Roderick T. Macdonald's Blog, page 26

The Writing Life: Doubts Part 1: Am I Good Enough?

Last week I talked about dissatisfaction, and in the process mentioned its big brother, doubt. Doubt manifests for writers in quite a few subtle guises, so I’m going to dedicate a column a week for a while (with potential interruptions to allow folk to recover!) looking at how doubt can sneak into a writer’s life.

Of course it doesn’t have to sneak. For many writers, even the great ones, doubt is a regular visitor, if not a constant companion. The first and most basic doubt a writer has to face is this hoary old chestnut: am I good enough?

This is the fundamental demon, the primary nemesis of most writers and creatively inclined people. Before you’ve written a word, put brush to paper, spoken your first line, cut fabric, spun the wheel, lifted a chisel, whatever it is that begins your artistic process, this question raises its head. And annoyingly, it refuses to go away after the first paragraph, first chapter, first draft. (You fill in the blanks for those other creative starting positions, but from now on I’m sticking to what I know, and that is writing!)

Some people write as therapy, and for them the act of writing is a release and a gift. For most of the rest of us, myself included, therapy may be involved, but primarily I believe it is an act of performance, we write to show others what we have written, for them to read. So we have an urge to write, and we believe we’re good enough that others will like and enjoy what we have written. If only the story ended there.

I have a very simple imagining of two sides of a writer’s personality. One half is General Zod, Terence Stamp version, demanding all kneel before him. The other is Sally Field receiving an Oscar and being amazed that people like her. Zod raises his head when things are going well, or when you haven’t been critiqued in a while. He’s a deluded monster, but it’s fun to indulge him and imagine yourself an absolute master of the writing universe, waiting for your slavish followers to inevitably appear. Sally is what writers yearn for, and are afraid of never getting: that affirmation, that applause, that unique accolade. It is not getting what Sally is celebrating that writers fear to their core. Not having anyone like them, appreciate their writing, find their story engaging, inspiring, entertaining, or whatever the writer hoped to achieve when he or she first put pen to paper.

This fear, and the doubt it engenders, profoundly sucks. You doubt anyone will like what you’ve created because you fear it won’t be liked, an evil feedback loop. That doubt can’t be erased until you’ve created something, exposed it to scrutiny, and THEN, only then, received positive responses (it needs to be plural, let’s be honest) saying it is good. If only that positive feedback could end the story.

But doubting if you are good enough is more insidious than that. Just as Zod is a megalomaniac who believes he is the best thing since ShakesHomerSpeare on the basis of three brilliant pages produced on a rainy afternoon, the fear of not getting what Sally had can whisper in your ear that just because some people liked it, doesn’t mean anyone else does. The people who liked it might be sycophants, or worse, family – how can you trust them? Or the fear prefers to listen to detractors, the negative critiques, the voices that cut deep and say what you’ve always secretly thought was true, that this thing, this passion you have, is misplaced, and what talent you imagined you had does not exist.

That is the toad that squats on your chest and licks your face with a cold and unkind tongue. Zod shrivels and falls into an icy abyss when the toad slithers heavily into position. This is why writers should not read negative reviews, because the toad feeds on them, and can grow unmanageably large, even as Zod feeds on positive reviews and grows ever more deranged as a result. Are all writers wildly bipolar? No – just my imagining of them for the purposes of this column!

For me this core doubt came in waves, battering the unrealistic Zod (whose mania was no better – the crazed Zod part of me thought no more work had to be done, that his genius did not need full stops or actual sentence structure to get in the way of his incredible message!) into submission and for years kept me from putting anything into the public sphere. Zod would read books and boldly proclaim that they should kneel before him, that their writing was inferior, and that mine would dominate the world in which they were allowed to exist, until the toad hopped along to coldly ask why I imagined I knew better than the agents and publishers who had allowed that book to be printed? It wasn’t a pleasant milieu in which to exist, fluctuating between elation and depression. Ultimately doubt won, because the fear of finding out that I wasn’t Sally and that nobody would like me stopped me from releasing anything. I’d rather not know, than discover doubt was right. This was a terrible mistake that I urge any writers reading this column to ignore. Do not let doubt paralyze you. Get help, and publish!

How did I get past it? In some ways I didn’t, the doubt does not go away, and it’s hard to believe in yourself and not wonder if you are deluded. As we’ll see over the next few weeks, doubt assumes all kinds of guises. What happened was I got older. I realized time was passing, like sand through that hourglass, and it was now or never for me. Denying the toad wasn’t enough, I kicked Zod out too, in order to take advice and be grateful for it, and above all, pay attention and use it to make my writing better.

I realized that if I let the toad squat on my chest for the rest of my life, my life would end and I’d never have said a word. That scared me more than the thought of nobody liking what I had to say. So I have spoken. I hope you like it. I’m okay if you don’t.

Why I Write Fantasy: A Question of Morality, Part 1

Today I had the pleasure of talking with Jesper Schmidt about morality in fantasy world building, one part in an extended series of  discussions on this topic that are well worth watching. He has a great YouTube channel dedicated to all things fantasy writing related – check it out here! He also helps to run a very welcoming and friendly group on FB for fantasy authors, so if you need support and advice, drop in here.

You’ll be able watch our chat in a few weeks (Feb 26th is the likely date, I will let you know when it is finalized), but let’s break the ice on this subject now!

I think that when we consider the word morality, most of us consider the ideas of good and bad, closely followed by right and wrong. These words are tied to the ideas of actions and behaviours that could be considered as good or bad, right or wrong. If you are asked, “What is the moral choice here?” you are likely to assume the question is looking for the answer that fulfills a positive outcome, something ‘good’ or ‘right’.

In fantasy the option exists to create moralities that do not seek solely for that type of positive outcome. Further, many versions of ‘good’ or ‘right’ can exist, and can be in conflict with each other. Morality in Fantasy is often assumed: that there is one good side against the monolithic evil. The moral positions are taken for granted.

This need not be the case, and one of the strengths of fantasy writing can be an exploration of wildly different world views, and how those different world views might play out.

My feeling is that when it comes to creating fantasy worlds, the morality of a character’s time and place is an often neglected aspect of their experience. The society they grew up in, the taboos they have internalized, the rules they take for granted and obey all have a huge impact on them, as they do on us. So why would it not have an equally pervasive effect on our characters, and be played out in their actions and choices?

I only ask that question because all too often in fantasy literature we have this jarring experience of looking into a quasi-medieval world, but finding everyone acting on and being judged by late 20th, early 21st century Western standards, without any grounding for why the protagonists have values so closely allied to those dominant at the time of the novel’s writing. It is assumed that what is ‘right’ here and now in the world of the author should also be ‘right’ in the world of the fiction, without any explanation, because we assume our morality, our social norms, are correct, and so they are imported into the fiction without a pause for reflection, to consider if those values match the world into which they are being projected.

But morality is fluid. It changes through time, even in one locale. I think we’ve all heard of Victorian morals, and I doubt most of you reading this would imagine that you share them. That is only 150 years ago, and they were a widespread norm in Western Europe and parts of the USA in their time. Time and culture moved on, and that morality shifted, because I believe that morality is something of a social agreement – the rules by which a society agrees to live and govern itself, sometimes embodied in law, most definitely enshrined in custom and habit. Every generation seems to introduce its own wrinkle though, and so it evolves on, even as old, or even ancient standards or core beliefs can be held up to each generation as an ideal to be striven toward.

In fantasy writing the opportunity exists to pit different moral expectations against each other, or to show a normal that seems alien to us in our 21st century experience. To make readers wonder if they would respect such strange taboos, or find it normal to keep grandmother’s skull on the mantel. To give readers not only the chance to see dragons, but experience a different world down even to the daily expectations of life, and interactions with neighbours and friends. I think part of the desire for fantasy literature is the wish to visit strange lands, and I think that seeing and experiencing the different cultures that inhabit those lands is equally important, and something forgotten at times in the fantasy of my 80s youth. Now I think readers are ready to dive right in and be surprised by the worlds they enter, and perhaps shocked (or at least challenged) by what they find, but that is okay, because they know they will return home at the end of the story, having experienced something truly new. Fantasy can be travel of the mind, if the road goes far enough.

Next week I’ll look in more detail at what it means to construct an alternate foundation for morality (Order vs Chaos, Duty vs Rebellion, Family vs Outsider, The defeat of earthly desires vs. the pursuit of pleasure), and what cultural artifacts that morality could be based around. Morality governs both society at a macro level: rules of government and laws, and the micro: acceptable behavior amongst your peers, what the individual conscience allows and forbids. For fantasy writers who are considering the effects of morality on their worlds and characters I remind them of this – we all learned our first lessons at Momma’s ankles – what to do and not to do, what was allowed and forbidden. In constructing an alternate fantastical morality it seems wise to me to consider how mothers would teach their children to respect those rules, and what tales and sayings would exist to reinforce those mores. (In my novel I used fragments of songs and sayings to inform those ideas in ways I hope was not intrusive, plus the simple attitude of the characters when facing problems.) Visit Victorian tales and children’s stories and prepare to be amazed at what was considered normal only 150 years ago. The alien is closer than we imagine.

Why I Write Fantasy: A Question of Morality: Part 1

Today I had the pleasure of talking with Jesper Schmidt about morality in fantasy world building, one part in an extended series of  discussions on this topic that are well worth watching. He has a great YouTube channel dedicated to all things fantasy writing related – check it out here! He also helps to run a very welcoming and friendly group on FB for fantasy authors, so if you need support and advice, drop in here.

You’ll be able watch our chat in a few weeks (Feb 26th is the likely date, I will let you know when it is finalized), but let’s break the ice on this subject now!

I think that when we consider the word morality, most of us consider the ideas of good and bad, closely followed by right and wrong. These words are tied to the ideas of actions and behaviours that could be considered as good or bad, right or wrong. If you are asked, “What is the moral choice here?” you are likely to assume the question is looking for the answer that fulfills a positive outcome, something ‘good’ or ‘right’.

In fantasy the option exists to create moralities that do not seek solely for that type of positive outcome. Further, many versions of ‘good’ or ‘right’ can exist, and can be in conflict with each other. Morality in Fantasy is often assumed: that there is one good side against the monolithic evil. The moral positions are taken for granted.

This need not be the case, and one of the strengths of fantasy writing can be an exploration of wildly different world views, and how those different world views might play out.

My feeling is that when it comes to creating fantasy worlds, the morality of a character’s time and place is an often neglected aspect of their experience. The society they grew up in, the taboos they have internalized, the rules they take for granted and obey all have a huge impact on them, as they do on us. So why would it not have an equally pervasive effect on our characters, and be played out in their actions and choices?

I only ask that question because all too often in fantasy literature we have this jarring experience of looking into a quasi-medieval world, but finding everyone acting on and being judged by late 20th, early 21st century Western standards, without any grounding for why the protagonists have values so closely allied to those dominant at the time of the novel’s writing. It is assumed that what is ‘right’ here and now in the world of the author should also be ‘right’ in the world of the fiction, without any explanation, because we assume our morality, our social norms, are correct, and so they are imported into the fiction without a pause for reflection, to consider if those values match the world into which they are being projected.

But morality is fluid. It changes through time, even in one locale. I think we’ve all heard of Victorian morals, and I doubt most of you reading this would imagine that you share them. That is only 150 years ago, and they were a widespread norm in Western Europe and parts of the USA in their time. Time and culture moved on, and that morality shifted, because I believe that morality is something of a social agreement – the rules by which a society agrees to live and govern itself, sometimes embodied in law, most definitely enshrined in custom and habit. Every generation seems to introduce its own wrinkle though, and so it evolves on, even as old, or even ancient standards or core beliefs can be held up to each generation as an ideal to be striven toward.

In fantasy writing the opportunity exists to pit different moral expectations against each other, or to show a normal that seems alien to us in our 21st century experience. To make readers wonder if they would respect such strange taboos, or find it normal to keep grandmother’s skull on the mantel. To give readers not only the chance to see dragons, but experience a different world down even to the daily expectations of life, and interactions with neighbours and friends. I think part of the desire for fantasy literature is the wish to visit strange lands, and I think that seeing and experiencing the different cultures that inhabit those lands is equally important, and something forgotten at times in the fantasy of my 80s youth. Now I think readers are ready to dive right in and be surprised by the worlds they enter, and perhaps shocked (or at least challenged) by what they find, but that is okay, because they know they will return home at the end of the story, having experienced something truly new. Fantasy can be travel of the mind, if the road goes far enough.

Next week I’ll look in more detail at what it means to construct an alternate foundation for morality (Order vs Chaos, Duty vs Rebellion, Family vs Outsider, The defeat of earthly desires vs. the pursuit of pleasure), and what cultural artifacts that morality could be based around. Morality governs both society at a macro level: rules of government and laws, and the micro: acceptable behavior amongst your peers, what the individual conscience allows and forbids. For fantasy writers who are considering the effects of morality on their worlds and characters I remind them of this – we all learned our first lessons at Momma’s ankles – what to do and not to do, what was allowed and forbidden. In constructing an alternate fantastical morality it seems wise to me to consider how mothers would teach their children to respect those rules, and what tales and sayings would exist to reinforce those mores. (In my novel I used fragments of songs and sayings to inform those ideas in ways I hope was not intrusive, plus the simple attitude of the characters when facing problems.) Visit Victorian tales and children’s stories and prepare to be amazed at what was considered normal only 150 years ago. The alien is closer than we imagine.

The Writing Life: Dealing with Dissatisfaction

Writers, it is often said, are their own worst critics. I take this to mean that writers, and artists in general, tend to be very harsh on themselves, though it could of course mean they are simply poor judges of their own work, and are incapable of accurately critiquing their own output by virtue of simply being too immersed in it. So having a faulty perception of our own work could also lead us to being extra hard on it, and ourselves. Ah, the joys.

The world is full of harsh voices – look at any book with hundreds of reviews and you will see some scathing responses, so I’m not sure that writers are the actual harshest critics of our work, but I do agree we don’t go easy on ourselves.

How does a writer deal with this sense of dissatisfaction? The specific sense that anything written could have been done better, more fluently, more emotionally true, more correctly grammatical, more iconoclastically ungrammatical, more precise, more ambiguous, more dramatic, more more more. (Or less less less, depending on the writer’s origin of dissatisfaction – it is a bottomless rabbit-hole down which to fall.) How does a writer deal with the nagging unease that comes with a completed work that just never feels complete?

I distinguish dissatisfaction from doubt. Doubt is a whole other beast in a writer’s life, and I have an at least 4 part series to come detailing its unlovely aspects. Dissatisfaction may be a form of doubt, but it hits after you’ve overcome enough doubt to actually finish a lot of the processes that lead to publication, and can linger afterwards. To be clear: if dissatisfaction stops you from putting your work out there, it is doubt. If you put your work out there, but still find fault in it on occasion, it is dissatisfaction.

The writer of the most haunting haiku can think it clunky, or not reflect the subject matter properly, or capture the moment elegantly enough. I’m sure Shakespeare shook his head at many of his lines, but the show had to go on. So how to deal with it?

Indulge it in some ways, ignore it in others. I would love to say that I can be zen and accept the flaws I see in my own work, and that the key to happiness is to embrace that approach and let dissatisfaction fade from view, but let’s be real here. (I do have a blog planned on Acceptance, and it is important, but I think I’ll need to write it when I’m in a more accepting frame of mind!)

So I indulge it sometimes. I stress only sometimes. I get feedback from people reading my book, and they tell me where they are in the narrative. I go and look at that part of the book (not every time, I’m not crazy). I am, by and large, horrified by what I see. (Sometimes I LOVE what I read, which can be equally misleading – remember what I said at the top about writers and their faulty perspectives!) Most of the time I close the book and tell myself to move right along, nothing to be done now, it is what it is, quit your bellyachin’. Ignore it. But recently I decided to open the book with a pencil in hand, and to circle the things that bugged me. Highlight the sources of dissatisfaction. Extra words, ugly sentences, anything that makes me wince. I read the entire book out loud more than once, how did these errors get through?

Because you cannot be perfect. Chasing the perfect leads to dissatisfaction. Attaining the perfect is a goal though, so we create this hideous rod for our own backs, if that is the goal we choose to pursue. That has to be accepted. It is hard. I’m chasing my tail here, and that is what dissatisfaction is, endlessly chasing your tail, biting at it, and perhaps making something fine into something bedraggled.

So I make my pencil marks. Do I plan to do anything with them? Maybe, once I’ve covered every chapter. The joy of self-publishing is you can do edits and revisions post-release, and so far my gripes are all minor, which is reassuring in itself. But in making the marks I scratch the itch of dissatisfaction, and it goes away for a while. If I felt a full revision was required I am sure I would look over my pencil marks and disagree with a bunch of them. Hell, I’ve erased a few as I went, which showed me how transient these quibbles of mine can be. I made editorial decisions already, and for a reason, thank you very much! But other changes may well be beneficial, things I (and my editors) missed for staring at them so many times they became invisible, but which now, months later, I can see more clearly than I could when in the rush of final preparation for publication. Does this make me wish I’d done one more pass, taken yet more time? No. I’d still have pencil marks to make. Some the same, some in new places.

So that’s how I deal with dissatisfaction – I acknowledge it. I mark some pages and put the book down. I don’t act on it, because I know my perspective may change again. By quantifying the things that irk me, by seeing that in the grand scheme of things my dissatisfactions are quite minor, I help put them behind me. For today, anyway. And that seems fair enough.

Why I Write Fantasy: The Blind Faith Edition

So two weeks ago I talked about the infinite possibilities in fantasy, then last week I discussed why it can sometimes seem repetitive, at least in terms of setting. These things would appear to be contradictory, but I think can resolve quite easily, even as I believe we will see new authors pushing or shattering the boundaries of the traditional medieval quasi-European fantasy setting.

I think this is the case because there are still so many stories to tell, even within settings that may seem at first glance to be stolidly traditional. I believe any writer with a strong vision will be almost by definition original in their presentation of that vision. And where a totally new creation is not present, I think that playing off and against earlier stories can yield interesting landscapes of character, motivation and theme to explore. The well in fantasy is far from dry.

There is a long way to go before we reach a situation like that in the middle ages, where the audience had heard every bible story before, and knew all the common folk tales, and were interested more in the style of the telling than the substance of the story, until such artists as Chaucer and the Pearl Poet came along to either break old rules, or use existing conventions to brilliantly remind their audience of the power of the original story. There are simply too many possible tales, and tale tellers out there for the genre to get stuck in one rut.

Not that it hasn’t tried. Chosen ones, Dark Lords, hidden heirs to various thrones, terrible invaders from over there (often up North, the bad guys were often at the top of the map in the books I read in the 80s and 90s), retellings of the Arthurian legend, re-retellings of the Arthurian legend, but with various role reversals and switches. (This is still going on, and I think shall never end, which shows how enduring and magical the original tales are.) Updates on fairytales from the world over are also ever popular, and for very good reason. We all loved the originals, and sometimes just want to keep those stories going past bedtime, and a good retelling does just that.

Despite all that familiar ground exposed, the urge to visit magical worlds continues to exist. Every new generation wants its Narnia, or Hogwarts to grow up with, its Middle-earth or Osten Ard to explore as adults. And each generation of writers absorbs part what came before, and seeks to tell their own distinct stories. Some fail, and feel more like echos than something new, others are unapologetically generic, written precisely to please crowds who want more of the same things they have always loved, but in slightly different clothes.

And here come I, with my urge to write fantasy, my own heroes from childhood and youth, my own desire to write something new and interesting. You have to have faith as a writer that your ideas, and your execution of those ideas will be strong enough to pull readers in, and then keep them reading. When I set out to write my first books there was only instinct, and some (lots of!) imitation. The imitation I hope to have left behind, what remains are ideas for stories I haven’t seen anywhere else, set on worlds I have not encountered in my own reading. I write from that instinct. It’s where I’m most comfortable. Not originality for its own sake, or a contrived effort to subvert expectation for no reason other than to surprise without much purpose, but a set of stories based on “What if?” questions that arose in the course of my life, sometimes as a result of reading other books, other times entirely at random. As I’ve said before, for me there has to be an underlying structure or theme for my writing to work, and I have to have yet more faith that the theme that strikes me and the story it inspires will be of remote interest to anyone else. These are the chances you take as an artist.

The world of The Thief and The Demon opens in a very old school European setting. It was my intention to start off with the familiar, and slowly unravel the new before my readers’ eyes. This process I have rather optimistically designed to continue over a number of books, until the world of Fistmar and his friends is laid bare, and the “What ifs?” that led to its creation become more obvious. Why do it that way? Because it pleases me, and because I think it adds to and deepens every drama that will unfold in that world. I have to have blind faith in my creation, that it will capture others in the same way it first captured me.

Writing fantasy, once a niche genre, now a torrent of glorious creators, has become an exercise in faith, faith that your stories and characters will somehow make it through the wall of noise and find people to speak to. I don’t know if mine will, but the urge to create remains, and will be followed. I am going to give the world of The Thief and The Demon, and my work in progress The Killer and The Dead, every chance to come alive for readers before moving on to other places and stories, each of which will require their own leaps of faith. I hope you can join me on that journey, but if not, I trust that you all believe in your own visions, and do your best to make them as real as possible.

My thanks to kat at The Lily Cafe for inspiring this column with her comment last week!

The Writing Life: Commodity Versus Art, the Eternal Challenge.

Ursula K. Le Guin died this week. I read The Earthsea Trilogy (as was) a few times in my youth, and loved it. I really should get around to reading the complete Earthsea fictions, and of course many of her other works often referenced in this week of obituaries and commentaries mourning her passing.

In the course of reading about her life I came across this speech, and it struck me as very interesting on a number of levels, and once again challenged my sense of who I am as a writer, and what I seek to achieve.

The killer quote (and there are quite a few in a five minute speech) that set me to thinking is this one:

“Right now I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art.”

It’s a bit of a punch to the gut for me. Do I want to produce a commodity, or practice my art? Is it possible to do both? What is it I have produced so far? Into what camp does it fall? I want it to be art, but to sell like a hot commodity. Is that a fatal contradiction?

I had to sit and think about this a while.

The advent of self-publishing has only accentuated what always existed in publishing: the rush of writers into genres that become popular, seeking to ride the coat-tails of some sudden success. People trying to recreate Hogwarts in the early 2000s, who then graduated to sparkly vampire fiction in the mid 2000s, dystopian futures in the late 2000s, grimmer and more ’realistic’ fantasy in the wake of the gigantic success of HBO’s Game of Thrones in the 2010s. Once it would be publishing houses authorizing similar works in order to try to cash in on a new trend, write to a market, now everyone can go for it individually. And more power to their elbow, I say, but that isn’t who or what I want to be, or do.

(An aside. I recall in 1998 or so when I first read A Game of Thrones, how utterly novel the idea of having chapters written from a specific character’s point of view was, and having multiple separate viewpoints intersect to provide the tapestried whole of the book. I was reasonably well read, and had never come across it before. That technique, or close variants of it, is now almost de rigueur nowadays. A testament to the impact of his books, I think.)

When you are living in a social media universe that is inhabited by such tight throngs of writers all searching for, and talking desperately about their markets, their target audiences, their break even points, it is easy to get swept up in it, and forget why you started writing in the first place. But you have to learn about keyword advertising (for instance), and optimize your own ad campaigns, or your art, such as it is, will languish ignored on the virtual bookshelf. And what’s the point of an unread book?

One of the things I have is editorial freedom. I can write what I want, in the style I wish. No editorial department, under pressure from sales teams or bean counters, is going to try to push me in a direction they think more profitable. This could be both good and bad. The errors and missteps I make will be my own. I can only hope they are not catastrophic. I receive advice, take feedback, but ultimately the subjects chosen, and the methods of their delivery are my own. I am resolved to be comfortable with that. It isn’t always easy. Doubt is a writer’s constant companion, and now I have strategic doubts to add to the usual suspects that infest the writing process. It is what it is, I tell myself.

But I can’t shake the feeling that I’m compromised by the machine of commerce I must participate in, in order to try to share my stories with others. This has always been the difficulty for writers. Ursula herself did deals with publishing devils, most apparently good for her, given her long career, but others she regretted, such as the creation of the TV show based upon the Earthsea books, which she referred to as “McMagic.” How utterly damning. Even she, as august an eminence in writing as can be imagined, could not avoid falling foul of TV contracts and false promises. She witnessed her art reduced to commodity. Thankfully the miniseries sank without trace, and critics agreed the show missed the point of the books by some margin.

The last thing I want to produce is “McMagic” though. Ugh. The idea fills me with dread. I have never come up with stories with a market in mind. Since childhood I’ve had compelling ideas occupy my thought, enough that I had to write them down to preserve or explore them further, as even vivid imaginings can be forgotten if they are left alone for too long. I have a catalogue of stories I’d like to write, and the ones I’m not taking on yet are those that I think will be better served once I have more experience and skill. There is a vampire story in me (it first arose as an idea for a ridiculous art house movie), but not a lot happens in it. That tends to curb my enthusiasm for the tale currently – you need to have a lot of skill to carry off a story where most of the action is either anticipated, or lies in the past, not the present!

Of course wise voices warn that to ignore the market is to doom yourself to making no money. As of today (and this may well change, I’m no paragon) I’ve decided I’d rather produce my art as I envisage it, and to hell with chasing after money. For as Ms. Le Guin finished her speech:

“But the name of our beautiful reward is not profit. It is freedom.”

I’d rather write free and let the chips fall where they will in terms of monetary success. Easy to say now, from this position of literary obscurity, but there you are. When it comes down to it, I’d rather try to produce art than sales copy. Art that can still be enjoyable, engaging, and entertaining. Stories aren’t much fun if they can’t do those things. That is my circle to square, and my artistic reach may well exceed my technical grasp, but what the hell, I can’t do anything else but what makes the most sense to me, and Ursula’s words have reminded me of that fact. Everyone has their own road to travel, and this is mine. I wish you well on yours.

Why I Write Fantasy: The Why Is So Much Of It So Similar? Edition

Last week I talked about the infinite possibilities offered by the fantasy genre, but buried in there was the nagging question: “Why then is so much of fantasy writing so similar?”

I think any reader of fantasy over the last thirty years knows what I’m talking about, but let’s do a quick recap without falling into a deep, dark trope-hole. That’s what the great site TV tropes is for!

A lot of fantasy is based in worlds vaguely resembling medieval Western Europe circa 1150-1350. Feudalism is alive and well, castles of stone dot the landscape, gunpowder is either non-existent or very marginal. It is a green country across which knights ride, and kings rule. (Yep, it’s pretty chauvinistic. The Damsels, they were in Distress in them thar days. This part of the model has thankfully been abandoned as the primary mode in fantasy writing, I merely mention it as the foundation from which so much else has sprung.) Good is challenged by evil, and unlikely champions arise and prevail. Even in more modern takes on the genre emphasizing morally grey characters, and the squalor of daily life, the setting of a version of Western Europe is most commonly found, with nods north to Scandinavia, and south beyond the Mediterranean.

Why is this? The first and most obvious answer is Tolkien. There are others I have mentioned in a previous column, but let’s shorthand it. Tolkien’s fantasy drew on deep roots in Northern European traditions, he himself studied and translated old and middle English poets: Beowulf and Gawain were very familiar to him. He had survived brutal, industrialized war. He had a clear, unmistakable longing for simpler times, and the greener pastures of yesteryear before the industrial revolution. Michael Moorcock wrote an essay criticizing that very attitude, which is worth looking at.

However, while I think Tolkien is a huge influence on those who have followed in his footsteps, I believe it is worthwhile to look at the habit of mind he had, the looking back to simpler, cleaner times. I think this is something that many fantasy writers share, or want to explore: the idea of simpler worlds in which to highlight dramatic conflict, worlds in which the multiple bureaucratic ties of today are absent. Moorcock may have complained about Tolkien’s backward glance, but Wordsworth and Coleridge a century and more before shared it. A century and more before those esteemed Romantic poets trod the earth Marvell and Milton were also celebrating the unblemished past, the green lands of myth and happiness for all. In fact, we can go all the way back to the Greeks and still find this attitude of looking back to a idealized bucolic past, to Theocritus, and ultimately to Hesiod, who himself looked back to a golden age of humanity, and its successive debasements through to his current day, now our dim and distant past.

I think it is this habit of mind, looking back to earlier eras of imagined grace and simplicity, tied to the prevalence of fairy tales told to so many children in their formative years that has shaped the landscape of fantasy. The yearning to recapture something beautiful, but now lost, or faded from view. Fantasy literature has been dominated, until recently, by writers born of the Western European tradition, and so, when they look to create fantasy landscapes, it is the idealized western archetypes of yore to which they readily cleave. As more writers cast fantasies in the landscape of their own parent cultures outwith the European mould, I think we will see very different settings emerge. This is something that is in progress, I believe. I myself have published a book set in a world that looks very European at first blush, my habit of mind being formed by my Scottish heritage. It is a hard set of shackles to break, and I would argue they do not necessarily need to be broken, as there is still a great deal in that landscape to explore and render fresh. The imagery still has a great deal of power, and a lot of new ideas, or subversions of the old, remain to be profitably explored in that setting.

Of course, there is no reason now not to try something entirely different, but I think the hold of old stories, old cultural touchstones is strong, and that is why so many fantasy novels find themselves set in worlds where the trappings of modernity are cast aside, to leave characters facing more elemental foes than we come across in our daily lives. And of course, we writers often imitate and reimagine what we love, and if what we loved was stories involving warriors and wizards and fantastic creatures, then we will wish to tell our own stories of warriors and wizards and fantastic creatures, but with our own twists. The Dude in Distress is born.

The Writing Life: Sometimes You Don’t

Sometimes, despite your best efforts and most earnest intentions, you just don’t make progress in your writing. Not because you’re blocked, or uninspired, or bored, or frustrated, or overwhelmed by whatever it is that you are working on. Sometimes you just can’t. Life, in capital letters, gets in the way.

Loved ones get sick. You get sick. A significant relationship ends or begins. Unexpected financial or natural disaster strikes. These kinds of thing tend to take up all of your attention, and leave nothing over for writing. I once emigrated. It was a very all consuming experience. Adjusting to a new country, new culture, new housing, new job, a city full of strangers, there wasn’t much left over in my mental tank. I had a work in progress, and didn’t open it for six months, the best I did was make sure it had survived the journey. It was there. I knew I would return to it, when there was a shred of available mental space.

Sometimes, for one reason or another, your head can be filled with other things, other issues, emotions so strong that the writing you want to do does not have the space to exist. This is okay. Get through the time, or revel in it, if it is a joyous period. If it is less joyful, don’t add to the difficulty by berating yourself for not writing. It happens. The mental decks will clear. The important thing is to deal with what life has thrown at you.

Now some artists thrive on adversity, it acts as a creative spur, giving them lifetimes of material to work with, or dreadful urgency to get what they can done while they still have time. Their art can be the therapy that helps them through. Others will use the hard times as inspiration, once those difficulties have been overcome, returning to them over and over again.

Do what you can when you can. Write (probably bad) poems for the first time in a decade. Dictate stream of consciousness gibberish to your phone. Write one sentence a day. Try for two, maybe even three. But if you do none of that, don’t beat yourself up about it. Sometimes there just isn’t space for writing, and that is okay. The time will come when you do again find yourself with the time and space to write as you wish, and when it does, I think you will enjoy it all the more.

Why I Write Fantasy: Infinite Possibilities

Now I’ve touched on this before in some circumstances, but I feel that it is worth restating one of the greatest draws for me in writing fantasy: the range of possibilities it grants you.

In writing fantasy you are only constrained by two things: your imagination, and your ability to transform your fancies into words. As long as you can persuade your readers to stick with you on the journey, and keep the story and world alive, there is very little you can’t try in a fantasy setting.

And the settings can be wildly varied, alternate worlds of every description, hot or cold, rich or abject, alternate planes of existence where no one can conceive of the idea of a ‘planet’, all are equally possible, if the writer can keep the reader on board. Altered presents, pasts, and futures of this world with fantastical twists and stranger inhabitants can be presented. Nothing is off the table.

Your protagonists don’t have to be human, they don’t have to be living. Destiny or chaos can launch their adventures, love or despair or anything in between can drive them. The worlds they inhabit can present any imaginable political system, variations on ones our known societies have experienced, or entirely new ones we haven’t can be described, offered up to the reader as part of why the story is as it is, and perhaps part of how it will proceed.

The writer can take any theme to explore: duty, revenge, freedom, manipulation, truth, faith, nature are but a tiny fraction of the ideas that can run through the fantasy novel. Any topic that a mind wishes to explore can be created and examined in fantasy. The story (and world) can shape itself around that concept, or be informed by it, or the characters can play out roles informed by themes and ideals, even, and especially if they are unaware of that fact. It is such an incredible sandbox of fun to play in as a writer.

Equally, there is nothing to stop the fantasy novel examining the most intimate bonds of life: love, family, personal successes and failures, writ large or kept small. Characters can struggle with addictions and illness, be representative of any possible race, creed, or sexuality, and receive support or face challenges based on any or all of those things. Fantasy allows ideas to be explored either directly, or through striking metaphor, allowing people in the here and now to see themselves in the strangest of other circumstances, and still keep a tie of identification. That is an incredible gift.

Fantasy novels can be thrillers, adventure stories, murder mysteries, satire, thinly veiled contemporary social commentary (which I think of  as distinct from satire), alternate histories, and romances. And anything else their author can dream up and bring to life. They can mix and match and have more than one element blended together seamlessly into one magnificent story.

Fantasies can be cautionary tales, celebrations of heroism, moral lessons, examinations of ethical dilemmas, and of course, pure, unadulterated escapism. And all of those things at once too!

So why do so many seem so similar? Maybe that’s something to be discussed in another column. But if you want different, and keep looking, you’ll find something dazzlingly original waiting for you.

Because in fantasy, the possibilities are endless.

The Writing Life: First Drafting

I’m supposed to be writing my first draft right now. And looking for a job. We’ll talk about jobs later. Right now we’ll talk about writing a first draft, instead of doing it, because dealing with other commitments is a real thing that must be managed, and this blog doesn’t write itself.

I have historically characterized the first draft as the fun part of writing, when everything is new and exciting. You may have a plan, but you can feel pretty free to change it should whimsy and/or a great new idea strike. First drafts are hopefully treasure troves of “Eureka!” moments, where something not outlined occurs to you and just makes so much sense that you sit in your chair and giggle with glee. I don’t have one of those upright walking desk type things, I really should, but a long time ago I invested in heavy oak furniture, and the combination of it and the remaining space in my office (yes, I know how lucky I am) does not leave any room for health preserving devices. Other than an electric coaster designed to keep my tea warm. It keeps the bottom third tepid.

Writers have a lot of things to say about first drafts, I like Terry Pratchett’s take, acknowledge Neil Gaiman’s, laugh ruefully at Ernest Hemmingway’s, and take what solace I can from many others.

I have a love/resent relationship with my first draft. I can’t say hate, because why hate your own creativity? I don’t resent my creativity either; I just resent the work that sometimes needs to be done! But let’s stick with the love for now: I love the excitement of the new, of putting flesh onto the bones of my outline, and being pleasantly surprised by the beautiful additions I find necessary to add that the outline forgot to include, and that enrich the story or characters immensely. (Those “Eureka!” moments.) I love finding a new voice, and writing scenes where I get emotionally involved, really feeling the writing as I go. As a writer you have to hope that some of that feeling is transmitted. You need the craft and the skills to do that, and I’m loving the opportunity to try new rhetorical devices, linguistic flourishes, the whole shebang. I love the challenge of trying something new, and trying to better what you have done before. I love being able to just go for it and write with freedom, knowing that excess fat, overindulgent darlings, and dodgy timelines and plotting can be fixed at a later date, once I have the spirit of the thing down on paper, the rough beginning, middle, and end.

I resent that it’s taking so long. I resent realizing that I have to insert this extra scene because this is the only place I think it will fit, and I really wanted to get to the next scene that I imagine will be more fun. I resent that the fun scene, when I get to it, is more technically difficult than it appeared from afar, and can’t simply be torn through in an hour. I resent my particular inability to not write in a linear fashion, I can sometimes write scenes out of sequence to keep the word count rising, but my preference is not to. I resent knowing how much will be cut/revised into near oblivion, or that what I think are perfect jewels of sentences and paragraphs will be discarded because I was having too much fun writing them and they don’t actually help the story or themes along. I resent fixing that timeline when I could have stopped and worked it out as I drafted. I resent getting stuck over a sentence when you are supposed to be able to barrel along and not worry about such things as it’s ‘only’ the first draft. I still don’t want to vomit poorly written prose onto the page this time out, as it will only cause me more work later, so I try to write as well as I can now, and minimize as much as possible the nuts and bolts revisions of the future. The dream is to not have to rewrite at all! (No laughing at the back!) I resent thinking of it as ‘only’ the first draft, probably a hangover from when I thought the first draft was the completed book and that all I needed to do was a quick grammar check and it would be ready for the public. Halcyon days of youth right there, but the point is that a first draft isn’t ‘only’ anything, it is a massive first step in the right direction, and should be celebrated, not minimised, in my humble opinion.

So I’m conflicted, but the important thing is to keep moving. I’m entering the beginning of the climax of The Killer and The Dead’s first draft, 70K words in, 20-30K to go. I wanted to be done with it all by now, but missing a deadline doesn’t mean I give up, it just means I need to grind on, and get done as soon as I can. By the end of this month would be very nice, and keep me on track for publication by the end of October after all those lovely revisions and editorial passes. I’m staying accountable, and sharing this helps me stick to my goals, so thank you!

First drafting is many things, but in the end I think it is a joyful process, it is creation, it is engagement, it is words being used to try to convey ideas and emotions, to paint pictures, to amuse, perhaps to shock and surprise, and certainly in my case, to entertain. I still think it is the most fun for me in writing (despite those resentments listed above, some of which I may actually like, is that weird?), and I wish all other writers the best when next they face this challenge! Good luck!