Christie Golden, author of the Warcraft novels Rise of the Horde and Lord of the Clans, sat down to answer questions with The Shadow Council Strider. For several weeks readers submitted questions via email, and Christie was kind enough to respond to them in an article published today. We learn that Christie will be writing more novels in the Warcraft universe, having just signed a contract for a trilogy.

The discussion I found most fascinating in this first part of the article series had to do with Christie's access to The Burning Crusade. Basically the reader wanted to know if she had influence over the game design of Outland, or if her stories were wrapped around the content that was already put into the game. As it turns out, while most of the world was already in place when Christie was hired on, she did get to flush out some concepts in Outland, particularly having to do with Oshu-gun and that Ata'amal crystals. Because she had already finished her first draft, several of the creatures she created in the novel were put into the game, for instance the majestic Talbuk.

The last two questions had to do with Christie's life as a writer. Christie talked about her "Trunk novel," that first book she wasn't able to sell, and the subsequent novels she did publish that were set in the same universe. Because of her non-fiction writing and editing experience with USA Today she wasn't new to dealing with selling the written word. It's interesting to note that Christie never wrote fan fiction for WoW, which is certain surprising considering how well she writes about the world of Azeroth. When asked about suggestions for those new to writing, her advice to new writers was to write as often as you can, and also spend some time outlining to better plan out your work.

The next section of the Q & A is due out soon, and I'm definitely eager to find what else she has to say. If you had a question for Christie Golden, what would it be?

Tags: Christie-Golden, interviews, warcraft-novels

Filed under: Blizzard, Lore, Interviews