Karen Azinger's Blog: The Silk & Steel Saga - Posts Tagged "harry-potter"

Creating great fantasy is equal parts world building and character building. Characters are the true heart of any story. The deeper and more complex the characters, the more soul-catching the story will be. We all love to read about brilliantly strategic queens, dauntless knights, corrupt kings, and scheming princes, for it is the characters who sweep us away on tides of emotion. They make us weep for loves lost, shock us by their betrayals, and thrill us when crowns are won or lost, but none of this happens unless the reader truly cares for the characters. So how does an author create characters that are both fascinating and believable? One way is by creating a compelling backstory.

Backstory is essentially the character’s background, but for literary purposes it is far more than just the character’s place of birth, his family status, or his schooling. To create a powerful backstory, a writer needs to give his characters emotional landmarks. It is the triumphs and the scars of life that forge the very soul of the character. These emotional landmarks steer the character’s choices like a relentless compass. They give the character hidden depths and make them believable and intriguing. One of the best examples of a powerful backstory is Professor Snape in Harry Potter. Snape’s abiding love for Lilly explains all his actions, all his difficult choices. To be truly effective, the author must be consistent in how backstory influences a character’s decisions. Everything must make sense in the light of the reveal.

I’ll tell you a secret about backstory…it’s a secret! Who doesn’t love a good secret? Secrets are delicious story questions. The more secrets your characters have the more they will tantalize your readers. Give your characters lost loves, or thwarted ambitions, unfulfilled dreams, secret fears, or skeletons in their closet. An example of a great secret in Game of Thrones is 'who are Jon Snow's parents?' This question haunts the character through all the books, delighting fans with the chance to defend their own theories.

The fantasy genre provides authors with iridescent dimensions that other genres don’t have. Rare magical talents, secret skills, or a royal bloodline are often hidden in the backstory of fantasy characters. But no matter the genre, backstory provides powerful questions that weave beneath the plot and draw the reader through the story.

In my epic fantasy, The Silk & Steel Saga, you’ll find characters with secret pasts, hidden powers, suppressed loves, shocking bloodlines, and buried crimes. From the brilliant Queen Liandra, to the seductive Priestess, to the cunning Lord Raven, you’ll empathize with the good and pray they prevail but you truly feast on the bad who are utterly compelling.

I just read some great advice for writing a successful fantasy series and I thought I'd share it with you. The difference between a series and a saga is that the books in a series are stand alone. You can read them out of order or individually, but to really be successful, the author hopes to compel the reader through the entire series. Many authors count on the appeal of their characters to keep readers engaged, but JK Rowling used a better strategy. All of the Harry Potter books had two story arcs, the individual story arc for that book, like discovering the chamber of secrets, and the larger macro story arc that spanned the seven book series. JK Rowling's macro arc was defeating Voldemort. In every book, Harry Potter gains more clues and resources to defeat the dark enemy. This macro story arc draws readers through the entire series, racing to the final confrontation. Most series authors understand the need for compelling story questions for their individual books, but many neglect the greater story arc. The greater story arc is the real key to a super successful series. If you are writing a saga instead of a series, then by definition, the greater story arc spans across all the books. The secret to making a saga work, especially a long seven book saga like Silk & Steel, is embedding strong underlying themes. Strong themes keep the writer focused and on track, they buttress the central story arcs and compel the reader to the last page of the last book. I believe success is in the big picture, in using greater story arcs and powerful underlying themes. If you're courting success, consider the big picture when you write your sagas and series.