Patrick Rothfuss talks new Kingkiller novella The Narrow Road Between Desires

DR: Speaking of revisions. This is kind of a hard question, but something that jumped out at me while reading The Narrow Road Between Desires…I was talking with my wife about this literally the day before I read the book, and I always try to pay attention to synchronicities…but basically this idea that perfection is the enemy of good enough, or in terms of art, perfection is the enemy of good enough to share.

And when I read The Narrow Road Between Desires, I was surprised that there’s an element of perfectionism that almost seems to be ruminated on throughout the book. In the dedication—which is beautiful—there’s a hint of perfectionism. It’s in Bast’s character, in some ways that weren’t present in the original Lightning Tree. Even in the author’s note at the end. What do you think about this idea that perfection is almost like a capricious master that will move the goal posts on you…but as an artist, there’s also such a drive to find it. And how does that fit into your work and your view of being an artist?

PR: You know…that’s a fair question and in some ways, obviously I can’t answer it well. Or I could give a pithy answer. I could teach a seminar on it or like do a mental health panel, honestly. What’s funny that you brought it up is, I do think about it a lot because it is one of the myriad of things that kind of spikes my wheel in terms of productivity. If I care about [something] enough to want to do it, then I want to do it well.

But what is doing something well for me…the joke here, because I’ve done a charity and I’ve had people who’ve helped me, and assistants, and people I’ve worked with…and sort of the joke for a long time has been our motto should be “settling for excellence.” A lot of people say the perfect is the enemy of the good, or the perfect is the enemy of done. But it’s way too far for me to settle for good. It’s too much. If I could settle for 98% sometimes my life would get so much easier.

But if it’s important…like, for my kids, [they] don’t deserve B+ parenting, they deserve the absolute best. And if I’m making a meal for somebody, even if it’s like, I’m gonna bang together some quick ramen…this will be excellent, this will be really good quick bang together ramen. Which suddenly it’s like wait…now it is taking 20 minutes. You could have had a whole ass meal instead of just ramen. But it’s the best fast ramen you’ve ever had. And we do have the herbs from the garden and I have peeled the garlic, thank you. And there is some egg in it.

But it’s something I’ve been thinking about, and I’ve been doing some live streaming lately to kind of just get back out in the world, keep interacting with the readership. And we did one about the audiobooks and I got on with Nick Podehl and Rupert Degas, one of whom is my U.S. audiobook narrator, the other one is in the UK. And it was funny, I was just there to talk about audiobooks because it’s cool. And Rupert was like, oh, sometimes you just do it and it’s your job and you don’t care…but your books though, they stuck with me. I could tell that this was something kind of important. And to be clear, he wasn’t saying, “Some stuff I just turn the crank and I don’t care and I half ass it, but yours I really pull ass.” No, he was like, you know, sometimes you do your job but then sometimes it’s a little different. He and Nick stuck around for three hours and at one point, he’s like, “So how much do you work on this?”

And I’m like, “You know, for Name of the Wind, it depends on how you count a draft. I did have at least, like, 300 beta readers. But…probably between 400 and 700 drafts depending on how you count them.” That’s like, printed out, and not just reading through it on the screen. And he’s like, “Is it worth it?” And I’m like, [whispers] “I don’t know.”

And here’s the thing. Have you ever read a book, and it feels like they gave up part way through, the ending sucked? And you’re like, god damn it. Back in the day it was the third Matrix movie and it’s like, aw man. If I can make it better, why wouldn’t I make it better? Because when you read something of mine, I want you to feel like I really respected your time and energy. And if you spent 20 bucks on this book, I don’t want it to be shitty. I don’t know at what point I’m getting a diminishing return. At some point it does need to be taken away, there is the deadline.

And so I feel like [with The Narrow Road Between Desires], I was able to do such stuff with the language, and we got so good in the illustrations and I landed the emotional notes with Rike and Bast so much better. I feel like I did it…but also it went from being, “Oh, I’m gonna brush up the language and publish the easy thing” to like six months of intensive stuff where I brought in sensitivity readers and therapists who specialize in childhood trauma and people who understand fortune telling. And I research how like leather is made because I’m crazy, you know? But I like where it ended up.

So it’s something I am examining in myself. I’ve literally talked about [it] a couple of days ago with a couple of people, and I’ve started writing in the blog again. And I’ve said, hey, I’ve wanted to write like six blogs by now and I’ve written some of parts of them…but I’m gonna write a crappy blog for you because a crappy blog is better than a perfect blog that I do a year from now. I gotta tell you about some stuff. And so it’s a part of a series, it’s the Quest for Non-Perfection and it’s so hard for me.

This is a great example. Have you seen this? I just got this back from the printer. [Holds up a calendar.] This is the sexy Bast calendar. And I worked on it with Julia [Maddalina] and we got it done—because I wasn’t going to talk about it until we got it done—and then I’m like…it’s so good. Great, now I just have to market it…and I’m like, I care about this and it’s so good…how can I get the word out? Because I gotta market it perfect, otherwise no one will see it. And it’s like I gotta get the graphics to show it off. I gotta get the promo graphics perfect. Oh no. And so it’s everything that touches the thing that I care about needs to be good.

And so what is it, Monk, if you ever watched that show? The running joke was, “it’s a blessing…and a curse.” And so I’m trying to learn how to manage it because I don’t mind it when I do it on the book. I don’t mind it when it’s with my kids. But I should learn how to write like a 70% email, you know? That’s way more answer than I probably needed there, but yeah, that was a good question.

DR: Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I was interested to hear it because that was something I didn’t expect when I read the book that kind of jumped out of me and I was like, “There’s something interesting here.” So thank you for getting into it. I think we’ve probably got time for one more big question…