From: an inquiring mindi am such a fan of the aud series. i've read both "the blue place" and "stay" multiple times and with each reading, i gain new appreciations about the depth of the characters in each book. however, i've often wondered (warning -- spoiler ahead): what would aud be like today if julia had survived? if the bullet hadn't done so much internal damage, or if aud had made a slightly different split-second decision.
have you considered creating a parallel series, one in which aud's bashert survives the last paragraphs of the first novel, sorta like those choose-your-own-adventure books from the '80s?
Oh no, no no, that's not the author's job, that's the reader's job: to play with what is and make an imaginary Other Possibility. It's called daydreaming. Or, if you write it down, fanfic. Many writers seriously disapprove of fanfic. I don't. I disapprove of people other than the copyright holder trying to make money from others' extant worlds and/or characters, but I frankly love the notion that someone cares for my work so much they spend time trying to extend the story. So if you want to write Bashert: A What-If Aud Story, go right ahead. Just don't try to make any money from it or I'll send Aud over for a little chat.
If I'd been born in the 1980s or '90s, I imagine I would have learnt how to write with fanfic: Xena and Buffy ripoffs. When I was nine I was stealing ideas from the Norse sagas and historical fiction I read, writing stories of grim-faced warriors with swords and horses and dogs (the sword, horse, and dog always had names; the warrior never did). Terry Brooks' Shannara books are Lord of the Rings clones. We all learn by imitation. We should all be gloriously free to play.
