About "These Are The King's Men":

After I wrote the draft for The Demon-on-Stilts, I wanted to develop some of the minor characters before I published Book I of the trilogy.  There are quite a few minor characters in the novel, so it was not an easy choice. It was the importance of House Gotharus to the plot and the city of Achart that exerted the strongest pull. The story is set before The Demon-on-Stilts, and during the Centerlands' Revolutionary Wars, giving another perspective on The Paramount world.

            The short story is not what I would call a classic short story as I developed it as a ‘false chapter’.  I wanted to give the impression that each break in the short story could be seen as a mini-chapter in the book The Demon-on-Stilts, even though it is quite separate. I worked hard to have each character’s micro-story blend into the one that followed it. 

      The story gave me the opportunity to introduce one of the forms of magic called Despair and the powerful cult of the Centerlands, The Church of The Whole.  These are formidable themes and characters, so I had to scratch my head quite a bit to figure how I wanted to present them. I didn't want to write a roller coaster ride, so I went with some pretty mundane matters to develop characters, like the castle's kitchen. Writing this short story was a wonderful challenge that helped me better understand how to edit the final rough draft of The Demon-on-Stilts before I handed it over to Aaron for development work.

As a new author, the experience of writing a short story linked to the novel gave me a golden opportunity to work on my writing. Not only was the short story fun to develop, but I could feel it helped improve my story telling. Not in gigantic leaps and bounds, but in little concrete steps that build confidence. Moving from character to character while keeping a coherent point-of-view might not be much for an experienced author, but it was a challenge for me. Thanks Aaron!