Roderick T. Macdonald's Blog, page 27

Why I Write Fantasy: Because it is the Mother Genre

Fantasy is a universal touchstone. Every culture has its myths, its origin stories, its tales of creation and destruction through which stride gods, monsters, and heroes. The first stories that we crafted were all fantasies. They formed frameworks to explain our world, and ourselves, to pass on cultural traditions, to reinforce social norms. Fantasy came first, all other genres came later. Gilgamesh, Achilles, and Bhishma were rendered immortal in the poetry of their people. The myths of the Maya and the Norse told of beginnings and endings, individuals and peoples wrestling with their own mortality, the devastating sense of the impermanence of even their entire culture’s way of life. They knew they were teetering on the brink of disaster, and told stories to try to make sense of that feeling.

Today fantasy has been reduced in the minds of many to Tolkien and his successors, forgetting the wellspring of culture from which Tolkien drew his own inspiration: the rich tapestry of ancient human experience and literature. Fantasy is at the bedrock of human expression, no matter where you look.

Now I love me some Tolkien. One day I hope to write my own full-on Tolkien trilogy, complete with elves, dwarves, a pair of warring siblings and a character who walks out of a mountain with no memory, and who may be an agent of light or dark, that both court and neither trust. It’ll be awesome. Especially the dwarves. Oh yeah.

But the fact is that Fantasy is so much more than the admittedly rich modern tradition Tolkien is in large part responsible for. (Lord Dunsany and E.R. Edison were very significant in their time and largely forgotten now. They were influences on Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and thus on myself and many others at a step removed. I think I once read some Dunsany but have little recall. E.R. Edison I enjoyed as some wildly over the top writing, with florid characters absolutely ruled by their passions. One day I would love to give full blooded voice to a world of Edisonian characters ruled by high emotion, with all the drama and disaster that would accompany such creatures of unfettered extremes!) So to denigrate the fantasy genre (given its true scope and ancient origins) is to me somewhat foolish, as you may as well discount the bible as being influential in the world of literature, which I don’t think anyone would reasonably attempt to argue. Fantasy also deserves its place of honour.

So for me, in writing fantasy I am not just writing stories filled with wonder and excitement (though that is a huge draw!). There is a small part of me that delights in touching one of our most ancient traditions. I may be turning it to modern purpose, seeking to entertain, engage, and provide enjoyment to my audience, but speaking in the original vocabulary of our first story tellers, with their gods, monsters, and heroes, is a joy and a privilege.

It seems to me that we instinctively love the idea of the unexpected being just around the corner, the curtain of normality being pulled back to reveal the magical. We want to accompany that named hero to those strange lands, to see wonders and return home, enriched by the experience. That for me is one of the strengths of fantasy fiction, the ability to take people on that journey, a journey many of our ancestors have shared, when they listened to the fantastical tales and myths of their eras.

The other great advantage is that fantasy can encapsulate or incorporate almost any other genre within its expansive bounds. Romance, thriller, detective story, horror, satire, social commentary, can all easily be found within the realm of fantasy. About the only thing that may escape it is the closely drawn study of modern contemporary life, the ticking clock of our current obsessions and struggles, though many contemporary literary heavyweights have not been immune to the adoption of magical realism, which is to say, elements of fantasy. Universal human truths and struggles can be touched upon and revealed without the need for a contemporary setting, however, else our old myths and the fantasy fiction that draws upon those stories would not have such enduring power.

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P.S. The Kindle edition of The Thief and The Demon is on sale for one more day at 75% off – get it cheap while you can!

The Writing Life: Juggling Workload, the Dizzying Kaleidoscope

So the New Year is in, and it’s time to get on with hitting those goals.

What are mine? In writing it is to draft, edit, and publish The Killer and The Dead by the end of October. That’s a tough, but doable ask. I stand in awe of folks who boldly declare they will write two or more books this year. I’m not built for that kind of speed.

Of course, there is so much more to the writing life than just writing your newest opus. Would that were the only task at hand! There is so much more to do, like promoting, advertising, and selling my first book: The Thief and The Demon. (Kindle version on sale right now at 75% off!!) Embracing the new project cannot mean abandoning the old. (Which isn’t even old – it was released last October – it’s a veritable baby!) I have these blogs to write, Facebook presence to maintain, advertising campaigns to write and curate, decisions to make on paperback distribution, which then leads to the need to speak to book sellers, gaming stores, libraries, anywhere that might have an interest in my book. There is even discussion of a YouTube channel. Oh, and narrating an audible version of The Thief and The Demon. No problem, I’ll get it all done by Tuesday!

Most importantly I need to pursue the epic quest for reviews. Writing to bloggers and vloggers who might be a fit, asking if they have the time to read a copy of The Thief and The Demon that I shall most happily supply them with! (A variety of formats are available, including paperback! If you are a book blogger looking for a fantasy novel to review, please get in touch, I’ll be delighted to chat with you!) In addition I must try not to constantly, boringly, cajole those who have read my book to do me that most solid of favours by writing and submitting an honest review. But I still bug them, you know, a little. I need those reviews! On Amazon preferably, as it can help drive sales and hopefully boost my algorithm visibility, but frankly, any book friendly site will do now!

I’m a first time self-pubbed author. I knew before I started I’d make mistakes, and promised to be forgiving of them. I’ve made a few I know of and moved on, probably made others without realizing it. This is life when you try new things. This is a glorious learning curve. I’m getting a little better with each experience. Of course so many of these new things I’m doing require research, reading, watching, note taking, all of which suck more time away from writing anything, let alone my next novel.

The one I’ve scheduled for release by the end of October. How do people release multiple books a year? How? The discipline involved must be tremendous!

Oh, and I’ll need to do all of this and more stuff that I’ve forgotten to mention while working a new job. Nobody said the writing life was easy, bub. But jobs are great – they pay for lots of the things this author cannot do on his own: editorial work, cover art, and formatting, among other things. Yes, I could try to do my own formatting, but time versus money is a calculation I made, and came down on the side of spending money to save me time.

Juggling the writing life with the rest of your life is a tricky process. I mean, how much time is left for reading random articles on the internet (always call it writing research, it makes it feel less wasteful – if you bookmark the page, it was definitely time well spent!) and playing frankly silly online games? Not a lot, not if you want to write. And maintain a relationship with your spouse. I think her name is noted around here somewhere… No way could I do this with kids. Writers with kids, you have my utmost respect.

This isn’t a poor me. This is just a clear eyed look at what lies before me this year. It’s a lot, but as I said in my New Year reflection, I’m calm about it, and ready to go. Some extra reviews would be nice though!

The Sale Awakens

January the second. The New Year is in, time to be getting back to reality…

Not so fast! Now is the time to complete your recovery from New Year revels by curling up with a fantastic book! This year I received my first Kindle, and to celebrate my entry into the wild world of ebook reading, the Kindle edition of The Thief and The Demon is on sale for one week, starting today! From now until January the 9th you can get quality entertainment for $0.99, reduced from $3.99! (Similar reductions in your local market for my friends outside of the US!) In the bleak midwinter (or sweltering midsummer!) escape from it all with a quality book at a bargain price! Find it here, or at your local friendly amazon site!

 

 

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The Long Road: New Year’s Reflections

This is a special New Year for me. There is something genuinely, thrillingly new for me to celebrate in my writing life.

This is the first year I don’t have to wearily resolve to get published. The first year I don’t have to make that resolution as shadows of doubt inhabit my mind, knowing how many times before I have failed.

New Year’s Day with its resolutions, birthday wishes and candles, coins in wells, they all mocked me for years on end. I made those wishes, committed to those targets, promised to do better, and always another year slid by and the goal was unmet, the wish unrealized, the bell unrung.

It wears on you after a while.

Before the years of the “getting published” wish there was a decade and more of resolving to “finish the book”, when I had no idea that what I was really wishing for was to finish a first draft, and that “finishing the book” as I understood it was a total understatement of the work needed to finish a draft and then transform it into publishable form.

But all that is behind me now. The resolution I made last year, uttered in ferocious desperation (not for the first time), has been held to. The goal has been met, the wish realized, and the bell most definitely rung.

In 2017 I published my first novel, The Thief and The Demon. I am very proud of it. I’m overjoyed to introduce it to you, and the world. I hope you like it. If you do, please leave a review!

So this year, for the first time in my adult life, I don’t have to make a New Year’s resolution with shades of doubt in mind. I’m free to dream again.

The Thief and The Demon is but another step down The Long Road. I want to go further, do more, be better.

In 2018 I hope to complete a first draft, edit, and publish The Killer and The Dead. I don’t resolve to do that with ferocious desperation this time, but with calm. Make it or not, I’m doing something new, something fresh. Like the year, I’m reborn in optimism, and it feels fabulous.

What a difference a year makes.

So here is my New Year’s message for writers and artists of all stripes: keep dreaming, keep working, and keep taking just one more step down the long road toward to your goals. Let this be the year you get there, so that next year you too can discover the odd high of not making the same old tired resolution, but setting yourself a new goal, and feeling free as a result.

Happy New Year everyone!

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The Writing Life: Aiming High Part 4 – What if Nobody Notices?

In earlier episodes of this series I described what aiming high means for me, why missing isn’t failure, and why I think as any kind of artist it is beneficial to strive for more and push your own personal envelope, no matter what medium you work in. Go creatives!

These things are all well and good, but what if no-one notices your attempts to aim high? Wouldn’t that be terrible?

I love that idea! It makes me smile. It truly does. That’s the great thing about aiming high – if no one notices, you’ve still done it, you’ve still worked on your technique, your craft, your path to creating art. You have hopefully still learned and improved in your chosen field – which is the goal, surely? If your striving for more does not draw attention to itself then I’d say a) it isn’t a distracting mess, which is a good thing in a story, (looking at you, Last Jedi), and b) you maybe haven’t gotten it right. Yet. Or c) It worked well! Could that possibly be it? Should all experiments be noticed and discussed?

If no-one notices, and your story still works and people are enjoying it, you have a win. If no-one notices but your story falls flat, well the story needs work, and the challenges you set yourself didn’t elevate the language, the characters, the narrative, whatever you hoped to improve, so some investigation is required to work out what happened.

And maybe, in writing at least, (the visual arts are another kettle of fish!) unlike those early mathematical problems you had in school, it is better not to show your working. (My old maths teachers were infuriated by my tendency to skip parts of the problems, add 10 for no apparent reason, and come up with the right answer. “Show your work, boy! Where did that number come from? Why did you choose it?” I still don’t know how I did it. And no, I can’t do that anymore – it got drilled out of me!)

So maybe, if you’re like me, you don’t really want people to notice your attempts at new technique, you just want readers to enjoy the fruits of its (hopefully) artful employment: the artifice is supposed to be buried, to look natural: to become art. Only the result (the finished work) counts, and if you’ve got a good answer to the dramatic problems you set yourself, does how you got there matter? Do you need to show your work? In my case I’d say no, it is enough that it’s there, and did its job. On the other hand, as a reader I do like to spot nice rhetorical flourishes, or structural framing, as long as they are adding to my enjoyment of the book. It is a tough row to hoe, this writing business, as readers gain their pleasures in so many different ways!

I think that in writing specifically, unless you want to have your experiments with technique to be the story, unless you want the artifice to be the star of the show, then having your attempts to push your own artistic envelope slip by beneath the readers’ radar is no bad thing. If looked for by readers who enjoy such things, they can be dug up and investigated, but they don’t need to be front and centre. Joyce deliberately studded some of his writings with mysteries and technical wizardry to confound the critics, I would say Shakespeare did not: he used a lot of techniques in order to entertain and amaze. William gets deconstructed, I don’t think he deconstructed himself in advance.

So there you have it: I think if nobody notices your experimentation with style, form, or technique (or anything else you may focus on), you just smile and keep right on at it, pushing harder the next time!

Why I Write Fantasy: Christmas Edition

This is no time for analysis. I ate too much stuffing to be capable of it.

I write Fantasy because I love it. Why else?

If any of you out there have particular questions about Fantasy, or my approach to the subject, or want to see future columns dedicated to particular aspects of fantasy writing, ask in the comments or send me a message: I’d be delighted to hear from you!

Until then, be well!

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The Writing Life: A Podcast, and Distraction versus Discipline (The Last Jedi Edition)

So, for any of you missed it, here is the podcast of my interview with Jerry Fabyanic talking about my book, The Thief and The Demon. I had a great time, and would once again like to thank Jerry, and KYGT-FM, the Goat radio station. I had a great time, and hope to return to discuss my next book!

And on to a quick little chat on Distraction and Discipline. Distraction is an enemy to writers, a sneak thief of time who poses as subjects of interest, or even creative fuel, when in fact little but time lost is gained by indulging in it. As writing is a time-intensive process, distractions are a major force to be recognised, ignored, or overcome.

Distraction’s antithesis, for me, is Discipline. If Discipline is lacking, Distraction wins every time, and not just hours, but days can be lost. If Discipline wins, then Distractions can be shut out, for a time.

Discipline is not easy. You can have motivation to write, and eagerness even, but then you sit down, and Distraction trumps motivation and eagerness and you find yourself watching endless spoiler riddled videos about The Last Jedi. Speaking hypothetically, of course.

Discipline for me is knowing yourself, and being able to say NO. Firmly, and in multiple languages, some of them fictional. Sometimes it fails, like today, and yesterday.

Quick very-not-serious thoughts about The Last Jedi.

1) Why doesn’t anyone think Kylo lied about Rey’s parents? Or was lied to by Snoke via force vision? I am still fake convinced she is Reykin Kenobi, and is her own parents because she is a clone of a person created by the gene splicing Boba Fett creator aliens from DNA samples stolen from Obi Wan, and Padme. Hence her asking to see her parents in the non-sexual wet dark hole of darkness and seeing herself. Why not? (Really, why not??)

2) Phasma is so not dead. The next movie will start with Phasma doing a Gandalf-falling-through-the-mountain montage, as she falls through the fiery ship’s hulk and finds her way to an unlikely escape. Maybe fights a balrog too. Even better – Snoke will force talk to her, and his disembodied spirit will enter into her body as a new host because obviously he knew what was coming in the Red Room, and this is all his fake out to see what the kids will do once he’s out of the way.

3) I really expected the Mon Calamari flagship to turn into a white Ford Bronco.

4) Or the Galactica.

5) I want a movie where Justin Theroux gets to play that version of James Bond in the Fifth Element that appears wearing the red rose lapel pin thing in the casino. The red rose lapel pin needed to find the mega code-breaking guy was for me the emblematic red herring in a film chock full of them. Unless I missed that DJ (Benicio, baby) was wearing one.

6) The next film will undo half of what happened in this film. Probably the wrong half.

7) Fuel?

8) Lightspeed battering rams. Tracking through Hyperspace. Other foolish new additions to Star Wars lore which, if used in earlier movies, could have changed quite a bit. X-Wing jumps to the OG Deathstar’s reactor room and blows it up. They knew where it was, they had the plans. Why bother with that whole torpedo through a shielded exhaust port?

Eight is enough. I could go on, but Discipline is telling me to stop.

9) Big googly eyes stop Chewie who has killed, dressed, plucked and then cooked multiple birds, from eating his dinner. Then he lets them nest in the Falcon. Why didn’t they googly eye him earlier?

10) Why didn’t the Dreadnought jump to light speed when it looked like it was going bad for them? The bomber was hanging over it for quite a while. (Let’s not talk about the bombers, I enjoyed the WW2 vibe, for about 5 minutes) Why do only the good guys remember to use hyper-speed to get out of trouble?

11) I still love Star Wars. But man this film furrowed my brow, big time.

12) There will be a Darth somebody in the next movie. (I’m still on the Snoke/Plagueis train. In Brienne of Tarth’s scorched eyepatch body.)

13) The fish nuns. More of them, please.

No more Distractions. Back to writing. May the Force be with You.

 

Why I Write Fantasy: Ideas, Imagination and the Power of “What if?”

Last week I discussed the allure of creating worlds, the joy of it often being in the freedom it grants you as a writer to shape the drama of your story from the ground up, and have the universe in which your narrative takes place become, in a sense, an active character in that story. Or if not an active character, then at least a defining influence upon the people whose struggles and adventures are played out within that milieu.

I like to have strong ideas running in the background of my creations. (Yes, I only have one in publication at present – but there are more waiting in the wings!) Like an operating system they are not meant to be the star of the show, but enable everything else to function. My aim is not to create a gazetteer or almanac of any particular world, but to provide reasons for why things are as they are, and why characters react and think as they do in a way that makes sense. For me the opportunity created is that different worlds can provide contrasting psychological baselines for the people living there, versus our own world experience.

In worlds of fantasy you get to create characters for whom magic is real, and gods can potentially be met, given the right circumstances, among thousands of other possibilities! That would have a transformative effect on the lived experience. Fantasy literature allows this and other thought experiments to be indulged in, at a step removed from our Earth and its many complications, most of which would strain readers’ suspension of disbelief in a way which doesn’t happen in fantasy. The reader of fantasy comes in ready to allow many things that would be rapidly discounted if inserted into our world, so a few extra concepts about the origins of that particular universe do not tend to shatter the trust between reader and writer, and that all important suspension of disbelief is happily maintained. For me a lot of the fun in fantasy world creation still boils down to “What if this condition in the universe was different? What would the consequences be?”

But the story and the characters still need to come first. The Thief and The Demon started from Fistmar’s opening predicament, his escape from prison, the release of the demon. As I was working on the outline and background of the novel, I started providing explanations for how that could occur, who could want such things to happen and why it would unfold as it does, and the path led all the way back to why the World Belt is organized as it is, which was governed by another “What if?” I had long entertained, the “What if Wizards were not useful old men with awesome powers who don’t seem to have much interest in running the world? Why have all that power and not be in charge? What would such a world look like?” That world needs an explanation for how magic came into the universe, and how Wizards acquire and utilise their power. The reader doesn’t need to know the details (yet), but they have to be there for the actions to make sense before the underlying structures are revealed. You cannot escape the world-building! But in a way the story as originally conceived led to the creation of the rules for that universe. I did not create the universe first and then the story. The story led the way. In The Killer and The Dead I aim to expand the experience of living in the World Belt, and provide more glimpses of the power structures that drive the deeper conflicts within it.

And that is the joy of Fantasy, the ability to use different worlds to explore ideas that despite the strange clothing they can be housed in, are still relevant to us here, or ask us as readers to wonder how we would act in places where some of the rules for living are so very different. That it is possible to do this whilst at the same time writing an action-packed romp that is hopefully exciting and entertaining is a huge benefit. My aim isn’t to give people brain ache, it’s to let them have a good time while reading. Engage, enjoy, entertain – my guiding lights. The level of engagement in whatever ideas I have strewn through the text is, I hope, entirely up to the reader. If afterwards they want to think on some of the ideas behind the world I created for them, or demonstrated through the actions of the characters, then that is a bonus! I’m here, and happy to discuss.

The Writing Life: On The Radio

But not with disco Donna Summer. Or prog Rush. Or ska The Selecter. Or 80s dance Taffy. Or hairmetal-tacular Autograph (sponsored by Papermate, it seemed!). Though all of that music is fantastic, you will have to make do with the sound of my voice. Listen… and remember… buy my book. And post a review after you have read it. When you wake you will remember nothing, but you will act on this message in 3, 2, 1, *snaps*.

This post is a reminder that I will be talking with the fabulous Jerry Fabyanic this Saturday (December 16th) at 1pm MST (Mountain Standard Time), which will be 8pm GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) to give folks a reference. The site schedule has The Rabbit Hole (Jerry’s chats with Colorado writers of all stripes – check out the podcasts!) starting at 2pm, but don’t be fooled! We will be there at 1pm, a seasonal special!

To have a listen, find us on KYGT-FM The Goat, here.

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Why I Write Fantasy: The Joy of Creating Worlds

Writing fantasy fiction is a lot of fun. I’ve always enjoyed it because you get to imagine anything you want, and then find ways to make it work. I mean, a lot of the time it would be much easier to not bother with the making it work part and just throw stuff on the page because it is so cool, but I found out the hard way that coolness without a foundation tends to falter. So you have to find the cool, with some rules.

So when I approach stories now, I start with the cosmology of the universe in which that story is set. It might never see the light of day, may never become important, but for me it needs to be there, the foundation upon which everything else rests. Like a turtle with elephants on its back. That kind of thing. Did those elephants ever get fed gigantic peanuts? And how did the turtle feel about their peeing and pooping on its shell? Wouldn’t that make their footing troublesome? Asking for a friend.

Anyway. The point is that fantasy offers up worlds of possibilities, and I love that I can have total control of the world from the dawn of creation on. It’s not that I’m a megalomaniac you understand. Not. At. All. In your own universe there’s no need to follow conventions or rules set by anyone else, all I have to do is create my own rules, and then try to be consistent. Until such time as a rule breaking or two may be fun. Dangerous road, that, do it wrong and you risk reader goodwill.

In universes I’ve fleshed out so far I’ve had pacts between law and chaos, an involuntary cosmic compromise (my favourite, but I’ve yet to find the story that works in that milieu), demons created because the gods were too lazy to do the boring stuff and were then surprised when their chosen servants decided they didn’t like doing the hard work either, and thus rebelled (as demons are wont to do). The World Belt’s cosmic origin is none of those things, by the way, it involves… well I can’t say. It does explain where the magic comes from though, and one day I may share it within the books.

And that for me is where the magic comes from in fantasy, the act of creation, of breathing life into situations that readers may at first find familiar, but possess enough twists of originality to hold their attention, hopefully!

A final word on cosmology – it is amazing how often in fantasy the origins or great powers in the universe do end up being important to the story, if not the primary antagonist. Evil Gods and Dark Lords a plenty populate fantasy. When you create a mythos it is hard not to create a big bad in the process, an ultimate whatever that may have to be defeated. But beware, once you wheel out the big bad and face him/her/it down there aren’t many other dramatic places to go afterwards. That’s why I think gigantic godly conflicts need to end a series, and be the final ending. Going back to a kitchen sink drama exploring how the protagonist’s marriage didn’t quite work out due to existential burn out having beaten the origin of evil in that universe and finding the flavor of ordinary life has quite faded… well maybe that would be worth doing! Or just, you know, go the classic route and ship out with the elves. Club Valinor, please!