the quote? It's shameful that I can't remember.  "I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings."  So like, right now I'm enjoying that part of the book. Kind of revising it.  It's good, but I can make it better. So I'm polishing that up.

Q) (4:07) How much has parenthood influenced your writing?
A) Probably not as much as it does a lot of people. There's a lot of other things that have influenced my writing way more than parenthood.

Q) (4:19) Do you feel like the large gap between the release of the books with all that's gone on in the world such as Trump's election, the current pandemic and the protests, you have changed as a person and it's made finishing the series you started when you were a completely different person difficult?
A) There's a lot of assumptions in that question. I mean, but the thing is, I literally started writing the book in 1994, and then it was published in 2007, and if you think the difference between me now and me in 2007 is significantly different between me in 2007 compared to 1994, think about that, I went from being in my early 20s to in my 30s, you know, the amount that I changed as a human being over that period of time is vast, so - yeah everyone, I'm different now than I was then, but meh that's something I've dealt with.  The world is different, and these things, do they add to the complexity of finishing the story? Yes, but I don't think that that is so much disproportionately bigger and harder than other things that I deal with.

Q) (6:10) I wrote a book, I had a few people beta-read it. Reception was not positive - oof, hard feel.  Does this ever happen to you with a book that ended up being published and doing well? Did you make a lot of changes based on feedback or [unclear]
A) So here's the thing. I worked on Name of the Wind for fourteen years before it was published. And I showed it to people early on, and reception was not positive there either. Why? I didn't know how to write a ♥♥♥♥ing book!
I mean, I knew how to write good characters and good scenes, but that's not a good book. And what happens is I would print it and I'd be like "Hey, I'm writing a book, you wanna read it?" and they're like "Yeah, sure, cool!" and I'd give it to people and then a couple of weeks later I'd be like "Hey, so, what do you think? Have you had a chance to?" and they're like "Oh man, I'm so busy bluh bluh bluh bluh bluh", and maybe they were busy, but honestly I think, now I'm looking back and I'm like - actually, they tried it and they didn't like it, but who wants to sit down with a friend or even like a friendly acquaintance and say "Yeah I tried it, it's like so not good, I was so bored, I read twenty pages, And I just, that was all I could do I had to stop".  Nobody wants to say that so instead they're like "Oh, oof, oh so busy, oh haven't had the time."  So, yeah, I got that a tonne.
And then as I made revisions, and as I got better about learning how to ask people for revision advice, and how to gather feedback from people, and I made improvements to the book, more and more people who I gave it to were willing to tough it out through the beginning, which was very rough and bad.
The beginning of NotW, the first draft, it didn't have a frame.  It started with him telling his story. The very first line was "My name is Kvothe", and he just started telling his story. There was no Bast in it, there was no Waystone Inn in it. Auri wasn't in it, Auri wasn't in until like three or four revisions in.
It wasn't good. Originally he went to the university and was like "Hey, let me in!" and they're like "Sure!" and he's like "I'm smart!" and they're like "Cool, you've outsmarted us, here's money!" And then Lorren's like "Let's be friends."
And I'm like "That's not conflict, that's not tension, that's not a good story." So yeah, it sucked real bad in a bunch of different ways for a long time, and then I revised it like literally five hundred times, and it slowly got better.  Fourteen years.

Edited December 13, 2020 by Snorkel