Guest Blogger: Joshua Palmatier/Benjamin Tate
Today's guest blogger is Joshua Palmatier (aka Benjamin Tate), a fantasy writer with DAW Books, with two series on the shelf, a few short stories, and is co-editor with Patricia Bray of two anthologies. Check out the "Throne of Amenkor" trilogy—The Skewed Throne, The Cracked Throne, and The Vacant Throne—under the Joshua Palmatier name. And look for the "Well" series—Well of Sorrows and the just released Leaves of Flame—by Benjamin Tate. Short stories are included in the anthologies Close Encounters of the Urban Kind (edited by Jennifer Brozek), Beauty Has Her Way (Jennifer Brozek), and River (Alma Alexander). And the two anthologies he's co-edited are After Hours: Tales from the Ur-bar and the upcoming The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity (March 2012). Find out more about both names at www.joshuapalmatier.com and www.benjamintate.com, as well as on Facebook, LiveJournal (jpsorrow), and Twitter (bentateauthor).
Fantasy is in the details.
One of the most challenging and necessary elements of any fantasy novel is the world, and often the time spent by an author on the world makes or breaks the enjoyment of a fantasy novel for me as a reader. Given how often reviewers comment on the world in a fantasy novel, I'm not the only one who pays attention to it. I'm happy to say that every review I can think of for my newest series—started with Well of Sorrows and continuing with the new release of Leaves of Flame—has picked out the worldbuilding as unique and different and engrossing. I'm rather stoked about this, since I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the world. What I've found is that what makes the world come to life, what makes it REAL, are the details.
For example, in this series, nearly everyone falls in love with a race I called the dwarren, a group of people that lives in a massive warren of tunnels beneath the plains of the newly discovered continent, sort of like prairie dogs. The dwarren are modeled after dwarves . . . but they aren't dwarves. The way I made them NOT dwarves is in the details. Sure they live underground, sure they're short and have beards. But they're still not dwarves. I tweaked their culture and their religion specifically to make them familiar, but unique and different. They're divided into warring clans, who ride the plains on gaezel (not horses). Their beards record their personal history, with achievements woven and tied into the braids using feathers and beads and intricate knots. They have pierced noses and ears, with chains running from one to the other. They use tents when above ground, wrapping cloth around poles. Their shamans carry scepters made with feathers and snake rattles.
But all of that is cosmetic. It's moving away from the dwarven trope, but it isn't enough to just splash on some new paint. You have to take the culture and twist it as well. For the dwarren, I began integrating religious ideas modeled after Native Americans. (After all, the books begin with the settling of a new continent, sort of like the settling of the American West.) So the dwarren revere the land and intend to protect it, setting aside their clan differences when necessary. They worship gods of nature, of water and wind, and commune with the gods by smoking a particular weed and interpreting the resultant visions. Their shamans also use the inherent magic in the land to see signs of the gods will in the wind, in storms, in the smoke from the fire, in the kernels of grain pulled from the stalks of grass. They're short-lived, so compensate by having large families. They are fiercely protective of their privacy, allowing no one within their warrens and keeping the locations of their entrances hidden, especially the location of the Sacred Waters, a confluence of rivers beneath the plains.
Each of these details, each of these little nuances, gives the dwarren depth and makes them come alive. And each detail draws them farther away from the dwarven trope, making them individual and unique. These are not your typical D&D dwarves. They're dwarren—familiar enough for you to settle back, read, and enjoy discovering how different from dwarves they actually are.
Fantasy is in the details.
One of the most challenging and necessary elements of any fantasy novel is the world, and often the time spent by an author on the world makes or breaks the enjoyment of a fantasy novel for me as a reader. Given how often reviewers comment on the world in a fantasy novel, I'm not the only one who pays attention to it. I'm happy to say that every review I can think of for my newest series—started with Well of Sorrows and continuing with the new release of Leaves of Flame—has picked out the worldbuilding as unique and different and engrossing. I'm rather stoked about this, since I spent quite a bit of time thinking about the world. What I've found is that what makes the world come to life, what makes it REAL, are the details.
For example, in this series, nearly everyone falls in love with a race I called the dwarren, a group of people that lives in a massive warren of tunnels beneath the plains of the newly discovered continent, sort of like prairie dogs. The dwarren are modeled after dwarves . . . but they aren't dwarves. The way I made them NOT dwarves is in the details. Sure they live underground, sure they're short and have beards. But they're still not dwarves. I tweaked their culture and their religion specifically to make them familiar, but unique and different. They're divided into warring clans, who ride the plains on gaezel (not horses). Their beards record their personal history, with achievements woven and tied into the braids using feathers and beads and intricate knots. They have pierced noses and ears, with chains running from one to the other. They use tents when above ground, wrapping cloth around poles. Their shamans carry scepters made with feathers and snake rattles.
But all of that is cosmetic. It's moving away from the dwarven trope, but it isn't enough to just splash on some new paint. You have to take the culture and twist it as well. For the dwarren, I began integrating religious ideas modeled after Native Americans. (After all, the books begin with the settling of a new continent, sort of like the settling of the American West.) So the dwarren revere the land and intend to protect it, setting aside their clan differences when necessary. They worship gods of nature, of water and wind, and commune with the gods by smoking a particular weed and interpreting the resultant visions. Their shamans also use the inherent magic in the land to see signs of the gods will in the wind, in storms, in the smoke from the fire, in the kernels of grain pulled from the stalks of grass. They're short-lived, so compensate by having large families. They are fiercely protective of their privacy, allowing no one within their warrens and keeping the locations of their entrances hidden, especially the location of the Sacred Waters, a confluence of rivers beneath the plains.
Each of these details, each of these little nuances, gives the dwarren depth and makes them come alive. And each detail draws them farther away from the dwarven trope, making them individual and unique. These are not your typical D&D dwarves. They're dwarren—familiar enough for you to settle back, read, and enjoy discovering how different from dwarves they actually are.
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