Allan Batchelder's Blog: Immortal Treachery, page 5

Prolific Author C.T. Phipps Weighs In

A Mouth Full of Grit: Writing Grimdark Sci-Fi and Fantasy
By C.T. Phipps

Fantasy has a bad reputation with casual readers, in part because literature snobs have an issue with it (I know, I work in academia) and because a lot of people just don't understand the genre. Their experience with it was the Hobbit and Narnia when they were younger or Disney films. The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice of Ice and Fire along with their adaptations in the past two decades have done a lot to change that but the reputation of it as a somewhat childish genre lingers.

Interestingly, this attitude persists in fantasy fandom as well with some of them believing the genre has been polluted with far too many Tolkien-clones that lack the original novels complexity and depth. Indeed, part of why A Song of Ice and Fire was so well-received was that it was a darker and edgier take on the genre with not only realistic consequences to events but showing just how horrible the usually idealized Middle Ages could be.

I, myself, am a fan of writing grimdark and work which pushes the envelope of traditional fantasy rules. My sci-fi novel, AGENT G: INFILTRATOR, was created with the premise of, "What would a novel be like from the perspective of the corporate samurai bad guys who work for the megacorporations?" I thought of my space opera LUCIFER'S STAR as following up the equivalent to Return of the Jedi but lacking a heroic Rebel Alliance to replace it but a far more cynical "realistic" revolution. Finally, WRAITH KNIGHT stars a Dark Lord and tells the story of how someone might become one with the greatest of intentions.

I'm not quite as gritty as some authors but I thought I would share my advice for those who want to try to be a bit darker and edgier with their writing. Here's ten tips which I've found useful when creating my stories.

1. Flaws make the protagonist
 The first piece of advice I have for any writer when creating their protagonists is DON'T try to make them likable as that's actually counterproductive in many places. Flaws make protagonists more interesting and things like bad attitudes, greed, old grudges, and more are what generate reader interest. "The Good Guy" is the most absolute boring kind of character you can create. Indeed, some of the best novels have been thoroughly awful people who are, nevertheless, interesting.

2. Bad decisions have consequences
Bad decisions happen all the time in books as heroes are expected to violate common sense. They go back for the man left behind, they try to rescue the princess, and go into battle against forces which heavily outnumber them. Which is why you should have these bad ideas...fail miserably. Not all the time but enough that it makes the setting work better. Like the hero bravely turning around to face the attacking horde then getting knocked out and all of his men slaughtered.

3. Good doesn't mean right
Similarly to the above, it's a good idea to have the most moral characters challenged in their actions. Say Prince Such and Such receives a bunch of refugees from outside of his kingdom which he fights the nobility for the protection of. Make it so this leads to other consequences like overcrowding or, if you don't want to make him the bad guy, a massive riot from the racist citizens which leads to purges. Decent actions can be hard and there's no guarantee they'll work out.

4. Happy endings or not
Happy endings are something which aren't terrible to have but it's also good to make things not quite as neat as they could be. Tolkien knew this when he had Frodo unable to cope with normal society and need to go to the Blessed Realm (which is a metaphor for premature death if I ever heard one). But yes, maybe the orcs are still around and will cause trouble for years to come. Maybe it turns out the girl who the hero has been pining for the entire time doesn't like him, is married to someone else, or is gay. Maybe the bad guys weren't entirely defeated but one got away scott free in the end. It makes things a bit more bittersweet and (again) interesting.

5. People are complicated
It's important to make sure you layer your cast with multiple dimensions. Bad people should have good qualities, even if they're monstrous terrorists who love killing, maybe they have a fondness for fine art as well as a love of children. Maybe the king who is kind, compassionate, and a decent ruler is an unrepentant misogynist or considers the peasants to be people who must obey him by divine right. Throwing in these complications makes the reader uneasy for getting a handle on them--which means they pay more attention.

6. Violence is not fun (except when it is)
Violence is inherently exciting but making it heroic is often a cheat for the reader and there should be opportunities to make it more visceral as well as upsetting. Having awkward like a mook running away, only for the hero to instinctively shoot them in the back or the smell which accompanies the disembowelment of another person with a sword is good. It makes the violence have punch rather than be a sanitized affair. In the original Star Wars there was a lot of blood leaking out of the guy who lost his arm in the Mos Eisley Cantina. Then there's the chaos and brutality of a large scale battle, which might end up in war crimes depending on the time period. These details can make battle and its aftermath more engaging prospect for readers.

7. Society sucks 
To make a gritty sci-fi or fantasy novel you should definitely make a world where there's lots of casual corruption as well as injustice. These should be features which the heroes can't actively engage with. Everyone expects it from the evil Empire but if the world just has no easy answers then it's a place which will feel real to most of us. The petty evils of bureaucracy, indifference, and so on should be everywhere even during the worst of struggles. 

8. Kill your darlings
Characters have to die in gritty works. If you can develop them before they die, so much the better. It helps to make individuals who are likable, on the protagonist's side, and who suffer a grizzly fate for their goodness. It also makes sure even if you're not going to kill or maim your protagonists that the audience isn't sure about any of their supporting cast. When developing a story, set aside some characters to be slaughtered like lambs on the altar of good storytelling.

9. The Smell of the Streets
On the subject of Wallace versus Roy, I actually found myself liking Wallace a bit more as an antagonist. Roy, despite his evidently sympathetic motivations and actions in the tail end of the original Blade Runner, still came off to me as little more than a big bully for most of the film- a grinning asshole who'd leave an innocent old foreign man to freeze in his on laboratory for no obvious reason besides his own amusement. (I hear that Rutger Hauer came up with the "tears in rain" speech himself, and it wouldn't surprise me- there's a beauty and eloquence in it that feels very much at odds with Roy's lines beforehand.) Wallace, meanwhile, is straight up insane and several layers of fucked up. I like that. I feel like you can get more out of that kind of character than someone who's mostly just a total dick, and while Blade Runner gives Roy's origins lip service, for most of the movie it seems content with his total dickishness.

Hopefully, these tips will help you write a grittier, darker, and better story.

​You can learn more about C.T. Phipps at:

www.amazon.com/C.-T.-Phipps/e/B00L32LLDY/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1511634431&sr=8-1​
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Black Friday Deal!

Multiple Award-Winning Steel, Blood & Fire is just 99 cents Thanksgiving night through Saturday night!

https://www.amazon.com/Steel-Blood-Fi...

Another Great Honor!

Steel, Blood & Fire rakes in yet another great honor, named "Distinguished Favorite" in the NYC Big Book Awards!

https://www.nycbigbookaward.com/2017d...

Grimdark Panel

Here I am with three other authors discussing grimdark. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InDm2...

Anti-Heroes

Here I am doing a panel on Anti
Heroes with fellow fantasy author Tabi Slick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlTFX...

Virtual Fantasy Con, 2017

Come by and visit my virtual booth or check me out in the Grimdark and Anti-hero panels (on video).

https://www.facebook.com/events/18017...

World Building

Some writers may find the task of world-building daunting. But if you were lucky enough to grow up like Sherman Alexie, George R. R. Martin, even or Stephen Colbert (or me), your deep and lengthy experience with Dungeons and Dragons makes the process feel like donning a favorite pair of old jeans. You are already aware, for instance, that magic must have a cost. You understand that occupied cities and territories have governments. You know that money makes the world go ‘round. In short, you’ve been dealing with the minutiae of world-building – other people’s and your own – for so long that’s it’s become almost second nature.

But what if you never played Dungeons and Dragons?

Well, that means you were one of those kids. You know, the ones with actual lives, with friends, with things to do! We D & D fans generally named our orcs and kobolds after you. But let’s suppose that now you’ve seen the light. You never played D & D, but you regret your shortsightedness and would now like advice on how to proceed with this world-building business.

Easy.

That’ll be 25 gold pieces.

I’m not kidding.

Okay, I am kidding, but it’ll cost you 250 experience points.

Fine; I’ll help you.

Consider the world you live in. It’s a poorly held secret the George R. R. Martin did so when creating his Song of Ice and Fire. The whole “Game of Thrones” universe is famously modelled upon the War of the Roses, between the Yorks/Starks and Lancasters/Lannisters.  This was his skeleton, his framework. From there, for example, Dorne is Spain. Meereen is Cleveland. Kidding. I think. But if, as I said, you do consider the world we live in, you’ll see a veritable checklist of questions to be answered. Questions like: Is there religion? If so, who or what is worshipped and what does this look like? Why does it happen and what, if anything, do the faithful receive in return? If there is religion, are there also non-believers? How are they viewed and/or treated? What does the calendar look like? How many seasons are there? If you have more than one moon, what are tides like? Are there nights of multiple full moons? What is the light quality like on those occasions? I mentioned money earlier. What passes for currency in your world?
​
Literally everything you encounter in our world can have its fantasy analog, you see? Here, do this exercise:
We have buses, they have…
We have McDonald’s, they have…
We have WWII, they have…
We have Exxon, they have…
We have crack, they have…
We have Cuervo Gold, they have…
We have coffee, they have…
We have Motel 6, they have…
We have football, they have…
We have Westboro Baptist Church, they have…
We have the Red Cross, they have…
We have ATMs, they have…
We have Disneyworld, they have…
We have tornado alley, they have…
 
Make a game out of it. Play it with your kids. Or your neighbor’s kids. Just don’t offer them candy. But do play it. Answer all the questions you can, and then let your mind loose in your new world. Have at it like a Weight Watcher in a Krispy Kreme!
 
You will love what you discover.
 

Guest Blogger, Molly Ringle

And now we go 180 degrees from Ulff to fantasy author Molly Ringle. Talk about contrast!

​ 
A few weeks ago I posted about a topic I was pondering: namely, the more I read of currently popular fantasy, the more I see a huge focus on weaponry and fighting and the protagonists being (or becoming) martial arts geniuses. I stick with these books if, as in The Hunger Games, they're written really well and the plot and characters are compelling. But I've got to admit that violence and weaponry and action scenes are not my favorite things. They're never the parts I re-read for pleasure (that would be the love declarations, or some particularly amusing exchanges or incidents, or passages of beautiful writing describing something magical). I don't particularly like writing fighting-and-weapons scenes either, though sometimes I have to, given the way I've set things up. So lately I’ve been musing about how to set up a fantasy book so I can spend as little time as possible in violent weapon-related scenes and still create a really good read.
 
I think this is what appeals to me about the Harry Potter world, and stories like Howl's Moving Castle: we get a lot of time to hang out in the magic world and enjoy it, and when there's fighting, it's almost solely with spells and with using one's brain. When Hermione actually uses her fist to hit Draco, it's all the more startling and satisfying because of the usually non-violent mood.
 
I should add that surely a lot of the issue is that I personally am no good at weaponry or martial arts. I took fencing one time in college and was the absolute worst in the class at it. I lately have learned a little bit of tai chi, which I guess technically is a martial art, but the movements go so slow that I wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone with it unless I accidentally poked them in the eye while sweeping my arms about.
 
Still, I understand the benefits of including mortal peril in a story. Practically every novel needs to have it in the climax at least, and all of my books do, though it rarely involves wielding a weapon. In my paranormal/fantasy stories, it usually comes down to creative use of magic, sometimes to defeat the thugs who brought conventional weapons. Wishful thinking, I know.
 
But it’s worth mentioning that one of my favorite book (and movie) series of all time, and one of the fandoms that has sucked me in the deepest, is The Lord of the Rings, which is hardly free of swords, arrows, axes, and epic battles. So why do I adore it despite the lavish attention to gleaming armor? Well, for one thing, Tolkien writes really beautifully. But for another, as in the above-mentioned case of Harry Potter, we get quite a lot of non-battle time in which the characters are wandering wonderstruck (or fear-struck) through amazing settings, and having endearing conversations, and we as readers get to soak up the atmosphere and just hang out in Rivendell or Moria or the wastes of Mordor.
 
Also, some of the most important feats in Tolkien aren’t pulled off by armies, but by very non-martial hobbits. We have not only Frodo and Sam creeping their way up Mount Doom to destroy the Ring, but Bilbo too, back in the day, sneaking around to outsmart Smaug and Gollum. And then—ah ha—it is once again all the more powerful when our peaceful Samwise picks up Sting and manages to drive off the scariest and biggest spider ever with it. It’s equally powerful when Merry and Pippin volunteer as soldiers, a role that puts them completely out of their depth and makes us fear instantly for their survival. So having characters not be in their element in fight situations can result in some of their most memorable scenes.
 
The flip side applies too: it’s intriguing when a competent fighter is put into a situation where fighting won’t help. (Lord of the Rings uses this too. Sure, those tough Haradrim and Corsairs can bash their way through anything, but can they bash an army of ghosts? Nope. Ha.) In short, the scholarly Tolkien knew that while it’s fabulously useful to have brute force and weaponry on your side, it’s equally important to be smart, humble, creative, and/or caring, even if you’re hopeless with a sword.
 
My latest book, The Goblins of Bellwater, has a setup in which there’s not much use trying to fight the goblins, who are immortal shape-shifters. The only way to defeat them is magic, via specific and bizarre rules set by other fae. “They better give you one hell of a magic sword to take with you,” says one of my characters to another. And she answers, much as I myself might, “I’m hoping it’s more like a magic shovel. I don’t know how to use a sword.”
 
May your adventures be fruitful, whether your strengths lie in the blade or the book, or somewhere in between!

Molly's latest is out today, The Goblins of Bellwater!

First Guest Blogger, Ulff Lehmann

Ulff Lehmann's Blog: Blogging LotFebruary 24, 2017 insert witty title #2
Most of the time I have a vague idea regarding the subject matter my meandering thoughts home in on. This is not one of those times.

I find myself returning to the same shit that I've already discussed. Be it the merits of classics (no fucking Twilight ain't a classic and hopefully will disappear in the ginormous ocean that is useless prose) or logic (another horse I now have quite whacked to death with my trusty keyboard hammering)... I also shan't return to analyzing movies again... but... wait... wait... the spark of an idea:

No, I won't do movies, but it is an issue that concerns movies first and foremost: regurgitating ideas. I mean every story has been told, and all us wordsmiths do nowadays is find new ways to tell the same old shit. Be it the typical boy meets girl (When Harry met Sally) or boy follows a convoluted plot to meet girl (insert any current romcom) or the always reliable boy saves the world before he gets the girl... the actors might vary, but in the end it is about one or two people finding true love (or themselves) in front of a backdrop that can be anything.

Sadly there are far too few stories dealing with non-white people. Not that we cannot replace a white protagonist with a black one, byebye Robert Pattinson, hello John Boyega. Western civilization is arrogant, and since Othello we haven't found much use for those non-white characters.

Not that I am innocent of that particular misdeed. I write fantasy, and while Nazir in Robin of Sherwood was a brilliant idea and a fascinating character, the majority of the genre deals with medieval European things... we got them knights, them lords, fucking pseudo feudal systems that only were relevant for one area: Europe. Thanks Tolkien! To make matters worse, in the fantasy classics the colored folk were usually the bad guys. I mean the Haradrim in Lord of the Rings were explicitly in league with Sauron... no black folk fighting for the White City *cough cough*

So far I haven't introduced people of color into my novels, not that they don't exist, but since most of Shattered Dreams and Shattered Hopes and Shattered Bonds takes place in an area slightly larger than North Rhine Westphalia and things are not very cosmopolitan, the opportunity never came. Does this mean the world is solely white? No and yes, but that is a matter of how I created the world, so to speak... I went into a bit more detail in my guest blog entry Through Thinking -- Things so I won't do that anymore here. (I repeat myself enough as it is) Suffice to say that the color is something that is added due to circumstances... and no, I will not ever go near that white savior shit.

The problematic I pointed out during my various internal logic ramblings, however, remains. And it does not change, were I to switch from white to any other colored creator deities: the majority of the world population, if not all, will have the skin color of the creating pantheon... so it's always gonna be a rather lopsided issue.

If you have one creator pantheon, the assumption that all of them are of the same skin tone, is only logical, and I believe it's insulting to just toss in an Asian, African, Hispanic looking god just to explain that variety... it's like whitewashing only the other way around. If you create a world based on ancient Egypt, people everywhere will be Egyptian, walking, talking like... you get the picture (repeating myself again, it's late)

Is it racist to narrow it down to just one skin color? To say yes, would imply that any myth from any culture is also racist. Norse mythology is about as racist as Japanese mythology, or Greek, It is not. I'd go as far as to say that skin color is basically interchangeable, so what if Rapunzel has black hair instead of blonde locks... the story remains the same. Changing just part of the assemble's skin color, however, would be racist. In some cases the change would be an interesting one, supporting or subverting racially based viewpoints: imagine Cinderella's step-sisters and step-mother being white while Cinderella is black. The girl's mistreatment would feel amplified, the tale suddenly not only a metaphor for honesty triumphing over deceit, but also the racism inherent to many white folk (let the step-family speak in a southern drawl and the twist would be perfect) in certain areas. Let the prince be black as well, in this scenario, would amplify the double standard many racists have... it's okay to be nice to the colored folk as long as you gain something from it... if you look at how certain orange would-be politicians run the segregation, with people from countries with which he does business still being allowed to travel into the USA, you get what I'm talking about.

In essence, however, if skin tone is the same for every character, one can interchange any mythological story. The Iliad could as well be portrayed by Asian people, or African people, as long as it is consistent, it doesn't matter.

I've read about racism in fantasy, I've written about it here... if the world is structured logically, there will be no racism. Not because people are enlightened enough to see that one's skin color does not matter when it comes to character, but because the people will all be from the same stock. I've constructed my world as a mythological one, and as such the entire cast could be changed with barely a problem.

Even if you had a mixture of cultures and religions similar to Earth, the problem would be negligible, PROVIDED EVERY CULTURE HAS A PANTHEON OF GODS AND NO MONOTHEISM. Did he just capitalize something??? Why yes, I did. And it, again, has to do with logic. If a people think themselves the chosen of their one god, who incidentally created everything else as well, everyone who does not believe in this deity is automatically seen as inferior. Perceived superiority, no matter how delusional and fact-free, leads to racism. If you have a pantheon of gods, each one has their job and is part of the machine, allowing for outsiders to be integrated as well, be it gods or people. Monotheism (one god faith) does not allow for outside religious views, there is either right (that particular religion) or wrong (the rest); people who are selected/chosen by that deity and the outsiders. Superiority is almost automatic, and with that comes, eventually, racism.

This wasn't planned as a theological essay, I know far too little to make these things stick. These are merely my perceptions and interpretations of the matter, brought into a fantasy aspect. (Though I do think I am correct.)

Let's see what happens in "insert witty title #3"

​(Allan, here. To learn more about Ulff, go to: www.amazon.com/Ulff-Lehmann/e/B01M3NGFOL/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

Bring On the Guest Bloggers!

I'm planning to bring on some guest bloggers shortly to expand the dialogue and include other indie writers. In part, it's because I like these folks. In part, it's because I want to learn more myself. And in part it's because if I'm blogging, I'm not working on my books. I'm really looking forward to reading their stuff, and I hope you'll check it out!