Patrick Rothfuss talks new Kingkiller novella The Narrow Road Between Desires

DR: My last question is whether there’s anything from the process of working on The Narrow Road Between Desires that you found helpful or think will help you in your work on The Doors of Stone? No pressure If you don’t want to talk about this. I understand people come at you all the time about book three, but I just kind of wanted to open the door if you would like to say anything relevant to that.

PR: Just being in the world again and writing again, more actively like to a purpose to get a thing out. It’s always helpful. A lot of times I write something and I’m like, well this…it doesn’t serve the story, I gotta take it out. It doesn’t go away. I put it somewhere, or I just think about it. And honestly now…you know, I didn’t create the Embrils just for this. I think about the world, I think about the characters, I think about this stuff all the time. And then there’s places for it in the book.

So in some ways, like with Slow Regard, you got to meet Auri and you learn more about her and you learn more about the Underthing and you learn more about alchemy. But so did I. And all of that enriches the world and therefore it enriches the stories that I’ll write in that world. And the same thing is true here. I got to work on more about Glammourie and Grammarie, and Faerie everything, and Bast in the town. And so that enriches the world and it all ties together. And now I have Embrils to play with as a known thing. Yeah, it all ties together.

DR: One last quick, fun question for the road! If you could have any one fictional character tell you their life story in the sort of manner that Kvothe is telling his story to Chronicler, what character would it be?

PR: Oh, that’s a good question. Man, I feel like a sellout for saying Gandalf, but I want to hear Gandalf’s mental process. Gandalf’s been around for a long time. Oh…nope, hmmm. If I had to pick between Tom Bombadil and Gandalf?

No, I’d still pick Gandalf. There’d be just a lot of chasing bees and kissing girls [for Tom Bombadil]. I’d get tired of that after a couple hundred pages.

DR: Patrick, thank you so, so much for your time. It’s been such an honor to speak with you. Just like you said that it’s nice to be back writing in this world, it is a pleasure to be back reading in this world. I hope people enjoy it.

PR: Well, and thank you. I know you have some more to ask and you’re very gracious to let me sort of talk myself out. If you wanna have me back, we can do part two and we can get to some of the stuff you didn’t get to ask. Thank you so much.

An enormous thank you to Patrick Rothfuss for stopping by the site to discuss The Narrow Road Between Desires and his work! You can watch the uncut version of this interview on the WinterIsComing YouTube channel.

If you enjoyed this interview, you can also catch Patrick Rothfuss in conversation with various authors and other creatives on his Twitch channel, where he’s been running a discussion series during the lead-up to the release of The Narrow Road Between Desires. The launch party stream for the book goes down today, November 14 at 6:00 p.m. CST.

The Narrow Road Between Desires is out today from DAW Books, wherever books are sold.

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