Justin Call's Blog: Stormcaller

MASTER ARTIFICER, BOOK 2 OF THE SILENT GODS

Master Artificer by Justin Travis Call




MASTER ARTIFICER, BOOK 2 OF THE SILENT GODS

This was a difficult book to write because I had so much that I had plotted and hoped to squeeze into the second novel in the series, but I was still immensely pleased with what I accomplished. This was also challenging since I had years and years to write my debut, but barely a year to write its sequel – but I did it!

For those that are interested in the writer's thoughts about their own books, I'll tell you that my primary goals in Book 2 were to elevate the world building (showing more people and places), the magic system (illustrating how other forms of magic function in Luquatra), and the characters (giving POVs from characters other than the protagonist and showing how each of those characters evolves over the course of the books). I think I delivered on all of that, particularly since readers get to see several new cities, new kingdoms, and even an alternate plane of reality. You'll see lots of new magic, and you'll get to better know certain supporting characters from Book 1 and watch them mature in unique and specific ways. You also get to see the protagonist Annev de Breth discover how to use his own magic, and you get the first major turn as Annev shifts from being a hero and becomes ... something much darker.

I'll also take this opportunity to remind readers that The Silent Gods is a coming-of-age story for a hero who is actually the series' Dark Lord (I've made no secret of this), and while we don't get a lot of that in Book 1 (because Annev is still a mostly heroic, immature teen), Book 2 challenges him in new ways that force him down that darker path. For some readers, this may sour the taste of the series (and to them I can only say ... I tried to warn you very early on). For others, this will be exactly the sort of stuff they were hoping to see in Book 1 (and to them I say "patience is rewarded").

I won't say more (because spoilers), but I hope folks really enjoy the resolution to this second book despite having left a few threads open for Book 3. If I were permitted to write books as long as those in Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive, perhaps I would have given readers another 300 pages of action, climax, and resolution ... but I think you'll agree that I've done you right with the 800+ pages you're getting. It's more than 50% longer than Book 1, and the major and minor characters have some fantastic character arcs. And while my general preference would be not to have any major cliffhangers, you might discover that the mood of the cliffhangers I've included is very similar to the feeling one gets after watching The Empire Strikes Back: things are bleak for just about everyone ... but you've been given enough light to see how the characters and the story are going to move forward – and hopefully that's a good plug for when Master of the Fallen releases in 2022.

If you enjoyed Master of Sorrows and want to read its sequel, I encourage you to preorder Master Artificer right now (it will be released May 2021). And if you read and enjoyed either of those two books, please leave a review here on Goodreads for other folks and let them know what you enjoyed or are looking forward to. I try to read all my reviews because I think it's important to know how people are responding to the books I write, but I'll only comment if the review is positive so feel free to be critical without the author calling you out (I'm just grateful folks are reading my books and are passionate enough about them to discuss the writing with others).

Cheers and be kind to one another.

-Justin T Call



View all my reviews

Headed to the UK!

Just a few more days and I'll be off to visit London and Dublin. For the first part of my trip, I had planned to attend Gollancz Fest, but that got shifted to October of this year so I've had to make some small adjustments to my schedule.

The Good News: I get to see more of London with my family.
The Bad News: I get to see less fans before WorldCon.

Maybe not so bad, though, because it's likely most fans that showed up to Gollancz Fest would have been there to see other folks (me being a debut author and all)...but you never know.

I'm doubly fortunate, though, in that some other local authors reached out and invited me to the Super Relaxed Fantasy Club (SRFC), which meets in London once a month to network, hang out, and read a portion of their work to the assembled crowd. This coming event will be a mighty big one, too, since it will be held just a few short days before WorldCon, so there will be folks from all over the world attending (myself included). I expect it will be a great opportunity to make new acquaintances and establish some friendships in the writing community which (I hope) will last a long, long time.

Anyhow, I'll post more details about my time in London as they happen (follow me on Twitter and Instagram @Justin_T_Call), and I'll write a separate post about everything that happens at WorldCon Dublin (August 14-19). In the interim, though, I thought y'all might like to know my formal schedule for the convention – by which I mean the places that you are guaranteed to see me (either because I'm signing books or because I'm on a panel). I'll be participating in four panels at WorldCon, plus a private signing at the Gollancz table in the dealers room and a more public signing with some other amazing authors (Joe Abercrombie, Scott Lynch, etc). Full details are below, but this won't include all the other panels that I'll be joining as an attendee (I'll do a second post with all of *those* details in a few days).

Autographs: Friday at 16:00
Format: Autographing

16 Aug 2019, Friday 16:00 - 16:30, Gollancz Table

Book signing for Master of Sorrows at the Gollacz stand (exact location TBD).

Not beyond Tolkien
Format: Panel
16 Aug 2019, Friday 22:00 - 22:50, Wicklow Hall 2B (CCD)

There has been much discussion of how elements of Tolkien’s work have become staples in fantasy and how certain tropes are Tolkienesque, but what about the things Tolkien did that have become rare or unusual? ‘Tolkienesque’ has become shorthand for general high fantasy, but the panel will discuss the aspects of his work that did not spread widely beyond him.

Justin Call, Ms Sultana Raza, Dr Nick Hubble (Brunel University London) (M), Amal El-Mohtar

Autographs: Saturday at 11:00
Format: Autographing
17 Aug 2019, Saturday 11:00 - 11:50, Level 4 Foyer (CCD)

Joe Abercrombie, Justin Call, S.A. Chakraborty, Scott Lynch, James Smythe, Cadwell Turnbull

There be dragons! Crafting maps for fantasy worlds
Format: Panel
17 Aug 2019, Saturday 13:00 - 13:50, Wicklow Hall 2B (CCD)

From Middle Earth to Earthsea, Westeros to Orisha, maps can bring fantasy lands to life. But how do authors go about designing these fantasy worlds, and how do they then communicate those designs to mapmakers? The panel will discuss the craft of fantasy mapmaking and the challenges of bringing imagined worlds to life.

Dr Bob (M), Robert V. S. Redick (Talos, Gollancz, Penguin Random House), Justin Call, J.S. Meresmaa

Wands at the ready! Magical world building in SFF
Format: Panel
18 Aug 2019, Sunday 13:00 - 13:50, Wicklow Hall-1 (CCD)

When worldbuilding with magic, is it enough to add magic to our existing social structures, or does some magic alter the way the world works. There are soft magic systems with few rules and hard magic systems with lots of rules, does this affect the ways magic shapes the narrative? Arthur C Clarke said: "Magic is just science we don't understand yet." At what point does magic become science?

Christopher Husberg (M), Zen Cho, Diane Duane (The Owl Springs Partnership), Justin Call

Evoking theme through boardgame mechanics
Format: Panel
19 Aug 2019, Monday 12:00 - 12:50, Wicklow Room-2 (CCD)

In boardgames, theme can be evoked in many ways – through artwork, story, sometimes even through boardgame soundtracks – but how can theme be evoked through mechanics? In this panel we’ll discuss some examples of this being done well today, and what should be considered when exploring this element of design.

Robin David (M), Justin Call, Helena Nash, Rachel Scanlon (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)

Book 2 and Other Stuff

DRAFTING BOOK 2

Since the UK release of my debut in February, I've been spending all my time drafting the second book in the The Silent Gods series, tentatively titled Master Artificer. I'm happy to say that I've just passed the halfway point of that draft, and that merits a blog post.

While I can't tell you much about what I've been writing (no spoilers here), I can tell you a bit about its length . . . which is big. In fact, when I outlined Book 2, I estimated it to be approximately the same length as Book 1 (about 600 pages), but it seems I've underestimated my outline by a wide margin. Granted, I had expected to outpace my estimates by a few hundred words during the first draft (that's normal and can be edited out later). In fact, I guessed the first draft to be around 750-800 words and that the draft would then need to be pared down to 600-700 words (around 10-20%), which is just fine by me. Instead, my projections for finishing my book outline (based on what I've drafted so far) suggest I'll end up with a first draft of approximately 1291 pages.



That's a lot of pages.

So that leaves me in a bit of a quandary. I've mentioned the issue to a few friends and family and the more ignorant (and well-meaning) folks have suggested that I simply split the novel and publish it as two separate books. A tidy solution . . . and completely implausible, not only because that decision doesn't lie with me (it lies with the various publishers), but also because the story arcs would be too short and unsatisfying if I broke the book into smaller pieces.

That leaves me with three alternate solutions: (a) leave it as is and publish a Brandon Sanderson-sized novel, (b) edit and revise the book until it's a more manageable size, or (c) shorten the book by moving certain events from Book 2 to Book 3.

I don't have the street cred to publish a novel that large, nor would I want to do so (pacing would be a nightmare), so that eliminates Option A.

Assuming my editors and I can bring the word count down by a full 20%, that still leaves a book of approximately 1032 pages, which is still far too large for Book 2. If we're being mercenary with our edits, we might get it down to 903 pages . . . but that's still 50% bigger than the first book. A boon for readers who love big fantasy novels (that's me, if you haven't guessed it), but a bust for those readers who prefer slimmer, faster-paced stories. So we'll leave Option B as a maybe.

The final option would require moving a large portion of Book 2 into Book 3, but that's not solving the problem (only delaying its resolution until the next book); it also runs the risk of making Book 2 less satisfying, though I think I can probably work around that since I've got a solid outline for the second novel and I know where to break it apart if we chose to go that route. It's not my preference, though, since I'm quite happy with my current outline (it's just taking a little longer than I'd like to get my story told). So we can table Option C, too.

The advantage of this third option is also that I would finish the draft of Book 2 quicker, which means the book may actually be ready to be released next spring, as is currently scheduled. If I go ahead and write the whole book, though (and then go back and edit things down to a more reasonable size), I'm not likely to meet that deadline, which never a fun thing in the publishing world.

So those are the realities I'm struggling with at the moment. Lots of writing is getting done, but I'm discovering that I'm not a very efficient writer when it comes to outlining chapters and then writing those chapters within a reasonable length of pages. Hopefully I'll get better as I go along (keeping a good pace is very important to me), but I also don't want to cut good scenes just to meet an arbitrary page-count (did I mention that I like big books?).

FOREIGN EDITIONS AND THE U.S. EDITION

In other news, the German edition of Master of Sorrows was released this past March (titled Sohn der Sieben) and has been getting pretty solid reviews on Goodreads, Audible and Amazon (we are averaging about 4.1–4.5 stars in all locations and languages). If haven't rated the book yet (and especially if you read it and enjoyed it), please share those ratings and reviews with places mentioned above as it really does help to market the book better and increase sales, which assures that I'll be able to write more books in the future. Even if you didn't enjoy the book, articulating why you didn't like something can still be helpful for readers (because what doesn't work for you may be just the thing that gets another reader excited).

Foreign publishing deals for Master of Sorrows have also been made in France, the Netherlands, and (most recently) Russia, so we should expect to see the book series hit those markets in the next year or so (once translations have been done).

Back here in the states, Blackstone Publishing secured the rights to The Silent Gods and have recently communicated that they would like to release Master of Sorrows in the US in February of 2020, approximately one year after its release date in the UK. That may seem strange (and it is a bit), but I'll briefly explain their logic. If the book were released in the US this fall (as we had originally planned), then it's likely to get drowned out by all the new big books being sold and published in preparation for Black Friday and Christmas sales. That's fine if you're an established author with a big fan base, but as a debut author who is relatively unknown, it's not the wisest thing, so we all decided it would be better to release the first book next year in the spring. The advantage of this is that it also gives Blackstone lots of time to market and advertise the book (something we didn't get to do very much of when it was released in the UK earlier this year).

AUTHOR EVENTS

I'll be attending several author events this year, including Gollancz Fest in London and WorldCon in Dublin. Both of those will happen in the first half of August, so if you live in the UK and want your copy of Master of Sorrows signed, please stay tuned for future book signings at or near those venues (and, of course, you can find me at the conventions themselves).

In addition to traveling to the UK, I'll be attending FanX in Salt Lake City, Utah this coming September, plus the PNBA (Pacific-Northwest Booksellers Association) Tradeshow in Portland, OR this October. Both of these events will be in advance of my book being released in the US, though, so don't expect any book sales to be had (though Blackstone should have some earlier US editions available for indie bookstore owners who want to read the book before it's officially released). If you'd like me to sign any edition of MoS (UK or otherwise), then by all means please follow me on Twitter and find me at one of these events.

In addition to these larger events, I should be doing some signings near my hometown of Park City, UT next spring. Foremost on my list of indie bookstores are Weller Book Works and The King's English in Salt Lake City, plus Dolly's Bookstore in downtown Park City. Stay tuned!

The post Book 2 and Other Stuff appeared first on JustinTCall.com.

SFX Magazine interview

Hey gang! SFX Magazine, the UK's biggest sci-fi/fantasy mag, did an interview with me a few months ago, and they'll be sharing that interview with its readers in their next issue. They actually shared a teaser in the most recent issue, but the full interview is coming out next month. In case you don't buy the mag (but you follow my blog), I thought I'd share that Q&A with you now!

SFX Magazine: "Tell us about your protagonist. What’s their story?"
Annev has a complicated life. He spends half his days training at the Academy to become an Avatar of Judgement (a warrior-thief that steals magic artifacts), but a dodgy old priest is also trying to teach him to use magic. To make matters worse, he’s in love with the headmaster’s daughter and he’s just been tasked to kill a stranger in the woods. Adolescence can be brutal.

SFX Magazine: "How does magic work in this world?"
In Luquatra, people with the blood-talent can manipulate three elemental magics: skywater, lightfire, and earthblood. These are accessed using different art forms that relate to the mind, spirit, and body (respectively) and have a cost that is either subtractive, additive, or transmutative.

SFX Magazine: "Was there anything particular that sparked the initial idea for the novel?"
I’ve always been fascinated by villains in novels, and I’ve often wondered what a coming-of-age series would be like for a protagonist who fits the mold of a traditional villain but who also believes he is the story’s hero. This is that series.

SFX Magazine: "Did you need to do any research for the book? Discover anything surprising?"
Research is part of any book, but most of mine came from knowing the tropes of the genre and finding ways to subtly subvert them. I mostly read a lot of old folklore and modern fantasy. I also studied languages, foreign cultures, and human psychology.

SFX Magazine: "Did your experience as a games designer map well onto writing a novel, or did you need to discover a different skill set?"
Yes, I think being a game designer helped, particularly when it came to designing my magic system (which has twenty-two primary mage castes); it’s forced me to spell out the rules for my world and then attempt to find ways to break those rules.

SFX Magazine: "How long did the book take to write, and did it evolve much?"
Truthfully, I spent over a decade refining the mythology for the series, as well as outlining its major plot points and character arcs. Writing Master of Sorrows took me about a year (once I got started), and it’s evolved quite a bit, despite its core remaining the same.

Master of Sorrows has been released!

Book birthday!!! 🥳 My fantasy debut, Master of Sorrows, was released in the UK today! Woot, woot! *Fist Pump*

Now, in case you stumbled into this blog post and don't know anything about my book, Master of Sorrows is epic fantasy with a darker tone (lots of people calling it "high dark fantasy," but it could also be called "epic grimlight" or "gritty epic fantasy"). Hard to tell where it falls exactly, but several reviewers have compared it to:
The Poppy War by Rebecca Kuang
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss 
The Maze Runner by James Dashner



Other authorial comparisons have included Brent Weeks, Trudi Canavan, Brandon Sanderson, and David Eddings ... so pretty great company!

Overall, reviews have been excellent (currently sitting on an average rating of 4.55 out of 48 ratings on Goodreads), so please take a look if it sparks your interest and/or you'd like to see what others are saying.

Now if you live in the United States (or Canada or Mexico), then you might be fretting about how you will get a copy of Master of Sorrows . . . but fret not! MoS will be released by Blackstone Publishing in North America this fall – and if you can't wait that long, Book Depository has free international shipping.

If you're anywhere outside North America, though, the book is in stores RIGHT NOW. You can also buy the ebook or audiobook (Peter Kenny did a fantastic job with the narration). Tough cookies if you live in North America (you'll have to wait till this fall) . . . but if you have a VPN, you might be able to trick the internet into thinking you're in London or something. *cough* *cough*

My thanks to the many people who have contributed to this launch (both the Gollancz team and the bloggers and book reviewers who have promoted the novel this past week). And double thanks to those of you who have already bought the book and/or are waiting for it to arrive from overseas. You're the real heroes, and I appreciate your help in making my dream come true.

Speaking of which . . . I'd love to see pictures of readers holding Master of Sorrows when people get their copies! 🤩🤗🥳 I don't even have my own copy yet, so I am anxiously awaiting its arrival. In the interim (and for the foreseeable future), I'd love to see other people's excitement at getting the book. 🥰 If you do take a pic, please post them to Twitter and loop me in: @Justin_T_Call.

Lastly, for those wanting personalized copies of MoS, I'm happy to sign any books you've bought online if and when we meet in person. I'll be visiting the UK this August for Gollancz Fest (in London) and then again for Dublin WorldCon, and those are prime places for UK folks to find me. If we can't meet in person, I'll have a very limited number of personalized UK editions available on this website in the next few weeks, but I expect those to sell out very fast. Anderida Books in the UK had 150 signed and numbered copies of Master of Sorrows available for preorder, and they sold out within 12 hours of notifying folks (which is great news for me, but bad news for those not subscribed to their newsletter)! I'll try to keep my own stock of books for future personalizations, but since I'm getting them from the UK, the availability will fluctuate – so follow me on Twitter and pay attention if you want to know when we have books in stock!

That's all. Thanks again to friends and family, and especially to everyone who has purchased a copy of my book (which makes you an honorary friend). I look forward to hearing your thoughts and answering your questions in the forthcoming weeks and months. Cheers!

Q&A with Random House (Part 3 of 3)

Sorry I've been dark for the last week or so, but I've been answering a few more Q&A's for bloggers. Why? Because my book comes out in exactly two weeks! YASSS!!! There are also some pretty stellar reviews of the book on Goodreads already, which I'll post a link to right here.

What book, you ask? Funny, because that's exactly what the rest of this Q&A is about: my debut epic fantasy novel, Master of Sorrows.

Let's dive right in, shall we?

How would you describe your novel in one sentence?
A student at a school for warrior-thieves clashes with the Academy’s headmaster while pursuing a coveted rank and struggling with the revelation that he may be the fulfilment of a dark prophecy.

What inspired your novel?
The inspiration for this novel (and the rest of the book series) arose from a single question: ‘What if the hero was the reincarnation of an evil God?’ I liked the concept of writing a coming-of-age story from the villain’s perspective, of seeing the character grow from a naïve adolescent and then evolve into a full-blown baddie.

Except that real people rarely see themselves as villains. Real people believe they are the heroes of their own stories and tend to vilify those whose world views clash with their own. This is fine for real life, but subjective morality complicates storytelling. Many fantasy novels avoid these complications by making their protagonist an obvious hero and their antagonist an obvious villain . . . but I feel such attempts are dishonest to the narrative. Other fantasy novels address this challenge by inverting expectations. In George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, for example, there are few truly heroic characters; instead, the world is painted in grey and characters regularly shift between being antagonists and protagonists. The villains at times possess unsung virtues while the heroes are burdened by damning vices, cruelty, or weakness. This resonates more with normal life, I feel, yet it also carries a nihilism that I find to be both false and destructive. There is good in the world, just as there is also evil. Likewise, I believe there is a divine influence in our lives (whether we acknowledge it or not) and that our lives are filled with meaning and purpose. In that sense, we are all heroes (or potential heroes) but not all of us are active protagonists in our stories.

Which brings me back to my first question: ‘What if the prophesied hero was the reincarnation of an evil God?’ Or, if I remove the subjective morality tags, ‘What happens when a protagonist is given two conflicting moral narratives?’ Further, ‘Does he embrace one and reject the other?’ Probably. In fact, I’d say it’s inevitable. The twist, though, comes when the protagonist discovers he once served the opposing narrative (and he is now on the opposite side of that narrative). In such a story, the hero would probably develop empathy toward his previous incarnation . . . but would that change his heroic path? Answering that question is the inspiration for my novel. My goal then is to write a coming-of-age story that follows the tropes of the epic fantasy genre but to also subvert those tropes by presenting a protagonist who could be either a hero or a villain. Time will tell if I get it right.

Who is your favourite character in the novel and why?
Crag. I really like the fat peddler because he is so enigmatic and full of surprises. He's also a stark contrast from either Sodar or Tosan (who are constantly pulling Annev, trying to mold him into what they want him to be).

Don't get me wrong, I love Sodar and Tosan immensely (for very different reasons), but Crag has a unique charm to him that you don't see elsewhere in the novel. He's a glimpse into something Annev could potentially become – a third path that doesn't follow either Tosan or Sodar – and that's enticing to someone like Annev. I liked writing Kenton's character for similar reasons, but he was much harder to write. Crag, on the other hand, came naturally to me.

Which scene was the most difficult to write?
Many scenes were difficult to write, but they were all difficult for different reasons. If I had to pick just one of those, though, I'd probably say the scenes surrounding and including the Test of Judgment. I had originally expected that entire sequence of chapters to take 20-30 pages (two or three chapters in total). In the end, if you count the chapters building up to the Test of Judgment, the whole sequence is around nine chapters (over a hundred pages). You might think that would mean I had written far more than I had intended, but you'd be wrong. I covered more or less everything I had wanted to include for that sequence of the story, but the events were difficult to properly narrate without being either too sparse or too didactic. I could see it all playing out in my head, but when I tried to put it to paper, the pacing was off or the narration was unclear or the characters' actions felt redundant. It was a frustrating, unwieldy monstrous scene that was also critically important to get right because so much was riding on its presentation: details about character relationships, their strengths and weaknesses, how things are run at the Academy, how Annev chooses to deal with his own inner turmoil while also solving the riddle of the arena. At the same time, the arena itself must be a real spectacle for the reader and the puzzle it contains must be no less impressive. Getting it all right without slowing down the pace or making the sequence unsatisfying was one of the most challenging things I did in the process of writing this first book. I only succeeded because I vomited it all out (so I had something to work with), and then I went back and began cutting, polishing, and revising. It was a bloody ordeal, but in the end, it came together. Gillian Redfearn at Gollancz UK also helped me clean up the pieces that were muddled or slowing down the pace too much (editors are great for things like that, especially when you're too much in the thick of things to see what still needs fixing). I'm very happy where things finally ended, and I've been told by many people that this sequence is their favourite part of the book. I try to remember that whenever I'm pushing through another rough section of narrative. It doesn't solve any problems, but it's a nice reminder that problems have to be formed into a narrative before they can be fixed, which means it's best to just embrace your flaws and get the damn story told.

What kind of readers do you think will enjoy your book?
I think fans of Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan will love Master of Sorrows (and the rest of The Silent Gods tetralogy) because those authors have written truly epic stories that managed to feel authentic without resorting to extreme morbidity, sexuality, or violence. The result is a compelling narrative that appeals to both adults and YA readers without excluding or pandering to either group.

Having said that, I expect some folks will still claim my books are too graphic – too profane, too visceral – but I would politely disagree. Likewise, some might say my series is too tame, too sanitized or too juvenile. Again, though, I would disagree. I have beta readers ranging from precocious Chinese nine-year-olds to jaded 60-year-old Harvard grads, and across every spectrum, folks have enjoyed the book with unreserved enthusiasm.

Are there any other books you might compare your work to?
Speaking in a general sense, Master of Sorrows is a coming-of-age story about a protagonist whose moral and ethical choices are sometimes ambiguous. It would be fair then to compare The Silent Gods series to R.A. Salvatore's Dark Elf Trilogy, Edward W. Robertson's Cycle of Arawn, Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicle, and Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. The magic system is also complex, which makes it easy to compare to Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere collection. In fact, as I read more from Sanderson's Cosmere, I sometimes get the feeling that we are describing different parts of the same universe or that the prime world from my series (Luquatra) could pass as another world from Sanderson's Cosmere. None of this is intentional of course (I mapped out the cosmology and most of the magic systems for The Silent Gods before Elantris or Mistborn were published), but my approach to writing is similar to Sanderson as is the level of thought we put into our magic systems. Much of that isn't apparent in Master of Sorrows, though, because the protagonist is still learning how to control his magic (and what kind of magic he possesses). Yet, as the series evolves, I expect our readers will find many unintentional parallels.

Second to Brandon Sanderson, my writing has been most often compared to Patrick Rothfuss. In fact, I once had an editor pitch my book series as akin to an ‘evil Patrick Rothfuss’ (comparing Annev from The Silent Gods to Kvothe from The Kingkiller Chronicle). To be sure, there is truth in that comparison, but there are many differences, too. For example, I like writing heroes who have moral ambiguities, and I like writing nuanced anti-heroes who are still empathetic. Kvothe falls into that spectrum, and his training at the Arcanum has some parallels to Annev’s training at the Academy. Kvothe and Annev also have dark impulses that can be described as subjectively good or bad, and they have trouble submitting to authority figures. This usually gets them both into trouble and, when that happens, they are both prone to using their wits to solve their problems.

Having said all that, it is worth noting that Kvothe is also a brilliant, charismatic storyteller – a true Edema Ruh trouper – and that he has both seen and experienced the good and the bad that the world has to offer him. Even before Kvothe enters the University, he’s world-weary and wise, full of the teachings of Abernathy, the hard lessons of Tarbean, and the tales and songs of his troupe. Kvothe’s story is also told in first-person, and the language Rothfuss uses to tell that story is simply beautiful. Annev, on the other hand, leads a sheltered life. He knows practically nothing of the outside world save what Sodar and the Ancients have taught him, and most of that is conflicting. His story is also written in third-person in a style that is more urbane than poetic. Their journeys might therefore be similar, but their narratives are very different. Kvothe starts out bold and brash, whereas Annev is earnest and hopeful. Circumstances then harden them, shaping them into ‘heroic anti-heroes,’ but Annev is not a trouper (nor will he ever be) and I estimate his final shape will be something altogether more grand (and more dark) than what Kvothe eventually becomes (though I’d have to read Doors of Stone to say that with more certainty).

That's it!

We've come to the end of my (overly) long interview with Random House, but I've still got a bucket full of Q&A interviews with other bloggers. I'll see about sharing more of those over the coming days and weeks (particularly as we get closer to the date of my UK book launch), but I'll also be sharing some reviews of Master of Sorrows from some of my favorite bloggers.

Punctuating all of that will be a few other blog posts I've been meaning to write that deal with something I call 'resonance' and 'authenticity' in writing. David Farland wrote a blog post about the former just a few weeks ago, and I wanted to share some of his words along with my own observations (made several years before he wrote the blog post). Till then, I'll let you chew on what's here.

T-T-F-N.

Grimdark, Grimlight, and Noblebright

I wanted to take a break from my Q&A with Random House (Blanvalet-Verlag) to discuss something that's been on my mind recently.

Grimdark.

If you're unfamiliar with the Grimdark genre, it's because the word was coined only recently (like in the last 5-10 years). In fact, wikipedia has this quote:

"Grimdark is a subgenre of speculative fiction with a tone, style, or setting that is particularly dystopian, amoral, or violent. The term is inspired by the tagline of the tabletop strategy game Warhammer 40,000: 'In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war.'"

So it can get pretty dank up in thar. Most characters are grey (or very dark), and there is very little in the way of definite virtue. Instead, everything is kind of harsh. The world? In decline. The setting? Bleak. The characters? Amoral.

Sometimes those stories are profane, vulgar, and vile (and people love them). Sometimes they aren't any of those things, but there is a pervading sense of nihilism or "grimness" that leaves everything feeling . . . well . . . dark. And when the themes become so dark they take on a life of their own, we begin venturing into horror, which one may argue is right on the border of Grimdark.

But then there is the exact opposite Grimdark: a genre of fiction that people are calling "Noblebright." Returning to Wikipedia...

Another trope proposed to provide a contrast to grimdark is "noblebright", which takes as its premise that not only are there good fights worth fighting, but that they are also winnable and result in a happy ending.

Clear? Sort of. Let's shed even more light on the distinction, though, by turning to the description given on NobleBright.org:

The words grimdark and noblebright arose as technical terms in the gaming world. There’s a certain amount of dispute about the exact definitions there, with a tendency to paint them in black and white terms (such as the slur that noblebright is all about rainbows and unicorns and flawless heroes).

In fiction, by contrast, especially adventure fiction (in which I class things like Westerns and Fantasy) they have come to be used to reflect two different and opposed styles of story. Since there is some dispute about the definitions, it behooves me to offer my own.

GRIMDARK

The notion that the actions of one person can do little to improve this world in decline, that the forces of evil and inertia and temptation will ensure that all of us are doomed. The best we can hope for is a little struggle with morally ambiguous heroes to oppose danger and maybe rescue for a brief time a few others.

NOBLEBRIGHT
The notion that the actions of one person can make a difference, that even if the person is flawed and opposed by strong forces, he can (and wants to) rise to heroic actions that, even if they may cost him his life, improve the lives of others.

So there you have it. The majority of folks would say that Grimdark is, at its heart, nihilistic. Noblebright is, by contrast, hopeful.

Now, I tend to view myself (as an author and as a person) as someone who embraces hope. That should make me a Noblebright author.

And yet, I've had a strong visceral reaction against fantasy novels that portray overly noble characters (people that seem too good to be true). I have a hard time stomaching repeated nobility and often incredible virtue. Why? Because most people AREN'T LIKE THAT. People are vain. People are selfish. People are cruel. Not all of us, but enough that I'm skeptical of anyone's intentions till I get to know them better. I may try to give every person the benefit of the doubt (even those people whom others have written off as being terrible people), but I only do that until I can form a decision for myself.

So does that make me Noblebright or Grimdark? I think neither.

My desire is to tell stories that feel authentic (that resonate with real life, even while being entirely fantastic). That means I tell stories with bad people in them doing bad things. That means there are also good people trying to do good (and trying to remain good).

But not everyone succeeds. Sometimes, good people become bad. Sometimes the bad ones redeem themselves. More often, we're all struggling to do what we perceive to be good. We are all the heroes of our own story and, as such, our actions don't seem evil (to us). So my goal is to tell that story. My goal is to show someone trying to be good . . . and failing.

Because we all fail. None of us is perfect. None of us is the white knight or the superman whose motives are beyond question. Each of us -- every single one of us -- makes mistakes. Sometimes they are bad, and sometimes they are VERY bad. Sometimes we acknowledge our mistakes, and sometimes we don't.

That's probably a grim outlook on life, but I think it's also a true one. It's not void of hope -- it's not "nihilistic" -- but it's realistic. It's authentic.

But "authentic" isn't a subgenre in fantasy (and probably never should be given that we are talking about speculative fiction). So let me propose a different term:

Grimlight.

It's gritty (just like real life), but there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Some characters will pursue that light, no matter the costs. Others will say that cost is too high. And people from BOTH groups can be objectively bad or good. You may see the light, for example, but are you willing to sacrifice others to obtain it? Doesn't that make you a villain? Alternatively, if you have a chance to change the world for the better, but you decide the cost is too great, does that make you a hero?

I think the answer is that we are all heroes and villains. Heroes to ourselves, certainly (well, usually), and villains to our adversaries. It's rare to be considered a hero by your adversaries, right? I'm safe in saying at least that, I think.

Anyway. If I'm going to place myself between those two genres, I usually find myself leaning towards Grimdark because it feels the most honest. And I want to tell an honest story. At the same time, my belief that flawed people can rise to heroic actions would place me in the Noblebright camp. I'm not sure how often that happens, though. Half the time? More? Less? It really depends on the person doing the action and the people objectively judging that action.

And that's all subjective, which is why I feel more comfortable with the term "Grimlight." To better explain that term, though, I'm going to refer to a conversation I had recently on the Grimdark Fiction Facebook group. The context is a debate about what makes readers like or dislike YA fiction. I chimed in with this:

I'm curious about a lot of this since I wrote my first book as a gritty epic fantasy (debatable grimdark), but the protagonist is young, so many people have slid it into the YA genre. That's fine for now I guess, but my protagonist isn't going to be 17 years old forever. And if by Book 3 they are 30 years old and drinking the blood of their enemies from a human skull...is that still YA?

Another member, Jenny Windler Sullivan, responded with this:

I know a lot of people consider a book to be YA based in the age of the protagonist. I think this is a bad way to do things, look at Mark Lawrence's Prince of Thorns story. The lead is only a child but it is definitely not middle grade. It should be based on story content. And there are definitely books with inappropriate content like sex that get slipped into YA that should be considered new adult or adult as they are really too mature for a 14 yr old (like a court if thorns and roses series by Sarah j maas). So the water is muddied a bit. Maybe due to YA being a quite popular genre right now and wanting to get their hand in the pot.

And I followed up with this insight:

Exactly. Same thing with the Book of the Ancestor series (also by Mark). When the protagonist is young, people make assumptions. 
I think another part of the problem (if it can be considered a problem at all) is that many youth WANT to read more adult novels, and publishers are recognizing that. There are no hard lines in YA that say how many swear words you can have, or how much violence is too much violence, or how much profanity/sex/taboo stuff you can insert before parents are uncomfortable with what their kids are reading (and kids feel like they have to hide it from their parents).
At the same time, there is a great huge swathe of adults who like reading "adult fantasy" but who get uncomfortable when there is an excess of any of the things mentioned above. Now, those adults could go into the YA section, but they usually don't. Instead, they look for authors like Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan. They look for the books that feel 3-dimensional and authentic, but which aren't so dark or profane as to offend themselves or their families. 

I think writing for that particular audience must be very hard, especially when you want to stay authentic to the people and situations in your stories, which may mean allowing your characters to do very bad things (and then describing those bad things). How you choose to describe them (how often and in how much detail) is what determines whether your writing is really dark and gritty Grimdark (the stuff young kids shouldn't be touching) or whether it's Grimdark-lite (Grimdark-light?).

There should be a name for that. Maybe Grimlight. Heh. Yeah, I'm coining that.

In an entirely separate discussion in the same Facebook group, we were discussing the differences between Dark Fantasy and Grimdark (if there really is a difference), and one member, Henry Lopez, said this:

 I think the main point of distinction are the characters (both protagonists and antagonists), In Grimdark stories, I find that they are three dimensional characters that are neither wholly good or evil, while in Dark Fantasy, the characters are "good" dealing with dark and horrific situations. Obviously, this isn't a blanket statement, but I find it to be true for most of what I've read.

Based on Henry's definition, I'm definitely a Grimdark writer. But based on what I've already outlined here, it's not so black-and-white as all that (which is ironic, given all the discussion of greys in Grimdark lit). I don't really write horror either, though there are often horrific elements in my stories.

Ultimately, I still place myself squarely in the epic fantasy subgenre, but a lot of that is rife with what we might call Noblebright fiction . . . and I'm less comfortable with that label.

Grimlight, though? That feels right. In fact, as I search the interwebs for any previous mentions of this term, I'm finding that Barnes and Noble already coined it when discussing The Grey Bastards by Jonathan French (check it out here). Speaking of his book, Sam Reader said:

The Grey Bastards delivers a tonic to fantasy stories of unrelenting cynicism. It refuses to go easy on its heroes, but also recognize that making things hard for them doesn’t mean the book has to be hard on its readers. When it does trade in grimdark tropes, rather than revel in them, it interrogates their presence in the story. It is a story of harsh characters within a harsh realm, but its heroes are trying to do better and be better. And in a world where light and comfort are rare commodities,  that makes all the difference.

Now that sounds like the kind of books I write (and the kind of story I've set out to tell in Master of Sorrows and The Silent Gods series). Is it Grimlight or just optimistic Grimdark? I favor Grimlight myself, but I'm curious to know what y'all think. Please share your comments below.

The post Grimdark, Grimlight, and Noblebright appeared first on Justin T Call.

Q&A for Random House (Part 2 of 3)

Ahoy, ahoy! If you’re just joining us, you may want to refer back to my previous blog post wherein I explained the context for my Q&A interview with the German division of Random House. Otherwise, let’s jump right into Part Deux.

Where do you find the inspiration for your novels?

I find my inspiration in everything. Everything I read, everything I see. Any idle thought or observation can be a seed that sprouts into something great or small. I wrote about this in-depth as part of my master’s thesis at Harvard, but one example explained how the Sword of Seeking (an artifact that appears in Book 2 of The Silent Gods) was influenced by Clarent from Arthurian legend (sometimes incorrectly named Excalibur), and the Liahona from the Book of Mormon. It was also indirectly inspired by the namesake from Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series and from the blade Blackheartseeker in Gary Gygax’s Gord the Rogue series. So pagan myth and Judeo-Chistian theology have been strong influences on my work, as have the writings of modern fantasy authors.

Beyond all that, much of my inspiration comes from analysis and conjecture. For example, Chinese tradition describes the five elements as: fire, water, earth, wood, and metal. In Hinduism, these five elements are: earth, water, fire, air, and void (or space). In occidental culture, we have only four elements: earth, air, fire, and water – but if you’re a fan of the animated TV series Captain Planet , you’ll remember a fifth element was added: Heart.

Reading and comparing these cultural perspectives led me to wonder what it would be like to have a culture that only viewed the world as possessing three elements: quaire, lumen, and t’rasang (alternatively called skywater, lightfire, and earthblood, which are themselves elemental abstracts of mind, spirit, and body, respectively). Having imagined that (and having created three Gods for each of these elements), I decided to explode one of these ‘prime’ elements into five sub-elements, which is how minerals, plants, animals, space (void), and death (fate) all spawned from earthblood.

What kind of story are you writing at the moment?

I’m writing an epic fantasy series! That seems droll, I know, but it’s succinct and precisely describes the story I hope to tell. Master of Sorrows is epic, both in terms of physical size and supporting themes. At the same time, it is undeniably fantastic, possessing both complex magic systems and creatively constructed cultures. Master of Sorrows is also the first volume in The Silent Gods tetralogy, a series I have painstakingly constructed for over a decade, which is itself part of the larger story outlined in my Lore of Luquatra notes. If I tell this first story well enough (and I find an audience that is eager to read more), I have outlines for additional books in the series . . . but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Those are the broad strokes, of course. If I were to speak more toward the themes of my story, I would instead say that I am trying to write a fantasy series where the villain sees himself as the real hero. If I can do that well – if I can write a story where the audience empathizes with the would-be villain – then perhaps I’ll have achieved my aim. It’s a delicate balance, though, since I need to actually conceive of my protagonist as a hero if I am to faithfully represent his world perspective.

Anyhow, that’s what I told Random House regarding Master of Sorrows, but I am technically no longer writing that book (since it’s going to be published in a few weeks). What I’m working on right now (as of the day of this blog post) is Book 2 of The Silent Gods, a novel that I am tentatively calling Master of the Forge. I won’t say much about what that book is about just now because folks are still waiting to read Book 1, but I will say that more of Annev’s “heroic arc” is being fulfilled. You’ll see more definition added to the magic system (more rules, more castes, more layers), and you’ll get a better idea of who (or what) is trying to fight the main character. You’ll also get a nice chunk of character development for most of the minor characters who survived Master of Sorrows, plus two more minor characters who were referenced but who appeared only briefly. Quite frankly, it’s a lot to try and fit into one book, and that tells me Master of the Forge will almost certainly be longer than my first novel . . . but I doubt fans will be complaining.

Who are your favorite authors? And why?

This is a hard one because some authors inspired me as a youth (recently exposed to the fantasy genre), and some authors inspire me still today (even after studying and practicing the genre for this long). For example, Fritz Leiber’s Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser inspired Gary Gygax’s characters Chert the Barbarian and Gord the Rogue. Gygax in turn inspired me and led me back to Fritz Leiber. Likewise, I read a good deal of fantasy literature before discovering J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, so I was inspired by Tolkien’s themes before I had even read his series.

Having said that, there are certain fantasy authors that continue to resound in my subconscious, and their influences can be felt as an echo in my own writings (though their resonance may be too subtle for others too notice). These are, in no particular order…

- David Eddings (because he was the first fantasy author I read and because I love how Gods, men, and prophecy influence each other in his stories);

- Robert Jordan (because of the depth and breadth of what he contributed to the genre);

- Brandon Sanderson (because of everything he’s taught me via reading his stories, listening to his lectures and podcasts, and studying his writing methodology and magic systems);

- R.A. Salvatore (because the strangeness of Menzoberranzan’s dark elf culture gave me something to aspire to);

- Edward W. Robertson (because reading Dante Galand’s story showed me how to make an anti-heroic necromancer still seem heroic);

- Patrick Rothfuss (because his stories are uniquely beautiful and worth aspiring to).

Each of these authors has weaknesses (as all authors inevitably do), and I am not blind to them. Even so, I take inspiration from their strengths and I pay careful heed to the things I would like to do better (assuming I can do better than any of them).

Even so, I will give a second nod to Sanderson and Rothfuss because they are my contemporaries and because their writing styles and outputs are so uniquely different. Likewise, I frequently find similarities between their writing and my own and that gives me two good measuring sticks for guiding myself as an author, particularly as I seek to establish my own voice, style, and writing practices. I’m not vain enough to say I am a hybrid of the two authors (well, okay, maybe I am that vain, but I won’t say it aloud). What I will instead say is that, if I could synthesize the best of those two men, that’s the type of writer I aspire to be.

Which books did you read recently?

Given that I answered this question a few months ago, my answers have changed since then. I’ll tell you what I told Random House, though:

“I recently finished reading Arcanum Unbounded, and I must say I was delighted to read something with Kelsier in it again (and Spook, if only briefly). I also re-read The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss (still as good as I remember – better actually), and just before that I had finished reading Ed McDonald’s brilliant debut novel Blackwing. Its sequel, Ravencry, just came out and I am starting to read that. I use the term ‘read’ very loosely, though, since it has been a long time since I’ve actually read a book. Instead, I listen to audiobooks. I usually do this when I’m driving my children to school or doing housework, and that makes it easier to keep up with my reading list. Otherwise, if I find the leisure to sit down and read a tangible book, I typically use that time to write my own fantasy series.”

Today, I would say that I finished reading/listening to Ravencry (which was great) and I am simultaneously reading the hard copy to Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence (his Book of the Ancestor series is phenomenal), and I am listening to The Runelords by David Farland, which is a series I explored as a teen but which I didn’t get a chance to finish because the series wasn’t finished yet and life got in the way of things. A similar thing has happened to R.A. Salvatore’s books, wherein I’ve read half his body of literature but nothing written in the last decade (something I hope to amend in the near future).

What is your philosophy in life?

My faith keeps me pretty grounded, so I treat others as I want to be treated and try not to sweat the small stuff. I see the good and bad in everything, but I spend more time focusing on silver linings and trying to empathize with others. I’m not always good at this last part, but I think intentions count for about 1/5 of actions (regardless of whether that’s actually true). Overall, I’d say that I’m neither an optimist nor a pessimist but a ‘realistic idealist.’ I think that’s good ground for any fantasy author to be standing on.

To illustrate this point, I’ll mention two sayings that I often reflect on and which, consequently, guide most of my actions. The first is ‘This too shall pass,’ which I take to mean ‘Bad stuff doesn’t last forever, so be patient and push through it and things will get better.’ It has a second meaning, though: ‘Good stuff doesn’t last forever, so appreciate what you have while you have it.’ Some people might think that’s a pessimistic view of life, but I disagree. It keeps me mindful of the future while being grateful for the past and present. It also enables me to be nostalgic for the present while I am still living it.

The second saying that I live by is ‘One must always have the foresight to plan for the unforeseen, if not in detail then in substance.’ This is similar to the Boy Scout Motto, ‘Be Prepared,’ (though less concise). The take-away, though, is that I believe we can handle any surprises in our lives so long as we have the foresight to anticipate them. We may not know exactly what to expect (as that is the nature of surprises), but even acknowledging that – acknowledging that sometimes we can’t anticipate the future, good or bad – is a small way of immunizing ourselves to life’s unseen challenges. The consequence of these two philosophies is that I am a very grateful person who savours the present, appreciates the past, and ponders the future. I plan for a lot of things and, while I find comfort in routine, I also enjoy adapting to whatever life throws at me.

A few other things round out my philosophy on life, which I’ll mention briefly here, but I won’t expound on them for fear of being too didactic:

– Ignorance breeds impatience.

– Anything worth doing is worth doing well.

– No one will believe in you more than you believe in yourself.

– Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. – Voltaire

– Don’t leave for tomorrow what you can do today. – Claudio M. Costa

What do you do when you’re not writing?

Lots of things (too many, probably). I take care of my two boys when they aren’t in school, plus our two large-breed dogs (a Great Dane and a St. Bernard-Mastiff). I also mentor students in China who are learning English. I own a board game company (Broomstick Monkey Games) and have co-designed one title (Imperial Harvest) as well as its sequel (Royal Strawberries). I don’t actively publish or design tabletop games right now, but I enjoy playing and sharing games with others and I love attending game conventions when that’s possible. I also enjoy playing League of Legends when I am between writing projects (I’m pretty terrible at it, but I enjoy playing as Teemo and Shaco). I generally stay away from video games, though, since they distract me from my fantasy writing. Outside of board games, I love movies (I studied both screenwriting and novel writing in college) and I make it a point to see any superhero movie that reaches the theatres (though, again, I don’t do that as often as I’d like). If I’m not doing any of those things, you can probably find me doing house projects or traveling with my family.

Five things about you we don’t know yet …

(1) I’m not a big sports guy (quite the opposite, actually), but I enjoy playing hockey (in all its forms) as well as non-traditional sports like dodgeball, capture-the-flag, laser tag, paintball, and e-sports. I also have a green belt in Judo.

(2) Despite being an introvert, I love performing and speaking in front of people; I am an amateur actor, voice-over artist, and magician (very out of practice, but I still know my way around a deck of cards). I also did a lot of theatre in high school and won a national acting competition for experienced duo-comedy actors.

(3) Despite having some acting chops, my sister Whitney Call (Meek) is the big actress in the family. She’s a professional writer-comedian whom many folks have seen on the BYUtv show Studio C . Whitney and I were always very close growing up and we have been fierce supporters of each other’s creative careers. I’m immensely proud of her and won’t hesitate to tell people that she (and her husband Stephen) are two of the most talented people I know. You can look for their new creative endeavor JK! Studios the same year my book is released.

(4) A few years ago, I had the idea of building a perma-wardrobe composed entirely of greys, blacks, and yellows (my favourite colours). Since then, I’ve been hunting for the perfect shirt-pants-shoes combo – one that I can buy a dozen copies of so that I’ll never have to fret over which clothes to put on when I wake up in the morning. This is partially due to the fact that I’m colour blind, but the larger reason is that I want to minimize my wardrobe choices while focusing my decision-making on more important things (like character arcs and series plot points). I think it’s also fun to give yourself a ‘brand’ (something visual that people associate with you), and I’m just eccentric enough to take great delight in that.

(5) I enjoy repurposing things that others have abandoned, which can range from reviving archaic words and phrases to recycling or reusing discarded hardware. This (along with my proclivity for prototyping board games) has turned me into an accidental arts-and-crafts hobbyist. This has also translated into having a strong affinity and affection for abandoned buildings, ancient ruins, and post-apocalyptic settings. I just learned that this makes me an “urbexer” (urban explorer), though I don’t explore ruined buildings that would be illegal to enter (…yet). More often I explore disused and ignored parts of cities and neighborhoods – basically, anything people overlook and drive right past as if it’s part of the background (or that they choose to ignore). I’ve found some great places doing this (hostels, board game cafes, hobby and craft stores, etc). I’ve also met a lot of quirky cashiers and store owners who are willing to tell you their life story. Haha.

That’s all for now.

Tune in next week and I’ll answer all the sordid questions asked about my soon-to-be-published-debut-novel, Master of Sorrows.

The post Q&A for Random House (Part 2 of 3) appeared first on Justin T Call.

Q&A for Random House (Part 1 of 3)

A few months ago I was asked to answer a series of questions (a rather long series of questions) for my publisher Blanvalet/Penhaligon, which is the fantasy subdivision of Random House in Germany (if you’re reading this on my website, you’ll see the German cover for Master of Sorrows, which has been translated as Sohn der Sieben, or “Son of Seven”). It took me a while to answer that questionnaire, but lots of good things came from that:

First, when someone in Germany wants to ask Blanvalet a question, they probably won’t need to stop and get a hold of me because I’ve (hopefully) answered that question ahead of time. (That’s good for Random House.)

Second, because I filled out all those questions (perhaps in more detail than they wanted), I was able to copy a great deal of that info and use it for my bio page here on my website. (Yay for me!)

Third, because I answered a lot of questions for my German publisher, there’s a pretty good chance no one is going to see either those questions or their answers unless they also speak German. That means I’ve got a rather hefty questionnaire that nobody is ever going to read in English

. . . which means I get to post it here. (Yay for you!)

Now normally I won’t post interviews prior to it being released elsewhere on the interwebs (I don’t want to steal the thunder of the bloggers and publishers, after all), and those interviews are usually timed to come out the same time as a new book launch or some other noteworthy event. But Blanvalet/Random House will be posting that interview in German, and they’ll be posting it in a few weeks anyway, so I don’t think I’m injuring anyone by slowly leaking my answers to some of their questions.

So let’s get started.

A few biographical details about yourself (vita, education, family life, hobbies, etc.):

Well, that’s quite a bit of stuff once you list it like that, so I had a long answer for this one . . . which you can read on my bio page. Haha. https://justintcall.com/about-justin/

Do you use any social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc.)?:

Do people still use MySpace? Wow. That’s a throwback. I use Facebook and Twitter, though Twitter is my preferred social networking platform (check out @Justin_T_Call for updates). I also have accounts on Instagram and LinkedIn, but I use them infrequently. I maintain an account on BoardGameGeek.com (BGG), which is a social site for board gamers, game designers, and gaming enthusiasts, but I don’t frequent it as often as I once did (a bit of a rabbit hole if you love tabletop games as much as I do). I like to visit it when I can though, particularly if I am designing or playtesting a new game.

The last social media site I use, which I am ashamed to admit is a bit of a recent thing, is Goodreads. Someday I’d like to update my bookshelf with all the books I’ve read but never logged and then keep it running like a smoothly oiled machine . . . but that day is not today. For now, I’ve got some of my favorite and/or most memorable novels posted, and I try to keep it up-to-date with whatever I’m currently reading. I also sync my blog with the Goodreads website, so there is a good chance you’re reading this on Goodreads instead of my personal website (https://justintcall.com/blog/). If the opposite is true, though, you should head over to my Goodreads page, rate my book(s), and ask me a question. I promise to respond promptly.

Do you write for any publication?

Nope! I’ve done a good deal of professional writing and creative writing, but I’ve never submitted my stories to magazines or websites (that I can recall). My main excuse for that is I always knew I wanted to be an epic fantasy writer, and it seemed strange to write shorter fiction for another publication. I’ve written a few screenplays, though. One of those has been in pre-development for about five years now, so I’m not sure what will come of it, but I have studied screenwriting professionally at both Harvard and BYU-Idaho as well as independently.

Have you written any short stories?

Yes (I’ve even written some tolerable poetry), but I’ve never tried to publish it. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, when I write I tend to write long, so it is both rare and difficult for me to write something shorter that I also consider objectively good. I hope to change that someday, but I’d need a phenomenal idea for a short story before I’d attempt it. Before doing that, I’m more likely to write a series of chapter books for young children (based on the world from my Royal Strawberries games); I expect the series would have a whimsical fantasy theme consistent for a collection of chapter books and that it would follow the misadventures of a roguish thief and a whimsical fairy (characters from the world of Royal Strawberries). I’m not sure when I’d carve out time to write such a series, but doing so would provide a nice break from the heavier themes in The Silent Gods. I’m also fascinated with the structure of children’s chapter books (like Magic Treehouse or even The Princess in Black, which are all books I have to read my kids), and since it’s hard to read epic fantasy to small children, I’ve often thought about what it would be like to try my hand at the same storytelling model.

Why did you decide to become an author?

I like to create things – at my core, I’m a creator before anything else – and I like to tell stories. It stands to reason then that I would enjoy writing my own fiction stories. I began dictating such tales to my mother when I was five years old (a few of which I also illustrated) and my grandfather paid to have one of these bound, though only four copies were printed. That book was called Trick, the Good Bad Turkey and was (unsurprisingly) about a turkey who played tricks on his barnyard friends. That set the path for me.

As I grew older, I enjoyed expanding on stories I’d seen in the movies or on television, but I mostly stayed away from books (excepting comic book treasuries like Calvin & Hobbes, Garfield, and The Far Side). That changed when I was ten and discovered Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, which I would always re-read until I had experienced every possible story outcome. I discovered David Eddings’ Elenium and Tamuli series when I was thirteen or fourteen, and from thence I began devouring the best fantasy novels I could find (I also began playing Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, though MTG lasted about two years and D&D stuck with me for the next ten years or so). During that time I read the Belgariad and the Malloreon (also by Eddings), and started in on R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt and Forgotten Realms books. I also read several books by Gary Gygax featuring Gord the Rogue (I did mention I was playing D&D, didn’t I?).

Anyhow, that was mostly just for fun, though it all set the stage for my love of fantasy and gaming. Then, when I was seventeen and about to start college, I spent a feverish night plotting out my educational path for the next four years. I read the synopsis for every class in Southern Oregon University’s catalog and plotted a four-year degree, during which I decided I wanted to become a fantasy novelist (with a few fall-backs in case my lofty goals were derailed). Even though I only stayed at SOU for a year, I more or less stuck to that plan. By the time I was studying Literature and Creative Writing at Harvard, I knew I really would become an author. My classes all pointed towards me being an excellent student, and I just needed to the right balance of time, luck, and perseverance.

But why exactly did I choose that path? That requires some deeper explanation.

I am the first to acknowledge I might have done other things with my life; I had excellent grades in school (including at Harvard), and at various times I have considered being a criminal lawyer, an advertiser, a film actor, a teacher, a physicist, and a reconstructive surgeon. I probably could have been any of those things, but I chose to be a writer because I felt it was something I had to do; I have too many stories filling my head, and my passion for writing has ruined me for more banal professions. I am both analytical and intuitive, and that combination makes me easily distracted: I am prone to conjuring stories out of overheard conversations, facial expressions, board game instructions, and word origins; I can be clever (even brilliant), but I am also absent-minded; I am frequently thoughtless, yet I have a keen sense of understanding and empathizing with people when I focus on them; I am a logophile – a ‘lover of words’ – and I enjoy deducing the roots and origins of both new and old languages. And, while I admit to sometimes being overly-analytical, I have neither the intention nor the desire to change. I am a touch eccentric (something I’ve known since I was a child), and when you cobble that all together, being a fantasy writer is the only rational way I can be myself and also feed my family.

I suspect I may also have a minor mental disorder.

No really. It sounds like a joke, but I’m being serious — and that’s not something I mentioned in my questionnaire for Random House. Haha.

In reality, I have a sleeping disorder (EDS or Excessive Daytime Sleepiness) and a form of OCD that isn’t visible and doesn’t impair my day-to-day living (and if I explained what it was, you’d find it hilariously abnormal). There’s probably a touch of something else there, too, but whatever it is keeps me quirky and delightful — and prone to absent-mindedness, insensitivity, and unintentional callousness . . .

But then, I know plenty of people who are those things without a mental disorder, so I think I’m doing all right.

So there it is.

Why did I decide to be a writer? The most succinct answer would be: “Because I was born to be one.”

Tune into next week’s blog post and I’ll share Part 2 of my interview with Random House wherein I discuss things like…

. . . the kind of story I am writing right now,

. . . who my favorite authors are,

. . . and why I take such joy in psychological torture and the sweet, sweet taste of human tears.

Until then.

The post Q&A for Random House (Part 1 of 3) appeared first on Justin T Call.

Happy New Year

It’s a new year, and that means a new blog post. My debut fantasy novel comes out in less than two months now (UK release first, then Germany in March and the US release this Fall), and my head is still spinning a bit from the fact that something I’ve spent over a decade building will soon be in people’s hands. A world I’ve spent a third of my life creating will be devoured in the space a few days (for those who read quickly), and suddenly thousands of people will be exposed to a world I create out of whole cloth.

What does that even mean? “Whole cloth.” Obviously a tailoring reference but it bothers me not to understand its origin better.

Anyhow, I’m getting distracted. My point was that something very intimate and personal will soon be shared with many, many people. Some of those people will like it — if I am lucky, most of them will love it — but there will also be some who hate it. Among those will be some who felt the book wasn’t dark enough. Others will probably say it was too dark. I’m wise enough to know I can’t please everyone, of course, but it makes me want to apologise before the book has even been released to the public.

You see, when I wrote Master of Sorrows, my goal was to write the story of a hero who might also be the villain, depending on the lens with which he was viewed.

That’s an important distinction. Despite what publicists and marketing folks may say, I’m not writing a story about someone who is good and becomes evil. Life isn’t as simple as all that. Real life — authentic life — has each person believing they are the hero of their own story. So how do you represent that? How do you tell that story in a personable way and still remain objective? And how do you do it justice without either giving away too much too soon or else withholding too much of what the readers came there to read?

So these are the things I think about when I wait for the reviews to roll in for Book 1. These are the questions I weigh as I write Book 2. They are exciting questions — they are the very reason I want to tell this particular story — but getting them just right can be incredibly difficult, and I’m painfully aware that, no matter what choices I make as an author, someone out there will feel I’m doing it wrong.

And yet, I trust that I am not. I believe in this story — The Silent Gods series specifically, but more generally in Annev’s tale and what it represents — and I believe I can tell it in a way that will satisfy most readers (far more than the majority) so long as they stick with me to the end. I believe that everybody (or almost everybody) will get what they want and what they expected, but not in the way they are expecting to get it.

And isn’t that the best kind of story? One that is surprising yet inevitable?

That’s my hope for the New Year, anyway. I’ll be doing a lot more blog posts in the future — some fun ones about the magic system in The Silent Gods, some more Q&A’s with bloggers, plus my general thoughts on outlines and my personal writing process — but I thought I’d start the New Year with something a little less rigid. Something less planned.

I wanted to start the New Year with hope.

I hope that everyone who reads Master of Sorrows enjoys reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I hope that readers stick with the series and enjoy its four books along with the four lenses it brings to the protagonist, Annev de Breth.

I hope people will share the story with others because, as my agent has so tenderly pointed out, “If your first book doesn’t do well, that’s it — you’re finished. You’ll sell some copies, sure, but if you don’t make a big splash, people will move on to the next big thing.”

So I sincerely hope this is the next big thing, and I hope I can earn people’s trust enough to have them liberally share my book with others that may enjoy it.

I hope to finish writing Book 2 this spring, and I hope it will be as good or better than Book 1.

I hope to make a lot of new friends, both fans and fellow writers, and that I can meet and speak to as many as possible, both online and in person.

Most of all, I hope people will find resonance with the stories I write.

Because if I can do that, it means I’m doing something right; it means I may have a future in this creative writing business (something I’ve aspired to do since I was five years old), and hopefully it means I’m providing something meaningful to the people who read my stories.

Happy New Year.

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