Do you feel any pressure from your fans to write something just as amazing, or even better, next? The Inheritance Cycle has been a huge phenomenon. Writing and publishing these books changed my life completely, and again, I’m grateful for the opportunities they have given me. But at the same time, it was a strange experience to go from a rather rural upbringing in Montana to traveling all around the world and talking to thousands of people at a time. And it was really neat to see my books shelved in the library and bookstores just like all of the books I had read growing up. Well, it was gratifying to know that people actually wanted to read something that I had written. How did it feel to get your story published when you were so young? It can be a bit tedious, but in the long run, it saves a lot of effort. So I started writing them down in a file, along with all of the words of my invented languages, timelines, and so on. I didn’t used to do that when I started Eragon,but very quickly I found myself with so many characters, I couldn’t keep track of all of them in my head. How do you keep track of all the different characters within the world of your books. Fortunately for me, enough people around the world have enjoyed reading them that I get to tell stories for a living. No, I wanted to be flying dragons and fighting monsters! But since I couldn’t do that, and since I had a lot of time on my hands after I graduated from high school at fifteen (I was homeschooled my whole life), I decided to write my daydreams down. Growing up, I never wanted to be a writer.
What inspired you to write the Inheritance Cycle?īoredom, mainly, and the desire to have adventures myself. I caught up with Christopher to ask him a few questions about his books and writing. Along with hundreds of other fans, I went along to listen to Christopher talk about his books and get some copies of his books signed. Christopher Paolini, the author of the Inheritance Cycle, came down to Christchurch in 2012 for the Armageddon Expo.